China skin care takes its rightful place as 3rd largest market

Industry analysts Research and Markets has forecasted the future state of the Chinese market based on figures from recent years where China's economy and the improvement of the people's cosmetics market has rapidly developed.

"The demand for skin care products has a direct relationship with the number, income and consumption concepts of China's young females​," analysts report.

"The economic development has influenced more and more middle-aged and aged women to pay attention to their own images and they have began to increase the consumption in cosmetics; additionally, the male consumption group is also gradually growing," ​they add.

Rapid increase but still not stable​

At present, the report finds skin care products to have entered the rapid development stage, and the market scale to have improved to some extent, but is yet to get to a place where it is stable. 

According to the statistics from the China Cosmetics Net in 2012, the total sales amount of skin care product market was nearly CNY 55 billion with the growth of about 11%.

From January to October of 2013 alone, sales over-exceeded this. 

Currently, 58% of Chinese cosmetics manufacturers are private enterprises, 32% foreign enterprises and 10% state-owned enterprises. ​In recent years global brands have penetrated China's medium and low-end tiers with acquisitions & mergers as well as integrating domestic brands.

L'Oreal dominating the Chinese market​

L’Oréal is the leading cosmetics player globally with a market capitalization of about $98 billion and has been particularly aggressive in expanding its market share in Asia. 

In China alone, the brand reported sales of over $2 billion in 2013, which accounts for 9% of the the overall Chinese cosmetics market.

However, the company has faced intense pressure of late from domestic players within the mass-market cosmetics space and has bowed out of the Chinese hair care market by pulling its Garnier brand.