Tiffany Holiday Sales Leap 18 Percent Worldwide

Management at luxury retailer Tiffany has every reason to be proud as the company posted shining results for the holiday season. No doubt buoyed by a great rise at the stock market, higher income consumers flocked to the light blue packaged goods to celebrate.

Tiffany posts today that its net sales for the holiday period rose 18 percent over last year to $601.171 million. Worldwide net sales rose 14 percent and comparable store sales increased 10 percent. Total sales growth exceeded the company's expectations, causing it to increase its estimate for fourth quarter earnings.

U.S. retail sales increased 19 percent to $306,179,000, while comparable store sales increased 16 percent (up 14 percent in November and 16 percent in December). The biggest contributor to the U.S. rise came from Tiffany's New York flagship store - a 22 percent increase.

One of Tiffany's biggest achievements in the U.S. was an increase in the average amount spent per transaction in comparable stores.

“We are obviously pleased with the considerable strength in U.S. Retail sales which exceeded our most-recently announced expectations,” said this morning Michael J. Kowalski, chairman and CEO.

“Sales in many international regions also rose significantly, although results in Japan continued to be disappointing primarily due to declining unit sales of silver jewelry which also hurts gross margin. At the same time, we were delighted to see strong sales growth of diamond jewelry in each of our major markets”.

International Retail sales increased 18 percent to $217.174 million. On a constant-exchange-rate basis, total International Retail sales rose 7 percent. On that basis, comparable retail store sales declined 7 percent in Japan (total retail sales declined 3 percent in Japan), rose 25 percent in other Asia-Pacific markets and increased 13 percent in Europe. Strong comparable store sales growth was also achieved in Canada, Mexico and Brazil.

Direct Marketing sales increased 14 percent to $65 million while Internet and catalog sales together rose 27 percent due to continued strength in e-commerce sales.

Kowalski says he expects net earnings in the fourth quarter to be in a range of 68 - 71 cents resulting full year earnings of $1.39 - $1.42 per share, representing growth of 9 - 11 percent.