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Hong Kong: Peace Mark, Asia's biggest watch retailer, plans to expand into India and broaden the presence of its luxury brands in China.
Hong Kong-based Peace Mark, which has a market capitalisation of HK$7.78 billion ($998 million), recently acquired Singapore's Sincere Watch, paying S$530 million ($391 million) for a 50.7 per cent stake. It is now making an offer for all remaining shares and delisting Sincere from the Singapore stock exchange.
Asian countries, in particular China and India, are becoming important growth markets for watches and luxury goods as a US-led recession threatens to slow the American and European markets.
Peace Mark, which had focused on the Hong Kong and mainland China market before its acquisition of Sincere, is looking to expand Sincere stores in India by finding a local partner. Sincere recently opened its first Indian store.
"India and Vietnam are the up and coming markets," Patric Chau, chairman of Peace Mark, told the Financial Times.
On radar
Chau said he was also interested in expanding the company's reach into other fast-growing markets such as Russia and the Middle East, but said cultural differences and other factors made those markets difficult to enter.
As part of the Sincere acquisition, Peace Mark also gained the exclusive distribution rights to brands such as Franck Muller and de Grisogono. These brands' presence are now being expanded in China, with Franck Muller boutiques set to open in Shanghai, Dalian and Hangzhou.
Chau said there was still buoyant demand for luxury watches in China in spite of a 50 per cent drop in the Shanghai stock market in recent months and concerns about a slowdown in growth. "This market is there and it is still growing strong," he said, although he warned any souring of consumers' spending mood would first hit mid-tier luxury brands.
China's luxury goods market is expected to maintain double-digit growth, according to Thomas Chauve, an analyst at Citigroup. He estimated China's share of global luxury demand, which was eight per cent in 2006, would grow to 20 per cent in a decade.
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