Sotheby’s has announced its sales since January, the Numbers look in light of the persistently difficult Situation is remarkable. You refer to the first seven months of the year, because important Live auctions because Corona had to be postponed to later dates in July. The period from January until the end of July 2020, therefore, is better with the first six months of the previous year comparable. It was much better than initially feared: The company was able to implement 2.5 billion dollars. The sum is made up of auction and private sales, and revenue via Online platforms, “Sotheby’s Home” and “Sotheby’s Gallery Network”. For comparison: In the first half of 2019, a total of $ 3.3 billion, were implemented.
In recent years, Sotheby’s had’s invested under the previous CEO Tad Smith heavily in its Online presence and digital capacity. As in the March of Live auctions in the ballroom were impossible, was able to respond quickly and effectively, and its Online program to massively expand. From the beginning of January until the end of July, there were more than 250 auctions, live and online, in which, on average, eighty percent of the Lots were sold. Alone 180 time Online auctions, which came to be $ 285 million, three times as much as in the entire year of 2019. The average price sold online objects doubled to $ 20,000. In addition, online bidders participate in Live auctions in the hall, becoming more and more important. The first Live evening auction following the Lockdown at the beginning of July in New York a picture of Jean was beat-Michel Basquiat to the hammer price of 13.1 million dollars to an Online bidder.
Important for the future of the company, the customers and the buyer is young are. Also, while Sotheby’s was able to grow it. Thirty percent of all the bidders and buyers were under forty years old. There are about as many offered for the first Time at Sotheby’s, and twenty percent of these new customers came from Asia. Sotheby’s had customers from more than a hundred countries, but Asia remains – for all of the international auction houses, particularly now the key to success. Sales in Asia amounted to the end of July to 450Millionen dollars. And as Asian bidders were also important participants in the in London, Paris, Geneva and New York held auctions.
