Louis Vuitton Owner LVMH Closes Year-End Quarter With Weak Sales Growth
French luxury-goods giant’s results are a sign that shoppers weren’t splurging on its collections of high-end garments in the run-up to the holiday season.
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LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton wrapped up last year’s final quarter with sluggish sales growth, a sign that shoppers weren’t splurging on its collections of high-end garments and handbags in the run-up to the holiday season.
The French luxury-goods giant posted fourth-quarter sales of 22.72 billion euros ($27 billion), up 1% organically. Analysts had forecast €22.59 billion in sales and an organic decline of 0.3%, according to Visible Alpha.
LVMH’s fashion and leather goods division, which houses brands like Louis Vuitton and Dior, contributed €10.16 billion in sales, down 3% organically.
Sales at perfumes and cosmetics declined 1%, while the wines and spirits division reported a 9% contraction in sales. Selective retailing, the unit behind Sephora, fared better, with a 7% increase in sales, while watches and jewelry logged 8% growth.
For LVMH and the wider luxury-goods sector, the final quarter represents a key test of customers’ willingness to indulge on nonessential items in the run-up to Black Friday, Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Earlier this month, British trench-coat maker Burberry Group , Italian luxury-fashion house Brunello Cucinelli and Cartier owner Cie. Financière Richemont all reported higher sales for the quarter, raising the bar for industry bellwether LVMH.
Weak sales growth shows that LVMH’s collections aren’t appealing to clients and that the group is still contending with a slowdown in spending for luxury goods that has plagued the industry for years.
Demand weakened considerably after a postpandemic boom, especially among less affluent shoppers. The downturn has been particularly acute in China—a key market for LVMH and its rivals—as shoppers there have been holding back spending.
Last year brought a dose of uncertainty for LVMH and the sector as it took several months for the European Union to reach a trade deal with the U.S. after President Trump announced his Liberation Day tariffs.
Luxury goods are particularly sensitive to trans-Atlantic trade frictions and the specter of tariffs has never fully disappeared despite that trade deal.
Last week, LVMH and other luxury stocks slumped after Trump threatened 10% levies on various European countries he said were opposed to a U.S. takeover of Greenland. He subsequently called off those tariffs.
LVMH closed 2025 with €80.81 billion in annual sales, down 1% organically. Analysts had forecast €80.65 billion in 2025 sales with a 1.8% organic decline, according to Visible Alpha.
The group said revenue declined in Europe in the second half of the year, while the U.S. benefited from solid demand.
Sales in Japan were down from 2024, but the company said it had seen a noticeable improvement in trends in the rest of Asia, citing a return to growth in the second half of the year.
In an earnings call, executives expressed confidence for 2026 despite an uncertain geopolitical and macroeconomic environment, saying the positive trends they started to see in the second half were still there.
Net profit slid 13% on year to €10.88 billion, while profit from recurring operations fell 9% to nearly €17.76 billion. Analysts had forecast net profit of 10.55 billion euros and profit from recurring operations of €17.15 billion, according to Visible Alpha.
The group said it would propose a dividend of €13 a share at its shareholders’ meeting on April 23, the same as the previous year.
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The recent budget has forced a reckoning for property investors.
Negative gearing now restricted to new residential builds, the CGT discount gone and on paper, the numbers look different.
And many investors are responding by pivoting toward yield, prioritising cash flow over capital growth in a way that property strategists say misses the point entirely.
“The debate has shifted to yield versus growth as if they are opposing forces,” says Abdullah Nouh, founder of Melbourne-based buyers’ agency Mecca Property Group. “But that framing is itself the mistake.”
Nouh, who works with high-net-worth families and investors on long-term acquisition strategy, argues that capital growth remains the primary driver of genuine wealth creation and that the post-budget environment has made quality assets more important, not less.
The numbers make his case plainly. An additional $500 per week in rental income is welcome. A prestige asset appreciating by $1 million over a market cycle is transformative.
These are not equivalent outcomes, and portfolios built around yield at the expense of location and land value tend to generate income while wealth stands largely still.
The more nuanced shift Nouh is seeing among sophisticated investors is a move toward assets where both outcomes can be engineered simultaneously – established homes on substantial land in quality locations, where the existing dwelling can be repositioned, rental returns improved, and the underlying land value compounds independent of what sits on it.
For investors with existing equity, commercial property is also entering the conversation in a more serious way.
Prestige industrial assets, medical centres and long-leased essential retail offer income profiles that residential property in most capital city markets cannot currently match: longer lease terms, tenants covering outgoings, and greater predictability than the residential tenancy cycle.
“The investors who build lasting wealth are rarely the ones who chased yield or growth exclusively,” says Nouh.
“They are the ones who built a strategy they could sustain – one that generated enough income to hold quality assets through multiple cycles while those assets compounded in value.”
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