By Irina Barbalova, global lead of beauty and personal care research
The global beauty industry defied the odds yet again in 2017 by recording close to 5% value growth, a slight improvement on the previous year.
Premium continues to deliver
A thriving premium segment was once again the standout story in 2017, outpacing its mass counterpart and the overall industry in terms of growth for a third consecutive year. While China and the US accelerated even further, the premium market proved challenging in France, Russia, South Korea and the Gulf countries. Skin care and colour cosmetics offer the most lucrative prospects within the premium space (7% and 9% growth in 2017, respectively), two categories where levels of disruption and innovation have been most pronounced.
Source: Euromonitor International
Colour cosmetics hits highest growth levels in a decade
Benefitting from further social media appeal, desire for self-expression and technologically-enabled make-over experiences, colour cosmetics outperformed all other categories globally (up by 7%, the highest on record over the past decade). The influx of newly emerging brands continues to inspire with community-driven, excitement-generating stories that have gone beyond just aesthetics and make-up artistry to include more purpose-driven concepts, such as ethnic inclusivity, environmental sustainability and cruelty-free labelling.
Skin care regains momentum on the back of further health convergence
After a few years of subdued results, skin care came back into the spotlight in 2017, expanding by 6% in value. A number of factors fuelled this, including the rising shift towards prevention and prioritisation of healthy skin maintenance in line with the pursuit of healthier lifestyles, which reflected in positive category growth for sun protection, cleansers, facial masks and facial moisturisers, as well as a softer pro-age and health-aligned narrative in anti-agers, which in turn doubled their premium sales growth to an impressive 10% globally.
Source: Euromonitor International
Japan offsets South Korea’s relapse
While South Korea will continue to be the hotbed for further K-beauty inspiration, local brand expansion and multinationals’ acquisition interest, total beauty sales in the country in 2017 were lacklustre at best (up by 0.9% value growth). Japan, on the other hand, benefited from more healthy domestic consumption, growth in Chinese tourists, following limits imposed on travel to Korea by the Chinese government, and mounting anticipation in the run-up to the Olympics in 2020.
India and Indonesia Flourish as the next frontiers
With a steady pace of strong year-on-year expansion, the markets of India and Indonesia will be among the top 10 absolute growth contributors in the years to 2022. India is set to topple Germany, UK and France to become the fifth largest beauty market by 2022, while Indonesia will be among the top three contributors to actual revenues in skin care in the next five years, only surpassed by US and China.
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