China signals: Laopu’s discount dilemma, Salomon’s K-pop win

Three stories pulling in different directions this week. Laopu Gold has broken with its no-discount policy ahead of Qixi (Chinese Valentine’s Day), drawing complaints from customers who paid full price weeks earlier. Salomon opened a Beijing flagship with Blackpink’s Jisoo, and Chinese social media rewarded her handling of the crowd with days of free coverage. International hotel groups reported mixed first-half results, with Greater China recovering on the half-year numbers but losing pace through the second quarter. Why Laopu Gold’s Qixi discounts expose luxury pricing power limits Market intel: Laopu Gold has broken with its no-discount policy ahead of Qixi Festival on August 19, running promotions at high-end malls including Beijing SKP and Shanghai IFC. The Beijing SKP offer, which runs August 6 to 19, takes 50 RMB ($7.42) off every 1,000 RMB ($148.35) spent and pays 10 times the usual points. Staff there said discontinued lines carry a further 5% off that stacks with mall and brand membership discounts, bringing some items to roughly 15% below list. Resellers holding both membership cards have quoted 18% to 21% off. The promotions come less than six months after the brand lifted prices by an average of about 25% on February 28, following three increases across 2025 that added more than 50% in total. Customers who bought at those prices have complained publicly. The shares closed at HK$333.60 ($42.53) on August 14, down 46% this year and more than 70% below their July 8, 2025 high of HK$1,108 ($141.37), with gold prices falling and demand softening. Market indicator: Discounting is the one move Laopu could not make cheaply. The brand’s positioning rests on ancient-method craftsmanship commanding a price decoupled from the metal — a jeweler that does not mark down. Breaking that rule tells the market the pricing power was thinner than the multiple assumed. The half-year numbers were not the problem. Laopu guided revenue of 19.8 billion RMB to 20.45 billion RMB ($2.94 billion to $3.03 billion), up 60% to 66%, and adjusted net profit of 4.31 billion RMB to 4.36 billion RMB ($639 million to $647 million), up 83% to 85%. What moved the stock was the shape underneath. Morgan Stanley put second-quarter sales at about 3.5 billion RMB ($519 million) on the midpoint, roughly 40% of the March level, while Citi said second-quarter net profit landed about 30% below its forecast. Goldman Sachs cut its 2026 to 2028 profit estimates by 14% to 15%. Shares fell 23.76% on July 28. Resale values are the sharper signal. One owner’s bracelet, quoted at 86,000 RMB ($12,760) for buyback earlier this year, was worth 57,500 RMB ($8,530) by late June, and some pieces now fetch around 60% of what buyers paid. A gold premium that only holds while gold is rising is not a luxury premium, and this is the first falling cycle in which Laopu has had to prove otherwise. What Salomon’s Beijing opening says about celebrity ambassador strategy in China Market intel: Salomon opened a flagship at Beijing’s China World Mall on August 10, timed to the launch of its “Blue Perspective” photography exhibition. The store runs across three floors of the mall’s north wing at 728 sqm, staged from an urban theme in the basement up to a mountain-culture concept on the second floor. Jisoo, named a Salomon global ambassador on May 28, appeared at the opening. The event was not publicized, but fans filled the walkways and pressed against the barriers outside. She asked the host for the microphone and greeted the crowd in Chinese, telling them she had missed them. Her team handed out ice water, cooling patches and parasols, and set up industrial fans for those queuing in the heat. Social media users, including some who said they were not fans, praised her handling of the crowd. Market indicator: The French sports equipment brand got two things right and they are separable. The signing put a global name against a brand that has spent two years moving from trail running into fashion, and the Beijing store gave that signing somewhere to land. What generated the coverage was neither: it was 90 seconds of unscripted behavior at a closed event that the brand could not have scripted and did not control. That distinction matters for anyone budgeting an ambassador deal. The fee buys reach. It does not buy the Mandarin greeting, and it does not buy the fan posts from people who opened by saying they were not fans — the format that carries furthest on Chinese social platforms precisely because the poster has no stake. Brands can create the conditions for it, through a closed event that rewards the fans who turned up and logistics that acknowledge people queuing in August heat. They cannot commission it. The exposure is real but its half-life is short, and Salomon’s China question is longer-dated. The store is a bet on physical retail in the country’s most contested mall, and it will be judged on whether the brand can sell technical outdoor products to Chinese consumers at Beijing rents once the crowd disperses. Greater China RevPAR splits Marriott, IHG, Hyatt and Accor Market intel: Greater China RevPAR rose across three of the four major groups in the first half, but the quarterly splits tell a different story than the half-year totals. Marriott reported second-quarter Greater China RevPAR up 3.2%, against about 6% in the first quarter, with Hong Kong, Taiwan and Hainan named as the drivers. Group revenue reached $7.07 billion, up 5%, though $5.06 billion of that was cost reimbursement; adjusted revenue was $2.01 billion. Adjusted net income rose 16% to $844 million while reported net income was flat at $766 million. IHG showed the same shape more sharply. Greater China RevPAR rose 3.1% across the half but slowed to 0.8% in the second quarter from 5.7% in the first, which the company attributed partly to holiday timing. The region delivered IHG's fastest operating profit growth at 25%, reaching $55 million, with fee margin widening to 62.5% from 57.9%. Group revenue from reportable segments rose 7% to $1.26 billion and operating profit from those segments 10% to $665 million. Hyatt was the outlier, with Greater China RevPAR up 7.2% on gains in both occupancy and rate, against 5.9% system-wide. Accor was the exception in the other direction: China RevPAR stayed in low single-digit negative territory, with mid-scale and economy underperforming and some properties closing. Market indicator: Read the half-year figures and China looks recovered. Read the second quarter and it looks stalled. The gap between those two readings is where the operators are actually making decisions. Inbound travel is carrying what growth there is. Accor put inbound tourism activity in mainland China up 46% year-on-year since January, and the markets Marriott credited — Hong Kong, Taiwan, Hainan — are the ones catching international and cross-border arrivals rather than mainland domestic demand. Luxury inventory is where the groups say they are gaining share, which reads better as evidence that international brands are taking share in a flat market than as evidence the market is growing. Expansion continues but not uniformly. Marriott passed 700 operating hotels in China in May, across 26 brands and more than 150 destinations. Hilton reached 1,000 in January. Accor operates more than 830 across Greater China and told a Shanghai press conference in July it wants 1,600 within five to six years. Accor is also closing hotels in China’s economy segment and cut its net unit growth guidance to around 3.5%, citing those closures among the reasons — a group can be committed to a doubling target and shutting properties in the same market at the same time, and Accor currently is.

China signals: Laopu’s discount dilemma, Salomon’s K-pop win

How Bottega Veneta weaved China’s forever it bag

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China signals: Laopu’s discount dilemma, Salomon’s K-pop win

How Bottega Veneta weaved China’s forever it bag