Estée Lauder earnings jump 19%
Asia/Pacific led net sales growth during the third quarter, followed by the Americas and Europe
Despite a slowdown in global prestige beauty sales, The Estée Lauder Companies has achieved third quarter net sales of $2.29bn – a 2% climb on the prior year quarter. Net earnings, meanwhile, increased 19% to $177.8m.
"Organic sales growth this quarter was in line with our expectations and earnings per share were better than expected,” said Fabrizio Freda, President and CEO. “Despite macroeconomic headwinds, particularly in Southern Europe and Korea, and short term global supply planning issues related to our Strategic Modernisation Initiative (SMI) implementation, we delivered solid growth ahead of the industry and a 20% earnings per share increase. The strength of our strategy and our ability to execute on it continues to produce consistent and reliable results.”
According to the brand, global prestige beauty continued to experience mixed results during the quarter, with overall growth slowing from the prior year. Despite this, the company managed to generate local currency sales gains in each of its geographic regions and most product categories. Net sales growth was led by Asia/Pacific, which grew 6%, while the Americas and Europe each jumped 4%.
Looking ahead to the rest of 2013, the company is expecting sales growth of 6% in local currency.