Tupperware Brands Corporation—which owns beauty brands including BeautiControl, Avory Shlain, Armand Dupree, Fuller Cosmetics and Nutrimetics—announced its fourth quarter and full year 2013 operating results. Overall for the company, fourth quarter 2013 net sales were $717 million. Emerging markets, accounting for 63% of sales, achieved a 12% increase in local currency, driven by large populations, greater penetration and emerging middle classes. Established markets were down 5% in local currency, a 3 percentage point improvement over the third quarter.
Rick Goings, the company’s chairman and CEO, commented, “We continued to deliver steady top line growth in the quarter. Focusing on our sales force remains our top priority, as increasing its size is key to delivering consistent growth in our business. We had a meaningful sequential increase in total sellers in the quarter, closing the year with 2.9 million worldwide, a 4% increase over the end of 2012. Worldwide, our local management teams have the expertise to drive strategic initiatives in their business units in order to motivate our sales force, and we achieved a sequential improvement as well in the active seller comparison in the quarter. Even with challenging environmental conditions and macroeconomic factors in several of our emerging markets, as a group, these markets delivered solid sales growth in local currency, being up 12% over last year. An integral part of our “And” story, our established markets, while down in total, improved sequentially versus the prior quarter, and several of these markets reported growth as key strategies caught hold.”
Goings continued, “As we look to 2014, we remain focused on providing a good return to our investors, while continuing to invest at appropriate levels in our business units. Along these lines we’re pleased to announce that based on the strength of our results and management teams around the world, and confidence in our continued growth, our board approved today a 10% increase in our quarterly dividend. We will also continue with our share repurchase program, and anticipate $185 million worth of open-market share repurchases in 2014.”
For the company’s Beauty North America division, there was continued focus on executing and leveraging recently implemented programs. Sales for the segment were down 14% reported and 13% in local currency for the fourth quarter. In line with third quarter, Fuller Mexico sales were down 11% in local currency. There was continued focus on stabilizing and growing sales manager level and total sales force size. Sales force size and activity comparisons were slightly better than third quarter, but sales force productivity was down.
Additionally, BeautiControl sales were down 23%. Sales force size improved through the quarter, but was still down high single digit. Through the engagement of the top end of the sales force, there is a continuing focus on developing a larger and more active sales force and executing on the programs in place for this brand.