Usana filed its earnings statement yesterday showing the Salt Lake City-based multilevel marketing company brought in $336.8 million, which represented a 30.1% increase over the same period a year previously.
As usual, China leads the way
As in previous quarters, Usana sold most of its dietary supplements, functional foods and personal care items in the Asia Pacific region. The company brought in $279 million in revenue from teh entire region, which represented a gain of 23% on a constant currency basis.
As has been true for some time, ‘Greater China’ is by far the company’s biggest market. Usana sold $165.4 million worth of products in the company in the second quarter. But while China is biggest, the North Asia region (primarily South Korea) was the fastest growing. The company recorded $37.4 million in revenue in the region, representing a 33.6% rise year over year on a constant currency basis.
A few years ago the fortunes of MLMs selling nutritional products seemed to be waning in North America and Europe. Usana, Herbalife and Nature’s Sunshine all recorded declining sales and fewer independent distributors, especially in the United States.
But those days seem to be over, as Usana notched another sales gain in the region, albeit at a slower pace than was seen in the Asian markets. The company reported $57.9 million in sales in the region, which represented a 9.2% rise on a constant currency basis.
Online enhancements boost results
Usana CEO Christopher Guest said the company’s successful launch of its Active Nutrition line of products helped contribute to the sales success. In addition, enhancements the company has made to streamline the online ordering process has boosted results.
“We continue to execute our strategy to enhance the overall shopping experience for customers in all of our markets and made further progress on this initiative during the quarter,” he said.
COVID-19 again rears ugly head
While Usana has reiterated its full fiscal 2021 revenue guidance, which would see the company bring in between $1.24 and $1.28 billion, Guest said there are potential storm clouds on the horizon.
“As we look ahead to the second half of the year, we are seeing a more challenging operating environment in several markets due to escalating conditions related to the COVID-19 pandemic. We believe, however, that the successful execution of our strategy will deliver long-term sustainable growth,” he said.
Good as the results were, they came in slightly below what stock analysts were expecting. Usana’s stock price dipped a bit as a result, declining more than 2% yesterday to trade at about $98 a share today. The stock’s all time high was more than $132 a share in 2018.
