Samsonite's sales jumped 15.6% to USD466.5m

Check out how sales from each region fared.

According to Maybank Kim Eng, Samsonite just announced its 1Q13 sales update this morning. Sales rose by 15.6%/16%(ex-forex) YoY to USD466.5m. 

Here's more:

Ex- M&A, sales was up by 11.1%/11.6% (ex-forex) YoY. Asia/North.America/Europe/Latin America sales up by 16.6%/28.4%/5.3%/7.6% YoY on a constant currency basis.

Ex-M&A, North America sales was up by 12%YoY, which in our view, was satisfactory. China/South Korea/Japan/Germany saw sales growth of 15%/40%/17%/23% YoY while India sales growth returned to a positive territory (+3% YoY).

Strong sales in Germany (+22% YoY), Russia, UK, etc, helped offset sluggish sales in Italy and Spain, as ex-Italy & Spain, sales was up by 9% YoY on a constant currency basis.

Implication: Overall, 1Q13 sales accounts for 23% of both our and consensus sales for FY13. We expect share price to react positively, given on-track development and satisfactory sales in number of major markets thanks to the successful localized product launches and effective marketing campaigns.

The only negative is China (10% of total sales) sales growth was not particularly strong, which in our view, was partly due to tough base(sales +36%YoY in 1Q12). 

Nonetheless, the growth rate did show stabilization after the sharp slowdown in 2H12. That said, our FY13 sales growth assumption of 20% for China still looks achievable to us.