The COVID-19 pandemic has hit companies hard, and some business fared better than others as the novel coronavirus made its way across the planet. If you were selling home cleaners, or say ice cream, sales may have been up, but perfume not so much.
 
Here’s a look at how three top companies in Happi’s markets fared in the first half and most recent quarter.
 
UNILEVER: Unilever’s first half of 2020 showed that overall underlying sales declined 0.1%, with developed markets up 2.4% and emerging markets down 1.9%.
 
“Performance during the first half has shown the true strength of Unilever. We have demonstrated the resilience of the business – in our portfolio, in a continued step-up in operational excellence, and in our financial position – and we have unlocked new levels of agility in responding to unprecedented fluctuations in demand,” said CEO Alan Jope. “We have also taken action to strengthen the strategic future of the company by announcing proposals to unify our dual-headed legal structure, progressing the strategic review of our global tea business and making new commitments to help protect the climate and regenerate nature.”

Jope said the impact of Covid-19 on it business in the first half varied widely across its channels and categories. “Channel closures as a result of lockdowns in our markets negatively impacted our food service, out-of-home ice cream and Prestige businesses. Food service declined by nearly 40% and out-of-home ice cream declined by nearly 30%. Shoppers moved from offline to online channels, driving ecommerce growth of 49%,” Jope said.
 
As people spent more time in their homes, we saw growth in home consumption of foods, ice cream and tea. It also meant that consumers had fewer personal care occasions from going to work or socializing, and we saw a decline in our personal care business, except for hygiene products. T he effectiveness of good hygiene practices against the spread of Covid-19 increased demand for our hand and home hygiene products, which each grew double digits. Consumers eating and cleaning more at home, and focusing more on hand hygiene, led to underlying sales growth in North America of 9.5% in the second quarter, despite a negative impact of 3.7% from food solutions and Prestige channel closures.
 
Beauty & Personal Care underlying sales declined 0.3%, with volume growth of 0.1% and negative pricing of 0.4%. Skin cleansing saw mid-teens volume-led growth, as we quickly responded to the critical need for hand hygiene to prevent the spread of Covid-19. We rolled out our Lifebuoy hygiene brand to over 50 markets and increased our hand sanitizer capacity by around 600 times across several brands. This helped contribute to double digit growth for Suave.
 
Lockdowns in Unilever’s markets and reduced personal care occasions amidst restricted living, led to lower demand for skin care, deodorants and hair care, which each saw volume and price decline. The division’s largest brand Dove remained resilient, with mid-single digit growth.
 
Unilever said its prestige portfolio was impacted by health and beauty channel closures in many markets. Consumer oral care demand remained robust. However, the category saw negative volumes related to disruption caused by lockdowns in key markets.
 
Home Care underlying sales grew 3.2%, with 2.9% from volume and positive pricing of 0.3% The company saw increased consumer demand for household cleaning products, such as Cif surface cleaners, and our home and hygiene brands delivered high-teens underlying sales growth. Working with environmental health experts, Domestos educated consumers about targeted cleaning of high-touch surfaces in the home to help prevent the spread of Covid-19 and saw strong double-digit growth.
 
Strict lockdowns in Asia impacted fabric solutions, which declined overall. However future formats such as capsules and liquids continued to grow. Clean and green brand Seventh Generation saw strong double digit, volume-led growth. Fabric sensations declined low-single digit, driven by Brazil and China.
 
One highlight for this CPG giant? Unilever said sales of ice cream for consumption in-home increased by 15% in the first half and by 26% in the second quarter, significantly offsetting the declines in out-of-home channels. Magnum and Ben and Jerry’s continued to grow strongly.
 
INTER PARFUMS: For the three months ended June 30, 2020, net sales declined 70.2% to $49.5 million from $166.2 million for the corresponding period of the prior year. At comparable foreign currency exchange rates, consolidated second quarter net sales declined 69.8%. 
 
“As we expected, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, most notably store closures in many of the countries where our products are sold, was the primary reason for the steep decline in our second quarter sales across all our brands and geographic markets,” said Jean Madar, Chairman and CEO, Inter Parfums. “As stores gradually began to reopen in certain markets in May and June, our sales began to improve from the dismal April levels. We are hopeful that this trend will continue as more stores reopen and customers feel more confident about in-store shopping. However, we recognize that there will continue to be significant challenges for the remainder of 2020. In particular, the one market which shows no sign of a turnaround any time soon is travel retail, which has historically represented 15% to 20% of our business.” 
 
Madar said that since the start of the Covid 19 pandemic, the company has been forced to rethink how its work, plan, and maintain the bonds among its teams, as well as re-examine our relationships with its partners and its short and long-term strategies. 
 
“Such efforts carried out in the second quarter enabled us to finalize our license agreement with Moncler and our equity stake in Origines Parfums. As we have reported, we have taken measures to adapt our operating expenses, especially marketing and advertising, and with our flexible business model, our business is expected to remain in the black through the first half of the year. However, at this time we lack the visibility to provide any estimates for the balance of this year,” concluded Madar.
 
JOHNSON & JOHNSON: “Our second quarter results reflect the impact of COVID-19 and the enduring strength of our Pharmaceutical business, where we saw continued growth even in this environment,” said Alex Gorsky, chairman and CEO when the firm released its performance results. “Thanks to the tireless work of our colleagues around the world and our broad range of capabilities, we continue to successfully navigate the external landscape, and we remain focused on advancing the development of a vaccine to help address this pandemic and save lives. We are bringing together our best minds, our global footprint and our sophisticated supply chain technology to deliver on our commitment to provide the vaccine on a not-for-profit basis for emergency pandemic use, globally. We know the need is urgent, and every day we commit to doing our part to find a solution for the global good.” 
 
J&J’s Consumer Health worldwide operational sales, excluding the net impact of acquisitions and divestitures, declined by 3.4% as results were negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic most notably reflected in skin health and beauty care products, followed by women’s health care products and international baby care products. Partially offsetting this impact was growth in over-the-counter products including Tylenol analgesics; digestive health products and Zarbee’s Naturals; and Listine mouthwash in oral care products. Both over-the-counter and oral care products were positively impacted by COVID-19.