Cartier is increasing prices for its watches and jewellery, the company’s chief executive officer Cyrille Vigneron has revealed.
He said strengthening of the US dollar and Chinese yuan against the Euro has prompted what he called “mild” price rises.
Inflation for precious materials including diamonds, platinum and gold have also contributed to the hike, he explains in an interview with Bloomberg.
Cartier stopped sourcing diamonds from Russia following the invasion of Ukraine, and this is contributing to rising costs, although Vigneron expects the effect to be short-lived.
Details of the price rises were not disclosed in the interview, but Cartier had previously said it expected increases to be in the range of 3% to 5%.
“We’re in a long-term business, and we have to be careful not to adjust our pricing too quickly,” Mr Vigneron said.
Although the Western world is facing a sharp rise in the cost of living, Mr Vigneron believes the wealthy will keep spending.
“The overall growth of world wealth and the overall distribution is coming in favour of global luxury,” he tells Bloomberg.
Much of the world, outside Asia, is returning to more normal patterns of work, leisure and consumer spending following draconian Covid restrictions over the past two years, but centres of major global cities like London and New York are still suffering from a lack of tourism.
This may be one reason behind Cartier looking at opening more boutiques in secondary cities.
In the United States, for example, Cartier is expected to open boutiques outside of major cities like New York, Miami and San Francisco.
First, the company will assess whether strong demand in Texas and Florida persists now that pandemic conditions have eased, reveals Mercedes Abramo, Cartier’s North America CEO.