Luxury group LVMH’s Hong Kong sales drop 40 per cent in fourth quarter; coronavirus outbreak’s impact will be limited, boss predicts
- Company behind labels including Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior sees sharp fall in Hong Kong sales because of street protests offset by growth elsewhere
- Its CEO, Bernard Arnault, expects coronavirus outbreak in China to peter out in March and says if that is the case, impact on sales won’t be ‘terrible’
Sales growth at luxury goods group LVMH slowed slightly in the fourth quarter, pushed down in part by a sharp drop in revenue in Hong Kong, where months of violent protests have scared away many high-end shoppers.
The company, which owns labels including Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior, said the new coronavirus outbreak this month forced it to close some stores in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak but it believed the peak of the virus would pass in a few weeks, limiting the impact on sales.
LVMH posted record revenue and profit for the whole of 2019. It said in a statement that fourth quarter sales rose 12 per cent to €15.27 billion (US$16.94 billion).
That marked an 8 per cent increase year-on-year on a like-for-like basis, which strips out currency swings and acquisitions, and compared with forecasts cited by analysts and Reuters estimates of closer to 9 per cent growth.
But it was less strong when set against like-for-like sales in the previous three months, which had grown 11 per cent.