LVMH posts strong first quarter profits

Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMH) has posted a first quarter revenue increase of 16%, rising to €8.3 billion, but its wine and spirits division continued to lag.

Bernard Arnault, chairman and CEO of LVMH

In a statement released this morning the luxury goods group said organic revenue growth had risen by 3% compared to the same period in 2014.

This, it said, had been helped by “excellent momentum” in Europe and the United States, boosted by the euro’s weakness against the dollar.

However its wine and spirits business was the company’s only sector not to achieve growth, with organic sales sliding 1% from a year earlier to €992 million. The group attributed this drop on continued destocking by distributors in China.

Despite this, Hennessy Cognac displayed an overall increase in volume due to the strength of the US market. Other spirits, Glenmorangie and Belvedere, continued to grow, while Champagne also achieved volume growth.

Announcing its results the group said in a statement: “LVMH will continue to focus its efforts on developing its brands, will maintain a strict control over costs and will target its investments on the quality, the excellence and the innovation of its products and their distribution. The Group will rely on the talent and the motivation of its teams, the diversification of its businesses and the good geographical balance of its revenue to increase, once again in 2015, its global leadership position in luxury goods.”