Kao to shed 13 more cosmetics brands by 2024

By Julia Wray | Published: 16-Feb-2022

The Kanebo and Kate owner will discontinue or divest more brands to focus on core products

Kao is considering divesting or discontinuing 13 more cosmetics brands by 2024, the Kanebo and Kate owner revealed amid its 2021 full-year earnings report.

In total, 28 brands had been scheduled by Kao for discontinuation with 15 having already been axed.

Shedding the 13 as-yet-unnamed brands will allow Kao to allocate investment towards growth-driver brands and regional strategy brands, said the Tokyo-headquartered company.

Among the 11 growth-driver (G11) brands pinpointed for attention by Kao are luxury label Sensai and Kanebo, while the eight regional strategy brands (R8) include labels like Lissage, Twany and Primavista.

While Kao’s net sales growth for the full-year 2021 rose 2.7% to ¥1,418.8bn, its cosmetics business net sales dipped net 0.6%.

In comparison, however, its G11 brands’ sales grew 8%, making up 65% of total cosmetics sales for the company, whose operations also cover hygiene and living care, and chemicals.

Kao is not the only Japan native brand to trim its outlying brands in recent months.

Shiseido recently streamlined its business to focus on luxury skin care, offloading prestige make-up brands to Advent International last year and its Asia-Pacific professional hair care business to Henkel earlier this month.

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