Avon's latest quarterly report: net sales fell 17% year-on-year

We continued to implement the transformation strategy in the third quarter, further improving productivity, operating profit margin and free cash flow. On October 31, Avon, an old American Beauty Group, released key financial data for the third quarter of fy19f. Influenced by the company's strategic transformation measures, Avon's net sales in the third quarter fell 17% to US $1.18 billion year on year, and its net profit fell 6% to US $106.6 million year on year. "We continued to implement the transformation strategy in the third quarter, further improving productivity, operating profit margin and free cash flow," said Jan zijderveld, CEO of Avon. We want to make our business more robust, sustainable and profitable. " In the third quarter, Avon implemented a price increase strategy for its products in various departments. The average price combination increased by 9% year-on-year, the free cash flow increased by 4 times to US $64.8 million year-on-year, and the adjusted operating profit margin doubled to 6% year-on-year. At the same time, Avon continued to strengthen its investment in digital marketing, social media and opinion leaders in the quarter.

Miguel Fernandez, Avon's global president, said in a conference call: "we have been trying to strengthen digital channels so that consumers in all regions of the world can buy at any time and any place. Avon has launched a school of bloggers training service specifically for the brand micro influencers to help them expand their social influence and attract younger generation users through these small opinion leaders. " In recent years, Avon group is in a very difficult situation. As early as December 2015, Avon transferred 80.1% of its North American subsidiary to its largest investor, private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management LP. In March 2016, Avon announced plans to cut 2500 jobs worldwide in three years to reduce operating costs. In 2018, one of the group's shareholders, Barrington capital group, a radical investor, joined hands with Shah capital, Barrington capital group, LP & nuorion partners to form a shareholder group to send a letter to the board of directors, asking for financial advisers to explore strategic options, including partial or complete sale of the company. In May 2018, Avon sold its business in Japan to Ginza stefany, a Japanese subsidiary of LG, a Korean consumer goods and beauty products company, for us $96 million. In September 2018, Avon announced that it would merge its U.S. operations into the New York state of buffern and planned to sell its factory in rye, New York. In January this year, Avon group sold all its shares in the beauty products manufacturing business in Guangzhou, China to face shop, a subsidiary of LG, with a transaction price of US $44 million. In May this year, Avon reached an agreement with Brazilian beauty giant natura & Co, which will exchange 0.3 shares of natura for 1 share of Avon to acquire all shares of Avon group. The deal is expected to be completed by early 2020.