Champagne exports are slumping because people aren't in the mood to celebrate inflation and conflicts, chief of French producers' association says
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- The global exports of Champagne fell 9.2% in 2024, with 271.4 million bottles shipped out from France.
- Consumers are just not in the mood for celebration, the chief of the French Champagne producers association said.
- It said that global political and economic crises have dulled the festivities.
People around the world aren't in the mood for glasses of bubbly.
Shipments of Champagne have slumped in 2024 because consumers are not in the mood for celebration, according to Comité Champagne, the Champagne producers association.
Global exports of Champagne totalled 271.4 million bottles in 2024, but that was a 9.2% decrease from 2023, the association said in a statement to BI.
Maxime Toubart, co-president of the Comité Champagne, said in the statement that Champagne is a "true barometer of consumer mood."
"And this is no time for celebration, with inflation, conflicts around the world, economic uncertainty and a political wait-and-see attitude in some of Champagne's biggest markets, such as France and the United States of America," Toubart added.
John Noble, the director of Comité Champagne's Australia bureau, added that customers are "justifiably cautious" about buying the luxury product, given the "current economic environment with high inflation and cost of living concerns."
In July, LVMH, the world's largest luxury conglomerate, also sounded concern over its bubbly sales, attributing it to a bleak global outlook.
Sparkling wine sales spiked significantly in 2021 following the relaxation of pandemic restrictions, particularly in the US. But it was a short-lived high.
According to LVMH's 2024 first-half earnings report, the company's revenue from Champagne and wines declined 12% in the first half of 2024 compared to the year before.
"Champagne is quite linked with celebration, happiness, et cetera," LVMH's finance chief, Jean-Jacques Guiony, said in the earnings call in July. "Maybe the current global situation, be it geopolitical or macroeconomic, does not lead people to cheer up and to open bottles of Champagne. I don't really know."
Champagne is not the only luxury product facing a reckoning. In 2024, overall luxury spending stagnated, with big brands seeing their share prices drop.
Kering, the owner of Gucci, YSL, and Balenciaga, saw its stock fall more than 40% last year.
LVMH's sales declined by 3% in the third quarter of 2024, partly because of weakened consumer confidence in China.
The industry was also hit hard by "aspirational" luxury shoppers — those who spent big bucks on luxury immediately after the pandemic — reining in on their spending.