Longchamp ends 2014 with 8% growth

Longchamp has ended 2014 on a more than positive note. The luxury leather goods company continued its progress thanks to intense international expansion allowing it once more to record 8% growth, its turnover reaching 495 million euros.

With 60% of total sales, Europe represents Longchamp’s primary market. Broken down, France made up 30%, the EMEA region 30%, Asia 25% and the Americas 15%.

In certain countries such as Italy, where the company opened two new stores in Rome and Venice last year and where it is planning to open another in Florence in 2015, sales jumped by 28% in 2014.

For the "Greater China" region, sales were up by 27%. In Japan, the company saw 11% growth in 2014, while in the United States, where the brand opened a store in 2014 in Washington DC, sales increased by 7%.

The growth can be explained by a new strategy and expanded distribution, primarily focusing on the opening of directly-owned stores, with larger spaces and more prestigious locations. "In order to better showcase and promote Longchamp through its collections, service and a customer experience that fully corresponds to the spirit of the brand," said the house.

With this in mind, the sales network has been heavily streamlined and reduced, the brand closing stores that were too small or which no longer met the standards set by the new strategy. In two years, the number of stores (directly-managed and franchise stores, concessions in department stores, leatherwear multibrands, airport stores and online sales) rose from 1,500 to 1,800.

Meanwhile, the number of its directly managed stores climbed from 252 in 2012 to 287 in 2014. In 2014, the company opened flagships in Barcelona, Munich and in Paris on the Champs-Elysées as well as four stores in Germany (Baden Baden, Nuremberg, Stuttgart and Munich), and is planning for further openings in Vienna, Peru, Paraguay, Macau, Toronto, China and Cambodia in 2015.

Longchamp is also continuing to take control of its distribution through direct subsidiaries in its primary markets. While the company currently has 19 subsidiaries (France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, UK, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, USA, Brazil, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea South, Japan, Russia), it will add four more in 2015 in Austria, Macau, Canada and Singapore, where five franchise stores will be acquired within one year and integrated.

Finally, the company will continue to invest in its infrastructure. In 2014, it injected 22 million euros in its logistics center in Segre. "We've opened new training centers in western France and have launched a new SAP management system, which will be deployed over the next two years throughout the entire company. These elements will all be crucial to meet the demands of our market, which is increasingly international, to increase our export volumes and to deliver orders as quickly as possible," said CEO Jean Cassegrain, grandson of Longchamp’s founder, in a press release.

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Longchamp ends 2014 with 8% growth

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