Sales of high-end watches and lab-grown diamonds fuel bumper profits despite tougher conditions in the UK and Europe<\/p>\n
Luxury retailer Watches of Switzerland has reported a huge jump in annual profits after strong demand for premium watches and luxury jewellery helped offset a weaker UK market.<\/p>\n
The company, which sells brands including Rolex and Omega, said pre-tax profits surged 76 per cent to \u00a3133 million in the year to May 3, up from \u00a376 million a year earlier.<\/p>\n
Group sales also climbed 13 per cent to \u00a31.83 billion, driven by a 24 per cent rise in US revenues. Sales in the UK and Europe increased by 5 per cent.<\/p>\n
Chief executive Brian Duffy said the group\u2019s UK business was showing \u201cencouraging signs of improvement\u201d despite ongoing economic uncertainty.<\/p>\n
Betting big on jewellery<\/p>\n
The retailer is expanding its presence in the luxury jewellery market, opening its first dedicated jewellery showroom within the Mappin & Webb boutique in Manchester.<\/p>\n
The company said the move reflects its confidence in long-term growth in the jewellery sector.<\/p>\n
Watches of Switzerland has also launched a range of lab-grown diamonds through its Goldsmiths brand, saying demand for the stones is proving increasingly popular with customers.<\/p>\n
Luxury jewellery sales rose 17 per cent during the year, including growth of 12 per cent in the UK and 26 per cent in the US.<\/p>\n
Strong outlook despite global uncertainty<\/p>\n
The company expects sales to continue growing, forecasting revenue growth of between 5 and 10 per cent over the coming financial year.<\/p>\n
It said trading during the first ten weeks of the new year had been \u201cencouraging\u201d, with strong momentum continuing in the United States and improving conditions in the UK.<\/p>\n
Despite geopolitical uncertainty, the luxury retailer believes demand for premium watches and jewellery remains resilient, positioning the business for another year of growth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sales of high-end watches and lab-grown diamonds fuel bumper profits despite tougher conditions in the UK and Europe…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":103338,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[167,2987,1658,17],"class_list":["post-103337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-switzerland","tag-finance","tag-retail","tag-rolex","tag-switzerland"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116919065978013390","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}