milan april 22 reuters breakingviews  china is emerging as a bigger headache than russia for bling companies luxury conglomerate kering prtppa reported a 21 yearonyear rise in firstquarter sales on thursday yet revenue at its star brand gucci which represents half of the group’s total and is popular in china grew only 13 triggering a 6 share price fall lockdowns in large chinese cities including wealthy shanghai are partly to blame besides the obvious shop closures the quarantines are disrupting online sales as logistical centres are also shut this makes it harder for kering and its rivals to use ecommerce to offset lost physical sales there may be more bad news to come if china persists with draconian closures to fight covid19 this will hurt bling companies more than the ukrainian crisis sales of luxury goods in china were 66 billion euros in 2021 21 of the global total russian purchases now hit by sanctions represent at best 4 shares in europe’s top 10 luxury groups are down 17 on average this year that’s worryingly close to the 24 fall over the same period of 2020 when the pandemic had just emerged and much of the world was in quarantine betting on a quick rebound looks premature by lisa jucca zhihu pays high price for its escape to hong kong read more fallen uk tech star can expect more lowball bids read more