Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I'm Haley, your Chorus Call operator. Welcome and thank you for joining the IR Call Q2 2021. And I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Jens Geissler, Head of Investor Relations of Beiersdorf AG.
Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Beiersdorf's half year conference call. This is Jens Geissler. And here with me this morning for the first time as our new CEO is Vincent Vannery and our CFO, Astrut Talmer. We would like to share with you today our CarePlus road map and, of course, Beiersdorf's business results of the 1st 6 months of 2021.
We will start with the presentation and the business review. Vincent and Astrid will be happy to take your questions after that. As always, may I remind you that when you register for Q and A, please remember that there is a limit of 2 questions per caller. And with that, I will now hand over to Vincent.
Thank you so much, Jens. A warm welcome from my end to today's conference call on BioZorb performance in Q2 2021, which I am happy to share for the first time as CEO of Beiersdorf. Right before the start, a quick personal word. This is our first conference together. I would like to emphasize that I truly value this conference and I hope to have other opportunities to exchange further with each of you.
So far 2021 has been quite a turbulent year. We have Major challenges such as the ongoing COVID-nineteen pandemic or natural disasters. The recent floods in Europe have once Again, shown how urgently we need to combat climate change on a global scale. We feel deeply with those who lost loved ones and as a company Trying to help as much as we can. On the other hand, we can see first signs of relief regarding the pandemic, 1st and foremost due to the progressing vaccination campaign.
Despite that market conditions are still volatile, Beiersdorf has built on its solid business performance from the 1st 3 months and we see a further significant improvement in the Q2. Before we take a closer look at the results for the 1st 6 months of the year, I would like first to underline The major strategic aspects I'm focusing on as a CEO. 1st and foremost, I am happy to share that Beiersdorf is moving in the right direction. We introduced our Kepler strategy 2 years ago and it will remain our strategic road map for the coming years. We made good progress on this path.
We are inspiring people with our skincare innovations. We are reaching our consumers through digital channels. We are tapping new business areas and markets and we are consistently getting closer to our goal of achieving climate neutrality. We want to make a major contribution to protecting our climate and shaping a climate positive future. I'm proud to see our speed of action.
The first climate neutralized NIVEA products are already available on shelf and the first of our production sites, Berlin, will already operate climate neutral at the beginning of 2022. 2nd, Eucerin, ANZAL plus and La Prairie are very successful brands worldwide. In the past years, we have designed a new operating model with a much stronger global footprint and at the same time developed and introduced highly successful product innovations such as TI amidol. We have also positioned our brands both online and offline. And as a result, We see double digit growth across all three brands despite the worldwide economic challenges of the past years.
I want to leverage this successful approach to position our flagship brand, NIVEA. That brings up the 3rd key point, make of NIVEA an even more iconic, even more modern and transgenerational brand. My goal is to develop NIVEA as a global brand, while ensuring the right fit with local consumers across the world. One successful example of this new global approach is the NIVEA Luminus 630 product range that we just introduced across the world. Last year showed once more how important digitalization is for successful business model.
We systematically expanded our investment in digital and we will continue to do so. As of today, One fourth of the growth in our mass business and even 1 third of the growth in our derma business in H1 2021 came from e commerce, But we still have a lot of potential here. There are many reasons for the current share of online being at 9% or relatively small presence in China and the U. S. Being one of them.
Accelerating the digital transformation further is high on my agenda that specifically means that a large part of €300,000,000 investment program will go toward expanding digital channels. Our goal simply is to make Beiersdorf more competitive in everything digital. And Steve, as a global operating company, we regard diversity and inclusion in our teams as an opportunity and the key to our success. I want to express my commitment to building a company where everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed and feel a real sense of belonging. We are currently hosting the 1st public Pride Festival to celebrate diversity and tolerance together with international partner companies, LGBTIQ plus organizations and prominent guests, our goal is to raise awareness and promote tolerance both within the company and beyond.
We have a clear roadmap for the path ahead. We will further evolve, accelerate and deliver our CarePlus strategy. Cornerstone of this strategy will be accelerating growth, boosting digitalization and innovation, finding efficiency and driving sustainability. These priorities have become even more relevant against the backdrop of the past economic turbulences due to the pandemic. Let us now take a look at how our business has performed.
Although the Coronavirus pandemic and its effects still hold large part of the world in their grip and continue to impact markets, we are seeing a significant improvement in our figures. The strong sales growth in the Q2 lifted us even above the pre crisis level of 2019. Our core Niva brand is back on a growth path and has achieved a 9.1% year on year increase in organic sales. Strong sales growth in the body and face care categories, which far exceeded even the levels seen in 2019, contributed to the strong performance in the 1st 6 months of 2021. Our dermocosmetics brands, Eucerin and Aquaphor, continued the success story of the previous quarters.
They grew by 22.1% compared with the previous year and almost 30% compared with the first half of twenty nineteen. We achieved a sustainable increase in sales, particularly in the U. S, which is one of the largest markets for dermatological skincare and also in Asia, Latin America and Europe. The major drivers for this remainder product innovation, including the patented ingredient, tia meadow and the significant growth in e commerce. Although restrictions continue to hit the Travel Retail business, La Prairie has recovered quickly, achieving strong organic year on year growth of 41% in the 1st 6 months of the year.
This recovery was led by the early reopening of markets in the U. S. And a very, very strong business in Asia. I will come back to this later. Trends in international travel retail business We'll also mainly determine when La Prairie achieves its 2019 sales level again.
Wholesale's business around the brands ANZAPLAST and ELASTOPLAZ was also significantly affected by the pandemic last year. This year, we are already seeing strong sales growth in all our main markets. With organic sales up 16.5% year on year, This part of BioZorff has surpassed its 2019 levels. Tesa also continued the strong performance of recent quarters to achieve year on year organic sales growth of 28.2% in the 1st 6 months of the year, well above the pre crisis levels. Once again, TESSA sales growth was led by the direct industry division, which handles business directly with industrial customers.
At group level, these figures equate to organic sales growth of 16.2%, as we will comment on the figures in detail later. Ladies and gentlemen, while we have challenging months behind us, we have made significant progress in implementing our strategic priorities as part of CarePlus. Let me review a few of them with you. Skincare innovations are an essential part of our strategy. We have set ourselves the goal of embracing our consumers' individual needs and wishes and offering them genuine added value.
