Tiffany sales disappoint Wall Street as Chinese shoppers curb their luxury spending

A slump in demand from wealthy Chinese tourists has taken the sparkle off of Tiffany’s latest sales report this afternoon, with weaker-than-expected results sending shares down during pre-trading on Wall Street.

The luxury jewellery maker missed its estimates today after reporting a three per cent rise in same-store sales, falling below Refinitiv projections of a 5.4 per cent rise.

Meanwhile, net income for the company came in at $94.9m (£74.3m) in the third quarter of 2018, falling from $100.2m in the same quarter a year ago.

Shares in the US brand slumped 12 per cent in pre-market trading, with Tiffany’s new boss Alessandro Bogliolo blaming weaker-than-expected activity from Chinese holidaymakers in Tiffany’s core US and Hong Kong markets.

High end retailers such as Tiffany have grown increasingly dependent on China’s burgeoning market of middle and upper class millennials, with consumers from the mainland now responsible for a third of all luxury spending around the globe, according to a recent study by Bain consultancy.

However, Beijing’s crackdown on undeclared expensive overseas purchases has hampered sales for luxury retail firms in recent months, with US-Chinese trade tensions and the depreciation of the yuan also constraining consumption.