Sugar Cosmetics FY23 revenue jumps 89% to Rs 420 crore, net loss stays flat

Omnichannel beauty retailer Sugar Cosmetics reported an 89% year-on-year rise in its revenue from operations for FY23 to Rs 420 crore, even as its net loss remained flat around Rs 76 crore.

The Mumbai-based company’s total expenses rose 68% on year to Rs 505 crore in FY23, primarily due to higher spending for purchases of stock-in-trade, according to regulatory filings sourced from Tofler.

During the year under review, Sugar Cosmetics expanded its offline presence significantly and nearly doubled its store count to around 200 in the twelve months to June 2023.


For digital-first retail brands, offline expansion entails storing higher quantities of inventories, leading to increased expenditure on stock purchases.

Sugar Cosmetics, founded by Vineeta Singh and Kaushik Mukherjee in 2015, started off as an online-first direct-to-consumer (D2C) beauty brand and later expanded into offline channels.

The company’s advertising spend also increased 67% on year in FY23 to Rs 162 crore – almost 38% of its operating revenue.

In November, the company had said it was on track to hit profitability by the end of the ongoing fiscal year.

In April 2022, it raised $50 million in a round led by L Catterton, with existing investors A91 Partners, Elevation Capital and India Quotient also participating.

Sugar Cosmetics competes in the beauty and personal care space with the likes of Mamaearth parent Honasa Consumer, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority-backed omnichannel beauty retailer Purplle, GIC and ChrysCapital-backed Wow Skin Science and a number of other smaller D2C companies.

The revenue growth clocked by Sugar Cosmetics mirrors a trend witnessed by other beauty and personal care companies in the last financial year.

A91 Partners and Unilever Ventures-backed D2C beauty brand Plum reported a 71% rise in FY23 revenue to Rs 322 crore. Similarly, Purplle saw its operating revenue double to Rs 475 crore during the year.

A joint study by Redseer Strategy Consultants and Peak XV Partners pegged India’s beauty and personal care market to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 10% between 2022 and 2027, surpassing global markets, to $30 billion.