Overall Summary
L’Oréal is one of the leading skincare and cosmetic groups worldwide with 36 brands and more than 88,000 employees. Originating from Paris, L’Oréal gradually expands the brand to all cultural origins for different skin types customers from one continent to another. L’Oréal owns 21 research laboratories worldwide and 497 patents registered in 2019, it is rooted in science to deliver each woman innovative beauty products. Up till now, L’Oréal has created a large beauty empire with a multi-cultural brand collection and a wide range of prices, across full categories including skincare, haircare, hair dye, fragrances, make-up, and others. The product is sold in over 150 countries1 (Welcome to L'Oréal, n.d.).
The founder of L’Oréal is Eugène Schueller, and he produced the very first hair dye in 1909. With an entrepreneurial spirit, the formulated hair dye was promoted to local hairdressers and the very first business model was set up. After 5 decades of development, the Chairman of L’Oréal, François Dalle, decided to expand the group internationally. The grand L’Oréal organization was formed with several strategic brand acquisitions. From 1984 to 1987, L’Oréal devotes itself to innovation by investing in research and development for beauty science2 (L'Oréal's history: The adventure of beauty, 2020). And then in the 1990s, the L’Oréal group completely changed in scope to become a beauty giant with the worldwide presence of different brands and strategic acquisitions. Now L’Oréal group enters the 21st century by embracing a diversification strategy to cover heterogeneous market segments.
L’Oréal embraces high corporate social responsibility and commits to a more sustainable business model. Striving for a new phase of the sustainability journey, L’Oréal shares the motto “L’Oréal for the Future” in three different ways3 (L'Oréal's commitments and responsibilities, 2020). One pillar of the strategy is transforming L’Oréal and respecting biodiversity and planetary boundaries. The second pillar is empowering the business ecosystem by promoting environmental awareness to their customers, suppliers, and communities. The last one is to solve challenges such as supporting vulnerable women or creating the L’Oréal Fund for Nature Regeneration.
Apart from the CSR aspects, L’Oréal is one of the global Fortune 500 companies. It remains on the global Fortune 500 list for several years. On May 13, 2021, L'Oréal ranked 15th on the 2020-2021 Forbes Global list, with a market capital of 225.7 billion USD4 (Forbes, 2020). According to their financial report for 2021, sales of the L’Oréal group reached 32.28 billion euros, an increase of 15.3% compared to the Year 2020 sales based on reported figures5 (L'Oréal finance, 2022). Operating profitability is at 19.1% of sales and the profit is up to 6.16 billion euros. This is a historic year for the whole L’Oréal group, with the influence of the Covid pandemic. L’Oréal still achieves an excellent financial result with recorded growth, twice the worldwide beauty market.