Skin care and make-up boost prestige beauty sales in China

In 2011 total prestige beauty in China, increased by 21 percent, with skin care and make-up displaying healthy growth figures of 23 and 17 percent respectively, according to figures from market researcher The NPD Group.

The prestige beauty segment comprises of skin care, make-up, and fragrance products sold mainly in department stores and Sephora stores in the top 10 cities in the mainland of China.

Skin care leads the way​

According to NPD, in prestige skin care, all the segments (comprising of face essence, face moisturizer, face basic care, eye, sun treatment, body, and all other: hair, lip, nail, etc) had steady growth, with face essence and moisturizer taking the lead by capturing nearly half of skin care sales.

As ever, anti-aging continued to perform well accounting for half of the skin care category sales and posting a robust growth of nearly 27 percent in 2011, compared to 2010.

NPD stated that hydrating (19 percent) and whitening (15 percent) skin care also played a big role in category growth.

Over in the make-up aisles, the face segment increased 18 percent in dollar sales from 2010 and seized 59 percent of the category's dollar share.

Continuing trends​

Continuing trends in China also saw skin lightening make-up and smoother foundation and make-up base also continued to perform well.

Foundation and make-up base led the face category, up 24 and 30 percent, respectively.

Elsewhere, lip helped drive the growth in make-up, up 26.5 percent in 2011, lipstick sales grew 31 percent, and lip gloss posted a 22 percent increase.

However, NPD pointed out that not all segments were so positive. Sales of eye products were affected by a dip in demand for mascara which posted negative growth, whilst sales of eye liner and eye shadow also slowed.

Robust sales period​

These hindrances have not damaged the sales of prestige beauty, with the market experiencing a robust sales period in China, as it is in the US and the UK.

A good year for both skin care and fragrance sales helped the total US prestige beauty industry post improved growth on last term, according to NPD figures.

In 2011, skin care and fragrance sold in US department stores, both posted double-digit dollar growths of 14 and 11 percent respectively, while make-up grew a healthy nine percent, compared to 2010.