PARIS – Accessible luxury jewelry brand Pandora continued its steady growth momentum.
The Danish company released its preliminary results Sunday evening, nearly a month ahead of schedule, on strong revenue boosted by the holiday period.
Organic growth hit 12 percent for revenue of 10.8 billion Danish kroner, or $1.58 billion, while like-for-like sales were up 9 percent in the three months ended Dec. 31.
The strong fourth-quarter performance lifted full-year organic growth to 8 percent, above the previously communicated guidance. That had been raised twice last year, most recently Nov. 8, as the company’s strategy started to see results and had been expected in the 5 to 6 percent range. The early release was due to exceeding the guidance by two points, as required by Danish regulations.
Full-year 2023 revenue was 28.1 billion Danish kroner, or $4.12 billion.
The company’s strong sales were a continuation of what has been seen earlier in the year, said Pandora chief financial officer Anders Boyer. “In the first month of Q4, October, we were still seeing high-single digits in like-for-like growth, and that continued through Black Friday and Christmas…the momentum we have seen in Q4 was essentially a continuation of Q3 where we were growing almost at the same level.”
Much of that comes down to increased brand recognition as the company has gone full force on marketing and communications efforts, such as bringing on board several celebrities including Ashley Park and Pamela Anderson for campaigns, pursuing placement in fashion magazines to raise visibility, participating in fashion weeks and becoming a principal partner of The British Fashion Council’s The Fashion Awards, which took place in London Dec. 4.
“We’ve raised the game starting a year back, putting more money behind not just driving awareness of the brand, but driving desirability as well,” he said. Working with more fashion events has seen Pandora “make some noise in a positive sense about the brand…that has helped drive talk-ability both in mainstream media and in fashion magazines, and on social media as well.”
While participating in more high fashion events raises the brand’s profile, Boyer was careful to add that it is still positioned as affordable and that its pricing strategy will not change. “We are participating in those kinds of events in order to show that even though we are an accessible luxury brand from a price perspective, we also know what’s on trend and we can be part of creating what’s on trend as a company.”
Anderson’s global campaign has performed “really well,” Boyer said. The company has also invested in raising its search results on Google, he added.
Boyer said that holiday sales saw lines at some stores, but that the company was able to handle the demand by paying almost hour-by-hour attention to sales numbers and data, and adjusting product and staffing levels accordingly.
“That requires a lot careful preparation and super, super diligence about how you execute in order to make it work, and we have become better and better at managing that” to ensure a high level of customer service through the period, he said.
Looking at regions, like-for-like sales in the U.S. were up 10 percent, while sales in Europe were up 5 percent.
Sales in China were down 12 percent, as the company is in the middle of repositioning itself in the market there.
Boyer said Pandora had previously been positioned as a fashion brand there, and the company wants to bring it in line with its global positioning as affordable luxury. The company launched the new brand positioning mid-2023 in Shanghai with the new approach to storytelling. Reactions to the new positioning have been “nice, positive” so far, Boyer said, and it is anticipated to roll out to other cities soon as Pandora seeks to increase its sales in the country.
“China’s a super interesting market for us. We have a very low revenue in Q4, just 1 percent of our revenue [comes from China] even though China is the biggest jewelry market in the world. So it gives us a lot of opportunity to drive future growth there, if and when we get the brand in the right place.”
“Given that we have a decent business in Hong Kong and Taiwan, why shouldn’t we be able to build that in mainland China as well over time? It’s going to be a journey. It’s not a quick fix, but we definitely see a very big potential,” he said.
Pandora’s lab-grown diamonds collection was up 83 percent, though the category is still just 1 percent of total revenue.
“We’re still in the early part of that journey, but we’re clearly building momentum in that collection,” he said.
The category, launched in 2022, is poised to grow and is on track for the company’s stated goal of reaching 1 billion Danish kroner in sales of lab-grown diamonds by 2026, Boyer confirmed.
Audited full-year results will be released Feb. 7.
