London is the favoured location for luxury overseas brands, including watch companies, looking to break into European markets.
That’s according to new research from real estate firm Savills that showed affordable luxury US brands wanting to expand overseas have caused increased activity in Europe’s letting activity.
Luxury US brands with ‘aggressive expansion’ strategies in particular are driving significantly increased letting activity in the UK capital and other European cities.
The research identified the UK’s capital and Paris as the favoured entry points for brands and Savills claimed that accessible luxury brands have grown their market share by 7% to 45% in 2017.
Although luxury US brands are rapidly expanding their market share, 54% of all new openings are accounted for by Italian and French brands, showing they still dominate acquisition activity.
In 2017 London enjoyed 5% of all affordable luxury store openings globally. This was level with Milan and ahead of Munich and Oslo.
But Paris was top of the European and global rankings with 5.9% of all letting activity occurring in the French capital.
