On Monday, The Estée Lauder Companies reported a 7% net sales growth to $3.7 billion for the first quarter of fiscal year 2027. Three of its four categories saw sales increase during the period, but fragrance drove the lion’s share.
Fragrance net sales rose 20% in Q1 2027, driven by luxury brands like Tom Ford, Le Labo and Kilian Paris. Skin-care net sales, meanwhile, increased 4%. Makeup sales grew 1%, with increased sales from MAC and a decline in the Estée Lauder brand, while hair-care sales were flat.
“What is new is really what we’ve committed to go after, also the prestige price tier,” said Stéphane de La Faverie, ELC president and CEO. “In the East, there’s a high penetration of luxury fragrances, and we’ve always performed very well. We’ve demonstrated again strong share gain in China, in Korea, in Japan. But on the other hand, in the West, the large majority of France business is still done in the prestige price tier, which we haven’t really captured our fair share [of] over the past few years.”
De La Faverie said the company is banking on launches like Estée Lauder Glimmer, launched in August, and Destin De Balmain, launched in February, to boost its share of the prestige fragrance category. But it is also betting on TikTok Shop as an emerging retail channel for fragrance.
“We are seeing still younger consumers gravitating towards this category, thanks to platforms like TikTok Shop, [where] we are seeing a lot more activity in fragrance, and we are participating into it,” said de La Faverie. “We’ve launched many of our brands on TikTok Shop, and you’ll see more activity going forward.”
The cosmetics giant continues to grow on emerging online channels like TikTok Shop. According to its earnings report, the company now has 13 brands across 17 markets on Amazon, and 15 brands across 11 markets on TikTok Shop. According to de La Faverie, MAC’s U.S. TikTok Shop sales have “more than doubled” from its launch in 2025.
As it continues to implement its “Beauty Reimagined” turnaround plan, the company is also investing in artificial intelligence. In September, the company announced a partnership with AI marketing platform Profound to optimize how its brands appear across AI platforms.
“We are also continuing to advance ‘One ELC,’ the work underway across our operating ecosystem,” said Akhil Shrivastava, ELC’s evp and CFO. “This enables superior consumer experiences, greater speed, simpler processes and improved productivity. This can be seen in a Shopify deployment and the partnering with Profound, an AI marketing platform bringing global insights into how our brands appear across AI platforms.”
