- Share
- Tweet
MUMBAI: L’Oréal is giving its India strategy a fresh makeover, and the new look is as much about local content and faster deliveries as it is about skincare. The French beauty major is seeing a turnaround in the country, driven by stronger local teams, more India-specific content and an intensified push into e-commerce, including quick commerce, as it looks to accelerate growth across South Asia, Pacific, Middle East and North Africa (SAPMENA).
Speaking during L’Oréal’s third-quarter 2026 earnings call, chief executive Nicolas Hieronimus said India was performing well, with the company stepping up efforts to create content specifically for local consumers and adapting its commerce strategy to changing shopping habits.
“We create for India much more than we did before,” Hieronimus said, adding that L’Oréal was accelerating its commerce strategy, particularly quick commerce, which he described as an important part of India’s e-commerce market.
The emphasis marks a broader shift in how beauty brands compete for attention and sales. Product launches and advertising remain important, but the ability to speak to local consumers through relevant content and make products available on the platforms they use is increasingly central to growth. For L’Oréal, the task is to bring those elements together in a market where digital discovery and rapid delivery are changing the path from browsing to buying.
India’s improving performance comes as SAPMENA delivered 20 per cent growth in the September quarter. L’Oréal said it was outperforming the regional beauty market by approximately 1.6 to 1.7 times and gaining market share across countries and divisions. Hieronimus attributed the momentum to favourable market conditions, better execution and continued investment in digital capabilities.
For the company, India’s progress is part of a wider regional effort to strengthen local market execution rather than rely on a uniform global playbook. More locally created content, sharper digital marketing and distribution through emerging commerce channels are becoming important tools in that strategy.
Skincare is another part of the growth equation. L’Oréal is expanding its dermatological beauty portfolio in India, with CeraVe growing from a relatively small base and entering new cities. It has also launched La Roche-Posay in the country, giving the group two brands positioned at different price points within the skincare category.
“India is one of the countries where CeraVe is still a baby brand, but growing fast and expanding to new cities,” Hieronimus said.
He added that La Roche-Posay, positioned at a higher price point, had also been launched in India. Together, the brands form part of L’Oréal’s broader effort to build its presence in dermatological skincare, while addressing consumers at different stages of the market’s development and across distinct price segments.
The expansion reflects the wider importance of dermatological beauty to the group. Hieronimus said the category was growing at close to 10 per cent globally, while L’Oréal’s Dermatological Beauty division was growing at approximately 1.5 times the market in sell-out. Its key brands, La Roche-Posay, CeraVe and SkinCeuticals, were all recording double-digit growth, according to the company.
Although CeraVe and La Roche-Posay are at different stages of development in India, their expansion gives L’Oréal an opportunity to build awareness and distribution across a category that is contributing to its global growth. The challenge will be to turn that momentum into sustained demand as the brands enter more cities and reach new consumers.
The company is also looking at how digital platforms are changing the way beauty products are discovered and purchased. Quick commerce offers one route to improving product access, particularly for consumers who want items delivered quickly rather than wait for a conventional online order. L’Oréal’s comments indicate that it sees the channel as an increasingly important part of India’s evolving e-commerce landscape.
However, the strategy extends beyond simply making products available online. Content creation is emerging as a crucial part of the equation, particularly as beauty brands compete for visibility across social networks and digital storefronts. Locally relevant content can help brands connect with consumers, while commerce platforms can provide a more direct route from product discovery to purchase.
Hieronimus pointed to Indonesia as an example of how L’Oréal has adapted to competition from independent beauty brands on TikTok. The company restructured its content production to become more competitive on social platforms, helping it accelerate growth in that market.
Artificial intelligence is also playing a growing role in the process. Hieronimus said AI was helping the company produce multiple variations of content to meet the requirements of different social networks and platforms. The technology is also being used to improve how advertising spending is allocated across channels and formats.
L’Oréal uses its Beta IQ tool to support media allocation, drawing on AI and data to improve the efficiency of marketing investments. For a company operating across multiple brands, markets and digital platforms, the ability to tailor content and optimise spending can help make campaigns more responsive to local consumer behaviour.
While Indonesia illustrates how the company is responding to social commerce competition, India’s strategy places particular emphasis on locally created content and quick commerce. The common thread is a move towards more market-specific execution, with digital tools helping L’Oréal adapt how it markets and sells products.
SAPMENA’s performance provides the wider backdrop to these efforts. Alongside India’s improving momentum, Vietnam continued to perform well, Thailand accelerated and Indonesia staged a turnaround supported by stronger digital execution. The Middle East performed somewhat better than anticipated despite the crisis in the region.
Hieronimus said the region’s beauty market was growing at a double-digit rate, with L’Oréal gaining share across countries and divisions. The company remains ambitious about sustaining SAPMENA’s momentum in the final quarter of the year.
At the global level, L’Oréal reported adjusted like-for-like sales growth of 7.7 per cent in the <a href="https://bitcomme.com/qualys-to-report-third-quarter-2026-financial-results-on-november-9-2026/" title="Qualys to Report Third Quarter 2026 Financial Results on November 9, 2026″>third quarter of 2026. Hieronimus said the global beauty market grew by approximately 5 per cent during the period, with the company outperforming across most categories, divisions and regions.
Europe and SAPMENA were the company’s first- and second-largest contributors to growth during the quarter, respectively. Sales increased in all regions except Latin America, underlining the breadth of the group’s performance.
Looking ahead, L’Oréal expects the global beauty market to grow by around 5 per cent in the fourth quarter. The company said it expects to outperform the market, although at a more moderate rate than in the third quarter. Hieronimus also expressed confidence that the group would deliver a significant acceleration in full-year sales growth compared with the previous year.
The year-end selling season will bring another test of the strategy, with the company preparing to support its brands through product launches, advertising and consumer engagement. The combination of local content, wider skincare distribution and faster digital commerce is intended to strengthen its ability to reach consumers when and where they shop.
For India, the direction is becoming clearer: build brands for local consumers, expand their availability and make digital marketing work harder. Quick commerce may shorten the distance between a beauty need and a purchase, but sustained growth will depend on whether local relevance, brand appeal and distribution can turn that convenience into lasting consumer demand.
