L’Oréal China 2025/2026 Strategic Development Communication Meeting Held

Q1 Performance Accelerates, Leading the Market

—— Multiple Initiatives Intensify Investment in China, Pioneering the New Concept of “AI for Beauty”

Latest Performance Results and Collaboration Achievements:

• Secured the top spot in China’s beauty market in 2025, continuing to lead the market in Q1 2026
• First-ever setup of three thematic forums, focusing on AI for Beauty, The Way of Beauty, and a new consumer-centric consumption model
• First co-creation achievement from the “Industry-Academia-Research-Medical” collaboration with Huashan Hospital Dermatology Department — La Roche-Posay Supramolecular Oil-Control Balancing Toner & Lotion Series launched
• Newly upgraded “Science Girls Empowerment Program,” donating RMB 10 million over five years to empower women in science
• Premiere of the “Way of Beauty” thematic film, featuring seven cross-disciplinary beauty advocates discussing the diverse values of beauty

ShanghaiApril 28, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — On April 27, “Grand Beauty, Wisdom Honoring the Future“ L’Oréal China 2025/2026 Annual Development Strategy Communication Meeting was successfully held, gathering industry forces to explore the era’s answers to beauty. L’Oréal North Asia President and CEO of China, Vincent Boinay, and L’Oréal China Deputy CEO and General Manager of the Luxury Products Division, Ma Xiaoyu, shared L’Oréal’s growth momentum and forward-looking insights as a leader in China’s beauty industry, and outlined the transformation direction and future layout amid the AI wave.

At the meeting, L’Oréal China announced two latest project developments: the global launch of the first achievement from the collaboration with Huashan Hospital Dermatology Department — the La Roche-Posay Supramolecular Oil-Control Balancing Toner & Lotion Series; and the launch of the new “Generation to Generation” Science Girls Empowerment Program in partnership with the China Women’s Development Foundation and the Computer Network Information Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, with a commitment to donate RMB 10 million over five years to empower women in science. Additionally, this year’s communication meeting was upgraded for the first time, featuring three thematic forums that invited members of L’Oréal China’s Management Committee and prominent external guests to discuss beauty, technology, and consumption, aiming to share opportunities with the consumer industry and move forward with innovation.

L’Oréal North Asia President and CEO of China, Vincent Boinay, stated: “Entering a new era driven by AI, beauty is connecting technology and humanity in unprecedented ways, reshaping the industry landscape, and responding to people’s infinite aspirations for a better life. We firmly believe that the future of beauty is being created in China. L’Oréal China will continue to leverage its unique advantages to ‘win with quality,’ co-evolve and deepen transformation with our ‘beloved’ consumers, continue to invest deeply in China with high quality, and ‘honor the future with wisdom.’ We look forward to win-win collaboration with more partners in China’s beauty ecosystem, creating beauty together that moves the world.”

Continuing to Lead China’s Beauty Market, Anchoring Growth with a Consumer-Centric Approach

In 2025, China’s beauty market environment gradually stabilized. L’Oréal China continued to demonstrate strong resilience and unique capabilities, accelerating growth to secure the top position in China’s beauty market. All four divisions worked in synergy: The Luxury Products Division led the segment with approximately 30% market share; the Dermatological Beauty Division achieved robust growth of 19%, with SkinCeuticals ranking as the top brand in its field; L’Oréal Paris and Kérastase maintained leading positions in the mass-market cosmetics and professional hair care segments, respectively. Additionally, L’Oréal China continued to deepen its omnichannel layout. Online, it ranked first across all e-commerce platforms. Offline, it further intensified penetration, with the Mass-Market Cosmetics, Luxury Products, and Dermatological Beauty divisions collectively opening over 150 new stores. Mass-market brand stores now cover more than 1,700 cities, including all prefecture-level cities and counties. This steady momentum continued into the first quarter of this year, with the Chinese market accelerating to mid-to-high single-digit growth, consistently outpacing the overall market recovery pace.

