L’Oreal’s Sales Fall Short of Expectations

L’Oreal SA on Thursday reported a year-on-year rise in consolidated nine-month sales but fell short of analysts’ expectations. The French cosmetics company reported sales of 10.8 billion euros ($10.69 billion) for the first nine months of 2002, up 3.9% 10.4 billion euros in the same year-earlier period. This represented an 8.6% increase based on a constant group structure and exchange rates, a growth rate identical to that recorded in the first six months of 2002.

But the nine-month figure came in below analysts’ consensus expectation of about 10.9 billion euros. L’Oreal Chairman Lindsay Owen-Jones expressed confidence that strong like-for- like growth would continue to year-end, L’Oreal said in a prepared statement.

It said exchange-rate fluctuations had eroded 3.7% from the nine-month revenue figure, compared with the 2.5% erosion experienced in the first six months of 2002. L’Oreal said changes in its group structure during the period produced a negative effect of 0.4%.

Nine-month sales of cosmetics rose 4.8% to 10.60 billion euros, while sales of dermatology products increased by 11% to 224 million euros. Like-for-like sales growth for these main business sectors was 8.4% and 17%, respectively.