We can only achieve this by constantly developing innovative and effective skincare products and ingredients and by creating genuine innovations to decode the skin's complex processes. We use the technology developed by our research and development as a shared basis for the diverse brands in our portfolio. 1 is Thiamidol. Our researchers spent over 10 years working on a highly effective ingredient against hyper pigmentation. The result was Thiamidol, a solution for the dermatological skincare market that we have introduced in 2019 on Eucerin.
With NIVEA Alumina 630, we have built on this innovation. It has indeed been integrated into different formulae for Eucerin and Niwah brands to address specific skin problems and enable different care routines for consumer specific needs. By systematically cascading this highly effective ingredient through our brands. This breakthrough innovation became our most successful product launch in Biosoft history. While Eucerin's successful Tia Midor range is aimed at the dermatological skincare market, NIVEA with its luminous 630 products is the 1st mass market player to address pigment spots and with great success.
The high quality NIVEA Alumino 6 30 face care range is a solution for all consumers who suffer from facial pigment spots. We have introduced NIVEA Lumino 630 worldwide in recent months And the high demand bolsters our conviction that we are living up to our mission. And we want to continue this success. We'll add further products to the face care range this year, such as NIVE-six thirty Antispot Tinted Free Double Corrector with sun protection factor. And we are going one step further, the new Luminess 630 anti spot lens hand cream we are introducing at the end of August will reduce and prevent pigment and itch spots as well as intensively moisturize the ends.
These compelling innovations are the foundation for us to further expand our footprint in key growth markets such as China. The Chinese market is a focus region within Care plus As a continuously highly dynamic and attractive growth market for personal care and beauty products, China is a major growth driver for BioZorb and continues to offer enormous potential core brands. Over the past years, we have established a very strong footprint in China. Among other initiatives, We particularly strengthened our regional skincare expertise. Our efforts paid off.
Beiersdorf is now one of the most successful beauty players in Greater China with an H1 growth of +44 percent versus 2020 and plus 12% versus 2019. Beiersdorf core brands La Prairie, Eucerin and NIVEA significantly contribute to our success in China. 1st and foremost, La Prairie, our luxury anti aging flaxseed brand Precisely met Chinese consumers rapidly growing interest in premium skincare and has become a well known and highly successful luxury brand in China even when sales were still limited to off light channel in pre COVID times. Now we are also rapidly driving the brand expansion with increased digital marketing and sales. Our presence on Tmall is particularly helpful for reaching new especially younger consumer groups.
Although there is no difference when it comes to the products chosen, the most successful La Prairie products ranges also preferred by the younger shoppers on Tmall. Thanks to our newly opened flagship store, we will be able to raise the number of visitors to above the €10,000,000 mark this year. With Eucerin, we chose a purely digital strategy when entering the Chinese market in 2019, an approach that is more than paying off. We are very satisfied with the development of the past 2 years. The dedicated online shop on Alibaba's Tmall Also enable Yossurin to rapidly expand its online presence.
Our goal is to be gradually representing on all leading digital platforms in China. Since the launch, we have significantly increased user in sales and market share, And we continue to grow in the first half of twenty twenty one with a plus 61% growth versus 2020 in Greater China. And of course, NIVEA. NIVEA has been a household name in many parts of China for almost 100 years now. And we still see significant potential for further market share gains.
We are relentlessly working to expand the brand's footprint in China. We are currently reengineering the brand, for example, by researching various product innovations for NIVEA to make the brand even more attractive for Chinese markets. Innovations in NIVEA's Luminous 630 series are looking particularly strong as the first success as a strong indicator for the future. Obviously, we do not rest on our laurels. To further accelerate this We have opened a research and development center in Shanghai last year, our 2nd largest one globally.
This is an important milestone in expanding our growth potential, not only in China, but also the wider Asia Pacific region. Tapping into gross market and new business areas is another element of the Care plus strategy to fill in the white spots on the world map and offer added value with our products for people in these areas. The first big key initiative of Care plus with the acquisition of the iconic American brand Coppertone around 2 years ago. The management team and I immediately realized the great potential of these assets within BioZurf portfolio when it was put up for sales. First, I was glad to be given in January 2020 The full responsibility for the U.
S. Market and the opportunity to lead the acquisition and integration of Coppertone, allowing Biosulf to enter the world's largest sun care market. Following a successful integration And despite impacts caused by the COVID-nineteen pandemic, we are delighted that Coppertone was able to build on its recovery in this year Q1 by achieving double digit growth in the 2nd quarter, partly as a result of the early start to vaccination campaign in the U. S, but above us due to the gained market share in the U. S.
For the first time since 2012. Along with the new brand and marketing strategy that put a greater focus on online business, the Sports segment was a major driver behind this development. Going forward, we plan to build a new brand architecture and to strengthen the brand positioning of Carferton by reorganizing the portfolio, developing breakthrough innovations in our key segments, family and sports, to improve the modernity of our packaging and to increase the digital communication with our consumers. We are not taking the brand's popularity for granted. We want to further enhance our market positioning.
We can only achieve this by developing innovations and product that even more closely meet The immediate local needs of our consumer. In the U. S, just like in China, we are therefore relying on our local know how. We are indeed turning our Coppertone Research Laboratory in New Jersey into a regional innovation center, being the 1st global competence center for OTC over the counter. Sencare is OTC in the U.
S. In close proximity to the world's largest therapeutic market. The new hub will not only serve the Copperton brand, but also accelerate local innovations for NIVEA, Eucerin and Aquaphor. Let us take now a look at our commitment to sustainability. For us, sustainability is an integral part of our CARE plus strategy, which is reflected in our decision making and business processes.
Protecting the climate is a central part of our commitment to sustainability. We have set ourselves ambitious targets in line with the Paris agreement to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. These targets have been recognized by the science based targets initiative. Since 2019, for example, We have been supplying all our sites worldwide with green electricity. And since 2014, we also managed to cut of Scope 1 and Scope 2 CO2 emissions by around 65%.
Together with our suppliers and partners, we are now working hard to also reduce our SCOV 3 emissions. In addition, we are making good progress on our way to climate neutrality at all our production sites by 2,030. As mentioned before, the production site in Berlin will already operate climate neutral at the beginning of 2022. Our largest global brand, NIVEA, started to climate neutralize products, whose environment footprint had been already significantly reduced. This is reinforcing our climate commitment and setting new benchmarks for product sustainability.
The latest example of this is the new packaging materials we are using. With an IVR Naturally Good face care jars that we are introduced in around 30 countries in April this year, we avoid the use of fossil based virgin plastic, thereby vastly reducing CO2 emissions. Another step is a switch to recycled plastic, which we have already fully implemented for NIVEA's trial range in Germany. This means that numerous climate friendlier NIVEA products are already on the shelves. We are complementing these efforts with compensation projects such as reforestation in Liangdu in China to become climate neutralized.
