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Coach CEO Todd Kahn the latest global luxury chief to visit ‘growth engine’ China post Covid-19

  • Kahn’s visit comes after similar trips by François-Henri Pinault, CEO and chairman of Kering, John Idol of Capri Holdings and Diesel’s Renzo Rosso
  • China should become the industry’s growth engine from this year on, Morgan Stanley analyst says

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A Coach store in Beijing. The luxury fashion house’s CEO will visit Beijing, Sanya in Hainan province and Hong Kong this week. Photo: Reuters
Elise Makin Beijing
The CEOs of luxury brands have been making a beeline for mainland China, one of their most important markets, after the country ended its strict zero-Covid policy and reopened borders earlier this year.
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Todd Kahn, the CEO of Coach, for instance, landed in Shanghai early on Monday for a week of meetings with the luxury fashion house’s Chinese partners as well as officials. His visit comes after similar trips by François-Henri Pinault, CEO and chairman of fashion house Kering, John Idol of Capri Holdings and Diesel’s Renzo Rosso over the past two months.

The arrivals underscore the luxury brands’ confidence in China, where the fundamentals for luxury consumption remain strong and growth is expected to resume in 2023, analysts said.

“Many brands have made a strong start to the year [in China] and, in fact, we have seen a rebound in shopping centre traffic post-Covid,” said Xing Weiwei, a Hong Kong-based partner at Bain & Co. The American management consulting company forecasts that China will see another 250 million middle and high-income consumers by 2030, doubling the number for 2022, making the country the main driver for growth at luxury brands.

An upscale shopping district in Beijing. The return of Chinese consumers is already boosting sales performances for 2023 at luxury brands. Photo: Getty Images
An upscale shopping district in Beijing. The return of Chinese consumers is already boosting sales performances for 2023 at luxury brands. Photo: Getty Images

Morgan Stanley expects mainland Chinese consumers to account for more than 60 per cent of total growth in spending on personal luxury goods by 2030.

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