Luxury Goods Sales In Hongkong Hit The Worst In 34 Months And Plunged 17.1%

The decline of Hongkong's retail industry in June has long been expected, with a 6.7% decline continuing the strongest decline in 4 months since February, while the market is expected to perform worse in July, and the decline may further expand to double digits.

On Thursday, the Hongkong census and Statistics Department said retail sales in June widened, reflecting the more cautious mood of local consumption and the slower growth of visitor arrivals.

The government spokesman further indicated that the short-term performance of retail industry remained weak due to the poor global and local economic prospects and other unfavorable factors that continued to affect consumer sentiment. If the recent social events continue, it will further drag down the retail business.

According to the data released by the Hongkong tourism board, the number of visitors to Hong Kong in June still increased to 8.5%, to 5143734, but it was significantly slower than the 14.9% increase in the first five months, and the growth rate in the first half of this year dropped by 100 basis points to 13.9%.

Mainland visitors in June barely maintained a double-digit growth rate of 10.1%, but the number of overnight visitors was only 2.4%, less than the 12.6% increase in the first five months. The Hongkong Federation of trade unions said that in June, the occupancy rate of hotels decreased by 20% compared with the same period last year, and that it was expected to decline by 40% in July.

Earlier, tourists said that the growth of tourists in June was mainly due to the fact that many mainland travelers had already booked air tickets and hotels. The reason for the slowdown was that tourists from Shenzhen and Hongkong who were familiar with the Pearl River Delta had chosen to cancel their trip to Hong Kong.

In June, Hongkong's retail industry was still subject to the frenzied contraction of jewelry, clocks and watches and precious gifts sales. The hard luxury category fell by 17.1% on the same month, the biggest decline in August 2016, and contracted for five consecutive months, one month more than the retail industry.

Prior to the Swiss watch Federation and Swatch Group AG (UHR.VX) Swatch group and Compagnie Financi Financi re Richemont SA (CFR.VX), the two largest Rugby giants of the calendar group, including the Hongkong local jeweller, Hongkong Chow Tai Fook (1929.HK), and Lufu (CFR.VX), Ji Duye's performance has already announced the bad news ahead of schedule.

Zhou Dafu and Lufu 4-6 sales in Hong Kong and Macao fell 11% and 10% respectively in the month of June. As the largest market for export of Rui watches, Hongkong's market imports fell sharply from 26.8% to 198 million 400 thousand Swiss francs in June.

In addition, LVMH SA (MC.PA) road Wilms and Kering SA (KER.PA) Kai Yun group and Prada SpA (1913.HK) Prada three luxury group Hongkong's performance is quite different. Lu Wei Ming Xuan said it was not affected, Gucci Gucci and Prada parent company said it was deeply affected. At present, including the Greater China market, the Asia Pacific market except Japan has a total share of about three companies in the 1/3 companies.

Hongkong cosmetics business, which weakened due to mainland purchasing and purchasing, declined in June. The sales of cosmetics category dropped by 4.1% in June. Sales of clothing and department stores fell by 8.2% and 6% respectively. Footwear, related products and other clothing accessories dropped 1.4% in June, while sales in optical stores fell 11.9%.

In the 1-6 months of this year, retail sales in Hongkong fell by 2.6% to HK $241 billion 266 million, and temporary sales fell by 3.1%, down 7.6% in June.

In 1-6, sales of jewellery, clocks and watches and gifts decreased by 6.5% to HK $40 billion 622 million, and the sales of cosmetics, clothing and eyeglasses decreased by 0.3%, 4.2% and 6.9% to 25 billion 902 million Hong Kong dollars, 27 billion 146 million Hong Kong dollars and 1 billion 700 million Hong Kong dollars respectively. Sales of goods and footwear, related products and other clothing accessories in department stores increased by 0.8% to HK $26 billion 516 million and HK $respectively.

At present, the industry is generally worried about the retail market in Hongkong, and appealed to the Hongkong government to "sugar" again to ease the current social atmosphere and to boost consumption and the economy.

The Hongkong Retail Management Association has warned that if social events continue, retail business performance will decline double digits this year, after which the Association expects to have a digit growth.