Life of a billionaire: The launch and success of her brands may have catapulted her net worth. (Photo: Instagram/@kimkardashian) Kim Kardashian West has officially joined the billionaire’s club. The reality TV star and entrepreneur has launched herself into the world’s billionaires list for the first time, a Forbes report states. According to the report, her brands KKW Beauty and popular shapewear firm Skims, have escalated her net worth to $1 billion, earning her a spot on Forbes’ World’s Billionaires List.
Per the report, while Kim was first mentioned in the pages of Forbes in 2011, it was simply a tally of her Twitter followers: 6.6 million, which has now grown to 69.7 million. In five years, she had made it to the cover of Forbes, for her mobile game, which had helped her earn $51 million that year.
As per a Forbes estimation, Kim’s worth went up from $780 million in October 2020, thanks to her lucrative businesses — KKW Beauty and Skims — as well as her income from reality television and endorsement deals, along with a number of smaller investments.
KKW Beauty
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The company is not very old. Kim founded it in 2017, after success of sister Kylie Jenner’s Kylie Cosmetics. The report states that she had learnt some tricks from Kylie’s playbook and had fashioned a direct-to-consumer model. It naturally depended on a lot of social media marketing.
When she first launched 3,00,000 contour kits, they had sold out within two hours! The following year, the business had expanded and included eye shadows, concealers, lipsticks and fragrances, bringing in about $100 more million in revenue.
Kim had told Forbes in 2017, announcing her cosmetics line: “It’s the first time I’ve moved away from having licensing deals and transitioned into being an owner.”
Last year, 20 per cent of KKW Beauty was sold to cosmetics conglomerate Coty for $200 million, a move that may have helped the company further.
Skims
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Skims shapewear was launched in 2019. For this, Kim “raised money from fashion insiders like Net-a-Porter’s Natalie Massane and Theory’s Andrew Rosen”, the report states. She even capitalised on her massive social media following — Twitter and Instagram — to support and publicise the brand.
According to the Forbes report, she cashed in on the pandemic, when consumers became interested in comfy clothes, rather than in shaped tummies under gowns. Kim turned her focus to loungewear as a result of this.
The rest of her net worth may rest on investments, including real estate, along with paychecks from Keeping Up With the Kardashians, endorsement deals and her now-defunct Kimoji app.
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