Kering Group said on Wednesday after market close that, stripping out the impact of currencies and acquisitions, revenues grew 17.5 per cent during the first quarter to €3.79bn. Following a tougher comparison with the previous year, sales at Kering’s profit engine Gucci grew 20 per cent in the first three months of the year to €2.33bn.
The brand recorded sales growth of 36.9 per cent in 2018 and 44.6 per cent in 2017. After these two years of “absolutely exceptional growth,” Gucci is now in “a phase of normalisation of this growth” that Kering has previously communicated to the market, said Jean-Marc Duplaix, Kering’s chief financial officer, on a call with journalists.
Sales at Bottega Veneta, the struggling brand in Kering’s stable that is waiting for a turn round to bear fruit, dropped 8.9 per cent in the first quarter. Yves Saint Laurent gained 17.5 per cent, while the ‘other houses’ division that includes brands such as Alexander McQueen and Boucheron, was up 21.7 per cent.
Like its French rivals LVMH and Hermès, which have already reported their first-quarter figures, Kering said there is still a strong dynamic in the Asia-Pacific region, and said the trend for Chinese shoppers to repatriate sales from Europe to mainland China and Asia continues.
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