Right. Reducing emission is a core policy we are focusing on at Beiersdorf. Compensation through high quality afforestation projects is a necessary contribution to climate positive future. They are just some important milestones for us and I can promise you already that there are more to come. Care Beyond Skin is our purpose and our responsibility to look after people, society and the environment.
This sense of responsibility is what has set us apart for almost 140 years and times of crisis are no exception. In the last few months, we have worked hard to open our in house vaccination service here in Hamburg Heinsmittal. Since June, we have already offered 5,000 vaccinations to employees, their relatives and to the local community. I want to thank our medical team and the many helping hands from across the company We have worked so hard in the last few months to make the vaccination center a reality. And now I will hand over to my colleague, Astrid Hermann.
She will present the financial results in detail and look at the successful quarter at Tesa. Nathalie?
Thank you, Vincent. I would also like to welcome you to our presentation on the first half of the year and will now guide you through the key financial figures. Let us start by looking at the key figures at group level. Here, organic sales grew by 16.2% year on year. There were exceptional one off costs of €30,000,000 in the 1st 6 months, all of which were incurred in the Consumer Business segment.
They mostly relate to reorganizational expenses in the supply chain organization and to a lesser extent to project as part of our Care Beyond Skin 8 program. Excluding these special factors, our EBIT margin at group level increased by 160 basis points to 15.3%. That was mainly attributable to a substantial increase in sales across all regions. The return on sales after tax also went up by 180 basis points to 11.0 percent, resulting in increased earnings per share of €1.83 versus €1.37 in the prior year. Let's look at our business segments in more detail.
We grew organic sales in the consumer business by 13.6%. The EBIT margin benefited from the sharp rise in sales. However, that was partly offset by investments we made in digitalization and sustainability, which we had announced at the beginning of this year under the CARE plus strategy. This results in an EBIT margin of 14.1% for the 1st 6 months and an increase of 80 basis points versus prior year. In the TASER business segment, we kept our performance from the Q1 and finished the first half year of the first half of the year with very strong organic sales growth of 28.2%.
Here we could increase our EBIT margin by 490 basis points to 20.5%. Since the beginning of this year, we have seen a strong recovery in the Consumer segment. After a 6.6% decline in sales for the whole year 2020, We posted moderate sales growth in the Q1. In the Q2, which was most impacted by COVID-nineteen last year, We generated growth of 27.1 percent and have returned to level of 2019 after the 1st 6 months of this year. Let us now take a closer look at the individual brands in the consumer business segment.
NIVEA generated organic growth of 19.0% in the 2nd quarter. In line with the focus of our CARE plus strategy, we increased sales most in our skin care categories. However, the deodorant business also remains stable overall. Product categories such as lip care and sun care are still impacted by restrictions imposed under the pandemic, although the sun cream business picked up sharply in the wake of the fall in new COVID cases in the latter part of the first half. In our derma business, we saw excellent growth in all regions.
In Latin America, we reported very strong double digit growth, both versus 2020 and versus 2019. Mexico, Chile, Brazil and Argentina were our main markets in this regard. However, we also grew strongly in the U. S, which is our most important derma market worldwide. And we're fully able to compensate the effects of the ice storm on our warehouse in Memphis during the Q1.
Once again, our Tia Miedore product range posted the largest growth, especially on the back of the launch of the 3 d serum in the last 6 months. Our HANSAPLAZTA and ELASTOPLAZTAPLAZTAPLAZTAPLAZTAPLAZTAPLAZTAPLAZTAPLAZTAPLAZTAPLAZTAPLAZTAPLAZTAPLAZTAPLAZTAPLAZTAPLAZTAPLAZTAPLAZTAPLAZTAPLAZTAPLAZTAPLAZTAPLAZTAPLAZTAPLAZTAPLAZTAPLAZTAPLAZTAPLAZTAPLAZTAPLAZTAPLAZTAPLAZTAPLAZTABLAZTAPLAZTAPLAZTAPLAZTAPLAZTABANTS:] That slump was offset in the Q2 of this year. Resumption of sport activities, both private and professional led to sharp growth in the sports categories. All in all, we posted sales growth of 40.1% in the 2nd quarter. La Prairie achieved organic sales growth of 77% in the Q2.
As Vincent already mentioned, the main factor being our strong performance in Asia. At the product level, there was higher demand particularly for the luxury collections with the re innovations Platinum Rare and Pure Gold. Next, let us turn to the performance of the individual regions in the Consumer Business segment. In Europe, organic sales rose by 9.1%. In Western Europe, organic sales growth amounted to 8.7%, mainly driven by the strong sales performance in Italy, Switzerland and Austria.
La Prairie's global travel retail business, which is reported under Western Europe also gained speed after the heavy impact from the COVID-nineteen pandemic last year with substantial sales growth recorded here. In the Eastern Europe region, sales were up significantly across all countries with organic sales growth of 10.7%. Poland and Russia were the countries that recorded the biggest progress in sales. In the Americas region, organic sales rose by 20.7%. Organic sales in North America increased by 17.2%.
This was predominantly driven by the strong double digit growth in the Coppertone skincare business and continued sales growth at a high level for the Eucerin and Aquaphor brand. Latin America recorded very strong sales growth of 24.9%. We can report double digit growth in just about all countries with Brazil and Mexico making the biggest contributions in the first half of the year. The Africa, Asia, Australia region recorded organic sales growth of 16.1%. Our sales performance was particularly strong in China, India, Thailand and Malaysia.
La Prairie achieved significant year on year sales growth in Asia. U Sireann had another strong delivery with double digit organic sales growth. Let's take a look at our gross margin development. Assuming constant exchange rates, we increased our gross margin by 40 basis points year on year to 61.1%. Price effects had a positive impact and La Prairie's recovery provided significant mix effects.
We can report net positive cost effects, which is primarily due to the sharp increase in volumes in the first half of twenty twenty one. As we were still protected by contracts, Commodity costs have not played a significant role in the first half of the year. That said, we will be impacted in the second half, that we'll look to take advantage of pricing opportunities. Negative exchange rate effects of 140 basis points had the biggest impact on our gross margin in the first half of twenty twenty one. We are pleased to be able to report that our working capital management measures have paid off and we cut working capital significantly.
