Think COVID-19 is bad for makers of luxury goods? Think again. This could bode very well for Apple products like the flagship iPhone 12 Pro Max.
Sales at LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE’s fashion and leather goods division rose 12%, excluding currency movements, in its third quarter — close to the levels it was achieving before the pandemic struck.
Andrea Felsted for Bloomberg Opinion:
The bumper performance shows how demand for expensive handbags, cars and watches bounced back once affluent consumers could emerge from their homes and spend some of the money they saved during lockdown. It’s worth remembering as Europe once again tightens restrictions on movement.
In China, whose consumers could account for 45% of global luxury sales this year according to Jefferies, shoppers treated themselves as stores reopened. And this so-called “revenge spending” phenomenon has expanded to the U.S. and even Europe, as wealthy individuals divert money they would have splurged on overseas vacations and restaurant dining to high-end boutiques.
Looking ahead, another beneficiary of this bling boom may be Apple Inc., whose top-of-the-range iPhone 12 Pro becomes available for pre-order Friday. Having saved some money during lockdown, consumers might be more willing to splurge on the more expensive new handsets: The iPhone 12 Pro Max costs $1,199, while the iPhone 12 Mini, with fewer bells and whistles, is priced at $649.
MacDailyNews Take: This also bodes well for higher-end Apple Watch Edition Series 6 models.
By the way, if you keep your iPhone for three years, the cost of an iPhone 12 Pro Max (256GB) is $1.09 per day. The cost of an iPhone 12 (256GB) is $0.89 per day. So, the difference between spending three years with a meat and potatoes iPhone 12 and a top-of-the-line flagship iPhone Pro Mac is 20-cents a day.