Tiffany Posts 18% Sales Growth in 2011

(IDEX Online News) – American luxury retailer Tiffany & Co. reported double-digit sales and earnings growth for fiscal 2011, ended January 31, 2012. Net sales rose 18 percent to $3.6 billion and net earnings rose 19 percent to $439 million.

In the fourth quarter net sales increased 8 percent to $1.2 billion. Net earnings however declined 2 percent to $178 million.

"Tiffany exceeded the goals that we had set at the start of 2011 for both sales and earnings growth, although we concluded the year with softer-than-expected results,” said Michael J. Kowalski, chairman and CEO of Tiffany.

Tiffany’s increase in revenues was clearly driven by the rising economies. In the Asia-Pacific region, sales rose 36 percent to $748 million in the full year and increased 19 percent to $225 million in the fourth quarter.

In Europe, sales increased 17 percent to $421 million in the fiscal year. Tiffany noted that sales growth in Continental Europe was relatively stronger than results in the U.K.

In the Americas region, sales increased 15 percent to $1.8 billion in fiscal 2011, while sales in the New York flagship store increased 20 percent in the year.

In Japan, sales increased 13 percent to $617 million in fiscal

Other sales declined 5 percent to $51 million in the fiscal year and 22 percent to $12 million in the fourth quarter due to declines in wholesale sales of rough diamonds as well as lower wholesale sales of finished products to independent distributors in the fourth quarter.