The reduction to 6.9% of consumer sales reflects the recovery after the pandemic's impact in the previous year, but also the high priority of working capital management throughout the organization. Vincent already mentioned our strong push for digitalization at Beiersdorf. Let me give you some color around the implementation of various in our consumer businesses. A good part of our overall investment program of €300,000,000 will be spent on digital this year as well as in the coming years. Here are some examples of how we will step change our digital setup at Beiersdorf.
We are investing in digital capabilities of our organization. That means on the one hand, we are upskilling 100% of our employees in order to achieve more efficient ways of working. On the other hand, we are investing in our digital infrastructure, starting with investments into data and analytics or D2C platforms like the recently launched Eucerin online shop in the Netherlands up to the optimization of our digital customer relationship management. These investments are the foundation to leverage our precision marketing, a key element of our future e commerce strategy. We have invested significantly in 1 on 1 consumer interactions and are planning to double these investments in the coming year.
The 40% growth of ecom sales in the first half twenty twenty one is another proof that we are on track and that these investments pay off. We doubled our headcount in ecom within the last year and are also spending more than 40% of our total marketing on digital media. We will continue to increase this ratio to further accelerate our e com business. We now come to the TESA business segment. We have already reported on tesa's outstanding first half year performance.
Based on a weak prior year quarter, Casa posted organic growth of 33.5 percent in the 2nd quarter, resulting in an increase of 28.2% during the 1st 6 months. This growth comes from all business areas and regions, in particular, the electronics business in Asia and the global recovery of the automotive industry. The Direct Industries division generated growth of 38.4% in the first half of the year. TESAR's consumer business also continues to grow, in particular on the back of growth in e commerce. All in all, the Trade Markets division grew by 14.9%.
TASO operates in a fast paced industry that demands impeccable performed strongly behind the so called project business with manufacturers and suppliers in China. One focus is on innovation for thermally conductive adhesive tape solutions that are used for 5 gs smartphones or smartwatches. The automotive business increased sales substantially in this positive global environment in all regions. Among other things, it benefits from 2 major trends, eMobility and Automation. Protection against heat and fire is vital to both of them.
That is because the faulty and overheated battery cells can have a domino effect on adjacent cells and potentially cause a fire. That is where our product, TASA FireGuard comes in, a special adhesive tape that is heat resistant and prevents flames from spreading. The do it yourself trend continues in 2021 and we increased sales sharply in particular in the e commerce segment. There is growing demand for sustainable solutions. In April 2021, we launched 2 new parcel packing tapes that meets the necessary requirements in this area.
The TESAPAK, bio and strong with a bio based carrier material and the paper based tesaPACK paper standard. These two products are already available in professional stores and will be offered to end consumers starting August 1. We now come to the outlook for the remainder of 2021. While the overall market situation remains volatile, we would like to give some additional guidance in more detail. Given the sharp rise in commodity prices coupled with significant increases in transportation costs, we are seeing a visible impact on our figures in the second half of the year, which we expect to continue in H1 twenty twenty two.
Profitability in the second half will increasingly be impacted by our investment programs for digital and sustainability. We guide for the Consumer business segment to see high single digit full year sales growth. At the same time, we confirm that we expect the EBIT margin for 2021 to be at last year's level. At tesa, we are now facing more challenging comps in the second half and expect high single digit sales growth for the full year. The TESSA EBIT margin will be affected by higher raw material cost in H2 than in H1, so we expect TESSA's full year margin at the previous year.
On a combined basis, we guide for high single digit growth and an EBIT margin at the level of the previous year for the group. I thank you for your attention and hand back to Vincent for his closing remarks.
Thank you, Astrid. You have just seen our updated guidance for this year, where we want to provide you with as much transparency as we currently can, given that we are still in the COVID pandemic. When it comes to medium or longer term guidance, we have a things obviously more difficult. Providing guidance based on numbers under the current circumstances, even just for the coming year will not be a responsible way of acting in my view. What we will do, however, is the following.
When we published our Q3 results in October, I would like to provide you with an updated guidance for 2021 and give you a qualitative outlook to 2022. This will give you an early idea of how we see the coming year. Apart of that, let me clearly say that now in 2021 and in the coming years, our focus is on investment and on the sustainable improvement of our business. This also means of course that we are laying the foundation for profitable growth going forward once we have left the peak of our investment program behind us. Ladies and gentlemen, I've worked in the health care and cosmetic industry my entire professional life always with a mission to erode desires and aspirations among consumers.
We want to find answers to those desires before customers themselves even discover they have them. This will be the crucial factor on our strategic journey with CarePlus. As a result, we'll tap BioZorff huge potential. BioZorff is an outstanding company. I greatly look forward to leading our company in those exceptional times and shaping it together with the entire team.
Thank you.
Thank you. We will now start the Q and A session, and we are happy to take your questions. Please remember that we have a limit of 2 questions per call.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question and answer session. If you are using speaker equipment today, please leave the handset before making your selections. Anyone who has a question may press star followed by 1 at this time. And one moment for the first question, please.
Sorry, did you say Deutsche Post?
I see a number of callers already. First in line would be Ian Simpson, Barclays, please. Ian?
Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. A couple of questions Firstly, on your guidance for flat margins for the year, I would imagine You'd be getting a pretty significant operational gearing benefit, given the top line growth you're seeing. You said that it would go into a combination of offsetting raw material pressures and increased investment in the second half. Are you able to give us any sort of sense of the balance between those two items, what you might be looking at in terms of the raw material headwind or How much you think investment might step up in the second half, anything along those lines?
And then secondly, just looking at the top line, in particular, Sun Care, clearly doing Very well in U. S. Sun Care and good to see COPITONE gaining share there. Can you give us a bit of commentary on European Sun Care and What you think that might look like for the rest of the year and how that's been going in recent months? Thank you very much.
Astrid for the first question.
Hello, Ian. Thank you so much for the question around our flat margin guidance for the year. So we Clearly have already seen in this first half behind our very strong top line some significant leverage from our plans. This has really helped us in terms of the margin in the first half. We are and additionally, we were also protected by contracts around our material prices coming from the Q4 of 2020.
We will be seeing that turn in the second half. We will see material prices as well as transportation costs going up. Again, we will look to take some pricing there Have the opportunity and then we will be investing further. We have already in the first half, but we are stepping up that investment in the second half, looking to at about a double digit low double digit €1,000,000 amount in investment.
On the Sun Care question, Jan, two comments. First about the U. S, we are extremely With Copperton, I mentioned that and I just got this morning the July market share where we are reaching record levels, so really happy with that. As a matter of fact also we are launching U. S.
Win Sun in the U. S, which is also a very important launch for us. In Europe, we had a Slow start. The market was slow, obviously, the beginning of the Q2, but we had a very, very strong month of June. We were above expectations.
