Estee Lauder 2011 Annual Report Download - page 9

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*Before charges associated with restructuring activities
Dear Fellow Stockholders,
I am pleased to report that fiscal 2011 was another outstanding year for The Estée Lauder Companies.
Driven by fantastic momentum across our brands, regions and product categories, we made significant
progress against our strategic goals, outperformed the global prestige beauty industry and set many
financial records for our Company. Today, we are more than two years into our strategy and by virtually all
measures have made tremendous strides. As a result of our success, we are extending our strategy for
another year, through fiscal 2014, with even more ambitious goals.
We experienced many outstanding achievements during the past year. First, we grew sales by 13 percent —
three times the growth of global prestige beauty. Additionally, we saw double-digit sales increases
across our largest product categories of skin care and makeup, as well as in our geographic regions. We
had our best year in North America in a decade, achieved prestige beauty leadership in China and became
the leader in skin care in travel retail, the fastest-growing category in one of the fastest-growing prestige
beauty channels. It is clear our strategy is working, we are executing with excellence and we remain focused
on our vision — to be the global leader in prestige beauty: a brand-building powerhouse of unrivaled cre-
ativity and innovation.
Fiscal 2011 milestones* include:
•฀฀Record฀net฀sales฀of฀$8.8฀billion
•฀฀Record฀gross฀margin฀of฀78.1%
•฀Operating฀margin฀of฀13.0%
•฀Record฀net฀earnings฀of฀$743฀million
•฀฀Record฀earnings฀per฀share฀of฀$3.69
•฀Record฀cash฀ow฀from฀operations฀of฀more฀than฀$1฀billion
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