It released financial results for the first quarter of the fiscal year 2014 days ago and according to the results, the operating revenue hit USD 322 million, down three percent from a year ago. The gross margin dropped one percentage point from a year earlier to 71.8 percent and the gross profit fell two percent from the previous year to USD 827 million. It mainly attributed the falls to relatively poor performance in the North American market.
Jonathan Seliger, president and CEO of it for the China region, said in an interview recently that leading global affordable luxury brands fueled expansion in the Chinese market in succession, but this would deliver a little impact on it within a short period of time. It was confident in its brand, products and service there. It launched a market investigation & survey around the globe each year and size of the surveyed always reached 50,000 to 60,000 ones, including 8,000 to 10,000 Chinese. And it was the investigations and surveys that let it realize that potential of the Chinese men's accessory market was huge. The consumption of men's luxury bags accounted for 15 percent to 18 percent of the total of men's bags and accessories globally and the proportion in the Chinese market reached 40 percent. In order to well cash the opportunity, it expanded the product line for men in 2010 and reaped USD 600 million from men's business in the world last year. It would further fuel expansion in the Chinese men's luxury market.
He reiterated that in addition to bags and accessories, it launched shoes, apparels and so on. It was busy with a shift and through the move, it aimed to shift itself into a lifestyle accessory brand from a bag-focused one. It would still focus on the design, manufacture and sale of bags and accessories in the future. And in other fields including shoes, perfume, watches, and sunglasses, it would look for partners. And in those fields, it would take part in the design actively and control the links including marketing, promotion and distribution. It aimed to build a multichannel distribution system and ecommerce was a part of the system.
Coach had had a total of 132 outlets in the Chinese market by the end of September this year and plans to open about 30 ones there each year in the future.
