Uptrend in tourist arrivals boost luxury goods sales
Value sales rose 2.3% in December.
According to a report from Citi Asia Economics, luxury goods sales and cosmetics benefited from recovering tourist trend, as value sales of jewellery, watches and clocks and valuable gifts rose by 2.3%yoy in December.
"[T]his is a meaningful positive print after 26 months of negative. This is in line with the improvement in Mainland Chinese tourist arrivals – which also have returned to positive growth of 6.1%yoy after 18 consecutive months of decline," Citi said.
Similarly, medicines and cosmetics, which are additional top shopping list items for Mainland tourists, saw sales value rebounded to 4% in the same period.