China Becomes the Largest Market of Lancome in the World

Lancôme was born in France in 1935 and founded by Armand Petitjean. As an international cosmetic brand, Lancôme is involved in various product areas such as skin care, color makeup and perfume and mainly targeted for mature women aged 25-40 with higher education and income levels .

With a sensitive sense of perfume and perseverance, the founder of Lancôme made his great effort to occupy certain status for his French brand in the global cosmetics market which was then monopolized by American brands. Eventually, Lancôme made a terrific record in the history of cosmetics in the world. A rose from an old French castle won extraordinary fame by virtue of its temperament. Lancôme has blossomed for 86 years among the fickle female and in the elusive laws of fashion.

Lancôme officially entered China in 1993 and has been in the Chinese market for just over two decades since then. Pacing with the rapid development of the Chinese economy and cosmetics consumption, Lancôme has been invincible in the Chinese market. From 1997 to 2019, performance of this brand in China has increased 400 times in 22 years.

In these two decades, Lancôme has also created her own achievements. In 2018, Lancôme took the the top spot in four channels including Chinese department stores, specialty stores, Tmall Beauty and official website leaving its mark on the high-end cosmetics market in China. During Double 11, the promotional campaign on November 11st in 2018, Lancôme became the No. 1 in the Tmall Beauty category. This is the first time that a foreign high-end beauty brand surpassed a popular brand and took the top spot in the sales during the promotional time. (Tmall Beauty: Tmall Beauty is an independent beauty vertical marketplace on the Tmall platform, which is one of the most popular comprehensive shopping sites in China)

In 2019, Lancôme sold $1.701 billion in China and annual sales increased by 36.4% to $2.320 billion by 2020. 2020 Within the first two hours during pre-sale of promotional campaign on June 18th in Tmall, turnover of Lancôme exceeded $0.15 billion.

As of May 2021, Lancôme has opened 330 directly-managed offline department stores and shopping mall boutiques in 124 cities across 30 provinces and autonomous regions in China with online channels including its official website and Tmall flagship store.

In 2018 and 2019, Lancôme Wulin Yintai store won the "No.1 counter in China" and became Lancôme's "No.1 counter in the world" in 2020. During October 21-November 1 in 2020, Lancôme L'Absolu Rouge Intimatte Matte Veil Lipstick and other single products have sold more than 10,000 units. In 2020, the star product Tonique Confort was sold nearly 100,000 bottles more than four times in 2019.

On October 1 in 2020, Lancôme opened its first flagship store in China and Asia Pacific in Beijing, China. As far as we know, Lancôme has only two offline flagship stores in the world, one in Paris, France and the other one in Beijing, China.

The Lancôme China flagship store covers an area of 320 square meters combining Chinese and Western design elements with the French palace and the inner court of a Beijing courtyard. The best-selling products and the most popular new products in both skincare and color cosmetics are sold in Lancôme China flagship store.

As a high-end cosmetic brand under L'Oréal, Lancôme chose to open its second global flagship store in the Chinese market, which representing an important step in its expansion into the Chinese offline market. The person in charge of Lancôme's flagship store in China said that the sales of Chinese market ranks first among Lancôme's global sales regions and the opening of this flagship store is also intended to further meet the needs of Chinese consumers.