Editor’s Note
This article highlights how Richemont’s high-end jewelry brands are outperforming in a luxury market where the ultra-wealthy are focusing their spending on the most prestigious and desirable items.
As the super rich grow even more selective, increasingly only the best will do. Richemont on Friday reported better-than-expected fiscal fourth-quarter sales, led by its Jewellery Maisons division.
With a diamond encrusted ring here and a rare gemstone necklace there, the world’s wealthiest are continuing to adorn themselves with the finest jewelry even as broader luxury shoppers pull back.
But make no mistake, one mother-of-pearl bracelet is not to be confused with another. As the super rich grow even more selective, increasingly only the best will do.
That spells positive news for Swiss luxury group Richemont, which boasts some of the luxury jewelry market’s most sought-after brands, including Van Cleef & Arpels, Buccellati and Cartier.
Richemont on Friday reported better-than-expected fiscal fourth-quarter sales, led by 11% growth within its Jewellery Maisons division. For the full year, jewelry was also the group’s strongest segment, growing 8%.
The results round off a results season in which major luxury names from LVMH to Kering and Burberry reported a slowdown in sales in the quarter to March, dashing earlier hopes of a turnaround in the embattled sector.
Sales within LVMH’s watch and jewelry division, specifically, were flat year-on-year in the first quarter, having declined 2% on an organic basis in 2024 amid softer demand for key brands such as Tiffany & Co, Bvlgari, TAG Heuer and Hublot.
Despite the continued allure of its jewelry brands, however, Richemont is not entirely immune to wider sectoral headwinds.
The performance of its Specialist Watchmakers division, which features Piaget and Roger Dubuis, paints a more nuanced picture. Richemont’s watch sales fell 13% in 2024, led primarily by weakness in China. That rate of decline eased only slightly in the second half of the year, thanks to recovering strength in the Americas.
“The global watch market experienced a slowdown affecting volumes. This was led by demand weakness in China, with greater resilience of high-end price segments,” the company said in its report.
Clouding the picture further, many other premium Swiss watchmakers including Rolex, Patek Philippe and Audemars Piguet, are privately owned, making their performance difficult to decipher.
Macroeconomics aside, however, Bernstein’s Solca said the fundamental nature of the luxury watch market — where products are typically positioned as long-term, if not lifetime, purchases — inevitably makes it slow to rebound.
The growth of the high-end jewelry market versus other haute couture staples such as fashion and leather goods could stand Richemont in good stead amid resurging global trade headwinds.
Richemont’s Rupert said Friday that the company would not take price increases that it cannot sustain, contrasting warnings of prices rises from other luxury and jewelry players.
Nevertheless, analysts warn that the company may yet face challenges that threaten market dominance.
