Indonesia and Thailand among promising markets for professional skin care: Kline

Karen Doskow, industry manager at Kline, said that as the mature markets have stabilized, the market researcher is harnessing a decade of knowledge and expertise to shift its focus toward markets where it expects to see the greatest potential. Doskow told CosmeticsDesign-Europe.com that “markets like Indonesia, Thailand and South Africa are considered to be very promising because they are somewhat sophisticated, [with] controlled inflation and a growing population of young consumers.”​ ​“These new markets display similar characteristics to those we saw in China, South Korea, and Brazil that tipped us off to growth opportunities - a rich tourism industry, a growing middle class, and increasing Internet and mobile connectivity that exposes consumers to new products and creates organic demand,”​ said Kline vice president Carrie Mellage. ​Kline observes that while industry growth in the US leveled off at 3 per cent in 2012 after peaking at 7.5 per cent in 2008 and growth in Europe dropped from 9.5 per cent CAGR in 2007 to just under 2 per cent CAGR in 2012 in the wake of the recession, China and South Korea have continued to witness a CAGR of over 9 per cent. ​Market consolidation and value chain evolution​ According to the market researcher, market consolidation and evolution down the value chain, from professional to mass-marketers, have been hallmarks of the professional skin care sector over the last 10 years. Kline reports that the top five brands now account for almost 40 per cent of the market in the US. The company highlights that beauty heavyweights have acquired professional brands to expand their product portfolios, citing L’Oréal’s acquisition of SkinCeuticals and Procter & Gamble’s purchase of DDF as prime examples. As a result, technologies and active ingredients that were once exclusively the preserve of professional skin care lines have thus infiltrated the mass market. Doskow illustrated this trend by highlighting the similarities in the packaging of DDF’s Wrinkle Resist package and P&G’s Cover Girl makeup foundation. Not only have these developments given consumers wider access to professional-quality products to suit different budgets, says Kline, but it has also expanded the reach of mass-market manufacturers and kept professional product players on their toes. Consequently, this has driven continuous innovation for the development of new products, which promise greater efficacy and novel delivery systems among other breakthrough developments.