Luxury jeweler Tiffany’s profit for 2015 will fall about 10% due to soft holiday sales, the company said on Tuesday.
The New York City firm reported a 3% currency-adjusted drop in world-wide sales and a 5% decline in sales at stores open at least a year. As a result, earnings per share for the fiscal year ended January 31 will now be about $3.78 a share, lower than the $3.88 that analysts on average had expected, according to The Wall Street Journal.
“We believe overall sales results were negatively affected by restrained consumer spending tied to challenging and uncertain global economic conditions and we expect 2015 earnings to come in at the low end of our previously-set range of expectations,” chief executive Frederic Cumenal said in a press release.
The company’s struggle with the strong U.S. dollar has been ongoing, as nearly a quarter of Tiffany’s U.S. sales and roughly 40% of sales at its flagship Fifth Avenue store in Manhattan come from foreign tourists, the WSJ said.
Tiffany will also cut jobs, though a company spokesman would not say how many. The firm expects to book a charge of roughly 4 cents a share due to “staff and occupancy reductions.”
Other retailers have also reported disappointing holiday sales, according to the WSJ. Macy’s, whose sales at existing stores fell 4.7% in November and December, said it would cut thousands of jobs as it closes stores. Likewise, Gap is also shutting shops, after announcing that December sales for existing stores fell 5% from a year earlier.
On Friday, the government reported a 0.1% decline in December U.S. retail sales.
