We know that, in the past, sales of Kylie Jenner’s coveted Lip Kit series have crashed her site — even “broken Google.” We know that the first group of fans in line for Kylie Cosmetics’ New York City pop-up camped out in 20-degree weather for upwards of 24 hours. What we didn’t know were the company’s actual sales figures, though experts in the beauty, finance and tech spaces estimated Kylie Cosmetics’ worth to be somewhere between $50 and $300 million.
Boy, were they off. In a newly released interview with WWD, the 19-year-old CEO and her CFO/creator Kris Jenner reveal that Kylie Cosmetics has, in fact, reached $420 million in revenue in only 18 months. (Insert low whistle here.) That’s only $80 million less than Estée Lauder-owned Tom Ford Beauty — one of Lauder’s two fastest-growing brands — earned in a decade. All this to say Kylie is killing it. If her company continues on this trajectory, she’ll reach $1 billion in retail sales by 2022 (at which time she’ll be 24).
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Of course, much of the company’s success stems from its founder’s social media clout. Kylie’s 96.4 million (and counting) followers bear eager witness to her every move, product drops included. This is a fact that’s not lost on Kris. “When you talk about advertising and the way businesses and brands are doing their PR and their print ads and the stuff they do — it’s so interesting that the telephone, something that we used just solely for communication, is now responsible for 80 percent of almost everything everyone does,” the momager told WWD. “Especially in this millennial generation of kids who look up to my girls and follow every move that they make on their phone…That translates into some of the sales that we have; we can really track where they are coming from.”
Much of the interview focuses on the future of this very lucrative company. Kylie, who oversees the creative side of things (collections, campaigns, marketing, etc.), speaks of her desire to open brick-and-mortar stores and release a range of concealers and foundations in the near future. “I want to step into that world, which is challenging,” says the wunderkind, who recognizes that it’s far more difficult to produce an inclusive concealer range than it is a nude lipstick line.
Kris, who is in charge of the less sexy (but in this case, still pretty sexy) business end of things, is “already entertaining the idea of a sale,” reports WWD. Beauty execs, try to contain yourselves.
The Kardashian matriarch feels this would be “such a life accomplishment for Kylie.” Said Kris: “If one of the big [global beauty corporations] came along and was to buy Kylie, I think it would be a very exciting time, but also a time for great growth and it would give Kylie a whole new world to create in. The beauty of what the company that does eventually buy Kylie Cosmetics — the benefit they will reap will be the expansion and doing worldwide retail along with the e-commerce…It certainly would be a very proud moment for me because we’ve worked so hard on it. It’s definitely something we eat, breathe and sleep. We’re living makeup.” Oh to live the Life of Kylie.
Read the full interview here.
