Luxury sector faces more gloom as Bain cuts sales forecast

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MILAN/PARIS (Reuters) – Sales of luxury goods worldwide are likely to fall between 2% and 5% this year, consultancy Bain & Co forecast on Wednesday, sharply downgrading its previous estimate for 0-4% growth and signalling further gloom for the sector after 2024’s 1% drop.

Ahead of its closely-watched spring report, Bain said the luxury market was experiencing “more complex turbulence across multiple axes”. 

It cited economic pressures and price fatigue over the first three months of the year, and noted shoppers were waiting for new, more creative products from brands. 

Bain’s previous forecast for flat sales to 4% growth was issued in November. 

Top labels including Gucci, Chanel and Dior have appointed new designers as the sector faces its worst downturn in years, with a property crisis weighing on the Chinese market and U.S. shoppers pulling back amid economic uncertainty.  

The new forecast comes as the industry braces for further economic turbulence following a global flare-up in trade tensions. 

While the large majority of luxury shoppers polled by the consultancy, 75%, said tariffs would not likely cause them to make fewer luxury purchases in the future, around half of those who had already pulled back over the past year said it was due to price increases in the sector. 

Many luxury brands capitalised on the post-pandemic surge in sales to make their biggest ever price increases in recent years, analysts say. 

Executives of designer fashion brands had hoped at the start of the year for a U.S.-led turnaround, after improvements over the end-of-year holiday season, but by mid-February signs of weakening demand in the U.S. began to emerge.

(This story has been refiled to correct the day of the week to Wednesday, not Tuesday, in paragraph 1)

(Reporting by Mimosa Spencer and Elisa Anzolin. Editing by Mark Potter)