Prada SpA sales surged last quarter as wealthy shoppers snapped up Miu Miu’s Arcadie handbags and cashmere cardigans.
Comparable retail sales at the Italian fashion group grew 18% in the third quarter, the Hong Kong-listed company said Wednesday. Sales at its biggest label, Prada, rose 1.7%, while Miu Miu sales more than doubled during the period.
Prada has been outperforming high-end fashion rivals thanks to the success of its products among Gen Z consumers and in particular the extraordinary growth rates at sister label Miu Miu.
The brand was the hottest label during the period, rising one notch from the previous quarter on the Lyst index, which tracks searches and social media mentions. Prada remained third. Miu Miu’s Arcadie bag in particular proved popular, according to the index. Its mini version starts at €1,850 ($2,004) in France.
Prada noted the “more challenging market conditions” in Asia Pacific during the period, which have been a drag on its luxury competitors, from LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE to Gucci-owner Kering SA.
Miuccia Prada, the granddaughter of the group’s founder, is creative director at Miu Miu and splits those duties at Prada with Raf Simons.
Amazon.com is increasing its advertising on billionaire Elon Musk’s social media platform X, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The major shift comes after the e-commerce giant withdrew much of its advertising from the platform more than a year ago due to concerns over hate speech.
In 2023, Apple also pulled all of its advertising from X and has recently been in discussions about testing ads on the platform, the report said.
Several ad agencies, tech and media companies had also suspended advertising on X following Musk’s endorsement of an antisemitic post that falsely accused members of the Jewish community of inciting hatred against white people.
Monthly U.S. ad revenue at social media platform X has declined by at least 55% year-over-year each month since Musk bought the company, formerly known as Twitter, in October 2022. He had acknowledged that an extended boycott by advertisers could bankrupt X.
Musk has become one of the most influential figures following President Donald Trump‘s re-election. He now leads the Department of Government Efficiency, which aims to cut $2 trillion in government spending.
Italian luxury goods group Salvatore Ferragamo said on Thursday its revenue dropped by 4% at constant currencies in the fourth quarter, flagging “encouraging results” from its direct-to-consumer sales which were overall flat in the last three months of the year.
Sales in the North American region, which accounted for 29% of total revenue, were up 6.3% in the quarter. However, the Asia Pacific area saw a 25% drop in revenue at constant exchange rates.
The slowdown in global demand for luxury goods, especially in China, has made the group’s turnaround harder. Overall preliminary revenues reached 1.03 billion euros in 2024, in line with analysts’ estimates, according to an LSEG consensus.
“January shows an acceleration in our DTC channel’s growth, albeit supported by the different timing of the Chinese New Year and a favourable comparison base versus last year”, Chief Executive Marco Gobbetti said in a statement.
Spanish fashion and fragrance company Puig reported a 14.3% rise in fourth-quarter sales on Thursday, beating analyst expectations for the key holiday period.
The Barcelona-based company behind perfume brands Rabanne, Carolina Herrera and Jean Paul Gaultier said net sales for the three months to Dec. 31 were 1.36 billion euros ($1.42 billion), above the 1.30 billion euro average forecast from analysts polled by LSEG.
Puig, which generates most of its revenue from fragrance sales, is heavily reliant on the holiday season, with analysts estimating that nearly half of its prestige perfumes are sold in the quarter that includes Black Friday and Christmas.
The company, which also owns luxury skincare and make-up brands Byredo and Charlotte Tilbury, said full-year sales reached 4.79 billion euros ($4.99 billion), up 11% from 2023, surpassing its goal of increasing sales faster than the 6-7% forecast for the global premium beauty market.
The average of analyst estimates was for sales of 4.72 billion euros in 2024, given that it is less exposed to sluggish demand in China and that more than half of Puig’s revenue comes from Europe, the Middle East and Africa while 18% comes from the United States.
The 2024 performance of larger rivals such as Estee Lauder and L’Oreal was hampered by muted demand from China, where a property crisis and high youth unemployment have curbed consumer spending.
Puig said sales in its core fragrance and fashion business grew by 21% in the holiday quarter.
Sales in the make-up division fell 7.2%, with its Charlotte Tilbury brand affected by a voluntary withdrawal of select batches of Airbrush Flawless Setting Spray in December over what Puig described as “an isolated quality issue in a limited number of batches” detected during routine product testing.