China’s consumer market is undergoing complex and profound changes, from the coexistence of diverse demands such as “quality-price ratio,” “heart-price ratio,” and “emotional-price ratio,” to the comprehensive penetration of AI into consumer decision-making chains. Multiple variables are accelerating the restructuring of brand growth logic. Facing this new landscape, L’Oréal China Deputy CEO and General Manager of the Luxury Products Division, Ma Xiaoyu, fully affirmed the industry’s growth potential and shared L’Oréal China’s strategic insights around four dimensions — brand, category, channel, and experience — explaining the consumer-centric approach to breaking new ground:

• Building an Excellent Brand Portfolio: Constructing a brand layout covering all categories and price tiers, continuously introducing new brands such as Dr.G, and shaping distinct, consistent “personas” for 33 brands;
• Seizing Omni-Category Opportunities: Leveraging multi-polar advantages to comprehensively deploy in emerging tracks, including exploring the new blue ocean of longevity science, capturing the trend of hair care refinement, and strengthening the high-end fragrance market through a new strategic partnership with Kering Beauté;
• Enhancing Omnichannel Experience: Expanding touchpoints across online and offline diverse scenarios, leveraging AI empowerment to reach broader consumer groups, and optimizing and upgrading consumer experiences through deepened cooperation with professional channels such as medical aesthetics institutions and hair salons;
• Strengthening Consumer Resonance: Integrating brand personas, cultural trends, emotional hotspots, and scene experiences to create distinctive brand activities, building deep cultural connections and emotional resonance with consumers.

Ma Xiaoyu stated: “Facing the complex and ever-changing market evolution, we are more determined to return to the essence of beauty, return to people’s genuine needs, and return to the long-termism of brand, experience, and value — this is both where consumers are headed and where L’Oréal excels. We will always remain consumer-centric, continuously enhancing brand power, experience power, and innovation power to respond to consumers’ escalating expectations for beauty, while inspiring broader audiences’ aspirations and love for beauty.”

Accelerating Innovation-Driven Strategic Transformation, Investing in China to Honor a Beautiful Future

As China embarks on its “15th Five-Year Plan” new journey, L’Oréal will leverage China’s unique advantages in technological innovation and industrial ecosystems, particularly in AI, to continue deepening its presence in China. By increasing investments in R&D, AI capability building, operations, and the ecosystem, L’Oréal will fully accelerate its strategic transformation, building new growth drivers for the future:

• Investing in R&D: Continuously strengthening local R&D capabilities to build the group’s global innovation hub.

• • Through exploring the “Industry-Academia-Research-Medical” co-creation model, the first achievement from the collaboration with Huashan Hospital Dermatology Department — the La Roche-Posay Supramolecular Oil-Control Balancing Toner & Lotion Series — was globally launched for the first time. It pioneers the application of dual-complex supramolecular technology, innovatively developing the “9:8:5*” three-acid golden ratio to achieve acne root elimination and deep oil control, marking the successful transformation of the co-creation model and showcasing Chinese innovation and speed.

• Investing in Technology: Accelerating AI application deployment, deeply empowering the entire beauty value chain.

• • Externally, optimizing end-to-end consumer experiences through Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), intelligent beauty tech, and e-commerce platform co-creation; internally, using AI platforms and tools to drive organizational and employee self-evolution, achieving greater scale, faster speed, and higher agility.

• Investing in Operations: Strengthening manufacturing and operational capabilities in China, while upholding safety and quality, continuously improving scale and speed.

• • This year marks the 30th anniversary of L’Oréal China’s first factory — the Suzhou factory. Through continuous investment and upgrades, this factory has become the group’s largest global production base, fully demonstrating L’Oréal’s firm commitment to deepening its roots in China.
  • Following the launch of the Suzhou Smart Operations Center in 2024, the Nantong Smart Operations Center is planned to start construction in the second half of the year, to better meet the growing demand of the e-commerce market and further support the strategic layout of the Yangtze River Delta.

• Investing in the Ecosystem: Empowering local Chinese beauty brands and tech startups, injecting innovation momentum into the ecosystem.

