Exceptional first six months for Richemont

Luxury firm Richemont says it had an exceptional first six months. Turnover grew 10 % but profit even shot up 80 % compared to the year before.

Weak like-for-like basis

The company’s turnover reached 5.6 billion euro, up 10 % compared to last year’s first six months. Its profit skyrocketed 80 % to 974 million euro for the company that owns brands like jewelry seller Cartier.  

The enormous profit jump is mainly because Richemont had to buy back a huge number of watches from its Asian distributors last year, after local demand collapsed. This time around, the company took full advantage of that weak like-for-like base.

“While we cannot predict the environment for the full year, it is clear that the full year results on a comparative basis will not see the exceptional level of growth reported in the period under review”, CEO Johan Rupert added.

In general, the company is doing well: Asian turnover grew 25 % to 2.1 billion euro and North American turnover shot up 10 % to 890 million euro. European turnover added 3 %, but that was lower than elsewhere because of the strong euro. There was another double-digit growth for the company in the United Kingdom.