◆ Inside the Latest Half (H1 2026)

LVMH reports its full profit-and-loss twice a year, and its first-half 2026 results, released in late July, were the clearest sign yet that the luxury downturn is easing. Revenue came in at €38.6 billion¹. On a reported basis that was down three percent — dragged lower mainly by a stronger euro translating foreign sales into fewer euros — but the number that matters in luxury, organic growth, turned positive, rising two percent for the half and accelerating to three percent in the second quarter, or four excluding the drag from the conflict in the Middle East. After two years of decline, demand is growing again.

The profitability held up better than the reported top line, which is the hallmark of a business with real pricing power. Profit from recurring operations was €8.7 billion, down only four percent², and the group's share of net profit was essentially steady at €5.7 billion. Even in a still-difficult environment, LVMH kept its operating margin around the low twenties and did not resort to the discounting that would have shattered its brands — a quiet demonstration that the moat was working exactly as it should through the soft patch.

The breadth of the improvement was as encouraging as its size. Watches and jewellery led the way with roughly nine percent organic growth for the half, the standout of the group; wines and spirits grew about five percent, finding its feet after a hard stretch; beauty contributed; and even fashion and leather goods — the crown, and the hardest-hit division in the downturn — clawed back to positive organic growth in the second quarter. A recovery showing up across several categories at once is far more convincing than one resting on a single house.

So does the half change the moat? No — and it is worth saying why that is the right answer, because it is the reverse of the point made about the commodity miner in this collection. Nothing about a soft two years ever damaged LVMH's moat, and nothing about the recovery creates it; the heritage, the pricing power, and the desirability of the brands were intact throughout, in the bad quarters as much as the good. What the half shows is a wide-moat business doing exactly what a wide-moat business does — holding its margins and its prices through a downturn it did not cause, and returning to growth as the cycle turns, without ever having to compromise the fortress. The earnings dipped and are recovering; the moat never moved.