We have not yet seen the market share, but obviously the start of the season is extremely good and it seems to benefit NIVEA.
Thank you very much, both. Very
clear. Thank you. So we move on to Martin De Bucht, Jefferies, please. Martin?
Yes, I'm here, Brady. I essentially have the same question as Ian on margins, but I think it's of sufficient importance. I will just ask it again. I mean the margin Full year margin guidance relative to the strength in H1 implies quite strong compression in H2. And I just want to be crystal clear, To try and get a better idea of the size of the moving parts in H2 in terms of how much of the margin compression is coming from investments, How much is coming from potential under recovery of raw materials?
And given the adverse FX on gross margin in H1, do you expect that to repeat in H2? Thank you.
Martin, I'll take that question. So in terms of the compression, raw materials will Truly have a very significant impact on the back half. Again, we were protected in the first half, which was fantastic, but we will see a significant impact, triple digit basis point impact from commodities. And then as I mentioned, we will versus the first half step up investment. We'll see about a double digit million increase in investment in the second half.
FX, Assuming we obviously don't know what the future will bring, but assuming current FX levels, we should see Lesser an impact in the second half than we are in the first half.
Okay. Thank you for that, Astrid. Cheers. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you, Martin. So next we have Celine Fanouti, JPMorgan. Celine?
Yes, good morning everyone. My first question would be, while I await for your to be developed as a global brand. Where do you think the opportunities are? And what is currently NIVEA not doing well enough. That's my first question.
And then my second question is on Well, I think gross margin I think we sorry, my second question on gross margin was taken care of. So can you just as a follow-up, you said that travel retail was still an impact for La Prairie, but then you said that travel retail did well in Europe. So can you comment about travel retail overall for La Quinte? Thank you.
Thank you, Celine. On the NIVEA, I think we discussed that already. You've seen what we have done on the other brands on La Prairie, on Youssines and on Zapplage. Starting from the same base, we are clearly set up as a rule that in the beauty world brands are global And that the best way to fully leverage innovations, marketing tools, digital campaigns Was really to have a very strong global guidance and avoiding people to reinvent the wheel. So this is what we have done and this is what I want to do better at DVR.
This is why I was mentioning Luminess. Luminess is this is the first time where we have purely globally driven launch where we do have some difference of execution obviously. We don't talk about the same way to German consumers and to Thai consumers, But there is clearly a top down global guidance, which is making a difference. So that's what I want to reinforce in the operating model, which It's really giving the maximum chances to NIVEA to shine on the market. On your second point, there are clearly Very different situations.
In the U. S, obviously, we are getting better, but it's Still not at the level it used to be before. The huge recovery is really Asia. It's Asia. It's China, Inan, for example.
Inan, we Tripling ourselves, we are clearly benefiting from the fact that Chinese tourists are perhaps no longer traveling abroad, but they are traveling inside China. So here we are making record sales and we see overall that Europe is really lagging behind. There is no real transportation dynamics. So this is also why, as I was saying, we are not yet at the level of 2019 on La Prairie. So very strong in Asia, good in the U.
S, not yet good in Europe.
Thank you very much. And did I repeat or can you talk about what the growth in copper ton for the first half?
Sure, Celine. So we're growing high double digit in the U. S. In Coppertone.
Thank you.
So Thank you, Svein. So we move on to Bruno Montaigne of Bernstein, please.
Hi, good morning. I'm going to come back on margins again. I'm trying to keep my numbers simple, but to have flat margins year on year, the second half margin needs to be between 10% 11%. You also make it clear that this cost pressure is going to also cut into the first half of next year and you're stepping up your investment. I just that seems to imply that next year's margin has to be down given that you'll have the full impact of inflation plus more investment Before then the profitable growth restarts, am I reading that correctly?
That's the first question. And the second question is to achieve your high single digit organic growth for the full year. It implies if I go back to 2019 on sort of a 2 year growth rate That the second half will be somewhat slower than the first half, so slow down in the recovery in what we've seen before. Am I reading that correctly? Thank you.
I will take both those questions. So in terms of the margin, while we are seeing an impact in 2022, we will obviously make plans to offset that and we are not targeting lower margins in 2022. We are absolutely currently in the startup phase of our planning for the next year and are looking for the right opportunities to obviously impact all the headwinds we are seeing. In terms of high single digit, the H1 comparison clearly is the easier one than the back half. We have good ambitions to obviously try everything we can to beat our number.
But at the moment, we given the Volatile situation we are seeing around the world high single digit is our guidance. Thank you.
Okay. You're fine. Okay. Then we move on to Emma, please, of RBC.
Hi there. Good morning everyone. I realize it's not entirely fair to direct this question Thank you, Vincent, because you didn't make the decisions. But I'm just wondering, there's been more change at the top of Beiersdorf over the last few years and there has been for any of the other companies that that we look at. I'm wondering if you can help me understand why there has been that turnover if you are maintaining the original Care plus strategy on what you think you will do differently to previous management.
And then my second question, I'm wondering is it fair to say digital is the most important pillar for you in the CARE plus strategy. In the press release this morning, you mentioned that it will receive a significant part of €300,000,000 I'm wondering if that means it will receive more investment than something like white spots or ESG. Thank you.
Thank you, Emma. I will obviously take the first question. Recently, one of my first announcement was the announcement of 2 new Board member Joining the company, I think, was an extremely good story. There is one who has been 20 years with the company, Patrick Askinet, making the success of La Prairie And another one coming from outside, which is Oswald. And I think this is a good example of the way together with the Supervisory Board, we are building the Board.
I've been working in this Board for the last 5 years. I know very well my colleagues. I was able together with them to make the successful beyond operating model in extremely smooth way. So I feel comfortable. I think we have the team.
I think we have the ambition. We have the same vision also what to do to improve further the way we drive NIVEA. So I feel that we are in a very good situation today and I'm very proud of the Board I am leading now.
In terms of digital and your question there, so we communicated that our $300,000,000 investment is behind digital sustainability and our white spots. We obviously had started investments, particularly on the latter two earlier already in 2019 2020. Digital clearly is now the biggest focus in terms of the €300,000,000 Whether it's the most important part of our strategy, it's Hard to put all of that on a scale. It's certainly a very, very key pillar. And as I've already described in my presentation, we are really seeing some fruits from the investment and we'll continue to drive that further.
Thank you. And just a follow-up, sorry, on the first question. I more meant the Change in CEO, CFO. I'm wondering what you will do differently to the previous CEOs and CFO with you considering while keeping that same Care plus strategy.
