Gucci to move investment to Asia

In three years, some 60 percent of Gucci Group’s investments will be located in Asia, according to the group’s chief executive Robert Polet. A “new concept” of shops will be “unveiled in late 2006” in Tokyo and Hong Kong, Polet promises in an interview with Les Echos newspaper, with 12 shops opening in the region in the coming 36 months. “Continental China is becoming a vast area of development” while the Asia Pacific region now accounts for 21 per cent of the group’s sales, the former Unilever executive explained.

Opportunities presented by organic growth in the sector would also be exploited, Polet said. He is banking on “growth of five per cent a year” in the luxury goods market, although he believes the group can “grow a little faster than the market”. If his market predictions are borne out that means annual growth of seven per cent for the group.

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Under a seven-year strategic plan launched last December, the Gucci brand is to be doubled in size with gross margin increased to 70 per cent and spending on marketing and communications rising by 20 per cent in the first three years. Gucci Group, a subsidiary of Pinault Printemps Redoute, is not looking to reposition its top-end brand, Polet maintains, despite the launch in July of a more expensive line of leather goods. “It’s more a question of responding to a major trend in the luxury sector,” he said.

The period of flux heralded by the departure of Tom Ford and Domenico de Sole had ended six months ago, according to Polet. “The way we manage the group has completely changed because we have gone from a partnership between a chief executive and an artistic director to a group of 20 directors,” he added.