Jewel of the French cosmetics industry, the prestige segment promotes the “signature France”. But is it still in good health? Mathilde Lion, Executive Director, Global Client Development at NPD, took her temperature during a morning organized by the CEW in Paris on February 28th. Report on the state of play.
The figures collected by NPD come from their “distributor” panel.
The agency tracks on a weekly basis the checkouts of selective channels, perfumeries, department stores, independents and local chains in eight countries, including France.
“Please note that for the French market, we are on a luxury perimeter and we only target traditional brands.”
This market is stable worldwide with a slight slowdown due to the very general decline in make-up. “Except in Latin America, where it explodes,” nuance Mathilde Lion.
As far as France is concerned, growth is weak.
“We are losing 1.1% compared to the global prestige total. But it is necessary to understand that the sector is mature, so the variations are not very important. We suffered in 2008-2009 with the subprime crisis, then the market recovered. But since 2012, it’s not really ecstasy. Of course, we’re still going backwards in 2019, but there are still some very positive signs,” she adds.
Black Friday, that growth booster
While in September, prestige was down by 2%, the end of the year was rather good.
“This result was unexpected given the social context in which France was plunged in December 2019. Nonetheless, the last quarter enabled us to gain one …
