French luxury group S.T. Dupont announced on Friday a net loss of 3.8 million euros in the first half of its non-calendar fiscal year, six times higher than in the same period of the previous year, which the company explains by referring to a heavy inventory rundown by its clients.

For the same period during its 2013-2014 fiscal year, the company, which specializes in luxury lighters and pens, announced a net loss of 600,000 euros. 

S.T. Dupont has justified these results by referring to “a general downturn in the luxury market that has led to heavy inventory rundowns by most of its client distributors, combined with a shift in the launch of new products after the summer." 

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Its operating loss was 4.4 million euros as compared with 1.7 million in the previous year. Revenues, meanwhile, declined by 24.6% to 26 million euros as compared with 34.4 for the same period in 2013-2014. 

“New product launches occurred in late summer and the recovery of certain export markets helped consolidated revenues return to 2013 levels, in the months of September and October. A sales action plan was implemented in major markets to consolidate the trend," the company noted in a statement. 

Sales were down in all regions with S.T. Dupont stores, and particularly in France, where they were down by 24.1%. 

In the rest of Western Europe, there was a more than 35.9% decline, with a 44% decline in particular in Italy. 

In Asia, a driving force in the previous year, sales were down 12%. 

"Adjustments were made in September 2014. France, Western Europe, not including Italy, and China attained sales levels at or above last year," according to the luxury company.

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