Estée Lauder Companies’ Sales Rise 5%

The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. reported strong financial results for its fourth quarter and fiscal year ended June 30, 2017. For the year, net sales were $11.82 billion, a 5% increase compared with $11.26 billion in the prior year.
 
“Throughout the fiscal year, our momentum accelerated, culminating in an outstanding fourth-quarter performance that completed another year of strong net sales and earnings per share growth,” said Fabrizio Freda, president and CEO. “These results reflect our success in pivoting our business to the fastest-growing areas of prestige beauty to align with consumers’ changing shopping preferences. With our leading brands, quality innovations and the acquisition of two makeup brands, we attracted new consumers globally. Our business accelerated in our online direct-to-consumer and retailer e-commerce sites, as well as in the travel retail and specialty-multi channels, and we built momentum in key geographies, like China and Italy, aided by enhanced digital and social media communications. Additionally, we began to further improve our organizational efficiency and effectiveness through our Leading Beauty Forward initiative. Importantly, we delivered this performance in the face of external global volatility and one of the biggest moments of change in our industry.”
 
Freda said he expects “the great momentum we built throughout the past year to continue in fiscal 2018. We are well-positioned to deliver strong profitable growth as we deploy our prestige brand portfolio to new consumers globally through our hero product franchises and robust new product pipeline, new digital-first marketing approach, and focused expansion for our smaller to mid-sized brands.”
 
For the three months ended June 30, 2017, the company reported net sales of $2.89 billion, a 9% increase compared with $2.65 billion in the prior-year period. The recent acquisitions of Too Faced and Becca performed ahead of plan with incremental sales contributing approximately 3.5 percentage points of the reported sales growth, according to ELC. The company posted sales growth in most brands and across-the-board sales gains in all geographic regions and product categories, except hair care.
 
Fiscal 2017 fourth quarter sales benefitted from innovative new products and double-digit growth in several developed and emerging markets, particularly China. The Company also generated double-digit gains in its travel retail, online and specialty-multi channels.
 
Net earnings for the quarter were $229 million, compared with $94 million last year.
 
Excluding the impact of foreign currency translation, net sales increased 11%.
 
For the year, the company achieved net sales of $11.82 billion, a 5% increase compared with $11.26 billion in the prior year. Incremental sales from the company’s recent acquisitions of Too Faced and Becca contributed approximately 2 percentage points of the reported sales growth.

Net earnings for the year were $1.25 billion, a 12% increase.