Tiffany Upbeat On Sales, Operating Earnings Amid COVID-19 Comeback

Tiffany & Co. said that preliminary results for August and September 2020 are positive, even as its “worldwide net sales for the two-month period declined slightly from the comparable period in 2019,” according to a news release. The company said that “positive sales trends are continuing in October.”

Tiffany added that operating earnings “increased approximately 25 percent from the comparable 2019 period,” and that “globally, eCommerce sales continued to show strong growth, nearly doubling in the two-month period from the comparable period in 2019 and representing 13 percent of total net sales year to date through Sept. 30.”

By way of comparison, the company said, digital sales have historically comprised about 6 percent of total net sales.

The release also noted that “sales in Mainland China remained extremely strong,”

Tiffany added that although tourism declined significantly in the U.S. with the onset of the pandemic, sales in the country dropped by only a low double-digit percentage in the two-month period compared to the prior year. This marked a “meaningful” improvement as the country reopens after the height of the COVID-19 crisis, the company said, adding that it “expects the sales trends in the United States to further improve in the fourth quarter.”

CEO Alessandro Bogliolo said, “While we still expect full-year results to be substantially impacted by COVID-19, we are very pleased with the way the business has rebounded following the first quarter and continues to rebound in the third quarter, especially in Mainland China, and to recover in the United States.”

Tiffany has deferred some of its planned store openings and overhauls to next year. The company said that it “currently expects a mid-single-digit percentage decline in sales and a mid-single-digit percentage increase in operating earnings in the fourth quarter of 2020 relative to the same period in the prior year.”

Meanwhile, Tiffany is locked in a fight with LVMH as the French conglomerate seeks to back out of a merger deal.