Shiseido Announces Joint Venture in Turkey

Shiseido Co., Ltd has established Shiseido Kozmetik Anonim Şirketi (Shiseido Turkey, located in Istanbul, Turkey) as a joint venture with major Turkish cosmetics import and sales distributor Vesco Kosmetik Ürünleri Paz. ve Tic. Ltd. Sti. Operations of the new company will commence from January 2012. With Shiseido possessing a majority equity stake in the joint venture, the company will become a consolidated subsidiary of Shiseido, and global brand Shiseido prestige cosmetics products commonly developed worldwide by Shiseido will be sold.

Shiseido is currently promoting a 10-year road map, established in 2008, with the aim of becoming a global player representing Asia with its origins in Japan by 2017. The overseas sales ratio for the previous term (fiscal year ended March 2011) increased to 42.9% and the number of countries and regions in which Shiseido operates its global business is expanding to 87 countries and regions, including Japan.

Shiseido entered the Turkish market in 1998 through an agreement with Vesco, a distributor that the company has formed a partnership at this time. Based on an amicable partnership with the company for more than 10 years, Shiseido has been promoting prestige marketing similar to European markets. As a result, the sales network of Shiseido cosmetics products has been expanded to approximately 170 stores and has steadily achieved sales growth.

At the same time, in terms of Turkey’s economy, demand for cosmetics products is expanding due to the expansion of domestic consumption accompanied by the population’s extremely young average age of approximately 29.2 years along with a rise in income. Consequently, the prestige cosmetics market is expected to continue to achieve high growth in the future. Therefore, in order to further strengthen its presence in the market, Shiseido decided to establish a joint venture with Vesco, which has an outstanding proven track record in terms of sales know-how of prestige cosmetics.

Based on the existing sales network up to the present, Shiseido Turkey will promote initiatives by placing priority on expanding in-store share. Shiseido will also seek to bolster its presence at storefronts and to enhance the quality of counseling through omotenashi (“spirit of hospitality”) by augmenting the training of beauty consultants, who are designated as Shiseido’s strength. Additionally, promotional efforts will be carried out strategically with the aim of penetrating brand value and acquiring new regular customers. Through these initiatives, Shiseido Turkey will aim to achieve double-digit growth or higher on an average growth rate basis, while also striving to quickly establish a strong position in the prestige cosmetics market.

In recent years, Shiseido has been promoting initiatives to strengthen its business scheme. Specifically, the company commenced operations by establishing wholly owned sales companies in Russia in 2008 and Vietnam and Switzerland in 2010, as well as by launching business operations in Greece by establishing a joint sales company with a local leading distributor in 2010. Shiseido has devised the New Frontier Strategy under its current three-year plan (April 2011–March 2014) and is seeking to strengthen its response toward emerging countries as a means of developing the next growth engine following China. The company has entered several new markets as of late, including Mongolia, South Africa, Georgia, Colombia, Moldova, Panama, Armenia and Belarus.

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