{"id":8561,"date":"2024-07-01T17:59:22","date_gmt":"2024-07-01T15:59:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arsutoriastudio.com\/italian-leather-goods-2024-starts-uphill\/"},"modified":"2024-07-01T17:59:22","modified_gmt":"2024-07-01T15:59:22","slug":"italian-leather-goods-2024-starts-uphill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arsutoriastudio.com\/en\/italian-leather-goods-2024-starts-uphill\/","title":{"rendered":"Italian leather goods: 2024 starts uphill"},"content":{"rendered":"
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According to the Economic Outlook prepared by the Confindustria Moda Study Centre, 2024 promises to be a difficult year for Italian leather goods. Data for the first quarter of 2024, in fact, confirm the extreme weakness of demand (first and foremost international demand), with a further squeeze on orders and consequent repercussions on companies’ production activity. <\/span><\/p>\n

The most significant datum is the -18.1% shown by the ISTAT index of industrial production for the item ‘Travel and leather goods’ in the first 3 months of the year compared to the corresponding period of 2023, which explains the reason for the new massive recourse to wage integration tools and casts more than a shadow on the sales trend in the following months. <\/span><\/p>\n

The indications gathered last May among associated leather goods entrepreneurs through the customary sample survey describe an equally unfavourable picture, estimating a -12% average overall drop in turnover compared to January-March 2023 among the sample companies.<\/p>\n

Taking a closer look at the ISTAT data available to date, it emerges that, in the first 3 months of the year, leather goods were sold abroad for 2.66 billion euro, or -11.8%, with a decrease also in KG (-4.8%). Examination by destination shows better performance for EU outlets (which limit the drop in value on January-March 2023 to -0.9%) than for non-EU markets (down instead by -16.3% overall). Among the European Union partners, France – the first destination, with a share of total Italian exports of around 16%, whose figures also include products made for French luxury brands – shows a contraction of -4.9% (much more severe in KG: -27%). Germany held its own (ranked 6th in value, but 1st in KG), which, against a timid -0.4% in value, recorded +8.2% in volume. Finally, all the other main EU members increased in value – and in several cases by double digits -: Spain, Poland, the Netherlands, Austria and Greece. <\/span><\/p>\n

Among non-EU markets, the collapse of Switzerland stands out (-76% in value on January-March 2023 and -54.4% in KG), the traditional logistical platform of fashion multinationals: a figure linked to a change in the distribution strategies of fashion labels, which have replaced transit through Swiss hubs with direct shipment to end markets.<\/p>\n

In the Far East – where leather goods exports remained on the whole more or less stable in the first part of the year (-0.5%) -, growth in value involved Japan (+3.5%), Taiwan (+8.7%), Thailand (+15.6%), Singapore (+3.3%) and above all Hong Kong (+29.7%, which significantly reduced the gap with 2019). On the other hand, the area’s two main markets declined: China (-4.8%) and South Korea (-9.4%), which occupy 3rd and 4th place in the overall export ranking. In the Middle East, there was a leap in the Arab Emirates (+75% approximately) and excellent performance in Qatar (+12.7%); in both cases, these increases were accompanied by non-marginal declines in KG. North America struggled (-0.3% in value in the United States and -9.5% in Canada) although, thanks to the excellent results achieved in 2022, the comparison with 2019 levels puts current values more than 85% above then.<\/p>\n

In terms of merchandise, both exports of leather products (-14.8%) and those of substitute goods (-4.8%) were down in value, although they increased in KG (+13.7%). Reductions of more than -10% affected the two main merchandise items, namely handbags (which account for over 70% of foreign sales in value), down -12.2% compared to the first 3 months of 2023, and small leather goods (-16.3%). Among the remaining types, belts also lost ground, -12.7%, while luggage and travel goods were stable (+0.2%).<\/p>\n

Imports in the first three months of the current year recorded a decrease of -7.5% in value, with a -1.2% in KG.<\/p>\n

The sector trade balance, while still largely in surplus at EUR 1.79 billion, was down -13.8% on January-March 2023.<\/p>\n

On the domestic front, the ISTAT index of the value of retail sales in Italy (referring to “leather goods + footwear”) showed a weak increase in the first 3 months (+1.4%), which nevertheless leaves the current levels still below the -1.3% of those (already largely unsatisfactory because marked by a continuous slow erosion in previous years) of the same pre-pandemic 2019 period.<\/p>\n

The above indications, relating to the results achieved in the first quarter and the expectations for the second quarter, lead to an estimate for the first 6 months of the year of a drop in turnover of more than -9% and lengthen the timeframe for the recovery.<\/p>\n

Le suddette indicazioni, relative ai risultati conseguiti nel primo trimestre e alle attese per il secondo, fanno stimare per i primi 6 mesi dell\u2019anno una flessione del fatturato superiore al -9% e allungano i tempi della ripartenza.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Exports (-11.8%) and turnover (-12% in the member survey) fell in the first quarter, while domestic demand remained flat (+1.4% the value of retail sales in January-March 2023, but still -1.3% below pre-Covid levels). Luxury slows down.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8564,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[148],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flash-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arsutoriastudio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arsutoriastudio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arsutoriastudio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arsutoriastudio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arsutoriastudio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arsutoriastudio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arsutoriastudio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arsutoriastudio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arsutoriastudio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arsutoriastudio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}