Estee Lauder Companies Inc (NYSE:EL) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

But certainly, in terms of the business fundamentals, the growth, we would expect obviously more margin expansion that is in our normal algorithm for fiscal ’24 because of the recovery of volume. And obviously, when you’re down in volume as we are this year, as much as we protect the strategic investments, but also make choiceful discretionary investments as well. Volume solves a lot of sins. And so we would expect more leverage on our expense base next year, certainly than we’re able to get this year. practically because of the volume trends and as well as the shocks in terms of those hits have occurred and how fast we can react to them. So again, we are expecting a certainly progressive fiscal ’24. And with all of the things that we spoke about in the prepared remarks as it relates to the investments that we made that will come online, we’ll have a new factory operational in Asia that will make our time to market shorter, will have the new innovation center, which will start to contribute to the development of product for us in the future, et cetera.

So all of those things that we said in the prepared marks should also support the acceleration of growth in fiscal ’24. Now for your travel — or more on your travel retail question, I’ll turn it to Fabrizio.

Fabrizio Freda : Yes. Thank you, Tracey. Also, I want to add on the margin thing is the first step of normalization of our margin that Tracey is describing on top of volume is also — will depend on which volume. Because, obviously, if you assume that the normalization of business would be in travel retail in China, then you are assuming that the normalization will be in skin care that tend to be higher margin. So there will be a moment of recovery and normalization. And then from there, we will restart our normal algorithm. And obviously, we will see how the normalization trends evolve and how long they will take. But that will be the way we will move back — in terms of the travel retail question, stress clarified before and then even more during coded.

But the — you are asking about the — what are the key dynamics in that retail. So the dynamics in fiber details will be, first of all, Hainan is now established. And yes, I said that when the international travel of the Chinese consumers will restart, Heinen will not be cannibalized in a big way is Hainan is now well-established vacation place for Chinese, for internal travel is, yes, there are different target groups. The high-end travel is obviously more affordable, easy does require visa doesn’t require a passport, by the way. Keep in mind that at least before COVID, I do not have the last information now that everything is changing on the Visa model. But before Covis less than 20% of Chinese had a passport. And so there is anyway 80% of Chinese debt will go to Hainan and they will not travel internationally in this model.

So Hainan will continue and will continue to develop. The addition will be the international charter, which is coming back. in an important way. And then obviously, the Korea and rest of Asia, so Korea has always been a very big business. But as you know, Hong Kong, Macau, Japan were all very important travel retail businesses that now will improve. And so there will be different levels of growth, obviously, in all of this. Now in term of categories, the — because of the prevalence of Chinese consumer Asia travelers in general, as percentage of the total global travel retail, skin care is a very important category. So the travel retail acceleration in the future will carry, as I was saying before, skin care. And so this will be a double positive impact on marginality and profitability is that combination is powerful.