(presse) Article du FT concernant le monde du luxe

Voilà un lien concernant un article du FT (hé ouais un peu d'Anglais ne tue personne!) sur l'évolution de domaine du luxe. Je ne trouve pas l'illustration concernant l'article qui donnait les chiffres de janvier 2008 à aujourd'hui (chiffres dans le rouge jusqu'à plus de 50% concernant les cours des actions des différents groupes sauf pour Hermes qui garde la tête hors de l'eau!)

Bonne lecture

Citation :

Super-rich tighten purse strings on luxury goods
By Vincent Boland and Jenny Wiggins
Published: October 29 2008 02:00 | Last updated: October 29 2008 02:00
When cracks in the financial and housing markets first started to appear last year, the world's wealthiest people remained relatively immune, and continued to spend lavishly on the playthings of the rich: sports cars, diamond necklaces and £650 ($1,000) mobile phones.

But the severity of this year's collapse in global financial markets has reached even the super-rich, ending the spending boom that has more than doubled the size of the global luxury goods market during the past decade.

"2009 will be the first year when real consumption of luxury goods will diminish," says Claudia D'Arpizio, a partner in the Milan office of consultancy Bain & Co, which recently completed a global study of the luxury market. "We expect a weak fourth quarter and a weak Christmas."

Although global sales of luxury goods will still hit a record €175bn ($218.7bn) this year, Bain expects them to drop to between €163bn and €170bn next year.

Even the very wealthy have to curtail their expenditure when the value of their stock portfolios decline.

Milton Pedraza, chief executive of the Luxury Institute, a research group that tracks the luxury market, says the financial crisis has had a "paralysing effect" on the US luxury market (the world's biggest single luxury market) during the past few months, and sales were likely to fall more sharply than they did in the past two recessions.

"Jets, jewellery or apparel - everyone has seen declines," he says. "Consumers are going back to classics and price is very important."

During the past decade, the global market for luxury goods has exploded as incomes have risen - particularly in emerging markets such as Russia and China, where many consumers have been able to afford Italian handbags and dresses as well as champagne and Ferraris for the first time.

Meanwhile, traditional luxury goods brands, including Bulgari and Cartier, created more affordable product lines to reach a bigger group of customers. Dolce & Gabbana came up with D&G, and Giorgio Armani developed Emporio Armani and Armani Jeans.

But as consumer confidence drops sharply around the world, particularly in western markets such as the US and Europe, people are becoming more cautious with their money, even in newly wealthy emerging markets where sales are slowing rather than collapsing altogether.

Mercury, a Russian luxury goods group owning Moscow stores for brands such as Gucci, Prada and Rolex, as well as showrooms for Ferrari, Maserati and Bentley, is among the companies reporting a downturn in sales.

Paola Pecciarini, a luxury goods analyst at Banca Leonardo in Milan, warns the luxury industry faces "a very tough few years, not just a few quarters" with no resurgence in demand before 2010 at the earliest.

"The super-rich will certainly continue to buy, but their spending will almost certainly slow down."

Robert Polet, the chief executive of Gucci Group, has acknowledged the changing environment, recently telling the Italian newspaper La Republica: "Big spenders are now buying three handbags where they might once have bought four."

Sales of fashionable clothing have been particularly poor, according to Luca Solca, luxury goods analyst at Bernstein Research, adding that orders for womenswear were weak at this summer's Milan fashion shows, particularly from Russia (a strong buyer during the past five years).

"High-end apparel seems to be on the back foot," Mr Solca says.

German womenswear brand Escada this week complained of a "persistent worsening" in the clothing market as it said it would make a loss in the 2007-08 fiscal year.

The market downturn is taking a heavy financial toll on Escada: its shares have slumped 19 per cent during the past week, and more than 60 per cent during the past six months.

Analysts do not expect the company to become profitable again until 2010-11.

Out with a Bang

Lovers of good sound systems and design have spent voraciously on loudspeakers, televisions and mobile phones from Danish audio and video company Bang & Olufsen in recent years.

But in a sign that €800 mobile phones and €1,250 DVD recorders are no longer must-have items, the company last week said it would stop making phones and DVD players and recorders and stick to "core products" such as sound systems and televisions.

Gartner telecoms analyst Carolina Milanesi says: "What Bang & Olufsen was trying to do with their devices was not fitting the current environment ... people are looking to spend less, not more, on phones."

Bang & Olufsen's chief executive Karl Kristian Hvidt Nielsen says the collapse in the property market has hurt sales because people no longer have as much money to spend on the company's audio and video equipment, which costs an average of €7,000-8,000 ($8,700-10,000) - and as much as €20,000. Sales of all products have been falling, he says: "It's a pretty broad spread."

www.ft.com/luxury