PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y.—On Monday, April 23, 2012, Kline & Co. reported China as the largest Internet beauty market in the world, with a growth rate of almost 200 percent since 2006. And this morning, The NPD Group reported total prestige beauty (skin care, makeup and fragrance products sold mainly in department stores and Sephora) in the top 10 cities in the mainland of China increased more than 20 percent in 2011 compared to 2010, with skin care growing 23 percent and makeup 17 percent.
In prestige skin care, all the segments (face essence, face moisturizer, face basic care, eye, sun treatment, body and all other: hair, lip, nail, etc.) had steady growth, with face essence (+25 percent) and moisturizer (+21 percent) taking the lead by capturing nearly half of skin care sales.
By attribute, anti-aging continued to play as the driving engine by taking half of the skin care category sales and posting a robust growth of nearly 27 percent in 2011, compared to 2010. Hydrating (+19 percent) and whitening (+15 percent) skin care also played a big role in category growth.
In prestige makeup, the face segment captured 59 percent of the category’s dollar share and increased 18 percent in dollar sales from 2010. Products that make the face look lighter and smoother like foundation and makeup base continued to play a key role in China. Foundation and makeup base led the face category, up 24 and 30 percent, respectively.
In addition to face products, lip helped drive the growth in makeup, up 26.5 percent in 2011. Lipstick sales grew 31 percent and lip gloss posted a 22-percent increase. On the other hand, sales of eye products were soft (up +6 percent) due to mascara’s sharp decline of -3 percent in dollars and the slower paced sales of eye shadow and eye liner.
