How Has Guess’s Asia Business Been Faring Currently?

+23.02%
Upside
25.74
Market
31.67
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Guess?

Guess had been grappling with its Asia business since 2013, after witnessing significant growth in revenues for several years. In 2014, Guess’s revenues in Asia declined by 4% to $281 million, primarily due to the macroeconomic weakness in its core market, China. When Victor Herrero assumed the position of Guess’s CEO in mid-2015, one of his strategy initiatives included more focus on the Asia Pacific business. Herrero, who had a tremendous success story of building a $4 billion business from scratch for Inditex Asia, wanted to replicate the same growth for Guess in Asia. Towards that end, in Q3 FY2016, the company hired a new Director for China and a new Director of the Middle East, India, and Southeast Asia. Both the directors are Mr. Herrero’s ex-colleagues from Inditex. Further, the company doubled its capital allocation for the Asian stores and the e-commerce business in Asia was strengthened by a greater presence in websites like Tmall, JD.com, and Guess.cn. Asia contributes to around 10% of Guess’s revenues currently (~$250 million) and Mr. Herrero aims to increase the contribution to $750 million or around 25% of the company’s total revenues.

As a result of all these efforts, Guess’s Asia Business showed the greatest improvement in its performance in Q3 FY2017 when compared to its performance in Q2 FY2017. While Guess Asia revenues declined by around 6% y-o-y in Q2 FY2017, the same revenues witnessed a 10% y-o-y growth in Q3 FY2017. Not only that, even its operating loss which was 138% y-o-y in the third quarter, was almost 500% y-o-y in the second quarter. Guess’s Asia division had shown the maximum quarter-over-quarter improvement in performance and we think this might just be the beginning.

q3fy17 ges q2 fy2017 kasturi

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The revenue growth in Asia came as  a result of new store openings and due to positive comparable sales in Greater China. Fourteen stores were opened in Asia in the third quarter. The company plans on opening 65 stores in the region with a focus on China by 2016 and it has been on track so far.

 

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Notes:

1) The purpose of these analyses is to help readers focus on a few important things. We hope such lean communication sparks thinking, and encourages readers to comment and ask questions on the comment section, or email content@trefis.com
2) Figures mentioned are approximate values to help our readers remember the key concepts more intuitively. For precise figures, please refer to our complete analysis for Guess

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