Coty is #5 on this year's list of Top Global Beauty Companies. 

Below is a look at the company’s 2018 highlights, recent acquisitions, best-selling brands, and latest innovations.

Beauty Sales

$9.4 billion
(FY 2017: $7.7 billion)

Key Personnel:

• Camillo Pane, chief executive officer
• Edgar Huber, president, luxury
• Laurent Kleitman, president, consumer beauty
• Sylvie Moreau, president, professional beauty
• Daniel Ramos, chief scientific officer
• Mario Reis, chief global supply officer

Major Products/Brands:

Luxury fragrance brands including:

• Calvin Klein, Hugo Boss, Gucci, Philosophy,
• Marc Jacobs, Davidoff, Lacoste, Chloé, Joop!,
• Jil Sander, Escada, Stella McCartney,
• Alexander McQueen, and Miu Miu

Consumer color cosmetic and personal care brands:

• CoverGirl, Rimmel, Adidas, Max Factor, Sally Hansen,
• Nice’n Easy, Koleston, Bourjois Paris, Playboy, Wellaton Monange,
• Bazzano, Risqué, and Paixao 

Professional hair care products:

• Wella, Sebastian, System Professional, Clairol Professional, Nioxin,
• Londa Professional, and Sassoon

New Products

• CoverGirl TruBlend color cosmetics
• CoverGirl Exhibitionist Lip Kit
• Katy Kat eyelashes and eye color cosmetics
• Exhibitionist lip color
• Magic Mirror augmented reality beauty
• Daisy Love Marc Jacobs fragrance
• Burberry fragrances

Coty, By the Numbers

Coty has been on a multibillion-dollar spending spree in recent years, fortifying for long-term growth with solid brand acquisitions. Thanks in large part to those acquisitions, overall sales were up an astounding 76%. Excluding those from acquisition though, sales only grew 1%. As CEO Camillo Pane commented, a transformational turnaround takes time.

On the bright side, 2017 was a good year for the company’s Luxury beauty division. Luxury brands boomed with a net revenue increase of 25% to $3.2 billion since last year, with growth powered by the success of Gucci Bloom and Tiffany, strong performance in Calvin Klein and philosophy. Chloe Nomade and Marc Jacob’s Daisy Love also gained share in Q4 2018. The company said the future prospects surrounding the Burberry brand (acquired in October) is another reason for excitement.

On the Consumer beauty side, net revenues totaled $4.2 billion, growing 15.7%, but declining 4% on a like-for-like basis. The 2016 completion of the P&G transaction, which included CoverGirl, Clairol and Wella, has helped Coty begin to stabilize its Consumer Beauty business; however, the company admitted that it’s clear that the recovery is taking longer than expected. The influencing factors the company pointed to included “external conditions” such as the decline of the mass beauty market in Europe and North America, increasingly strong competition, and an evolving retail environment that has shifted toward specialty retailers and e-commerce. Coty also acknowledged internal problems such as short-term supply chain disruption and the longer time required to rejuvenate global brands that have sustained multi-year declines which also adversely impacted momentum.

Coty’s Professional Beauty unit delivered net revenues of $1.9 billion, an increase of 37.5% from $1.3 billion the prior year, with like-for-like growth of 1.7%, due to the solid collective performance of Wella and ghd hair brands and the mid-single digit growth of its OPI nail brand.

News of Note in 2018

On the heels of relaunching its CoverGirl color cosmetics brand, in June, Coty announced that it would open the brand’s first-ever flagship “beauty destination” in Times Square, in the heart of New York City. The 10,000 square foot store, targeted to open this fall, will serve to reacquaint consumers with the CoverGirl brand, via an “experiential beauty play room” with interactive elements, full service makeup application, on-the-go services and digital experiences.

In July, Coty restructured its Consumer Beauty leadership team to improve the agility of different categories under the company’s underperforming consumer brands banner. Once handled by a lone chief marketing officer, Friedemann Schmid (who left Coty in September), the restructuring redistributes the responsibilities between Mike Bryce, Mark Cooper and Ukonwa Ojo, who were each promoted to the new roles of global chief marketing officer overseeing Color Cosmetics; Retail Hair, Body Care and Lifestyle Scenting; and Cover Girl, Sally Hansen and Consumer U.S. Beauty, respectively.

In August, Coty also announced the resignation of Patrice de Talhouët, executive vice president and chief financial officer, who was said to be leaving the company to pursue other opportunities.

Looking Ahead

Coty’s annual financial statement took a step in the right direction, but the company said it remains unsatisfied with its results and pledged to continue to drive for a better outcome in the coming year by targeting revenue growth in the ALMEA geographic region, overall e-commerce, and with Younique, the company’s social selling brand.

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