Emma, one of the things also I can tell you, I was part of the Care plus strategy Because I've been really part of the Board since 5 years and I absolutely fully support every aspect of the Care plus strategy. What I'm trying to do right now is to execute. We need to deliver, to walk the talk, to accelerate when possible, to invest where needed. And both Astrid and myself and together with the Board, we are clearly in this mindset, delivering and delivering against our commitment. Personally, what I'm trying to do also perhaps more is to drive this global way of managing the brand.
That's really perhaps where I'm just trying now to add to add a new direction is to transform NIVEA into really what it used to be in the past and it is still in some areas An iconic modern global brand. So that would be my touch on top of Dairy Ring against the Care plus strategy.
And we could also add
that this is
something that we've seen in the Eucerin brand and the Beyond brands before. So you could expect a similar approach now also for the big brand going forward.
Great. Thank you.
So we move on please then to Chris from Redburn.
Thank you very much. Following up from The question on the digital investment. I think you said earlier on the call that your revenues, I think, from e commerce were about 9%. Could I just And could you give us a sense for what that number would be for the for your core brands and give us maybe some examples of where you think The previous digital investment wasn't working and what we should look out for to really see proof of this investment coming into the market. And then secondly, in Europe, you called out Italy as being strong.
Can you say how you're performing in some of the other markets such as Germany, The UK and France. Thanks.
I will answer the first question and then Sreed will take the second one. On digital, we have so 9% obviously is the average of the company. We are extremely strong with derma. And I mentioned the example of China, which is 100% digital. So we are growing in the derma e commerce above 50% and it's making today, I said 1 third of the growth.
It's a big part of the business and it's true everywhere. It's obviously very true in the U. S. Where Amazon is a key customer. It's very true in China With Tmall being our platform, that is sort of true in Europe.
And for example, in countries Like Germany, like Belgium, like even France, we are growing double digit in e commerce. La Prairie was its small beginning. We have lp.com, which is a site we have in a few countries. But Timol, I would say, is the first time that we are thinking big and really building a specific platform with an e commerce partner with La Prairie, we're always a bit afraid of not getting the right brands equity and now with TIMOL, we are happy the way it's driven. NIVEA, we have different situation, very strong in the U.
S. Amazon, Very strong and growing faster in emerging markets. So it's where obviously we can accelerate. We are investing a lot in digital marketing. We're investing a lot in new platforms.
We are also developing the expertise of e commerce in all our countries. We used to have a reduced Number of e commerce expert and as we mentioned, we doubled the number of people working in e commerce. So I would say This is where the investment we are putting in place will drive quicker growth of e commerce for the company.
In terms of your second question around Europe, so certainly, the first half of the year, we still had seen the impact of call. On the European geography, 2nd quarter improved significantly, so we're quite happy about that. In terms of your specific question and around Germany. We are now for the half year flat, which is a good place, again, a turnaround in the 2nd quarter and especially towards the latter part of that quarter, we really saw some further positive momentum. We see good performance again in the countries we talked about Italy, Switzerland, Austria, but also positive in the UK, which is obviously another very
And could I just quickly just on the digital investment? You mentioned e commerce. What about Technology, consumer engagement. You have the NIVEA Skin app that was presented. Should we expect to see a lot more technology and engagement investment.
Absolutely. As I talked about, we are very much looking around Really ramping up our 1 on 1 consumer interaction, strengthening all of our tools in that area and line to much more use that also to drive our business. So absolutely.
Thank you. Thank you. We move on to Guillaume Delmas of UBS, please. Guillaume?
Thanks, Jens, and good morning, Marcel and Astrid. One very quick housekeeping question first. Strong momentum in China, how big was China as a percentage of your Consumer sales in the first half. So that's a housekeeping question. And then my two questions, I mean, going back to digitalization And the two areas of particular interest to me, e commerce and big data.
From a capability standpoint on e commerce and big data, Where do you think you rank today relative to your peers? Do you think you're in line, slightly above or below your competitors? And you've talked about this accelerated investments in this area. What visibility or confidence do you have that the incremental or part of The incremental €300,000,000 over 5 years will be sufficient to build or further strengthen your competitive advantages in these two areas. And then my second question is on your portfolio.
Today, do you see obvious gaps in your consumer portfolio from a brand standpoint, either from a channel, price point, country point of view that you would be looking at filling via inorganic initiatives or you feel that with your current 3 large Skinclear brand. You've got all the tools you need. Thank you.
Thank you, Guillaume, for all those questions. I will start by the third one And then Astrid will take over. Together with the Supervisory Board, we are pretty happy with the portfolio of brands that we have. The good thing is that they are not competing with each other. We have extremely precise positioning, precise also trade channel.
And even when we are in the same trade channel, for example, the drugstores in Latin America for Derma and NIVEA or simply Tmall for the 3 brands. The way we are positioned is making us not competing with each other. The challenge for us, I would say, is double. It's obviously to expand for some brands the categories in which we are active. So on NIVEA, we have a clear, clear willingness to develop to accelerate the balance from personal care to skincare and with a big investment in face care.
There are some countries in the world where we are not even there on face care. And this is obviously the biggest success of NIVEA this year. So we want to transform this global success into a success everywhere. I was mentioning China before. There are also some other categories in which we want to enter.
We believe that the brand like Eucerin in the U. S. Can go beyond the body and the baby markets in which it is active today. We believe that a brand like Eucerin also Can develop further in some other categories in Asia, where we are very focusing on the on face care. So this is more, I would say, this kind of fine tuning, This kind of well driven expansion to new markets or new categories, what we believe is the name of the game And this is where we are putting our energy.
Asfi, do you want to answer the first question?
Sure. Thank you so much. So as we said, we are very happy with our momentum in China, really strong growth there and strong growth also versus 2019. In terms of size of the business, certainly, it's still a smaller size as some of our competitors, but we are looking at moving quite up to high single digit in terms of the overall size of the business.
Our position regarding where we are in ecom?
Where
we are in ecom?
How our 9% looks versus?
Exactly.
I think you touched a little bit on it. We certainly are much stronger in Usurin with a much larger percentage of the business in ecom. And then we are really making good momentum
with the rate.
Absolutely. Guillaume, it's pretty simple and you know well the market. The fact that we are still Small and this is focused small in the U. S. And in China, obviously, doesn't put us in the same kind of positive environment as other competitors.
If I look at on a like for like basis, we are pretty good and the growth of plus 40% is really across the portfolio And we expect even stronger second half of the year when we see the results in the for all the brand and across the world. Thank you very much.
