Swedish cosmetic giant enters local market

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By Macharia Kamau

Swedish cosmetics giant, Oriflame, has launched its operations in Kenya. The company is injecting Sh140 million initial capital into the local subsidiary that will import and distribute Oriflame beauty products.

Fred Anderson, the Chairman and Chief Executive of Oriflame East Africa, however, said the company would inject more capital depending on the region’s market dynamics. He said the company would soon launch operations in Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania.

Sales approach

Speaking yesterday at a press briefing ahead of the official launch, Anderson said the company would use its direct sales approach to enter the Kenyan market.

"Oriflame sells its products through an independent sales force outside the traditional retail environment and it has worked in over the 62 countries that we have operations," he said.

The company aims at recruiting between 2,000 and 3,000 sales consultants by the end of the year and 20,000 by the end of next year.

He said the direct sales model minimises the level of counterfeiting of products, even in countries like China where multinationals have been unable to deal with the vice. The company has a portfolio of more than 1,000 products. Anderson said it would be churning out another 300 products every year.

The firm has been able to penetrate emerging markets and is among the first Western companies to venture into the Eastern Europe in the late 1980s after the fall of the Soviet Republic and more recently in Asia. It has five manufacturing plants in Sweden, Poland, Russia, India and China.