At the company’s annual Hot off the Press event in New York City on January 26, NPD presented a look at the 2009 end year results for skin care, make-up and fragrance categories across the US and globally.
“Make no mistake, 2009 was a most challenging and difficult year for the prestige beauty industry,” said Karen Grant, vice president and senior global industry analyst at the NPD group.
NPD noted that all the US prestige categories experienced dollar declines, with the biggest decline being in fragrances, followed by prestige make-up and skincare.
Signs of recovery in the fourth quarter
Despite falling sales, Grant noted that signs of recovery were evident in the fourth quarter of 2009.
“Those could be found in the positive sales of products like smaller size women’s fragrances, innovations in foundation and concealer products, anti-aging and specialized basic skincare, and hair care,” she explained.
The Food/Drug/Mass channel fared better than the prestige market overall, with an increase in make-up sales and flat growth in skincare. Like in the prestige market, mass fragrance sales also declined.
China shows strongest growth
According to NPD findings, the strongest market surveyed was China, who showed ‘impressive’ sales growth across all three prestige categories, with sales increasing by 17 percent in 2009.
The European market for prestige products has also fared better than the US, with France showing the smallest decline in prestige sales, with a drop of 1 percent, followed by Italy and Spain with decreases of 4 and 5 percent respectively.
At the time of publication, NPD said that it had not released any sales figures for the prestige beauty market to the public.
Anti-aging spells big opportunities
Although prestige beauty sales declined across the US, the anti-aging skincare sector could spell big opportunities for cosmetics companies.
According to NPD’s recent women’s skincare report, which surveyed 6,403 online panelists above the age of 18 about their purchasing habits, anti-aging is the key motivator when it comes to making a purchase.
More than 53 percent of the women surveyed selected anti-aging benefits as the key factor.
However, 21 percent of respondents said they did not use anti-aging skincare, which, according to Grant spells a need for an increase in education and communication in order to attract more consumers to this particular market segment.