Okay. Thank you. So we move on to Tom Sykes of Deutsche Bank, please.
Good morning, everybody. Just to handle the point a bit on e commerce first. On your digital media spend, I think you said it was 40% of your total media spend. So I wonder how quickly that will Change, what sort of target level over the next couple of years you may have there? And what sales impact specifically have you seen in areas where You've lifted that e commerce media spend.
Just as well on the The hedges that you have, is it simply just a case of just rolling the 6 month hedges or however long they may be in terms of the raw And have you at all changed the length of any hedges that you may have, please? And yes, those are the main questions please.
I will take the first question, Tom, and Astrid will take the second one. It's difficult to answer your question, Tom, because I mean, we believe obviously that's going in the direction of 50% of our investment in digital makes sense. But it's more subtle than that. There are some categories, there are some countries where still TV is still driving the sellout. So I didn't want to put that as a kind of objective for the team, but we see when we combine all the businesses that going around 50% of our investment It's something that seems to be credible and efficient.
On e commerce, we clearly believe that Mid term, getting doing at least 20% of our net sales in e commerce makes a lot of sense, again looking at the way our portfolio is designed with a much stronger weight on derma. Clearly, derma will be above this figure, which more reduced number of La Prairie, the Art of beauty, the way we manage the beauty advisors in a point of sale is still very important. So Despite the investment on Tmall, we don't expect online to be much, much bigger than what we have in mind. And NIVEA, this is where we want to invest. So if you move from 9% to 20%, you have obviously a big part of the growth is coming from NIVEA.
This is where we invest a lot. Astrid, on the second question?
In terms of your second question, so I think our procurement and supply chain Teams did a very good job managing through all the contracts, particularly for the first half of the year. They saw some trends at the end of 2020 and locked us in. That is typically also the horizon that we will target half a year, but make decisions flexibly I believe, depending on how we see the market move. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you. And if I could just ask a follow-up, just on the Offline growth that you're seeing as people shop more offline Now then maybe they did last year, but you've got a positive e commerce trend. What is the level of promotional activity and sort of in store activations that You're having to see to make sure that you're maintaining or increasing your share offline, please.
You have in mind La Prairie, Tom?
No, more NIVEA, really in terms of as people shop more in grocery stores or Supermarkets, etcetera. Is there a what's the level of promotional activity that you're beginning to see versus, say, Last year and what you expect in the second half?
Well, frankly, Tom, no change. Honestly, when I look at the way the business is driven Both in Europe and North America, we don't see any change. We The tactics are the same. I'm talking offline. The tactic is the same and we are not seeing big changes.
On La Prairie is why I was asking the question. You know that La Prairie is perhaps one of the only brands in the world, which is never And that's something we didn't do in the past, we didn't do during the pandemic and we were really one of the only brands Not doing that, not doing any kind of bug off or whatever. And of course, we didn't do that with Timol. So that's something which is absolutely essential in the equity of La Prairie and that we will continue to respect no matter what happens in the rest of the world.
Yes, exactly. Okay. Many thanks indeed.
Thank you. So we have next in the line we have Carlo of Kepler Cheuvreux, please.
Yes, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. I have a follow-up question with regard to your digital investments and more or less what was asked Earlier and then one on margin structure. On your digital investments, I'm not so much interested in e commerce today, But in terms of where do you want to invest the EUR 300,000,000, you highlight 1 on 1 relationships, e commerce, precision marketing. But what kind of capabilities Do you want to invest?
Is that system? Is that more OpEx to be in front in consumers? Or to put it differently, where does Beiersdorf And capabilities on things such as the data warehouse, processing of data, digital contact collection. That's the first question. So really on capabilities and competitive advantages.
And the second question is on the margin structure and maybe more for us, Richard. You come from a company With a similar gross margin to Beiersdorf, but Beiersdorf has a 10 percentage point or so lower EBIT margin, what does explain this The significant gap or where there's opportunities for Beiersdorf to improve on cost structures. Thank you.
I will take both those questions. In terms of digital investment, in my presentation, I talked a little bit about what we're trying to And I do think we're building off of a good foundation. We really are trying to strengthen our digital infrastructure in the company, both on what we call the company journey as well as then to the external, the consumer journey. And on the company journey, we're building off of a very strong foundation and with our SAP system and all the related system and are now moving to S4HANA. We're embarking on that journey.
And externally, we talked about the need of really growing our 1 on 1 connection and off of that really then driving our business with Precision Marketing with interactions with the consumer through our Skinly guide and others. And then that hopefully, obviously landing in both Offline as well as online sales really going up significantly. That's our priority. In terms of margin, obviously, the two This is a quite different and need different investment below the line. I've been here now half a year, so obviously still a lot to learn.
I think I'm seeing very good momentum in terms of rebuilding certainly our gross margin and moving that further. We will see positive effect obviously in terms of mix and the growth there and we will try to manage very, very closely obviously the impact from unfavorable commodities. And we are looking as we have said also in the previous calls at all the other parts of our SOI P and L to make sure that we are Spending our funds as efficiently as we can, both on the marketing side as well as on general expenses. So More to come there. We're obviously on the journey.
Thank you.
Thank you. I see Rogerio of Stifel, please. Next, please.
Hi, good morning and thanks for taking my two questions. My first question is a follow-up on NIVEA. We saw encouraging trends in Q2 and I was wondering if you could share any Additional color on sequential market share trends for NIVEA in your key markets in Europe. And then my second question is on pricemix. Could you talk about the pricemix contribution to organic growth in the Consumer division in Q2 versus Q1 and the outlook for pricemix for the second half.
Thank you.
Thank you, Jorge. I will take the first question about NIVEA. So as I mentioned, we are Very successful with face and body. So they are really the 2 categories which are over performing and we are even above 2019 levels. When you look at LEAP and SON, they were obviously the categories most affected by lockdowns and we are still below 2019 levels.
The good news, as I mentioned, is that the last part of the second quarter, we saw a really extremely strong boost of Sun. Again, we don't know if this is only the market or if we are over performing that's just the market. We have not yet the market share of June July, but clearly There's something happening, which is helping us a lot and which has made one of the major drivers of the growth in the Q2. We have a good growth on Personal Care. Deo are back to the 2019 levels.
Shower is red of 2019. So we are happy with Personal Care. And overall, if you look at the world, we are pretty successful in what we call emerging markets. So Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America. In Western Europe, due to the fact that the lockdowns were still around in the 1st semester, We are not yet at the level of last year, so we still have to recover in this part of the world.
