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Hong Kong economy
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Hong Kong’s biggest cosmetics retailer Sa Sa says business still losing money after coronavirus, protests spark record slump

  • Sa Sa International reported a record loss of HK$515.9 million for the year ending March 31
  • Retail sales in Hong Kong and Macau continue to slide through this month, company says in post-results update

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View of a Sasa shop in Causeway Bay, Hong Kong, which was closed in February because of the coronavirus outbreak. The city’s biggest cosmetics retailer has terminated 51 stores since March 2018 amid falling sales. Photo: Nora Tam
Martin ChoiandSnow Xia
Sa Sa International Holdings, Hong Kong’s biggest cosmetics retailer, has reported a record loss after bearing the full brunt of the US-China trade war, social unrest and the coronavirus pandemic.
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The firm incurred a net loss of HK$515.9 million (US$66.6 million) for the year ending March 31 versus a profit of HK$470.8 million a year earlier, it said in an exchange filing on Thursday. The loss is also the company’s first since 2002, prompting deep cost-cutting measures for survival.

“The Covid-19 outbreak has become a global issue, which is impacting all markets where Sa Sa operates,” chairman and chief executive Simon Kwok Siu-ming said. “The group’s top priority is to retain our strength by continuously and closely monitoring costs, inventory and cash” while improving operational and cost efficiency, he added.
Sa Sa’s founder and CEO Simon Kwok Siu-ming. Photo: Jonathan Wong
Sa Sa’s founder and CEO Simon Kwok Siu-ming. Photo: Jonathan Wong
The results capped a torrid 12 months for the city’s retailers as street protesters kept tourists away last summer and autumn and then the pandemic triggered a global border shutdown. Arrivals from mainland China have reduced to a trickle, sucking the life out of the retail industry.
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Business establishments in Hong Kong expected the situation to worsen this quarter, showing the highest degree of pessimism in at least three years, according to government quarterly surveys.

Sa Sa is not alone as Hong Kong’s economy shrank 8.9 per cent last quarter from a year earlier, the worst on record. Carrier Cathay Pacific, restaurant chain Cafe de Coral and a slew of property developers have also reported deep losses or warned of more pain in store.

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