The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. (ELC) has reported financial results for its first quarter 2018 ended September 30, 2017. The beauty giant achieved net sales of $3.27 billion, an increase of 14%, compared with $2.87 billion in the prior-year quarter.

The news comes after the company just announced new leadership appointments.

Incremental sales from their recent acquisitions of Too Faced and BECCA contributed approximately 4 percentage points of the reported sales growth. Net earnings rose 45% to $427 million, compared with $294 million last year. Diluted net earnings per common share increased 44% to $1.14, compared with $.79 reported in the prior year.
 
Fabrizio Freda, president and CEO, said, “We delivered an outstanding financial performance in our fiscal 2018 first quarter, demonstrating the power of our diverse brand portfolio to leverage our multiple engines of growth. Building on the global momentum of the last fiscal year, we benefitted from a continued acceleration in China, Hong Kong, travel retail and global online, strength in several developed and emerging markets in Europe, and incremental sales from Too Faced and BECCA.”
 
Freda went on: “Our online and travel retail channels and most luxury and mid-sized brands posted double-digit sales gains. In addition, we saw encouraging signs of improvement in some U.S. prestige department stores, and our targeted expansion into more specialty-multi doors to reach new consumers continued to help us gain share. Sales growth in the Estée Lauder brand continued to accelerate, generating double-digit gains in the quarter. Our earnings per share reflected the strong sales gains combined with our success in leveraging those sales through cost saving initiatives, efficiencies and continued financial discipline.
 
“For the full fiscal year, our forecast reflects strong programs supported by focused advertising and marketing spending and sustained investments to further build capabilities for the long term. With this strong start to fiscal 2018 and our confidence in the potential for our business, we are raising our full-year constant currency sales growth forecast to between 8% and 9% and increasing our constant currency earnings per share growth estimate, before restructuring charges, to 12% to 14%.”
 
Excluding the impact of foreign currency translation, adjusted net sales increased 13%. For the quarter, the positive impact of foreign currency translation on diluted net earnings per common share was $.02.