During fiscal 2021, the 100 largest luxury goods companies in the world generated sales of $305 billion, $53 billion more than a year ago and outpacing even the $24 billion (+8.5%) results obtained in 2019, the last pre-Covid year (+8.5%). At constant exchange rates, the top 100 players overall saw growth of 21.5% with a profit margin of 12.2% (+7.1 percentage points compared to last year). This is what emerges from the ninth edition of the Global Powers of Luxury Goods, the annual study by Deloitte, which examines and ranks the top 100 players in the Fashion & Luxury sector globally, based on consolidated sales in the fiscal year 2021. ranking a company must have a turnover of at least 240 million dollars, compared to an average turnover of the companies present equal to 3 billion.
85% of profits generated by the top 10 companies
A deviation that highlights, confirming it, one of the characteristics of the luxury industry: its concentration. Almost 85% of the net profit of the Deloitte Top 100 ranking comes from the Top 10 companies, which also confirm their leadership in terms of contribution to total company sales (56.2%, + 4.8 percentage points compared to 2020 ). The podium of the Top 10 of the big names in luxury is now consolidated, unchanged for the fifth consecutive year: in first place Lvmh is stable, and clearly detaches the following, with a turnover that in 2020 amounted to 54.9 billion dollars, in 2021 it was up nearly 56%, with profits at 19.8%.
In second place is Kering, with +34.7% in turnover and margins at +18.5%. In third position is Estée Lauder, the US group that recently took over Tom Ford, with +13.4% in turnover and +17.7% in margins. Fourth is Chanel, which rises by two positions, with turnover at +54.7%, then L’Oréal and Richemont (the Swiss group is down by two positions), Hermès, the Chinese jewelery retailer Chow Thai Fook, Rolex, and finally , with a climb of seven positions, the China National Gold Group Gold Jewelery enters and closes the top 10, with 7.8 billion dollars in turnover in 2020, an increase of 50.3% in 2021.
The gold boom “made in China”
This new entry deserves further study: China National Gold Group Gold Jewelery Co. is part of China National Gold Group, a Beijing government-controlled gold industry, listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange in February 2021. Last year, its sales increased by more than 50% due to rapid demand growth in its more than 3,700 stores across China, but also in its e-commerce channel, good reputation of “China Gold” brand and accessible “Jin Rujin” brand . Overall, China’s domestic jewelry sales jumped 29.8% in 2021, due to cross-border travel restrictions imposed by the pandemic.
The substantial concentration of large numbers in the very first positions has been confirmed: if the Top 10 grow by 34.5% for 171 billion dollars, the Top 100 limit the growth to 21.5% with 30.4 billion, and a margin that stops to 12.2% compared to 18.1% of the Top 10. And it is thus that France, despite having only eight names on the list, manages to generate over a third of sales in the ranking, an increase of 6.2% compared to the previous year.