Eastern Europe drives growth at Beiersdorf
The Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) division of the Germany-based firm reported an 11 per cent increase in turnover to €179.4m for the first six months of the year.
By contrast sales in North America were up by 1.2 per cent for the same period and in the domestic market sales crept up 0.6 per cent.
The importance of the emerging markets to sales growth is underlined by the fact that despite these sluggish figures Beiersdorf achieved like-for-like overall sales growth figures of 8.3 per cent.
The company has targeted the CEE market and is achieving high levels of growth in the region especially outside Austria, which has the most established cosmetics market.
In Austria sales increased 5 per cent to €48.7m while in the rest of the region sales rose 13 per cent.
In terms of market share Beiersdorf increased its overall presence to 19.2 per cent from 18.8 per cent in the first six months of 2007.
In Austria the company has a particularly strong market share at 26.8 per cent but the company is looking to build further in the other countries in the CEE block.
"With almost 100 million people, the CEE market shows an enormous potential for cosmetic items," said Dr. Ulrich Schmidt managing director of Beiersdorf CEE Holding
"We will focus on our strategic core brands and with more innovations in 2008, we expect this strong growth to continue."
