Like Sotheby’s, Christie’s blame the fall in sales on the Iraq conflict, the adverse impact of foreign currency movements and the SARS epidemic in the Far East. As a result of SARS in Hong Kong, Christie’s rescheduled their April Asian Art and Jewellery sales to July, so they £32m ($52 million) totals from these will show up in the third quarter results instead.
As a wholly privately owned company, Christie’s do not publish details of turnover and profit, though a company source confirmed that the latter was in “double figure” millions for the period.
What they have given this time, however, are sales totals for each of their sale centres and departments, and these are listed here:
Top Ten International Department Totals
January – June 2003
• 19th & 20th Century Art £241m $388m
• Impressionist & Modern Art £158m $255m
• Post-War & Contemporary Art £83m $133m
• European Furniture £61m $98m
• British & Irish Art £43m $69m
• Jewellery, Jadeite, Watches £40m $65m
• Old Masters £27m $46m
• Asian Art £27m $43m
• Silver & Russian £14m $23m
• American Paintings £14m $22m
• Books & Manuscripts £11m $18m
• Antiquities £5m $8m
International Sale Centres
January – June 2003
• Europe £317m $510m
– King Street £206m $332m
– South Kensington £42m $67m
• United States £228m $367m
– Rockefeller Center £224m $361m
• Asia and Australia* £4m $7m
* Excludes SARS-hit sales, delayed until July, totalling £32m
All figures represent sales totals, not company revenues
Christie’s reveal performance of salerooms and departments
Christie’s have announced worldwide sales totalling £589m ($947m) for the first six months of 2003, again laying claim to the title of the world’s leading auction house. This compares with a dollar total for the same period last year of $989m, a fall of just over four per cent. Of this, auction sales make up £549m ($883m) and private sales £40m ($64m).
