PARIS—Luxury group Kering SA said its third-quarter revenue increased 12% to €2.9 billion as sales were boosted by a "surge" of Chinese tourist shoppers in Western Europe and Japan.

Kering, which owns a portfolio of brands including Gucci, Bottega Veneta and Yves Saint Laurent, said sales in Europe rose 29% while revenues in Japan jumped 26% as Chinese shoppers flocked to those regions, encouraged by currency fluctuations and changing travel trends.

Kering sales were significantly boosted by the low euro as sales abroad translate higher when converted back to local currency. Organic revenue growth, which strips out the effect of fluctuating exchange rates, was a more modest 3.1%.

Sales at Gucci, which makes up about one-third of total group revenue, were up 8.6% in the third quarter from the year-earlier period to €924.1 million. However, when stripping out the effects of currency fluctuations, sales were down 0.4%.

The brand, whose popularity has waned in recent years, hired designer Alessandro Michele earlier this year to breathe new life into the label. His new designs, which received positive reviews from the runways, have only just hit the stores and haven't yet impacted sales yet, Kering said.

Meanwhile, Yves Saint Laurent continued its meteoric rise under the watch of designer Hedi Slimane, with quarterly sales jumping 36.9% to 243.4 million. The brand, the third-most important in the luxury group after Gucci and Bottega Veneta, enjoyed "exceptional" growth in all regions, the company said.

Write to Jason Chow at jason.chow@wsj.com

 

Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 22, 2015 12:35 ET (16:35 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2015 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.