According to market research company The NPD Group, Inc., its annual survey of consumers’ holiday spending intentions shows one in five (19%) consumers told NPD “they plan to buy fragrance” as a gift this upcoming holiday season, a two point increase from last year.

“It will be interesting to see how all this translates into prestige department store fragrance sales, especially as we have seen a number of important new women’s fragrances begin to roll out in stores andretailers also offering consumers attractive promotions,” said Karen Grant, vice president and global industry analyst, The NPD Group.

According to NPD BeautyTrends, in the first nine months of 2009, U.S. prestige fragrances generated a little over $1.38 billion in sales, a decline of 11%, compared to January - September 2008. However, a few bright spots in the prestige fragrance arena included fragrance juices priced between $75 and $99.99 and juices priced over $100 and over, which grew 2 and 4% in dollars respectively.

“Typically, the fourth quarter (Oct. – Dec.) is the biggest quarter of the year for prestige fragrance, but with the overall prestige fragrance industry showing double-digit declines in the first nine months of the year, we’ll have to wait and see what happens,” ended Grant.