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Swiss luxury conglomerate Richemont’s sales increased 4 per cent year-on-year at constant exchange rates to €21.4 billion in the year ended 31 March 2025, as a strong performance from its jewellery brands offset a decline in the watches division.
Sales were up 7 per cent in the fourth quarter at constant rates, positioning Richemont among the winners in a polarised market. By comparison, Prada Group was up 13 per cent, Hermès grew 7 per cent and the Moncler brand’s sales rose 2 per cent. Kering sales were down 14 per cent, LVMH’s fell 3 per cent (with watches and jewellery flat) and Valentino’s were down 2 per cent. The news sent Richemont shares up 5 per cent in Friday morning trading.
Sales at Richemont’s jewellery division, which includes Cartier, Van Cleef Arpels and Buccellati, continued to outperform the others, growing 11 per cent in Q4; while sales at specialist watchmakers, which houses brands like Vacheron Constantin and Piaget, were down 11 per cent. ‘Other’ businesses, including fashion brands Chloé and Alaïa, were up 7 per cent.
“There are very good dynamics around our various jewellery maisons — Cartier, Van Cleef Arpels, Buccellati or Vhernier — which we just integrated,” Richemont CEO Nicolas Bos said during a press call. “We see a very active and positive market around these maisons. We don’t know what the year that’s upcoming is going to look like, but last quarter was a good signal.”
By geography, Japan, the Americas, the Middle East and Europe led growth for Richemont in Q4 (up 22 per cent, 16 per cent, 14 per cent and 13 per cent, respectively), while Asia-Pacific decreased 7 per cent. “Growth in Europe, the Americas and Japan were notably stronger than expected, offsetting lower-than-expected growth in Asia-Pacific,” wrote Bernstein luxury goods analyst Luca Solca.
Richemont chair Johann Rupert predicted back in 2023 that recovery in China was a long way off. On Friday, he said: “ [The Chinese] have not yet entered the luxury goods market in a meaningful way, and we still have relevance there as luxury goods manufacturers — and we have a very high reputation that we built up over the years. I expect that when the consumers get a little bit more confident, things will return to normal […] When? I don’t know, but I do expect that China will be back.”
Asked to comment on US tariffs during the press call, CFO Burkhart Grund said: “We are closely monitoring the situation. We are looking at all different options that we have to mitigate the impact. Those include our thoughts on pricing.”
Richemont has a global pricing policy and has been more cautious on price increases than some of its peers. “Many brands went too high, too quickly in terms of price points,” says Erwan Rambourg, HSBC global head of consumer and retail research; against this backdrop, Richemont still has room for uplifts.
“We, in the last three or four years, have been more cautious in ramping up our prices than some of our competitors,” Rupert told journalists. “ Ultimately, you’re dealing with long-term-standing clients who have trust in the relationship. We need universal pricing, otherwise people travel to use the pricing differential like what happened when the Japanese yen was particularly weak a while ago. And I think it has benefited us. There is a bit of a backlash against some of the price increases among some of our competitors.”
He added that sharp price increases are not on the cards. “We will continue doing fair pricing,” he said. “We will not make sudden rapid price increases, but obviously looking at currencies, which may move quite substantially in the next year or two.”
Citi managing director Thomas Chauvet wrote in a note: “We expect consensus for group sales in fiscal 2026 of €22.6 billion, up 6 per cent at constant exchange, and an EBIT of €5 billion to be reduced by low-single-digit percentages, reflecting gold, Swiss francs and tariffs headwinds.”
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