Kim Kardashian, the founder and primary owner of beauty brand KKW Beauty, has officially become a billionaire, according to Forbes.
The reality TV star, famous for making her name on the hit programme Keeping Up With The Kardashians, saw her net worth skyrocket from US$780m in October last year to $1bn this month, the magazine reported.
The bulk of Kardashian’s wealth comes from her lucrative cosmetics and fragrance business, which she sold a 20% share of to Coty for $200m in 2020, valuing her business at $1bn.
Kardashian founded her direct-to-consumer beauty venture in 2017, building on the successful model of her younger sister Kylie Jenner’s beauty brand model Kylie Cosmetics.
The first product to hit shelves was the Crème Contour and Highlight Kit, leveraging on her well-known contoured make-up look.
Kardashian’s status and playbook of self-promotion tricks proved successful for the sku’s launch, which was an immediate sell-out and reportedly generated sales of $14.4m.
Reaching the status of a serious beauty contender in a matter of months, Kardashian began to push her brand’s product output, introducing eyeshadows, lipsticks and fragrances.
By 2018, the beauty founder was basking in the throes of success, bringing in around $100m in revenue.
Since then, she was enlisted the help of her sisters and family friends to appear in product collaborations, most recently was her fragrance launch with sister Kendall Jenner.
However, Kardashian was not the first of her clan to be admitted into the billionaires’ club.
Jenner, the youngest sister of the Kardashian-Jenner house, who founded her beauty brand in 2015 when she was just 18 years old, was the first family member to be instated with Forbes’ billionaire status, however, was stripped of her title for allegedly inflating the worth of her cosmetics brand.
Kardashian’s new billionaire status brings the 40-year-old shoulder to shoulder with Bruce Nordstrom, former Chairman of department store chain Nordstrom, and Crpriot EasyJet shareholder Clelia Haji-Ioannou.
Meanwhile, the beauty entrepreneur’s portfolio is expected to expand in the form of skin care.
In August later year Kardashian filed a trademark application for KKW Skin, including products such as moisturisers, lotions, creams, cleansers, toners, scrubs, facial mists, balms, oils, peels and powders.
