US luxury icon Tiffany to open more stores in mainland China as Chinese stay home where weak yuan still has buying power
- Tiffany will open a new jewellery store in the Beijing airport in a few weeks
- Chinese scaling back on overseas travel as yuan weakens
Tiffany & Co. is planning to open more stores in mainland China as the weak yuan drives Chinese consumers away from spending overseas and they shift their luxury buying back home.
Currency fluctuations have had “an influence on the intention of Chinese to buy abroad,” CEO Alessandro Bogliogo said in an interview in Shanghai on Thursday. “Conversely, we have seen a big increase in sales in mainland China.”
The luxury jeweller plans to open more stores on the mainland, Bogliolo said, including one in the Beijing airport in a few weeks. It plans to make its Shanghai flagship store its most important outlet worldwide after its iconic New York City location, he said. Tiffany also has a store in Hong Kong, where business has been disrupted by ongoing street protests.
Sectors ranging from tourism to luxury goods that relied heavily on Chinese spending abroad are slumping as the yuan depreciates and the ongoing US-China trade war weighs on consumer confidence.
From quieter beaches in Southeast Asia to shorter queues at luxury goods stores in Paris and New York, the pullback in Chinese overseas spending is being felt across the world and companies are having to find other ways to court the world’s biggest pool of consumers.