L’Occitane second quarter results up despite disappointing results from France and US

Head-quartered in Luxembourg, the company presented its first quarter results, for the three months ended 30 June 2011.

Globally, L’Occitane has seen a positive increase in its first quarter for the 2011 / 2012 year, with a 12.1 per cent overall growth.

In terms of total global sales, L’Occitane performed well, generating sales of €182.3 million, an increase of €19.6 million from the same period of the previous year 2010, from €162.6 million.

Disappointing results​

Despite an overall growth percentage in global sales of just over 12 per cent, the cosmetics company had to deal with disappointing results from two out of three of its largest markets, France and the United States.

Sales in France emerged as being almost flat; €18.275 million were made in 2010 whereas in 2011, €18.410 million were made in sales, which is an increase in only €135,000.

In the US however, a decrease in sales was observed; whereas in the first quarter of 2010, €21.907 million were made, the first quarter results for 2011 came in with sales of €20.023 million, a solid drop of €1.884 million.

Quick reasoning ​

L’Occitane has been quick to provide reasons for the disappointing results in both markets, which have proven to be major sales contributors in the past.

According to the company, the sales decrease in the US has been a result of the weaker US dollar in the three month period ended 30th June 2011, in comparison to the same three month period the previous year, ended 30th June 2010.

As for the stagnated sales in France, the company claims these are the result of the transfer of certain B2B sales which were previously invoiced in ‘France’, to another group entity categorised under ‘other countries’.

As such, the company has stated that sales in France, excluding the transfer of the B2B sales, increased by 7.1 per cent, contributing 3.5 per cent to its total overall growth.