• • Launching the 2026 BIGBANG Beauty Tech Co-creation Program, exploring the boundaries of “AI+” applications, partnering with startups and the innovation ecosystem to jointly create breakthrough solutions spanning business growth, industry transformation, sensory experiences, and sustainable development, building the future of beauty with “impactful innovation.”

• Investing in a Beautiful Future: Exploring more possibilities of beauty in the AI era, collaborating with all parties to create a more diverse, inclusive, and sustainable future.

• • Empowering Women: Supporting women’s development from multiple dimensions through initiatives like the “Beauty for a Better Life” beauty charity training program. This year, L’Oréal China, in partnership with the China Women’s Development Foundation and the Computer Network Information Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, jointly launched the new “Generation to Generation” Science Girls Empowerment Program, building an intergenerational empowerment chain of “female scientists + young female science and technology workers + science girls,” where outstanding female scientists lead young female science and technology workers to empower middle school science girls, passing the torch of science from generation to generation.

• • Empowering Youth: Through initiatives like the BRANDSTORM youth innovation competition, empowering over 360,000 young people to enhance employability; planning to recruit over 200 management trainees in 2025 to provide high-quality jobs for youth; partnering with collaborators to build a youth-friendly ecosystem, where the “Interesting Youth” project will cultivate future cross-border innovative young talents through two tracks — campus charity sales and beauty tech hackathons — and iconic campus IP activities.
  • Empowering Sustainability: Focusing on three dimensions — sustainable innovation, consumption, and partnerships — will continue to collaborate with brands to promote green practices like refill packs, and will subsequently become a long-term green partner with Ant Group to drive the popularization and practice of sustainable consumption concepts among consumers.

First-Ever Three Thematic Forums, Discussing New Paradigms, Values, and Opportunities of Beauty

Facing the rapidly changing market environment, L’Oréal China upgraded this year’s strategic communication meeting, establishing three thematic forums for the first time. Featuring prominent internal and external guests, the forums focused on “AI for Beauty,” “The Way of Beauty,” and “Consumer as the Priority,” engaging in in-depth discussions aimed at building a forward-looking and leading exchange platform for the consumer industry, jointly addressing unprecedented opportunities and challenges of the era.

• “AI for Beauty” Forum featured L’Oréal North Asia and China Chief Growth Officer and General Manager of L’Oréal Baiku, Huang Bingrong, alongside tech blogger and host of “Random Reading,” Pan Luan, AI-native virtual idol Yuri, and Associate Professor at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs, Fudan University, Jiang Changjian. They engaged in a cross-“species” dialogue, exploring from different dimensions how to build an ideal vision of human-machine collaboration and harmonious coexistence in the AI era.

• “The Way of Beauty” Forum featured L’Oréal North Asia and China Public Affairs President, Lan Zhenzhen, alongside Medical Doctor and Chairman of the China Association of Fragrance Flavour and Cosmetic Industries, Yan Jiangying, Founder of Qin Shuo Circle and Founding Editor-in-Chief of China Business News, Qin Shuo, leading domestic knowledge blogger Zhao Jian, and Professor Jiang Changjian. They discussed core topics such as the authenticity and originality of beauty in the AI era, the diverse values of beauty, and aesthetic education.

• “Consumer as the Priority” Forum featured L’Oréal China Vice President and General Manager of the Mass-Market Cosmetics and Dermatological Beauty Divisions, Ma Lan, alongside former Director and Senior Researcher of the Market Economy Research Institute of the Development Research Center of the State Council, Wang Wei, e-commerce livestreamer Li Jiaqi, and President and CEO of Yinfan Technology, Wang Yang. They engaged in a panel dialogue, deeply analyzing new demands, new demographics, new scenarios, and new models in China’s consumer market.

*9:8:5 : Refers to the addition ratio of gluconolactone, hydroxyethylpiperazine ethane sulfonic acid, and supramolecular salicylic acid (salicylic acid+niacinamide and salicylic acid+betaine) in the formula.