The Business of Fashion
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Tiffany & Co, which is being bought by French luxury giant LVMH, beat Wall Street expectations for quarterly profit on Tuesday as the US jeweller benefited from an over 70 percent rise in sales in China and a recovery in demand at home.
The results bode well for the upcoming holiday season for the jeweller and other luxury retailers in general, which have been hit hard by the pandemic. They also underscore the growing importance of sales within mainland China to offset dependence on tourism, especially on Chinese tourists visiting fashion hubs like Milan and Paris.
“We had a strong third quarter... which speaks volumes about the enduring strength of the Tiffany brand and gives us confidence as we enter the important holiday season,” chief executive Alessandro Bogliolo said, nodding to “the successful completion of the merger transaction with LVMH in early 2021.”
Tiffany and LVMH ended a bitter legal battle last month and agreed to a new deal that would see the French firm buy out the US jeweller at a slightly lower price of $15.8 billion, or at a discount of $425 million.
ADVERTISEMENT
Tiffany said sales in the Asia-Pacific region rose 30 percent, while sales in the Americas region declined 16 percent — much smaller than the 46 percent drop seen in the preceding quarter.
Tiffany forecast a mid-single-digit percentage decline in holiday quarter sales, while analysts had predicted a 3 percent drop. It also expects a high-single-digit percentage increase in earnings for the current quarter.
The health crisis also forced the New York-based retailer to invest in its online business and to introduce curbside pick-up at certain stores. This helped e-commerce sales surge 92 percent in the quarter.
Best known for its diamond engagement rings, Tiffany could face more challenges ahead as Covid-19 cases are surging in much of the US and across the world, spurring Britain and other countries in Europe, and many American states, to go into another lockdown.
As of October 31, most of Tiffany’s 320 retail stores worldwide were fully or partially opened, in accordance with local government guidelines, it said. As of November 20 though, approximately 60 percent of Tiffany’s retail stores in Europe were temporarily closed.
But analysts remain optimistic.
“Q3 results also reiterate our confidence that the Tiffany brand will continue to shine through the holidays,” said CFRA analyst Camilla Yanushevsky.
According to a CFRA site traffic analysis of Alexa Internet’s data, there is “growing traffic momentum” to tiffany.com entering the all-important holiday season, Yanushevsky added.
ADVERTISEMENT
Shares of the company were up marginally on low volumes in premarket trading.
Excluding certain item, Tiffany earned $1.11 per share, surging past the average expectation of 66 cents.
Tiffany’s net sales fell about 1 percent to $1.01 billion in the third quarter ended October 31, but beat expectations of $980.71 million, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
By Aishwarya Venugopal and Melissa Fares; editors: Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Chizu Nomiyama.
The luxury goods maker is seeking pricing harmonisation across the globe, and adjusts prices in different markets to ensure that the company is”fair to all [its] clients everywhere,” CEO Leena Nair said.
Hermes saw Chinese buyers snap up its luxury products as the Kelly bag maker showed its resilience amid a broader slowdown in demand for the sector.
The group’s flagship Prada brand grew more slowly but remained resilient in the face of a sector-wide slowdown, with retail sales up 7 percent.
The guidance was issued as the French group released first-quarter sales that confirmed forecasts for a slowdown. Weak demand in China and poor performance at flagship Gucci are weighing on the group.