China could become Cartier's biggest market within 4 years

The French luxury jewelry and watch brand Cartier announced they would double the number of stores in mainland China in 4 years, making China its largest market in the world.

The news was announced by Cartier's CEO Bernard Fornas, at a China Investment Summit on Thursday. Currently China is Cartier's second largest market after Japan, with 32 boutiques in 18 cities. "China is experiencing huge wealth creation, and there is lots of conspicuous consumption related to that," says Goldman analyst Jacques-Franck Dossin. "People want to show they are successful." One way of doing that, of course, is with a pricey Cartier watch.

Cartier watches and jewlry are welcomed among the riches for its timeless design and mix of well-established traditions with the latest novelties. But It is said Cartier's traditional strongholds, Japan and the United States, are both suffering weak consumer demands due to the heavy strike by the global financial turmoil.

According to Retuers, Cartier's Swiss parent company Richemont, the world's third largest luxury goods group behind LVMH and Hermes, already freezed the headcounts and initiated job cuts to help it overcome the crisis. But Fornas said it was mostly in the past. "The worst, I think, is hopefully behind us." he said.