L'Oreal's alluring number: 1 billion

In 2004, L'Oreal bought the highly successful local brand Yue-Sai, founded 20 years earlier by the Chinese-American TV celebrity Yue-Sai Kan, and it has been reaping the rewards ever since.

In September a new Yue-Sai product, Cordyceps Rejuvenate, containing a highly prized fungal ingredient said to help combat the first signs of aging, went on the market.

L'Oreal has also discerned a wider public acceptance of the benefits of Chinese traditional medicine, and is exploiting that.

"We work with labs to see what ingredients from Chinese medicine are really effective on the skin," Perakis-Valat says. "Yue-Sai has experience of over 20 years of dedicated and in-depth study of Chinese skin fundamentals, and we are very satisfied with the performance of the brand."

The company also attributes its achievements in China to the talent of its Chinese staff. Of its 3,000 employees in the country, less than 1 percent are foreigners, the company says.

"The future of our success relies on products and people. Besides providing quality and diverse products, we are very focused on recruiting and developing great Chinese people, training them, sending them abroad, etc," Perakis-Valat says.

L'Oreal's presence in China includes two manufacturing plants, a management development center for talent development, an Asian-Pacific Operation Division and a research and innovation center dedicated to understanding and serving the needs of Chinese and Asian consumers.

Last year, the company announced it was investing 200 million yuan to turn its plant in Yichang, Hubei province, into the group's largest make-up production center in Asia. At the same time, it created a consumer care center in Shanghai, the first of its kind in the industry, to upgrade consumer service.

In a way, those developments reflect the sea change in China since L'Oreal first arrived in the country 14 years ago. At that time, seeing a woman with makeup was a rarity. L'Oreal built its business in the country by convincing women of the need to do more than just hydrate their skin, and these days even men are getting into the act.

But as L'Oreal toils away to attract those one billion consumers worldwide, Perakis-Valat insists the work must go on.

"We have to cope with the pace and understand the changes, and then, being very fast in coming up with solutions to fill these needs."

yaojing@chinadaily.com.cn