Nivea profits down 20 percent, no definitive green shots in sight

For the manufacturer of care products Beiersdorf, the company behind level, among other things, the first six months of the corona pandemic did not go as smoothly as usual. Especially the sales of its more exclusive brands went down sharply, now that there are hardly any travellers at airports visiting tax-free shops. This affected profits and turnover, for example, on Thursday it was possible to find out from a company trade message.

Beiersdorf saw the company’s profits plummet by 20 percent over this period to EUR 472 million, compared to EUR 593 million a year ago. The autonomous turnover decreased by about 11% to 3.4 million euros compared to a year earlier.

Nivea counted almost 9 percent less sales. The patch branch had to record a fall in turnover of almost 8 percent. On the other hand, the Derma branch, which includes the Eucerin hand cream brand, did well again and grew more than 6%. Most expensive product branch La Prairie, where a game of Day Cream costs almost 200 euros, was the most burdened by the lack of international travel, and noted a decline of almost 42 percent. Sales in the self-adhesive product branch Tesa, such as double-sided tape, plummeted by 11 percent.

Stefan De Loecker describes 2020 as an “extremely turbulent year” in which the company suffers a great deal from the coronacrisis.

“The entire facial care market has fallen significantly and as a result we felt the effects on sales quite clearly this first half of the year.”

The company invests EUR 50 million in an international aid programme for “the long-term struggle against Covid-19”.

“The pandemic is unfortunately not over and the situation remains extremely volatile.”

For the rest of this year, the company expects less sales for both the consumer line and the self-adhesive products and a significantly lower profit margin compared to 2019.