Shiseido Co. plans to cut by half the number of products it introduces in Japan and spend more on marketing as the cosmetics giant reviews its strategy amid declining domestic sales.
"We've relied too much on new products," President Hisayuki Suekawa said in an interview Thursday at the company's headquarters in Tokyo. "Our sales have been L-shaped, with a spike after the initial introduction and a plunge after a while. We need to change that."
The number of new products Shiseido releases every year may fall to as few as 250 from as many as 600, Suekawa said. Japan's largest cosmetics maker, which gets about 57 percent of its sales at home, plans to boost spending on domestic marketing by ¥7 billion this fiscal year, which will squeeze operating profit, he said.