Phillips released its mid-year sales figures today along with the announcement that it would be opening a Los Angeles location in West Hollywood. For the first half of 2022, Phillips had total sales of $746 million. According to the firm, that’s a 37% increase over the previous record year.
Auction sales rose to $590 million, a 30% rise. A striking 44% of buyers were new to the auction house. That includes online-only sales. The watch business had sales of $127 million which is slightly more than 21.5% of the house’s total.
Private sales were $156 million, a 72% increase.
Much of Phillips’s success seems to come from its strong ties to Asian collectors. The company says 41% of the auction hammer total was sold to clients in Asia. And 35% of those buyers were millennials.
These strong results mark the end of Stephen Brooks’s first year as CEO of Phillips. “This has been a season of extraordinary growth,” Brooks said in a statement accompanying the results.