The French luxury goods group Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMH) started the 2022 financial year with a significant increase in sales. Despite the ongoing adversity resulting from “the health crisis and the dramatic events in Ukraine,” almost all segments achieved double-digit growth in the first quarter, the company said in a statement on Tuesday evening.
Overall, LVMH generated sales of EUR 18.0 billion in the months from January to March. This corresponded to an increase of 29 percent compared to the same quarter of the previous year. On an organic basis – i.e. adjusted for currency effects and acquisitions – sales grew by 23 percent. In Europe and the USA, the increase was in the double-digit percentage range, and in Asia sales continued to rise despite the tightened corona regulations in China, the group said.
Fashion and leather goods – growth engine at LVMH
The engine of growth was the fashion and leather goods division, whose revenues rose by 35 percent (currency-adjusted +30 percent) to 9.12 billion euros. The label Louis Vuitton had an “excellent start to the year”, the results of the fashion house Christian Dior were “remarkable”, the company said without announcing detailed results.
In the watches and jewelry segment, sales grew by 24 percent (currency-adjusted +19 percent) to 2.34 billion euros, in the perfume and cosmetics segment they increased by 23 percent (currency-adjusted +17 percent) to 1.91 billion euros. The retail division with the chains DFS and Sephora was able to improve by 30 percent (currency-adjusted +24 percent) to 3.04 billion euros, after many branches were closed in the same period last year due to measures related to the pandemic.
The growth rate in the wine and spirits segment was comparatively low: sales there increased by just eight percent (organically +2 percent) to EUR 1.64 billion. The group justified this with “delivery and logistics problems” with the cognac brand Hennessy.