‘India will be the consumer acquisition market for us’

However, the SAPMENA region’s contribution to the group’s turnover is significantly lower than markets such as North Asia, including China, Japan and South Korea.

In an interview, Sharma said the intent is to bridge this gap between the population weight and the turnover weight of the SAPMENA region. Edited excerpts:

What’s the intent behind expanding sales in SAPMENA?

In terms of the population, it is the largest (zone) and we have markets such as India and Indonesia, the second largest, and the fourth largest populous countries in the world. The ambition very clearly is to bridge this gap between the population weight and the turnover weight.

If you’ve seen our half-year results, there’s a big gap between this population and the turnover representation at the moment and our intention is to bridge that gap. (In the first half of 2021, the SAPMENA region contributed €1.09 billion in sales. The group’s sales in the same period was €15.19 billion.)

What is your mandate for India?

India will be, first and foremost, the consumer acquisition market for us. That’s the place that is going to drive the most amount of consumer acquisition within SAPMENA and, potentially, within the L’Oreal Group. The second thing is this incredible resourcefulness that India displays. India has this capacity of finding very innovative, resourceful solutions to problems and challenges. The third thing is that India can be a very important talent pool. Because of the high quality of education, the entrepreneurial spirit of people, because of the large population, by default, India creates a large number of very enterprising and capable managers, who can work within SAPMENA and within L’Oreal everywhere in the world.

The pandemic has led to stress in supply chains. Is the group shifting investments closer to markets of consumption?

In terms of global supply chains, there have been pressures… in some categories, it is significantly higher, such as the automobile sector. In our case, I think it is far less because the sourcing is a lot more diversified… In India, in particular, we have two plants, we have subcontracting relationships. That is sufficient for the Indian market and, at least for the short term, we do not see the need for investment.

India is throwing up lots of direct-to-consumer beauty brands. Will you make any acquisitions or investments?

India has been ripe for acquisitions for a while. Acquisitions take place when us and the promoters feel there is a good synergy. Whatever we are acquiring complements our current portfolio. If all of those things come together, we never shy away. We are constantly looking for opportunities every market in the world.