This post was originally published on artnews.com
Phillips reported $843 million in global sales for 2024, with $721 million in auction revenue—a 14 percent decline from the $840.7 million the house reported generating through that channel in 2023. The disappointing numbers come as other large auction houses report similarly depressed sales totals compared to prior years.
Despite the drop, Phillips reported an 86 percent sell-through rate by lot across sales offices in New York, London, Geneva, and Hong Kong. Eighty percent of the items offered at public sales sold at premium prices above their estimates, the house said.
Accessing a younger demographic has been a continued focus for Phillips in recent years, according to past annual reports. Collectors around the age of age of 40 or younger made up 30 percent of bidders and buyers, with nearly a third of them transacting with Phillips for the first time in 2024.
Last year, $121 million in the house’s sales turnover came from private sales, including editions the house commissioned from artists for a newly established digital platform that has lower price points. Sales of watches and jewelry remained stable as art sales slowed down. The house reported that design sales maintained a 90 percent sell-through rate and watches have generated more than $200 million for four years in a row.
In 2024, Phillips was still recovering from a slow 2023. In a director’s report filed as part of a financial audit for the house’s UK branch that was reviewed by ARTnews, the house said that competition to sell the highest-valued works, a particularly large revenue driver, was rising and affecting Phillips’s ability to hit its profit-making goals.
In the description of Phillips financial position, the 2023 report continued to state that the London-based house, which operates using loans from a Russian-owned parent company, Mercury Trading Group, has been “historically loss-making,” noting that the “process of sourcing these items (works of art) is highly competitive, which puts pressure on profit margins due to the rivalry among industry players.”
Phillips declined to disclose an estimated percentage of profit generated from its 2024 sales.