Samsonite sees India sales more than double in first half of the year

By

Isabelle Crossley

Published
Aug 22, 2022

Luggage and accessories brand Samsonite saw its sales in India more than double in the first half of the year as the country continues to reopen and embrace travel in the wake of Covid. 

“India has been an amazing story,” said Samsonite International’s CEO Kyle Gendreau in an interaction with investors, ET Retail reported. “India has really kind of turned back around. If you remember, last year in Q2, India had a real Covid crisis where they had kind of started moving again and then trenched back. But then as India reopened, you can see that their numbers are up and really continuing strong momentum.”
 
China is Samsonite’s second largest international market in terms of sales and the country has been more reserved than other Asian nations in relaxing its travel restrictions as it maintains a zero-Covid policy. “India is a terrific story, really helping cover up some of the shortfalls we are seeing in China as China gets into a position of recovery,” said Gendreau.

Samsonite India’s sales totalled $140 million in the 2021 calendar year, more than double its sales of $60.5 million in the 2020 calendar year. The business is, however, still working towards reaching its pre-Covid sales total of $174 million in India in 2019.