Nigeria’s cosmetic market hits N1tr turnover, records 14.5% growth

The value of Nigeria’s cosmetic retail sales grew by an average of 14.5 per cent last year and added hundreds of billions of naira to the economy, a report by Euromonitor has stated.

The report was shared by the President of the Society of Cosmetic Scientists of Nigeria (NICOS), Grace Abamba at the organisation’s yearly conference in Lagos.

The report reveals that hair and oral care led the performance with 17 per cent growth, while bath/shower was sat on the bottom at eight per cent yearly growth.

The report covers 11 sub-categories of cosmetics, including mass beauty/personal care, skincare, hair care, deodorants, bath/shower and men’s grooming. Others are baby care, oral care, fragrances, premium beauty/personal care and sun care.

The sector recorded a turnover of N1.034 trillion in the year with mass beauty/personal care controlling 45.5 per cent or N470 billion in absolute figures. Skincare followed with N128 billion.

Hair care, deodorants and bath/shower also recorded outstanding performance pooling between N70 and N100 billion in turnover.

Abamba attributed the growth of rising population, urbanisation, expansion of modern retailing, adoption of natural products and popularity of local products. She added that COVID-19 has raised personal care and hygiene among many Nigerians.

“We have seen double-digit growth in most categories except bath and shower slowing down with falling sales of sanitizers. We look forward to seeing some innovation in this category. The premium category also experienced slowing growth where consumers are struggling with rising prices and so are looking for more affordable options.

“The sun care category is very interesting where people want to look after their skin. Just because we have more melanin in our skin, we still need to protect it from the sun. The retail sales value of Sun care, like colour cosmetics, is now worth N1 billion,” Abamba said.

She said the society was ready to work with relevant government agencies, including SON and NAFDAC, to standardise the industry and make it a growth catalyst.

“It is a really important industry in terms of health and wellbeing, so we want to talk about how we build the future in terms of safety quality and we want to be on the world stage,” she said.

Vice President, NICOS, Olusola Ojo, said one of the objectives of the society was to create awareness of international standards so that the local cosmetics industry could compete on the global scene.

“That’s what we’re doing by creating awareness, the right education and making people realize that local researches are being recognized internationally and so being able to put us Nigerians; formulators, business owners on the global map.

“To create that international standard for them to know what’s happening in the global scene to position their products to meet up with international best practices and also give us better opportunity to compete” Ojo stated.