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The Estée Lauder Companies

Beauty Reimagined, From February 2025

To become the best consumer-centric prestige beauty company
Estée Lauder’s ambition

Beauty Reimagined

The Estée Lauder Companies sells prestige skin care, makeup, fragrance, and hair care from more than 20 brands, in about 150 countries and territories, and made $15.0 billion of sales in the year to June 2026. In February 2025 its chief executive, Stéphane de La Faverie, launched Beauty Reimagined, a strategic vision to restore sustainable sales growth and a solid double-digit adjusted operating margin, with five action plan priorities.

Accelerate best-in-class consumer coverage

Put the consumer at the heart of the business, and be present wherever prestige beauty is growing.

  1. 01Channels and marketsRapidly expand the brands’ presence in the high-growth channels, markets, media, and price tiers that consumers prefer.
  2. 02North AmericaDiversify growth across categories and regions in fiscal 2027, including faster growth in North America.

19 August 2026By June 2026, 13 of its brands sold on Amazon across 11 markets, and 12 on TikTok Shop across nine.

19 August 2026M·A·C launched in selected Sephora stores in the US in March 2026, and 33 net new fragrance stores opened in the year.

19 August 2026Organic sales grew in every region in fiscal 2026, led by mainland China.

Estée Lauder expects an adjusted operating margin of 12.7–13.5% in fiscal 2027

The margin fell to 8.0% in fiscal 2025, then rose to 11.2% in fiscal 2026 as the Profit Recovery and Growth Plan cut costs and paid for more consumer-facing investment. Beauty Reimagined aims for a solid double-digit margin.,

11.2%

adjusted operating margin, fiscal 2026

5%10%Fiscal 2027 outlook12.7–13.5%

The bottle is marked from 0% to 15%. The band is the outlook for fiscal 2027.

Fragrance sales grew 10% in fiscal 2026, the fastest of Estée Lauder’s four categories

Skin Care is still the largest, with $7.3 billion of sales, up 4%. Makeup was flat, and Estée Lauder expects it to return to growth in fiscal 2027.

Skin Care$7.3bn+4%Makeup$4.3bn0%Fragrance$2.8bn+10%HairCare$0.6bn−1%

Each compartment is as large in area as the category’s net sales. Growth is organic, excluding currency.

  1. Pay for growth with the savings, and show both.

    Estée Lauder ties its cost programme to its growth plan: in fiscal 2026 consumer-facing investments rose 7% while non-consumer-facing expenses stayed flat. We recommend reporting where savings go as well as how large they are, so that a cost programme reads as investment in growth, not only cuts.

  2. Go where consumers already shop.

    Estée Lauder is taking its brands to Amazon, TikTok Shop, and Sephora. We recommend checking the plan against where customers actually buy today, and treating each new channel as a goal with a count of brands and markets.

  3. Measure innovation by its share of sales.

    Estée Lauder reports that 23% of its fiscal 2026 sales came from innovation. We recommend giving innovation one number like this, so that launches are judged by what customers buy, not by how many there are.

Sources

  1. 1. The Estée Lauder Companies (2025). The Estée Lauder Companies reports fiscal 2025 second quarter results, and launches Beauty Reimagined. Results release, 4 February 2025. sec.gov
  2. 2. The Estée Lauder Companies (2025). The Estée Lauder Companies reports fiscal 2025 results. Results release, 20 August 2025. sec.gov
  3. 3. The Estée Lauder Companies (2026). The Estée Lauder Companies reports fiscal 2026 results. Results release, 19 August 2026. sec.gov
  4. 4. The Estée Lauder Companies (2026). Annual report for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2026. Form 10-K, 19 August 2026. sec.gov

Headwater is not connected with The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. Estée Lauder and its brand names are trade marks of their owners. Updated 5 October 2026.

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