Strengthening Decorté: Kosé Corp aims to revitalise brand with new serum and online initiatives

Founded in 1970, Decorté Cosmetics is a cosmetics brand under Kosé’s high prestige beauty portfolio, which also consists of brands including Jill Stuart and ADDICTION.

To capitalise on the potential of Decorté, Kosé has announced a series of initiatives to boost the brand globally.

Coming September, the company will mark the debut of a revamped version of Decorté’s Liposome serum.

“For the first time since its launch in 1992, Decorté is renewing its Liposome serum, which is synonymous with the brand, as Liposome Advanced Repair Serum. In addition to its conventional efficacy, the serum will be reborn to meet the needs of anti-ageing care, which has been growing very rapidly in the market in recent years,”​ said Shinichi Mochizuki director and CFO of Kosé.

The new product will first go on sale in Japan from September 16 this year, and then in China and other global markets in January 2022.

The company plans to use the launch of the Liposome serum to ignite interest in Decorté and improve its position in the market.

“We plan to use the September launch of an updated line of Liposome Advanced Repair Serum, which is a Decorté product, as an opportunity to switch to a more aggressive posture in Japan,” ​said Mochizuki.

The company will dedicate 2022 to strengthening the Liposome brand in order to drive ‘rapid growth of sales’​ worldwide.

Furthermore, the company will also launch Decorté’s e-commerce platform which is scheduled to begin trial operations in September this year.

Additionally, the company plans to launch the Decorté Personal Beauty Concierge, an online beauty counselling service performed by its beauty consultant. This service is slated for launch on September 16.

Earlier in March, the brand partnered with Perfect Corp to launch an artificial intelligence-based skin care diagnostic technology for the North American market.

Q1 strong showing

In the first quarter of its 2021 fiscal year, Decorté recorded a strong showing. Kosé reported that global sales of the brand were up 20% from the previous year to JPY20.6bn.

Despite the COVID-19 disruptions, the brand recorded higher sales in Japan and China after experiencing a downturn in 2020.

However, the brand saw a sales decline in South Korea, where the company was affected by an insufficient supply of products which affected sales.

This impacted the brand’s performance considerably. Taking this into account, the brand’s first-quarter sales grew a modest 17%.

Aside from South Korea, the brand’s overseas sales were strong and now accounts for over 77% of total sales.

Thanks to Decorté’s strong performance in Japan and China, the firm’s cosmetics business maintained its operating profit margin of 13% from the year before.

Overall, Kosé’s net sales were up 2.7% in the first quarter while operating profit nearly tripled due to increased sales and company-wide cost controls.