Hong Kong-listed cosmetics retailer Bonjour Holdings Ltd., which also runs a retail business here, said its profit for the first six months of this year has soared 288 per cent year-on-year to HK$424 million (US$54.7 million) although it is mainly due to the company’s disposal of beauty and health salon operations in the period, the company said in its interim results filing. The disposal, completed in January, has generated for Bonjour a gain of about HK$399 million, according to the filing released after the closing of the stock exchange on Friday. Nevertheless, Bonjour’s overall sales turnover for the interim period has dropped 14.4 per cent to nearly HK$1.15 billion, mainly dragged down by fewer sales in the combined core market of Hong Kong and Macau. Bonjour’s sales revenue in Macau was only slightly up by 1.2 per cent to HK$109 million. As at the end of the interim period, Bonjour ran 46 stores in Hong Kong, Macau and Guangzhou, one store more than a year ago. The cosmetic retailer’s profit from continuing operations declined 75 per cent year-on-year to HK$25 million for the January-June period. In the filing, Bonjour said that it expected the challenging retail environment to persist in the second half of this year given Mainland Chinese tourists’ evolving preference for Japan, South Korea and Europe. The average ticket size of the cosmetics retailer was also likely to be hurt from the fact that a higher ratio of Chinese tourists are coming from lower-tier cities with less spending power and day-trippers, the filing said.
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