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Luxottica Group Travel Retail Director Francis Gros |
ITALY. Luxottica Group recorded a +13.9% increase in sales in 2012, with the fashion and luxury company reporting even stronger growth within its travel retail division.
Net sales across the group hit €7.1 billion last year, up from €6.2 billion in the previous year. Sales within the wholesale division were up +12.9% to €2.8 billion, with sales in the retail division up +14.5% to €4.3 billion.
Luxottica Group Travel Retail Director Francis Gros said: “Luxottica Travel Retail had another year of significant growth in 2012, out-performing Luxottica’s group-wide growth and the category trend in travel retail. This was driven by major progress in our Asia Pacific and EMEA [Europe, Middle East and Africa] regions.
“Among the highlights were the launch of our Coach license in selective travel retail doors, expansion of our dedicated travel retail team including the arrival of our first dedicated travel retail training manager, and continuation of our sunglasses category management journey with key retail partners.
“2013 is up and running well, with anticipation building for our inaugural collections from new licenses Giorgio Armani and Emporio Armani; being presented to the trade now and only a matter of weeks away from hitting travel retail stores.”
Within the wholesale division, sales were up in North America (+15%), Western Europe (+3%), and emerging countries (+19%), at constant exchange rates.
Meanwhile, within the retail division, comparable store sales in North America rose by +6% and in emerging countries by +11%. Sales at Sunglass Hut were up +9.8%.
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Luxottica CEO Andrea Guerra said: “We have excellent growth opportunities since we operate in a young industry and have the chance to increase the overall penetration of our products in the international markets. A number of sales channels are newly developed, such as travel retail, department stores and e-commerce. In addition, we consider on the one hand the aging population and on the other hand the ability to create new areas for development.
“We believe that some of our businesses could expand by more than +10% also in 2013: one only need to look to the emerging countries and the extraordinary success achieved in these markets in recent years. Other key growth drivers are our Ray-Ban and Oakley brands, our portfolio of pure excellence in the luxury segment with the newly added Giorgio Armani brand, international expansion of the Sunglass Hut chain and the enormous growth of the “optical” segment worldwide.”
