The Beauty sector may have been down during the pandemic – but it’s certainly not out. The rebound is happening, and there are now new opportunities for manufacturers.
The future looks bright for the Beauty sector. Before Covid, it was the fastest growing sector of FMCG and the primary driver behind overall growth of FMCG.
But Covid changed that. Masks went on. Lockdowns came in. And one of the best performing sectors suddenly found itself struggling in the face of people going out less often and using fewer products.
Fortunately, the Beauty sector is on the road to recovery. Despite the global market declining in 2020, 2021 saw a rebound. This rebound happened across all categories, but is best represented by the Face Care category, which fell 4% in 2020 before growing by 4% in 2021.
And in some markets, we’ve seen not only recovery but positive value growth when we compare value sales of 2021 vs. 2019. For example, Brazil and Mainland China have both grown by 4% since 2019.
In the past, the opportunity in the Beauty sector was geographical expansion – the kind of economic opportunism we’re used to around the world. Now, though, the key opportunity for manufacturers is in their ability to anticipate their audiences’ changing needs and lifestyles.
Consumers are becoming more conscious of what goes into the products they buy. The perception of Beauty has become more holistic and health driven, with a focus on internal wellness and environmental harmony at the core of many consumers’ decision-making process. The question for manufacturers in the Beauty space now is – how exactly have our lifestyles changed, and where does the opportunity to differentiate now lie?
The pandemic saw consumer trends diverge in two distinct directions – simplification and sophistication. Yet the pandemic only served to accelerate what was already a long-term trend.
In Europe, we’ve seen a simplification in total number of personal care occasions between September 2021 vs. 2017. This is likely due to the pandemic reducing the total number of trigger occasions, i.e. moments that we might use Beauty products. In contrast, Mainland China and Brazil has seen sophistication during the same period with both markets seeing a double digit increase in the longer term.
The trend towards simplification and sophistication is mirrored in value sales – those regions which have trended towards simplification have not performed as well as their sophistication counterparts.
In this report, we’ll examine a number of trends that are currently influencing the Beauty sector, across cosmetics, haircare and face & body care, including:
