Luxury in Asia

With a continuing boom in the market and rising demand from the newly prosperous, China’s luxury consumer market looks increasingly buoyant, according to the 2009 21st Century Deluxe Report.

The report shows a shift in Chinese consumers’ attitudes to luxury purchases, one that has seen them graduate from mindlessly chasing fashion to making far more informed choices – and even beginning to set international trends. In the long-run, says the report, the move to a more mature and knowledge-based consumption pattern in the luxury sector will add to its vitality and sustainability.

As a result, manufacturers in the luxury sector are now paying far more attention to the opinion and demands of Chinese consumers, swayed by their enthusiasm for such products and their more informed purchasing decisions.

Organized by the 21st Century Business Herald, a leading Chinese business daily paper, and supported by Ipsos, a global market research firm, and Fudan University-Bocconi’s fashion and luxuries management team, the report analyzed the behavior of China’s high-end business people – the newspaper’s primary readership group – with regard to luxury purchases. The report is aimed at promoting mature and informed decision-making throughout the luxury sector. During three months of extensive research, more than 150,000 individuals across the country responded to questionnaires about their purchasing patterns and the factors that influence them. In addition, the average number of daily visits to survey’s official website was more than 10,000, with nearly 1,000 online surveys filled in each day. The questionnaire, designed by Ipsos, analyzed a wide range of the target group’s defining characteristics, including industry preferences, purchase motivation, lifestyle choices and social standing. The raw data was subsequently analyzed by the Fudan-Bocconi team.

Professor Lu Xiao, head of the team and an expert in luxury brand management, interviewed scores of participants in randomly selected focus groups. The qualitative data sourced via these interviews, combined with a detailed analysis of the respondents’ opinions, allowed the professor to deliver in-depth insights into the sector. Alongside the report, the favorite brands of the business people surveyed have also been announced. The results show that the China Minsheng Banking Corp was the only Chinese mainland homegrown brand to make the list.

Commenting on the initiative, the event’s organizers said: “The essence of any luxury brand lies in the historical values it embodies. These values need to be continuously nurtured in order to retain their aspirational appeal across all cultural boundaries.”

LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the world’s largest luxury-goods company, on Monday said its third-quarter sales slipped 0.6%, hindered by the consumer-spending implosion and retailers working down inventories without ordering new merchandise. The luxury-goods industry likely won’t fully recover from the downturn until 2011 or 2012, consulting firm Bain & Co. said in a forecast released Monday. This year’s decline in sales of luxury goods, including apparel, jewelry and fashion accessories, will be steep, off 8% to about $227 billion, Bain predicts.

LVMH, a bellwether for the luxury-goods industry, declined to give a full-year profit forecast even though all of its divisions performed better in the first half. Steep declines in LVMH’s champagne and watches businesses brought sales down to €4.14 billion ($6.17 billion), off from €4.16 billion last year. “I don’t think we can say the crisis is over, but we can start to see the light at the end of the tunnel, even though the light is far away,” said LVMH Chief Financial Officer Jean-Jacques Guiony.

Claudia D’Arpizio, a Bain retail consultant based in Milan, said she expects the industry’s heavyweights—a group that’s generally defined to include companies like LVMH, Cartier owner Compagnie Financiere Richemont, and Gucci Group, part of France’s PPR SA—to hold up better than smaller players. Mr. Guiony said LVMH aims to increase its market share this year, spread out over categories from cognac to perfume, bags and jewelry.

The U.S. and Japan have been the toughest markets for LVMH’s star fashion brand, Louis Vuitton. But strong growth in China, where it has 30 stores, buttressed the brand’s sales growth, which topped 10% including the positive impact from currency fluctuations. Vuitton contributes nearly half of LVMH’s operating profit, analysts estimate.

Indeed, a projected 12% increase in 2009 luxury-goods sales in mainland China could partly offset declines elsewhere, Bain projects. Luxury brands across the industry are targeting China with new store openings.

December 3 2009, a 5,160-square foot boutique, brimming with art and hosting a luxurious pre-fall collection will mark the opening of the new Chanel boutique in Shanghai. Placed in the Peninsula Hotel on the famous Bund river frontpromenade, and designed by architect Peter Marino, the Shanghai boutique promises an interior filled with the finest hand picked antiques, site-specific work from commissioned contemporary artists, and giant strands of glass beads, aimed at reflecting Coco Chanel’s original necklaces.

The salon-style boutique will be made up of rooms echoing the details of the founding designer’s famous Rue Cambon apartment, with rooms devoted to ready-to-wear, evening wear, accessories, shoes, fine jewellery and watches. Adding to the Shanghai delight will be an exclusive VIP room, and an ‘ultraluxe gallery’, featuring shoes and bags made by Chanel’s couture ateliers.

As if the in-store environment were not enough to impress, Lagerfeld will be showing his latest collection, themed ‘Paris-Shanghai’, accompanied by a short film also directed by the perfectionist designer.

Seventy-seven percent of Hong Kong consumers are spending the same on necessities while 54% continue to spend on luxury items despite the economic downturn, according to a global survey by leading market research firm Synovate. Interestingly, when asked whether they are worried about the economy, 58% of consumers say they are, but they just can’t stop spending.

Synovate surveyed more than 17,300 people across 26 markets and found that people are regaining their positive outlook on the economy, becoming more optimistic for themselves and their country’s economy.

Spending as usual

This latest survey shows that, while not many people are spending more in the downturn, the majority is maintaining their usual habits. Hong Kong consumers are spending the same on categories such as staple food items (86%), hot beverages like coffee and tea (68%), dairy products (66%), cosmetics (58%), and healthcare products (53%).

Brendan Shair, Managing Director of Synovate in Hong Kong comments: “The economic climate is surely not as good as last year. However, on any regular day when you go to the markets and some of the shops, it is still buzzing with people. This reflects in the high percentage of people saying they have maintained the same spending levels when it comes to necessities (77%) and luxuries (54%). This is good news for many companies.”

Hong Kong consumers’ overall monetary habits have not changed much either.

Shair continues: “After SARS and the previous Asian financial crisis, people in Hong Kong understand the importance of saving for a rainy day. It is not a surprise to see that across the 26 markets surveyed, people in Hong Kong are one of the highest groups (60%) to indicate their saving patterns did not change.

“And likely because of their habits of saving and still having money in their pockets, consumers also admit they are checking prices of food items less often. Over half of those surveyed said they are behaving in the same way as they were six months ago.”

It’s not as bad as we think

What is the impact of the economic downturn to Hong Kong consumers? Findings show it is not as bad as we think. Hong Kong fared better compared to its closer neighbours in the region.

Sixty-eight percent of people in Hong Kong say they are earning the same amount as six months ago, with 24% indicating they are earning less. Earning levels in Korea (54% earn the same, 30% earn less), Japan (44% earn the same, 44% earn less), and Taiwan (40% earn the same, 43% earn less) seem to be more affected by the downturn.

When asked about impulse buying, 55% of Hong Kong consumers say they are shopping as usual.

Furthermore, 61% say they have not changed a major life decision, such as getting married, having a child, or changing jobs, due to the current economic situation.

View on Hong Kong’s economy

Many projections have been made on whether Hong Kong’s economy is starting to improve or will continue to go down. We asked respondents their view on this, and 48% believe the economy is going downhill and will get worse before it gets better, with more females (49%) agreeing to this than males (45%). Thirty-three percent believe the economy is in a bad patch but will quickly get better.

In November 2008, 25% of people across the globe said that they find the economy boring and don’t pay much attention. In May 2009, it was up to 29%. The highest agreement came from Hong Kong.

“Fifty-four percent of people in Hong Kong find the economy boring and don’t pay much attention. This really shows that people in the city are bombarded with news on the economy, and negative ones, every day and they are getting tired of it. Over time, people would wonder whether the economy is really as bad as it is projected. From the low of the Hang Seng Index at 10,676 points, to its peak at 23,369, we currently stand at around 20,000 points. Are we still in a financial crisis which echoes in the news everyday?” says Shair.

Recommendations for companies in the downturn

This survey finds Hong Kong consumers are very brand loyal. In addition to spending money as usual, consumers have not switched brands to get more for the same amount of money in the current economic situation.

A high majority indicate they will continue to use the same brand for staple food items (85%), hot beverages (82%), laundry and cleaning products (82%), dairy products (81%), soft drinks (79%), canned goods (78%), bottled water (75%), cosmetics (73%), healthcare products (72%), and alcoholic beverages (68%).

Shair concludes: “These numbers reinforce the idea that companies should continue to invest in building and maintaining their brands despite the downturn. A brand is one of the most important aspects that connect to consumers. By continuing with customer experience improvement and understanding which brand attributes appeal most to consumers, sales will keep rolling in.”

The 2009 China Luxury Forecast, jointly conducted by Ruder Finn Asia and Albatross Global Solutions, shows that the gap between the tier 1 and tier 2 luxury markets is narrowing. Consumers in tier 2 cities are becoming more mature in areas such as consumer perception and purchasing power. The survey interviewed 1,000 luxury consumers with an average annual income of RMB 240,000. Respondents from tier 2 cities in East, South, West and North China accounted for nearly half of the total sample.

Consumer confidence and purchasing power

Luxury consumption confidence on par: Despite the current economic situation, consumers in tier 2 cities show a strong capacity for luxury consumption, with 54.6% saying that prices have little impact on their optimistic view that their purchasing power will increase. This is only 4.3% lower than the proportion in tier 1 cities. When asked how confident they were about purchasing power over the next year, 36.6% of the respondents in tier 2 cities expressed confidence compared to 38.9% in tier 1 cities.

Smaller gap in purchasing power: In tier 2 cities, 74.9% of the respondents are likely to spend less than RMB 20,000 a year on luxury fashion and accessory items, which is slightly more than in tier 1 cities. Almost a quarter (23.5%) said they would spend between RMB 20,000 and RMB 100,000 a year on luxury fashion and accessory items, which is only 10% less than the number in tier 1 cities. The percentage of respondents spending between RMB 100,000 and RMB 200,000 a year is nearly the same in tier 1 and tier 2 cities.

When it comes to luxury watches and jewelry, 19.1% of respondents in tier 2 cities will spend between RMB 20,000 and RMB 100,000, only 3.7% less than those in tier 1 cities.

Purchasing triggers

Luxury goods as gifts for business: More than 80% of the respondents buy luxury goods for personal use. A small number or respondents purchase luxury goods as business gifts and this is three times more in tier 2 cities (7.6%) than in tier 1 cities (2.2%).

Brand comes first when considering a purchase: The level of luxury brand awareness is narrowing between tier 1 and tier 2 cities. Among all the measured factors, “Brand Reputation” was named as the most important factor by 75.3% of respondents in tier 2 cities, followed by “Brand Heritage”. In addition, some 46.6% of respondents in tier 2 cities said that they are loyal to certain brands, which is close to the percentage in tier 1 cities (47.2%), while Eastern tier 2 cities top the national list with 51.7%. As there are fewer luxury brands in tier 2 cities than in tier 1 cities and Hong Kong, the faster brands tap into the tier 2 markets, the easier it will be for them to build brand loyalty.

Point of Sales

Luxury department stores are the main channel for getting information: 64.5% of respondents in tier 2 cities said they sourced their information on luxury goods from leading department stores, 15% more than in tier 1 cities. The highest incidence of this is in East China where 70% are more likely to obtain information from salespersons in stores. In addition, 61% of the respondents said that a salesperson’s attitude would influence their purchasing decision while 54.6% said they would make a decision after carefully listening to the advice of sales staff.

Information Channels

Use of information channels similar: The results show that whether in tier 1 or tier 2 cities, the majority of the respondents get brand information from print media articles. Nearly 82% of tier 2 city respondents prefer to learn about new trends among the brands by reading about them in print publications, while some 20% say they get their information from television. Figures are similar for tier 1 city respondents.