FRANKFURT (Reuters) - German fashion house Hugo Boss (DE:BOSSn) on Thursday scrapped its sales target for 2015 due to slower luxury spending in Europe, the United States and China, sending its shares lower.
The group now expects its group sales to rise by a medium single-digit percentage on a currency-adjusted basis, from 2.57 billion euros ($2.71 billion) in 2014.
In November, Chief Financial Officer Mark Langer already said that achieving the previous target of 3 billion euros, set in 2011, would be difficult.
Europe is Hugo Boss's most important market with a 60 percent share of group sales. The United States accounts for nearly 20 percent and China for about 8 percent.
Hugo Boss's Frankfurt-listed shares (F:BOSSn) slid 2.9 percent in pre-market trade, against a broadly flat market.
Like other high-end brands, Hugo Boss has been hit by Russian consumers' waning spending abroad due to the Ukraine crisis and the tumbling rouble.
Demand in China, once the engine of the luxury goods industry, has also been tempered by weakening growth and a crackdown on bribery.
Against this backdrop, Hugo Boss expects its 2015 earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA), adjusted for special items to increase between 5 and 7 percent, compared with 6 percent in 2014, the company said.
($1 = 0.9486 euros)