L'Oreal's Chief Executive Jean-Paul Agon told CNBC Wednesday that he sees no slowdown facing Chinese consumers, despite simmering trade tensions between Beijing and Washington.
"In terms of consumption, at least in our categories ... we don't see any slowdown in the country," Agon told CNBC's Joumanna Bercetche. "What we see is a great appetite of Chinese consumers. There is also more and more income that has to be spent."
He said the company was seeing a "premiumization" in the Chinese market, meaning consumers "not only want to buy more products, but they want also higher quality products, better products, more expensive products, which is extremely positive."
Agon added that L'Oreal was not seeing any direct inflation pressures resulting from the U.S.-China trade war. The two countries have been engaged in a tense sparring of tariffs, targeting billions worth of goods flowing into each other's markets. A recent report said that the U.S. was planning a new round of tariffs targeting the remaining $257 billion worth of Chinese imports to prepare for the possible event that neither countries reach a trade agreement.
"We are seeing here and there some increases, but with the level of growth margin that we have, it's not going to impact very materially our business."