Force The Female Market, Montblanc Expects New Business "Redemption"

Some people say that women's money is the best way to earn money, because women have endless resources.

Luxury goods seem to be women's "favorite", all kinds of leather goods, shoes, jewelry, fashion...... The big guys made a big pot of women. In Europe and other mature markets, women spend 65% of their spending on luxury goods, while Bain's 2013 China luxury market research shows that the ratio of male to female consumption has just reached 5 to 5 in the Chinese market. Therefore, Bruno Lanna, partner of Bain company, pointed out that in mature markets, luxury consumption is generally dominated by women. In China, the market growth has been driven by male consumers in the past, but female consumers are catching up.

　　 Female sex Consumers will increasingly become the main force of luxury consumers. It is precisely this trend that has been focused on stationery, leather goods and wristwatches. MontBlanc, a male consumer label, has started to exert its strength in the female market.

In August 28th, MontBlanc launched the world's first jewel watches and jewelry series for free and independent modern women. This is the first time that MontBlanc has launched a series of products for women consumers, including sophisticated watches, jewelry and writing tools.

MontBlanc group's annual report shows that in fiscal year 2014, MontBlanc's sales amounted to 730 million euros, down 4.7% compared with 766 million euros in fiscal year 2013. profit It slipped from 120 million euros in 2013 to 43 million euros, down 64% from the same period last year. The annual report also pointed out that the problem of sales decline is in China. In the face of declining performance, MontBlanc management has to find ways to reverse the decline and look forward to achieving brand and performance through the efforts of the women's market. Redemption "."

Force women series

MontBlanc's first female product named "Bao Xi", including watches, jewelry and writing tools three categories. In fact, these three categories have always been MontBlanc's fist products, and the target consumers of previous products are mainly male.

The MontBlanc launched the women's watch, locked its eyes in the complex function of the core. China business newspaper (blogger, micro-blog) reporter found that the first launch of a variety of watches equipped with automatic chain movement and date display or calendar function. In fact, the Po Xi series is only the first female product line that MontBlanc has ever launched. Although the previous product line has no independent female product line, its products are already rich.

Before the launch of the Baoxi series, the reporter saw in the MontBlanc store of Beijing Oriental Plaza that many women's watches and ink pens are being sold. Jerome Lambert, chief executive of MontBlanc global, told reporters that the proportion of female consumers buying MontBlanc products has been increasing in recent years. "This will be a large part of the emerging consumer market, and we will work hard in this field."

All along, watches are men's luxuries. Apart from focusing on the rare materials used in watches, they love to focus on the application of complex functions. In recent years, these heavyweight watches and clocks in Geneva and Basel have also introduced more innovative and complex functions. The women's watches launched by brands are mostly designed and fashionable. "In the past, both in China and Europe, women consumers pay more attention to the styles of watches, but more and more women are paying more attention to the beauty of mechanical machinery recently." Lambert said.

Because of this, MontBlanc's products are designed to meet the needs of some female consumers. The consumption trend of female consumers from the focus of attention to the function of complex and sophisticated machines has been discovered by keen luxury brands.

Ou Kehua, President of OMEGA global, told reporters: "in the past women's watches tended to emphasize the sense of design and the use of jewelry materials, mainly for clothing. But now female consumers are increasingly hoping that watches can have a high-end movement like men's watches. Ou Kehua said, this is like a car. Drivers used to be almost all men, and now no car can be opened. In the past, women's wrist watches of OMEGA often appeared in the form of "counter watch". They always had the same version of male watches. Now, OMEGA will continue to introduce watches for women consumers.

In addition, Jaeger Le Coulter's dating series watches, Chanel's J12 and so on are all complex function watches specially designed for female consumers. Obviously, MontBlanc is not the first consumer market in the field of watches.

Make up for the short board?

2013 is the most gloomy year for the luxury goods industry in China. Reports from Bain show that the two digit high growth over the past decade has changed to just 2% of the growth rate this year.

Affected by this, in the 2014 fiscal year, the answers delivered by MontBlanc to investors were not satisfactory. As mentioned earlier, operating profit has fallen by 64%. According to the reporter, from the 2015 fiscal year, MontBlanc will leave from the watch group's watch business division and spanfer to other business units. The overall structure of the group has changed from the four major business units to three, namely, the jewelry department, the watch department and other business units.

Industry analysts believe that the practice of the peak group is looking forward to "other departments" performance better looking. At present, the other business units of the group include leather goods, fashion and channel business. Besides the MontBlanc that has just been put into the brand, there are brands such as Dunhill, coy, LAN Zi and Shanghai. Although these brands are all second-class luxury goods, their performance is not very impressive.

Looking back at the earnings of the past 5 years, we found that the sales volume of other departments increased from 584 million euros to 1 billion 495 million euros, but the profit has always been negative, and it has been decreasing year by year. MontBlanc's profits over the past 5 years have surpassed the losses of other departments, and it has been classified as "other departments", which can immediately make the Department's profits no longer negative.

However, whether this practice can continue to make other departments of the peak group "turn around the losses", the industry is very worried, Zhou Ting, President of the Institute of wealth and quality research, believes that in any future luxury group earnings, the contraction of profits will become the norm. At present, the risk of MontBlanc's efforts in the female market is not small.

In the past, MontBlanc has always been dominated by male consumers and has an absolute leading edge in stationery industry. Although fewer and fewer people write, stationery sales account for more than half of total sales. A civil servant in Beijing told reporters that MontBlanc's pen is the first choice for giving gifts, which has both face and taste. However, the eight regulations have little impact on the gift economy of luxury goods, so MontBlanc's earnings report points out that the problem of sales decline is in China.

According to Zhou Ting analysis, it is not one or two years since the MontBlanc started with stationery, but the jewelry sales accounted for only 1% of the total sales, 15% of the watches, and 20%~30% of leather goods. "This means that the new category has not created greater value for MontBlanc, but has reduced its operating profit."

She also pointed out that MontBlanc's efforts to push women's consumption market just deviated from the core competitiveness of MontBlanc brand. In fact, in China, the consumption of male luxury goods is growing very fast. "MontBlanc should focus more on its core strengths". Now, MontBlanc seems to be competing against its long board with its own short board. "I think the strategy of MontBlanc is somewhat chaotic at present. Investors are eager to see the product positioning of the rate of return and ignore the product, and want to use diversification to drive growth."

But now that the strategy has been decided, MontBlanc needs to adjust its implementation in China. In fact, MontBlanc's reputation, reputation and influence are quite high in the eyes of consumers in the first tier cities, while the two or three line consumers in China have a relatively vague understanding of the brand. "For new consumers and young consumers, there is no need to emphasize the brand's" sex difference "attribute, and the key is to highlight the brand's image and temperament. Liu Yuan, an investor in fashion and cultural creative industries, said.

And Zhou Ting also said that in the past, MontBlanc's marketing was often "big" in Beijing, Shanghai, and so on. Now it needs to enter the two or three line cities to attract new consumers by "moistening things silently".