So one question, Ashley?
Sure. So in terms of the question on pricing, certainly given the very, very strong growth overall, Pricing was the smaller part, but it was positive, which is great to see. And Q2 was even a step up from Q1, driven primarily by emerging markets in Northeast Asia and we are expecting for the full year even a further step up primarily driven by cosmetics in emerging markets. So really good trend in pricing that we are seeing.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next would be Jeremy. Jeremy of HSBC, please.
Hi, good morning, Jeremy. Fialkow here. A couple of questions. The first one Just on the taser sales guidance. Obviously, after the extremely strong first half you've had, The kind of high single digit sales growth you're talking about would imply that the sales are down in the second half.
Clearly, the comp base is tougher. But A little bit more color on that, please. Is there something to do with the just a comp basis, is there something to do with the car industry and the chip Problems there. So some detail there will be helpful. And secondly, could you talk about your A and P as a percentage of sales in the first half.
As we look through the half year report, your selling and marketing expenses are clearly down, but I think that will be benefiting from the sort of operational gearing effect. So could Talk a little bit about specifically your advertising promotion as a percent of sales in the half and then what you might expect that to be for the full year? Thanks.
Okay. I think I'll take both of those questions. So in terms of TAEUS and you've touched Obviously, the comparison is twofold with the back half twenty twenty very, very strong. So the comparison obviously much, much tougher there. You talked a little bit about the volatile environment we're in, both in terms of supplies, but also just uncertainty.
So this is where really our TESAR guidance comes from. We are dependent a lot of project type of business as well. There is some uncertainty there, but overall, we feel very, very strongly about our TESA business, and we'll continue to obviously drive that. In terms of A and P and your question there, we have obviously in absolute terms spent Quite a bit more in the first half in terms of basis points still below obviously due to the net sales leverage that we've had there. We will continue to invest in the full year and our spending is going to go up.
And those investments are primarily behind digital. So the incremental investment is primarily behind digital media with a focus on skincare.
Number actually for the half year was 25.5%. When you look back at what we said last year, it's down by 10 basis points. Okay. Then we move on to Folio Casol of BEROUBAIX, please.
Yes, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. My first one is on the current promo pricing environment. I know I understand your comments that you're hoping to gradually increase prices to recover the commodity pressures. So So I'm just trying to assess your level of confidence there and how long it could take before you can fully recover those commodity pressures.
And then my second question is on working capital. You highlighted on one of the slides how it's come down significantly. I just wanted to ask how much of that is, let's say, a new base versus timing related drivers. Thank you.
Okay. I will take both of those questions. We Touched a little bit or Vincent touched a little bit on the promo environment. Overall, we're not seeing necessarily significant changes versus kind of normal operation. In terms of promo pricing, we are making plans in terms of pricing.
We already executed some in the first happen. We are making plans. Obviously, some environments, geographic environments and the type of this and contracts we have with customers will allow us to take pricing earlier or later, but we certainly are making all the plans to ensure that we drive our business and we'll Obviously, watch also in terms of our pricing in the market and how that develops. In terms of working capital. Again, it's really been a project that we've embarked on a few years back to really strengthen that certainly versus the prior year, the comparison is helping.
We did obviously hold higher inventory in the prior year behind the corona crisis, but we are making progress everywhere and it was especially nice to see that we were able to manage our DSOs. So The sales receivables from the customers very, very well through the crisis and even step that up some more this year. So really good progress of working capital management measures.
Okay. You're fine, full of you?
Great. Thank you.
Thank you. And I see the last caller here today is Eva Kjellberg, Bank of America. Eva?
Yes. Thanks very much, Jens. Two Questions from me, please. Firstly, Vincent, you've talked a lot about the contribution of the big brands to your growth story going forward. Yes, you've also invested quite a lot in smaller brands, whether through M and A or your own focus like On the natural side, can you maybe talk a little bit about the role you think those smaller brands are going to play?
And then secondly, on Can you maybe remind us with NIVEA where the pockets of strength and weakness currently are? And how you think about driving the face care growth in an environment that's more competitive from a local player point of view. Thanks.
Thank you, Eva. On The what we call the small brands, I mean, there is an interesting example obviously, which is ANZA plus. ANZA plus is the smallest of the big brands And in a very difficult environment and Plaster obviously is rather commodity, We manage and will surely do the best year ever by having a stronger focus on the global pipeline, by having also the right capabilities in the countries And by having also the right portfolio, we can play a lot on sport in Australia. Obviously, we are more On the unique plaster in India, Indonesia, so that's a good example. I see the small brands, there are 2 kinds of small brands.
They are the Historical German brands that are very strong in Germany. You might know them, Idrofugal, LATAM SOAR, AtriX. They are very good brands that the The German affiliate is managing and it's bringing good growth, good profit and we'll continue like that. What we are trying to do and I'm sure you saw The press release on own, on routinely. We are also trying to test new approaches.
The personalization obviously It's a big word that everybody is using. We are testing 2 approaches, one through our own R and D center with own one with a start up routinely trying to see how we can with a pure online model develop personalized offer. Obviously, We are doing that not only to develop those small brands, but also to learn and to be able later to apply the learnings to our bigger brands. So I would say that for me the way I see the small brands, an opportunity for us to test new approaches, to do also some trials and errors And then to learn something for the bigger brands, which are clearly the big focus of Beiersdorf and of the Board. On China, your question yes, NIVEA.
NIVEA, the complexity, Eva, is that
Strength, Roy?
Yes. Clearly, the categories in which we are today in China I'm not the easiest one. So we are very happy to be in men, but there are some other Personal Care categories, which are more difficult at the time when Chinese are looking for premium offer. So this is why we are clearly developing, pushing this the face care area. This is why Luminess was really the first big, big skincare success we had in China and with a very strong partnership with Tmall.
So I would say be stronger online versus Offline being stronger in skincare versus personal care. And what is very important, I mentioned that in my introduction, the fact that now and It's working. We have a research center in Shanghai with Chinese scientists with really investment and other capabilities. Their focus is very simple. They have to develop the right skincare offer for NIVEA, for Hyucyrene and perhaps for La Prairie.
So I'm expecting a lot from this R and D center in order to change to move NIVEA from what it is today to a premium skincare brand in China.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Eva. Well, I think we've exhausted the list of callers. So thank you very much. We're closing now. There are no further callers.
I don't see any. So thank you for having joined our conference call here today. Beiersdorf's next Investor Relations event will be the publication of our 9 months results on the 28th October. We appreciate your interest in Beiersdorf. Thank you, and goodbye.