Chantecaille May For Sale But Still Accelerating in the Chinese Market

In August, it was announced that French premium beauty brand Chantecaille had hired US financial services firm Jefferies Group to find a potential deal for it, with P&G, Unilever and several investment houses showing interest in bidding for the deal, which is valued at around $120 million.

Founded in 1998, Chantecaille remains a traditional family business to this day. With its founder, Sylvie Chantecaille, boasts more than 30 years of experience in the beauty business and has been favored by the Estée Lauder Group in the 1970s to take the control in developing the Prescriptives. However, with increasing competition in the high-end beauty brad, it is clear that family management is no longer sufficient for the brand's long-term growth.

For the rejection of animal testing, Chantecaille didn’t officially enter the Chinese market via Tmall until 2018 and opened an offline channel through Bonnie & Clyde, a high-end beauty collection store owned by agent USHOPAL.

Currently, Chantecaille is known for its skincare and color cosmetics with high concentrations of natural herbal extracts and its best-selling product on its Tmall overseas flagship store is a premier with the cost of $125, with the most expensive face cream selling for upwards of $625. Although it has only been in China for three years, Chantecaille is growing increasingly in this emerging beauty market. Si Lewei said with appeal of Chantecaille in China grows over the past five years and China becomes the brand's most important growth engine, it is the perfect time to expand.

In August 2018, Chantecaille entered the Chinese market for the first time and opened official sales channels in the form of Tmall overseas flagship store. With the development of new retail, more and more high-end beauty brands focuses on "product + service", not only opens stores online, but also launches offline experience stores in shopping malls has become a trend. The first offline experience store is located in Shanghai to bring better offline scenario and direct sensual experience.

Chantecaille said, "We have experienced explosive growth in the last five years and a significant portion of Chinese consumers have fallen in love with us." At the same time, Chantecaille is very optimistic about the future growth opportunities in China and tends to continue to expand the market. Someone also said that sales of Chantecaille are increasing again thanks in part to the rapid growth of the Chinese market.

It's no surprise that Chantecaille paid extraordinary attention on the Chinese market. Since the pandemic, the resilience shown by the Chinese market has made it a bright spot in the earnings reports of many international beauty brands. In addition, some large beauty groups such as Shiseido and Beiersdorf have even started to invest more in trying to incubate new brands in China.

Although the competition in China's high-end beauty market is not yet as fierce as that in the middle and low-end markets. Chantecaille, which plans to expand its market share, will face high-end brands such as La Mer and HR, which are supported by the resources of large groups and have long been deeply developed in the Chinese market.

Chantecaille states in its Tmall overseas flagship store that all skin care products are free of animal ingredients and are never tested on animals. This corporate standard is contrary to the previous relevant Chinese cosmetic testing requirements.

But recently there is good news that imported common cosmetics may be exempted from animal testing when entering China. In particular, France has become the first country in the European Union to agree with China on an "animal testing exemption for cosmetics". According to a statement issued by the French Federation of Beauty Companies, French cosmetics manufacturers will be exempt from animal testing when exporting common cosmetics to China through the qualification platform of ANSM. This could provide an advantage for Chantecaille to invest more in China.