The textile group SMCP (Sandro, Maje and Claudie Pierlot), severely penalized in 2020 by the Covid, announced on Wednesday a turnover of 271.7 million euros in the third quarter, a decrease of 1% compared to third quarter 2019, before the health crisis.
Sales are up 9.4% compared to the same period in 2020. Over the year, they had unscrewed by more than 20% due to the health crisis.
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“We achieved a solid performance in Q3 allowing us to post sales close to their pre-pandemic level of 2019. We are particularly satisfied with the sales trend in the United States, which is still outperforming thanks to strong demand,” said declared the general manager of the group, Isabelle Guichot.
The America region, which represents 15% of SMCP’s sales, is indeed showing growth of 61.5% over one year, exceeding its 2019 level (+ 5%).
Asia: first market on the horizon
After having performed well in the third quarter of 2020 with an upturn in economic activity earlier in China, the Asia-Pacific region, on the other hand, saw its sales fall by 2.2%. Compared to 2019, sales are still up 8.5%. Last year in October, SMCP announced that it wanted to make Asia its first market by 2025.
In France, sales are down (-1.2%) compared to the third quarter of 2020, marked by a recovery in activity after deconfinement, and are not catching up to the level of 2019 (-3.7%). SMCP has been targeted since the end of June by an investigation in France for “concealment of crimes against humanity”: it is accused of profiting from the forced labor of Uyghurs in China, but refutes “firmly”.
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All of the group’s brands are growing compared to 2020, but only the smallest, Claudie Pierlot and Fursac, which account for less than 13% of SMCP’s turnover, achieved a better performance than in the third quarter of 2019.
SMCP, which positions itself in the “accessible luxury” niche, between fast-fashion and luxury, is continuing its strategy of reducing promotional sales, and its “store optimization plan”. 45 net closings were thus recorded in France over the first nine months of the year, in particular in small towns. On the other hand, it opened 19 points of sale in Asia, including 14 in China.
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