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Nu Skin (NUS) Looks Buoyant, Stock Up More Than 35% in a Year

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Focus on innovation, strengthening sales leaders and enhancing the digital platform have been working well for Nu Skin Enterprises, Inc. (NUS - Free Report) . These upsides, together with increased at-home self-grooming trends amid the pandemic, have been working well for this cosmetics player. Incidentally, this Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) stock has rallied 37.8% in a year’s time, easily outpacing the industry’s growth of 9.2%. Let’s delve deeper.

Focus on Innovation & Strengthening Customer Base

Nu Skin’s long-term strategies stand on three key pillars — Products, Programs and Platforms. Notably, the launch of the company’s revolutionary ageLOCLumiSpa along with the re-launch of the Galvanic Spa device has been a success. Further, management remains encouraged about the company’s latest beauty device system — ageLOC Boost — which recorded sales of $30 million in the third quarter of 2020. This can be attributable to some early top leader previews. Apart from this, the company expects $70-$80 million of sales in the fourth quarter from the new product previews of Nutricentials Bioadaptives, which is aimed at the millennial and Gen Z customer segments. Apart from product launches, Nu Skin’s well-knit product strategies and customer retention programs have been driving growth in several market locations.

The company has been focused on empowering sales leaders and customer base through product launches and engaging technology platforms among other initiatives. Moreover, the company has been conducting a number of promotional seminars online. Additionally, Nu Skin rolled out its Velocity sales compensation plan as well as the enJoy rewards program over the past two years. These programs are doing well and continuing to aid growth in sales leaders and customers. In the third quarter of 2020, sales leaders were up 12% year over year to 68,516, while Nu Skin’s customer base increased 28% to 1,539,511.

Growth was largely driven by its enhanced socially-enabled business model and ongoing investments to become a digitally-focused company. Well, a shift to work-from-home and at-home trends has led to increased online shopping, which presents a unique opportunity for the company’s business. Nu Skin is making significant investments in the digital platform to build a socially-enabled business. In this regard, the company is in the process of rolling out its personal recommendation app, Vera, as well as its personal offer app, My Site. These are likely to help the company’s affiliates grow their businesses socially. Per the third-quarter earnings call, digital transactions contributed about 90% to Nu Skin’s revenues.

Robust Q3 & View

The impact of the abovementioned upsides was reflected in the company’s third-quarter 2020 results, wherein earnings and sales improved year over year and the former beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate. Results were mainly driven by robust double-digit growth in customers and sales leaders, along with revenue gains across most segments. Growth was mainly attributed to the strong execution of the company’s long-term strategy. Management remains optimistic about momentum in the core Nu Skin business, driven by ageLOC Boost and Nutricentials product introductions in the fourth quarter. Moreover, consistent demand momentum is expected to drive growth in the manufacturing segment.

A strong third-quarter performance, momentum in the aforementioned businesses and increased visibility into the future encouraged management to raise its guidance for 2020, when it reported third-quarter results. Moreover, Nu Skin expects the momentum to continue in 2021, driven by innovative product launches. Management expects 2020 revenues of $2.55-$2.58 billion compared with $2.37-$2.45 billion predicted earlier. In 2019, Nu Skin’s revenues amounted to $2.42 billion. Further, 2020 earnings are projected in a band of $3.35-$3.45 per share, indicating an increase from $3.10 reported in 2019. Earlier, Nu Skin envisioned earnings of $2.85-$3.10 per share.

Certainly, Nu Skin appears to be in a good shape and is likely to keep its stellar show on. Markedly, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2020 earnings has gone up by a notch to $3.40 per share, whereas that for 2021 has increased 0.8% to $3.72 in the past 30 days.

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