The fourth annual Global Powers of Luxury Goods report, titled ‘The new luxury consumer’, is out. The report lists the 100 largest luxury goods companies in the world, “based on publicly available data for consolidated sales of luxury goods in 2014 -2015”, and discusses the key trends shaping the luxury market.
According to the report, the 100 largest luxury goods companies generated sales of $212 billion in FY2015 – 4% down year-on-year. Average luxury sales for the top 100 companies now total $2.1 billion.
The main luxury market growth comes from emerging markets – China, Russia and the United Arab Emirates. In all three, the percentage of consumers “claiming to have increased their spending stood at 70%”. In the US, EU and Japan, there was 53% growth in spending.
Almost half of luxury purchases are made by tourists, whether in foreign markets (31%) or at airports (16%).
Italy is “the leading luxury goods country in terms of number of companies”, while France enjoys the highest share of sales.
The top 10 luxury goods companies by sales represent 48% of the economic concentration in the luxury goods market. Among the top 10, there are four French companies, three American companies, and two Swiss companies. The rest of the companies in the top 10 are headquartered in Italy, Hong Kong, and China.
Top 10 luxury goods companies by sales:
• LVMH, which enjoyed a 15.2% sales growth in FY2015;
• Richemont, which enjoyed a 6.4% growth in sales during the same period;
• Estée Lauder, which enjoyed a 4.5% growth in sales;
• Italy-based Luxottica (OWNER OF Ray-Ban, Oakley and more);
• Kering;
• The Swatch Group;
• L’Oreal;
• Ralph Lauren;
• Chow Tai Fook (which took a 11.9% hit in growth during the period);
• PVH Corp.;
• Rolex;
• Hermes;
• Lao Feng Co.
