PARIS – L’Oréal stock rose sharply Thursday morning, a day after the beauty giant reported first-quarter results that broadly beat consensus.
At 10:10 a.m. CET Thursday, L’Oréal stock was trading up 8.7 percent to 374.85 euros.
“Its beauty stimulus plan is resulting in even stronger share gains even in volatile times,” Warren Ackerman, an analyst at Barclays, said in a research note. “A clear winner in staples.”
As reported, in the three months ended March 31, L’Oréal’s group sales reached 12.15 billion euros, a rise of 3.6 percent on a reported basis. They increased 7.6 percent in like-for-like terms and 6.7 percent on an adjusted like-for-like basis.
The maker of Yves Saint Laurent, Kiehl’s, Vichy and SkinCeuticals products outpaced Bloomberg consensus of a 3.5 percent increase by about 0.5 percent, when numbers were adjusted for the impact of the IT transformation in the first quarter of 2026.
Yves Saint Lauren Libre Eau de Parfum
Courtesy of Sephora
Company results outpaced consensus in the U.S., China and Europe. Division-wise, Professional Products and Dermatological Beauty also posted particularly strong gains.
“This is a strong performance, especially in the context of peers struggling with demand [year to date],” opined Jefferies equity analyst David Hayes.
Deutsche Bank highlighted L’Oréal’s hedging policy for its non-euro sales on a rolling 12-month basis.
“This means the sell-in prices are based on FX rates of 12 [months] ago, which would have given the company a significant advantage against less hedged peers,” wrote Tom Sykes, an equity research analyst at Deutsche Bank, in a note. “This benefit should lessen going forward and we would expect the company to have to increase price to compensate, possibly before COGS [or cost of goods sold] increases.”
