The Road to Luxury

Chapter 3Who's Who of Luxury

The top six players in the luxury industry—LVMH, Richemont, Kering, Swatch, Tiffany, and Hermès—account for 30 percent of the industry turnover.

Moreover, luxury goods have traditionally been associated with France and Italy, with Italy producing one third of all of the world's luxury goods, making it the largest luxury-goods-producing nation. Italy was the birthplace of famous brands such as Armani, Moncler, Prada, Zegna, and Ferragamo, to name just a few.

The multibrand conglomerates with revenues in excess of US$1 billion are LVMH, Richemont, Kering, Swatch, Hermès, and L'Oréal.

Similarly, there exist star monobrand companies with revenues in excess of US$1 billion, for example, Burberry, Chanel, Tiffany, Armani, Ralph Lauren, and others. While many of these companies operate under only one brand name, they compete in a variety of product sectors. Table 3.1 gives the details of the mono- and multibrands.

Table 3.1 Leaders in the Multibrand and Monobrand Luxury Sector

Multibrands	Monobrands
L'Oréal	Tiffany
LVMH	Chanel
Richemont	Burberry
Kering (ex-PPR)	Armani
Swatch	Versace
Hermès	Salvatore Ferragamo
Prada	Valentino
Ermenegildo Zegna

The Consumers

By 2005, luxury goods were no longer exclusive to high-net-worth individuals. Worldwide, 7.7 million people have the purchasing power to buy prestigious goods for themselves. Globally, women represent the largest purchasers of luxury goods; they account for 80 percent of cosmetics ...