Sales Soar at Nu Skin

Nu Skin Enterprises, Inc. posted record second-quarter results with a 40% jump in revenue to $593.2 million.

“Once again, we are pleased to announce record quarterly results, highlighted by the most successful regional product launch in our history that boosted revenue by more than 150 percent in Greater China and 66 percent in South Asia,” said Truman Hunt, president and chief executive officer. “The tremendous launches of our latest ageLOC products generated approximately $165 million in product orders, with $140 million reported in revenue during the quarter and the balance to be shipped in the third quarter. Our product innovation is energizing our customer base and sales force, as demonstrated by strong growth in both our actives and executive distributors.

“While emerging markets continue to drive significant growth, we are also very pleased with results in our mature markets during the second quarter, including local-currency revenue improvements of 21 percent in the Americas and 20 percent in Europe. We also saw positive trend improvements in Japan.

“Our overall profitability continued to improve as we generated a 16.5 percent operating margin during the quarter. In addition, we utilized the strength of our balance sheet to repurchase approximately 2.4 million shares for $108 million,” said Hunt.

Revenue in the Americas improved 20% to $71.8 million. The number of executives grew 16% while the number of actives increased 3% during the quarter.

Revenue in Greater China increased 152% to $199.7 million, while

sales in North Asia fell 1% to $177.7 million. South Asia/Pacific revenue leaped 66% to $98.3 million. Sales in the quarter included approximately $40 million of new ageLOC products. Europe increased 7% to $45.7 million.

“We continue to be optimistic about the future as we build on our ageLOC anti-aging product innovation that is helping drive revenue growth and expand our base of consumers and sales leaders,” said Hunt. “We are confident that the planned product launches during the back half of 2012, combined with the growing interest in our compelling product pipeline will sustain healthy growth. Since launching the ageLOC platform in 2009, we have generated over $1.4 billion in product sales with this brand. And we are confident that the best of ageLOC is yet to come.

“Emerging markets, particularly China and South Asia, will continue to drive healthy overall growth rates. We are also pleased with the positive direction of our more mature markets, including the US, Europe and Japan. We expect our North Asia region to show improving trends in the second half of 2012 as we build to the launch of the ageLOC Body Spa in both South Korea and Japan in the fourth quarter. From a financial perspective, we will continue to use our strong balance sheet and cash flow to create value for our shareholders by repurchasing shares, paying dividends and investing in the business. Due to the strength of our business we plan to continue to do all three,” concluded Hunt.

“Given strong second-quarter results, as well as the healthy growth trends we are seeing in our executive and active base, we are significantly increasing our 2012 revenue and earnings guidance,” said Ritch Wood, chief financial officer. “We project 2012 revenue to be in the $2.00 to $2.03 billion range … we estimate third-quarter revenue of approximately $465 to $480 million.”