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L’Oréal sales rose 4.2 per cent on a like-for-like basis to €10.33 billion in the third quarter of 2025, the company said on Tuesday. The group’s earnings publication came on the heels of a major beauty deal with Kering, announced on Sunday night.
This comes after L’Oréal Group’s sales were up 3 per cent, from January through June. “Progress was broad-based. All regions contributed: the recovery in our two largest markets – the US and Mainland China – continued; in a solid market, Europe remained robust; and ongoing strength in Sapmena-SSA [South Asia Pacific, the Middle East, North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa] more than offset softness in Latin America,” L’Oréal CEO Nicolas Hieronimus said in a statement. By region, North Asia sales were up 4.7 per cent, Europe was up 4.1 per cent, North America up 1.4 per cent, Sapmena-SSA up 12.2 per cent and Latin America up 4.4 per cent.
“Overall, China has stabilised. We see a slight uptick in consumer confidence,” Hieronimus told analysts during Tuesday’s earnings call. ”I wouldn’t get overexcited because there are other macro challenges, employment statistics, that are not as positive. What’s still not improving is travel retail. Travel retail in Asia is in negative territory, in single digits.” The US market, meanwhile, is improving, Hieronimus said, and L’Oréal is outpacing the rest of the beauty market, he added.
By division, the group’s professional products grew by 9.3 per cent in the quarter, dermatological beauty grew by 5.1 per cent, consumer products by 3.8 per cent and luxe by 2.5 per cent.
On the slowdown of the fragrance category, which sits beneath the conglomerate’s slowest-growing luxe division, Hieronimus said: “Our growth in fragrances is just shy of 10 per cent. The fragrance market remains the fastest-growing category of beauty, in the mid-single digits.”
The overall beauty market has been squeezed by a post-pandemic comedown and a dip in travel retail, from which some companies are still trying to recover. L’Oréal competitors Estée Lauder Companies (ELC) and Puig will report quarterly earnings on 30 October. LVMH’s perfumes and cosmetics division reported 2 per cent organic sales growth to €1.9 billion in the third quarter of the year.
The Kering deal includes the right to enter a 50-year licensing agreement with Gucci after its expiration with Coty; Hieronimus noted that, in light of the size of Gucci’s fashion business and the length of the license, it has the potential to “catch up with Yves Saint Laurent”. The YSL beauty business is not far from €3 billion in net sales, according to the executive.
As of Creed, which is also part of the Kering deal, Hieronimus said: “House of Creed is a beautiful brand. It’s in the top three of the niche fragrances market, which happens to be the fastest-growing part of the fragrance market itself. And it happens to be a segment where we are just represented by the collections inside our couture brands, so we are underrepresented.”