LVMH announces record sales

The world’s largest luxury group LVMH, has delivered better-than-expected growth in 2017. Sales were in excess of EUR 42 billion, boosted by recovering demand in Asian. “We benefited from a highly dynamic Chinese market, which has continued to be the case in the very beginning of 2018,” CEO Bernard Arnault said at a briefing.

The groups flagship division, fashion and leather goods headed by Louis Vuitton, was the best performer with EUR 15.4 billion in sales. Selective retailing followed a close second, with sales by Sephora reaching EUR 13.3 billion. Watches and jewellery sales, with a year on year increase of 12 percent, rose to EUR 3.8 billion.

The performance of every division in the group matched or beat estimates for the period, and share prices for LVMH on Friday 26 January rose by 3.7 percent on the news.

Keeping the growth rate may be difficult

LVMH recently announced that designer Hedi Slimane would take over the Celine brand, who is expanding the womenswear label into haute couture, menswear and perfume. Slimane has a strong track record that includes the relaunch of Dior menswear in the 2000s. Arnault is aiming for Celine to triple sales over the next five years, up from it’s current level of EUR 1 billion.

Source: Bloomberg; BusinessOfFashion.com
Photo: Instagram- fanny.lcnn