CHINA. Driven by the surging offshore duty free business in Hainan, China Duty Free Group (CDFG) became the world’s largest travel retailer measured by turnover in 2020, according to data compiled by The Moodie Davitt Report.
China Tourism Group Duty Free Corp, parent of CDFG, revealed recently that revenues climbed by +8.1% year-on-year to RMB52.6 billion (€6,603 million at 31 December 2020 exchange rates).
After a difficult first three months of 2020, the CDFG parent reported a swift reverse in its fortunes in the second quarter of the year, as it delivered an increase in year-on-year revenue. Its second-half results were stronger again, following the resurgence of Chinese domestic travel to Hainan and the introduction of an enhanced shopping policy from 1 July.
CDFG ranked fourth in the annual Top 25 Travel Retailer rankings compiled by The Moodie Davitt Report based on 2019 sales. In 2010 and 2015 (see tables below) it ranked 19th and 12th, respectively.
Revenue in 2020 for many duty free retailers included new, alternative, or extended channels from previous years. These will be noted in our full report.
The Moodie Davitt Report has also tracked performance among other leading travel retailers in 2020 – with full results from our Top 25 rankings to be revealed in a special edition of The Moodie Davitt eZine in July.
Lotte Duty Free, despite a sharp fall in 2020 sales, delivered sales of just under KRW6.4 trillion (€4.82 billion at 31 December exchange rates), driven by a resilient daigou business and some highly creative ways (supported by Korean government supportive measures) of depleting unsold inventory. The retailer also continued to make impressive strides with its ecommerce business (which has since grown to a 40% internal share in the first quarter of 2021).
The Shilla Duty Free posted revenue of KRW5,691 billion (€4.29 billion), restated from our initial story. Dufry (ranked first since 2014) reported a -71.1% decline in turnover in 2020 to CHF2,561.1 million (€2.37 billion at 31 December exchange rates) as its business worldwide was hit by the pandemic.
Among other leading market players, Lagardère Travel Retail (ranked fifth in 2019) posted 100% managed sales of €2,275 million (as reported, consolidated revenue was €1,720 million across all sales channels and categories, down by -59.7%), while we estimate DFS Group revenues for 2020 at around €2.2 billion.
*Note: These are preliminary figures, with final 2020 data to follow. Figures are those from company reports and our estimates, with some alternative online and wholesale figures included, as noted earlier.
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