Beauty retail chain Sa Sa has delivered bleak figures for the usually lucrative Chinese New Year sales season.

Sa Sa reports figures for a week over Chinese New Year, unlike other retailers, including Chow Tai Fook, which measures sales over a fortnight.

From February 8 to 14, Sa Sa’s sales slumped 20 per cent overall in its key Hong Kong and Macau markets and 19 per cent on a same store basis.

In a short statement to the stock exchange, Sa Sa said the slump was mainly due to “a notable decrease in overall tourist arrivals in Hong Kong” during the week, especially from the mainland.

“[This led] to a 26 per cent drop in sales to mainland customers, with the number of transactions attributable to mainland tourists decreasing by 18 per cent, while their average [purchase] per transaction decreased by 9 per cent.”

The company stressed the figures were unaudited at this point.

The 2016 Chinese New Year season was compared like-for-like with sales for February 19 to 25 last year.