Chow Tai Fook Posts Sharp Drop in Revenue and Profit

(IDEX Online) – Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group Ltd., one of the world’s largest jewelers and the biggest publicly traded jeweler, posted a sharp drop in revenue and net profit of almost 25 percent for the half-year period ending September 30 due to the economic slowdown in China.

Sales fell 22 percent on the year to $3.8 billion, while net profit dropped by 24 percent to $443 million from the same period last year.

Meanwhile, sales at stores open at least a year dropped 24 percent in October.

The jewelry giant said it had been expecting the fall in revenue and profit.

The company added that it was pinning its hopes for rising future sales on the new generation of independent young professional women who have the financial means to buy their own jewelry.

Chow Tai Fook has been hit by the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong since September which led the firm to close as many as one-third of its retail outlets at the height of the protests.

Some roads in three of Hong Kong’s key districts remain blocked, hitting sales at many retailers, with luxury goods firms affected particularly strongly.

During the Golden Week early last month, traditionally one of the busiest retail weeks of the year in Hong Kong, sales dropped by as much as 40 percent at luxury goods retailers, estimates Luca Solca, head of luxury goods at Exane BNP Paribas.

Chow Tai Fook, along with other jewelry and luxury goods firms, has also been hit by the Chinese government’s anticorruption campaign which has dented sales of jewelry, watches and other high-end products.