MILAN – Ermenegildo Zegna and Raffaele Caruso are among the Italian luxury goods makers who say they are optimistic for 2012 even as Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis weighs on demand in the region and growth slows in Asia.
Suitmaker Zegna anticipates high single-digit percentage revenue growth, led by customers from outside Europe, after record sales and profit in 2011, said the company’s eponymous chief executive officer.
“Asia will be the real growth propeller, followed by the U.S.,” Zegna said earlier this month, before the company’s fall-winter 2012/2013 show in Milan.
Caruso, which makes menswear for brands including Christian Dior, expects sales to rise 20 percent this year based on current orders, CEO Umberto Angeloni said.
The luxury goods sector will expand 10 percent in 2012, or half last year’s rate, excluding currency moves and acquisitions, Thomas Mesmin, an analyst at CA Cheuvreux, estimates.
Sales will rise 20 percent in Asia, excluding Japan, 6 percent in the United States, 5 percent in Europe and 2.5 percent in Japan, he figures.
“Current sales growth is definitely not sustainable,” Mesmin wrote in a report last month.
“Don’t stop the party, just turn down the volume.”
The economic turmoil in Europe is cause for “major caution,” even if growth in Asia and the Americas compensates for a slowdown, said Roberto Cavalli CEO Gianluca Brozzetti.
Standard & Poor’s recent decision to downgrade the sovereign credit ratings of nine of the euro area’s 17 members, including Italy, will hurt local demand for luxury goods on the continent, regardless of customers’ net worth, said Zegna.
“It’s very much psychological,” Zegna said. “We have to be ready for bumps” until European leaders find a solution.
In the interim, the euro’s decline is boosting the value of sales in countries that use other currencies, said Salvatore Ferragamo CEO Michele Norsa.
The Florence company is “confident” for the year ahead after an “excellent” 2011, which included better-than-expected holiday sales, Norsa said before Ferragamo’s show.
Suitmaker Zegna anticipates high single-digit percentage revenue growth, led by customers from outside Europe, after record sales and profit in 2011, said the company’s eponymous chief executive officer.
“Asia will be the real growth propeller, followed by the U.S.,” Zegna said earlier this month, before the company’s fall-winter 2012/2013 show in Milan.
Caruso, which makes menswear for brands including Christian Dior, expects sales to rise 20 percent this year based on current orders, CEO Umberto Angeloni said.
The luxury goods sector will expand 10 percent in 2012, or half last year’s rate, excluding currency moves and acquisitions, Thomas Mesmin, an analyst at CA Cheuvreux, estimates.
Sales will rise 20 percent in Asia, excluding Japan, 6 percent in the United States, 5 percent in Europe and 2.5 percent in Japan, he figures.
“Current sales growth is definitely not sustainable,” Mesmin wrote in a report last month.
“Don’t stop the party, just turn down the volume.”
The economic turmoil in Europe is cause for “major caution,” even if growth in Asia and the Americas compensates for a slowdown, said Roberto Cavalli CEO Gianluca Brozzetti.
Standard & Poor’s recent decision to downgrade the sovereign credit ratings of nine of the euro area’s 17 members, including Italy, will hurt local demand for luxury goods on the continent, regardless of customers’ net worth, said Zegna.
“It’s very much psychological,” Zegna said. “We have to be ready for bumps” until European leaders find a solution.
In the interim, the euro’s decline is boosting the value of sales in countries that use other currencies, said Salvatore Ferragamo CEO Michele Norsa.
The Florence company is “confident” for the year ahead after an “excellent” 2011, which included better-than-expected holiday sales, Norsa said before Ferragamo’s show.
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