Poland’s three biggest jewelry companies, including Apart, Yes and W.Kruk may have a record fourth quarter.
“We did not expect demand would be that high in so difficult times. It turned out, however, that the Poles treat gold as a safe deposit for their cash. We mustn’t ignore the crisis, however”, Krzysztof Madelski, Yes CEO said.
“We can see that our clients are more interested in diamonds than they used to be several months ago. I believe that some Poles, discouraged by dangerous bank accounts, protect their money this way”, Wojciech Kruk, the founder of W.Kruk said.
According to estimates, the Polish jewelry market was worth PLN 1.7bn (EUR 477.7m) last year. This year, the market is expected to grow 15 percent. Yes hopes to have PLN 140m of sales and PLN 9m of net income. Apart, which last year had PLN 313m of sales and over PLN 30m of net income, does not expect that the result will be weaker this year.
“December is the most important month. It will turn out than whether the slowdown adversely affected Poland or not”, Wojciech Kruk said.
Last year, W.Kruk had PLN 123m of sales and PLN 15.2m of net income.
(PLN 1 = EUR 0.281)