Kylie Jenner owns a cosmetics company valued at $900 million and has 175 million followers on social networks.
In the list of world billionaires just announced by Forbes , Kylie Jenner is currently the youngest person. At the age of 21, she was even the youngest self-made billionaire ever, reaching the billion-dollar assets milestone before Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg (then 23 years old). Jenner is the younger half-sister of “Super Butt Kim” – Kim Kardashian, and is also the youngest member of the famous Hollywood family – Kardashian-Jenner.
In 2015, Jenner founded the cosmetics company Kylie Cosmetics. During the first 3 years, they only sold online and in mobile stalls. However, in mid-November last year, she signed an exclusive distribution contract with beauty product retailer Ulta. Thanks to that, Kylie Cosmetics is present in more than 1,000 stores of this chain.
Kylie Jenner – Kim Kardashian’s younger half-sister. Photo: Marie Claire
In just the next six weeks, Kylie Cosmetics sold $54.5 million in products at Ulta, according to Oppenheimer estimates. “I showed up at a few stores, doing things like I usually do on social networks. And it worked,” Kylie said on Forbes.
Kylie Cosmetics’ revenue last year increased 9%, thanks in part to Ulta, to $360 million. At this growth rate, using a multiple typically applied to the booming makeup industry, Forbes estimates Jenner’s company is worth at least $900 million.
Kylie Cosmetics is entirely owned by Jenner. In addition, she also earns money from TV shows and product advertisements. Her total assets are therefore estimated to be up to 1 billion USD. “I didn’t expect anything. I also didn’t foresee the future,” she said, “But the product was accepted quite well. That’s a compliment.”
The highlight of this company is its extremely small costs, and the huge profits fall directly into Jenner’s pocket. Her cosmetics empire has only 7 full-time and 5 part-time employees. Production and packaging are undertaken by Seed Beauty – a company in California. Sales and distribution are handled by the Shopify e-commerce platform. Her mother, Kris, is in charge of finances and advertising.
Marketing activities are done mainly through social networks – where Jenner has a huge number of followers. She directly announces all product information to her 175 million followers on Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. “That’s the power of social media. I have a huge reach before I start doing anything,” she said.
Kylie Jenner took photos with fans at Ulta during the product launch. Photo: ABC13
When Kylie Cosmetics first went on sale at Ulta, customer reactions were no different from the real-life version of the online craze she created a year earlier. At that time, Jenner’s products sold out in less than a minute of being sold online.
The same goes for Ulta stores. In some places, stocks ran out within hours. “The product sold faster than we expected,” said Tara Simon – Ulta’s senior vice president of merchandising.
Ulta and Jenner are a pretty reasonable combination. Ulta sells both high-end and affordable products, so it has a large presence. Kylie Cosmetics’ target audience is young customers – people who may not have credit cards to buy online. Besides, selling in stores will give Jenner the opportunity to “reach people who don’t want to buy online because they want to see and experience the products firsthand.”
However, their revenue growth has slowed recently. In just one year after launch, Kylie Cosmetics earned 307 million USD. However, the growth rate in 2017 and 2018 was only single digits, Forbes estimates, even though they launched up to 30 products in 2017.
Jenner didn’t seem too worried. Currently, she is still focused on expanding product lines, and bringing more items to Ulta. “I see Kylie Cosmetics going very far. And I’ve been working very hard,” Jenner said.
