LVMH’s Core Fashion Division Posts First Sales Drop Since COVID-19
LVMH shares fell 3.7% after it announced that sales at its core division fell for the first time since 2020.

Sign up for smart news, insights, and analysis on the biggest financial stories of the day.
It’s not just lonely at the top. It’s confusing, too.
LVMH chairman Bernard Arnault briefly claimed the title of richest man in the world in May, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, but a month later fell behind Elon Musk. He has since tumbled all the way to fifth (pity the man who only has $182 billion).
He may take a tumble yet again after Wednesday — shares in LVMH, which the Arnault family owns nearly half of, fell 3.7% after the high-end fashion and leather goods firm announced sales at its core division fell for the first time since 2020, when the pandemic shut down businesses.
When Luxury Turns to Drudgery
LVMH’s share price, down 18% this year, had already been depressing the value of Arnault’s personal purse, and the reason for the drop is no secret.
Chinese consumers, who once exhibited a seemingly quenchless appetite for high-end goods, are mired in an economic funk. On top of that, the ruling Communist Party has cracked down on ostentatious displays of wealth — finance workers get rejected from dates and are mocked online as “rats” while celebrities have been told to tone down their looks, the BBC reported last week. In other words, keep your Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior at home.
“Consumer confidence in Mainland China today is back in line with the all-time low reached during COVID,” said Jean-Jacques Guiony, LVMH’s CFO, on an investor call. “We cannot expect discretionary consumption to expand in this context.” But, somewhat surprisingly, LVMH blamed its disappointing performance on another market:
- Asia sales outside Japan fell 16% year-over-year in the third quarter, but LVMH turned around and pointed the finger back at Japan, where it said its contraction “mainly arose.” But sales in Japan grew 20%, so what’s the problem? It wasn’t as much as the staggering 57% growth in the second quarter, which LVMH blamed on the stronger yen.
- Overall, LVMH revenues underperformed, dropping 3% year-over-year to €19.1 billion ($20.7 billion) against analysts’ estimate of 1% growth — and sales at the core fashion and leather goods division fell 5%. As LVMH is the world’s largest luxury firm and a sector bellwether, that was enough to trigger minor tremors: L’Oreal fell 2%, Hermès 1.3%, and Kering 0.8%.
Cereal Business: In 2020, Goldman Sachs dubbed a group of stocks — GSK, Roche, ASML, Nestlé, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, L’Oréal, LVMH, AstraZeneca, SAP, and Sanofi — GRANOLAS, Europe’s answer to the Magnificent Seven, noting their earnings growth, low volatility, and strong fundamentals. But the group’s gains are down to roughly 7% this year, MarketWatch noted. The Magnificent Seven are up 41%.