Listed Hong Kong fashion brand Joyce Boutique is the latest retailer to warn declining sales will hurt its profit this year. 

For the five months to August 31, the company expects first-half sales sales to decline by 15 per cent and the loss attributable to shareholders to almost double. 

“This unfavourable performance was caused by a sharp downturn in market conditions after June,” said company secretary Kevin Hui in a stock exchange filing. 

“It is quite possible that market conditions may stay bad before they start to get better,” he warned.

Joyce Boutique’s results for the six months to September 30 are expected to be released before the end of November. 

The announcement follows health-and-beauty retailer Sa Sa International reporting that its sales in Hong Kong for the five months to August 31 declined by about 15 per cent and in Macau by 17 per cent. 

While Joyce Boutique did not specifically cite the ongoing extradition-bill protests as the cause of its falling sales, the commencement of the protest activity coincides with the period of sales decline Hui noted. With stores on the mainland as well as in Hong Kong, Joyce is also exposed to the declining consumer sentiment in Greater China sparked in part by the Sino-US trade war.