A 19.8 per cent drop in sales in Hong Kong and Macau has been recorded by French skincare retailerL’Occitane International for its first fiscal quarter.

This amounts to €22.8 million (MOP175.3 million/US$21.9 million), according to its filing with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Its same-store sales in the two regions for the three months ended June 30 dropped by 11.7 per cent year-on-year. The company had 33 stores in Hong Kong and three in Macau at the end of June.

Total net sales reached €268.5 million for the period, down 2.2 per cent. Of the total, sell-out sales brought in €200.4 million.

L’Occitane says the soft performance was because of “lower sales to travel retail operations in the Asia region” as well as the global economic downturn and overall unfavourable foreign exchange impact.

Meanwhile, the company’s sales on the mainland decreased 5.3 per cent during the quarter to €24 million. Same-store sales, however, eased by only 0.4 per cent year-on-year.
The company had 195 stores on the mainland at the end of June, eight more than at the same time last year.