Chow Tai Fook ramps up U.S. expansion with diamond wholesale

By

Benjamin Fitzgerald

Published
Jul 27, 2016

Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group Ltd. plans to ramp up its U.S. market presence by selling diamond to retailers there, in a bid to offset in domestic market luxury sales.

The world’s largest publicly traded jewellery chain plans to start the new U.S. wholesale business within a year and has set up a team to conduct feasibility studies, Chow Tai Fook Managing Director Kent Wong told Bloomberg. It follows a slowdown in the Chinese market, which hurt luxury sales and led profits to plunge by 46% last fiscal year.

Chow Tai Fook purchased the U.S.-based Hearts on Fire brand in 2014 for $150 million, which sells cut diamonds to franchises retailers. That brand is now being progressively introduced in Mainland China. 

But this latest move will see Chow Tai Fook sell polished and rough diamonds to other retailers across America, Wong told Bloomberg.

”We are interested in the U.S. market because it has the largest demand for diamonds in the world. It contributes to 40 percent of diamonds sales,” said Wong.

Wholesaling will enable Chow Tai Fook to test the market before launching a brand of its own.

“We will seek to partner with local retailers who know the market well.”

Speaking to local radio earlier in July, Wong said the firm plans to shutter as many as eight stores in Hong Kong.

“Seven to eight of our stores, in tourist areas, are set to close in the 2017 financial year, and those that have renewed their tenancy contracts, even in these populous areas, we have seen their landlords on average slash rents by 40 to 50 per cent this year,” he told local media.