Kering's 5 moves to dominate 2022 A game plan that passes through the explosive growth of Gucci and Saint Laurent

The Kering Group yesterday announced last year's financial results and its strategies to grow in the coming year, reporting a 35% increase in revenue compared to 2020. An increase driven by the acceleration of Gucci, whose profits rose above pre-pandemic levels in the last quarter of the year, expanding its turnover by 10% compared to the year before the pandemic, closing the year with a revenue of 9.73 billion euros. Supporting Gucci's growth will be one of the group's main goals in the future, especially to overtake rival LVMH whose fashion division grew 51% compared to 2019 riding the success of Louis Vuitton and Dior. But there are other news: in the document published by Kering, Saint Laurent and Bottega Veneta are mentioned as the other two best-selling brands. The first, with 2.52 billion in revenue, grew by 45% while the second, with a turnover of 1.5 billion, grew by 24%. As Henri François Pinault explained, Saint Laurent is preparing to become Kering's new mega-brand, strengthening jewelry and menswear and increasing its growth in key markets such as China and the United States.

The growth of the entire fashion division of the group, however, will be driven by a series of key strategies that we can expect to see implemented by the group. Here are the main ones.

1. Retail will be increasingly direct-to-consumer

«Our portfolio is not yet perfect», Pinault said of the group's potential acquisitions in the future. The group has in fact begun to tidy up its brand roster by selling Girard-Perregaux and Ulysse Nardin to focus only on brands with the potential to expand to a considerable size. The group, which has not acquired a new brand for years now, is evaluating new and possible additions, albeit with great caution.