Thursday, April 30, 2015

Hermès Sales Are Off to a Strong Start This Year, Led by Japan

Hermès Sales Are Off to a Strong Start This Year, Led by Japan:

The brand's spring 2015 show. Photo: Imaxtree
The brand's spring 2015 show. Photo: Imaxtree
Though Christophe Lemaire is no longer with Hermès — his spring 2015 collection  for the house was his last — the former creative director's work is still doing good things for the brand. In the first quarter of 2015, which ran through the end of March, Hermès saw sales jump 19 percent to €1.12 billion (roughly $1.2 billion). Not a bad start to the year.

Although sales slipped somewhat in Asia — Hong Kong and Macao being challenging environments for luxury retailers on a whole at the moment — Hermès did pull off a 15 percent increase in Japan, its highest growth in any region for the quarter. (As a point of comparison, Japan brought in €142 million during that time period, while the rest of Asia totaled €417 million and America €195 million.)

As far as the product itself goes, perfumes barely managed to move the needle, while watch sales continued to decline, this time by 3 percent year-over-year. The leather goods the house is best known for saw the most momentum, however, followed by ready-to-wear and fashion accessories (shoes, gloves, hats). Hats off to Lemaire on that front.

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