This week Phillips reported whole public sale gross sales for the primary half of 2026 at $507m, up 60% on spring 2025. Its sell-through price was 90% by lot, with 40% of consumers buying at Phillips for the primary time this yr, and practically a 3rd being Millennial and Gen Z collectors. Practically 70% of tons have been offered on-line.
A few huge collections have boosted Phillips’ artwork gross sales figures: the sale of the US diplomat John L. Loeb’s assortment of Danish artwork, which made $18m throughout 5 auctions in New York and London, and objects from the property of the American journalist and artwork collector Tina Hills, led by Joan Mitchell’s Plain (1989), offered for $6.8m in New York in Could.
Martin Wilson, who took on the function of chief govt at Phillips a yr in the past, tells The Artwork Newspaper: “The broader change available in the market performs an element, however for us [sales growth] has so much to do with very acutely aware strategic decisions that we made in regards to the areas that we are able to lead in.” He continues: “In case you provide issues of high quality, you’ll all the time discover consumers—the Loeb assortment was an ideal instance of providing one thing which is totally proper for the market and in a approach that is actually enticing. It’s not an accident, it is actually disciplined deal with what we’re attempting to realize.”
The public sale home’s prime lot of the yr thus far is Andy Warhol’s Sixteen Jackies (1964), which offered for $16.2m (all costs embrace charges) in New York in Could, adopted by an F.P. Journe Chronomètre à Résonance “Souscription, No. 007” (round 2000) for $13.9m in New York in June.
In an indication of adjusting instances, three of the 5 prime tons offered thus far this yr at Phillips are watches, reflective of the speedy rise in watch gross sales on the public sale home, that are held in affiliation with Bacs & Russo and have totalled $235m thus far this yr, in comparison with $115m in 2025. That’s greater than the agency’s gross sales whole for Fashionable and up to date artwork, which thus far stand at $224m (up from $149m in 2025).
The energy in watch gross sales is, Wilson says, the results of a decade-long mission to foster a group of collectors “which may be very on-line and really related, which I believe is why the market has grown so quick.” Many of those collectors will purchase in different gross sales classes too, Wilson says: “You need to assume that folks right now, notably the youthful technology, are actually interested in all classes…Everybody talks about this nice wealth switch, however I believe it is extra of a terrific style switch…the youthful generations see the world in another way, what they acquire is way more related with their values.”
Practically 60% of consumers on Phillips’ Dropshop digital platform—which was launched in 2023 and releases new “drops” of works by up to date artists—this yr have been Millennial and Gen Z, 70% of them new to Phillips, the public sale home says.
When Wilson grew to become chief govt a yr in the past, he was intent on innovating, “however innovation is meaningless except it truly does one thing which makes the expertise of shopping for and promoting higher,” he says. One such innovation is precedence bidding, launched final autumn, an experiment whereby consumers may submit a non-retractable bid earlier than the sale in alternate for a diminished purchaser’s premium price. The response was monumental, Wilson says: “We have now obtained 3 times as many shopping for bids earlier than a sale than we had a yr in the past, 300% progress. Our gross sales are actually routinely 40% to 50% offered earlier than the auctioneer even takes his place within the rostrum, and that is actually significant for sellers.”
As a privately-owned firm, Phillips (like Sotheby’s and Christie’s) doesn’t must disclose revenue, though the newest filings with Firms Home for Phillips Belongings Ltd—the UK holding firm that owns Phillips Auctioneers LLC (Phillips LLC) and Phillips Auctioneers Ltd—report that the group’s general losses improved from £45m in 2023 to £8.7m in 2024.
