Chanel, too, suffers luxury downturn: revenues at -4% in 2024
After a record increase of 16% in 2023, the fashion house is recording a slowdown in sales mainly due to the Chinese crisis. 'Small improvements' expected in 2025, while the debut of new creative director Matthieu Blazy is awaited
2' min read
2' min read
After closing the year 2023 with a 16% increase, which had marked the highest turnover in its history, Chanel files 2024 down 4.3%, for $18.7 billion: a sharp turnaround for one of the luxury industry's largest groups, even more underlined by the 30% drop in operating profit, which stops at $4.48 billion compared to $6.4 billion in 2023. Revenues and operating profit thus record the worst result for the brand since 2020, the year of the pandemic.
Weighing on the figures is above all the strong slowdown in sales in China, which generates about half of the Maison's sales, as is the generalised and common trend for many brands. On the other hand, sales in Japan and Korea increased. In the Asia-Pacific area, sales fell by 9.3% to $9.2 billion; in the Americas -4.3% to $3.8 billion, Europe was better with a 1.2% increase to $5.68 billion.
Interviewed by Wwd, CEO Leena Nair and chief financial officer Philippe Blondiaux said they expect small improvements this year, but that despite the challenging environment Chanel will continue to invest, following long-term growth targets. In 2023, investments were up 43%. In 2025 Chanel, which is headed by the brothers Alain and Gerard Wertheimer, will also invest USD 600 million in the network of manufactures it owns or in which it has a stake, a list, the latter, in which the Como silk factory Mantero recently joined.
After being appointed last December, on 1 April Matthieu Blazy, former head of Bottega Veneta, took over as creative director of the brand, a move long overdue after the exit almost a year earlier of Virginie Viard, who had managed the brand's transition after Karl Lagerfeld's departure in 2019. Blazy will present its first collection in Paris next October. On the other hand, hiring will stop, after 10,000 entries over the past three years; 70 posts will be cut in the US, equivalent to 2.5% of Chanel's resources in the country. Chanel's human resources will amount to more than 38,400 at the end of 2024.
On the retail front (Chanel ended 2024 with 644 boutiques, up from 612 in 2023), 48 openings are planned for this year, about half of which will be in China and the United States, but with a particular focus on as yet undeveloped markets such as India, Canada and Mexico.
