For the first time since Boston consultancy Bain & Co. began tracking the global luxury market, overall sales of luxury goods declined in mainland China over the first eight months of 2014. The dip was small—sales dropped 1 percent—but significant because of the outsize hopes brands from Prada (1913:HK) to Rolls-Royce (RL/:LN) have placed on wooing China’s socially ambitious spenders.
In the past year, the number of billionaires in China jumped by more than a fifth (from 157 to 190), according to Switzerland’s UBS (UBSN:VX) and Singapore research firm Wealth-X. But spending on luxury goods within mainland China has been squeezed by two significant trends: the continuing austerity and anticorruption drive led by President Xi Jinping and the growing preference for China’s jet set to snatch up expensive handbags and watches while on overseas trips (in part to avoid pricey import taxes at home).
Bain forecasts that overall global luxury sales will rise 5 percent in 2014, with the largest increases expected in the U.S. and Japan (at 5 percent and 10 percent, respectively). Some portion of that spending comes from Chinese tourists in New York, Los Angeles, and Tokyo, but the report doesn’t attempt to estimate how much. Bloomberg Businessweek has previously reported on the growing market for luxury train service in Japan, where household wealth is rising more quickly than at any time in the past five years and seniors want to enjoy their golden years.
via China’s Jet Set Spends Overseas While Luxury Sales Rise in U.S. – Businessweek.
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