Fragrances in South Africa

PRE-COVID-19 PERFORMANCE

The struggling economy leads to volume decline for most premium categories

Fragrances maintained strong current value growth in 2019, although the growth rate growth was nowhere near the double-digit levels seen earlier in the review period. Cash-strapped South African consumers had to adjust to the weak economic circumstances towards the end of the review period, including decreasing GDP growth and disposable incomes, increasing inflation and utility bills, as well as rising unemployment.

Rising demand for miniature fragrances due to the lower unit cost

Miniature perfume sets have been extended to include more fragrance lines across both mass and premium brands. These products take account of the needs of lower-income consumers, who might otherwise be lost as customers due to the lack of affordability of bigger packs of fragrances.

The Prestige Cosmetics Group maintains its lead despite counterfeits

Thanks to becoming the licensed distributor of multiple international brands, The Prestige Cosmetics Group retained its leadership of fragrances in value terms in 2019. Dolce and Gabbana (D&G) fragrances are locally distributed by the company, and continued to see good performances in 2019 despite a tough year for the category.

2020 AND BEYOND

COVID-19 impact

Fragrances is now expected to decline by 1% in 2020 in 2019 constant value terms in light of the impact of COVID-19. This compares to an expected 3% rise forecast for 2020 during research conducted at the end of 2019, before the spread of COVID-19.

Affected products within fragrances

In 2020, overall fragrances is expected to see a drop in demand due to COVID-19. However, whilst premium fragrances is expected to see only a marginally worse current value growth rate than mass fragrances, the volume declines are expected to be much stronger in the premium segment.

Recovery and opportunities

After the expectation of a worse performance than previously forecast in 2020 due to COVID-19, very little recovery is expected for fragrances in the rest of the forecast period. Most of this is likely to be due to the continuing economic problems in the country, which are set to be worsened by the cost of measures taken to control the virus.

Files are delivered directly into your account within a few minutes of purchase.