I would now like to hand the conference over to Martin Nicholas, Group CFO. Please go ahead.
Good morning to everybody joining today's call. It's my pleasure to Welcome you to our full year 2022 results call. I'll be walking you through the group's trading performance, and then Jim Clayton, our CEO, will provide an operational and strategic update. We would like to start our presentation by acknowledging and paying our respects to the traditional custodians of the land and waters on which we work, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, and to the elders, past, present, and emerging. We celebrate the continuing contribution of their food culture and seek to support it in both Australia and the world. Turning to slide four, in the beginning of our presentation, we begin with an overview of our results. We're pleased with FY 2022. We had a very solid year of performance against a dynamic and evolving backdrop.
Sales grew by just under 20%, and we successfully leveraged our pricing power to sustain global segment gross margins in the face of inflationary pressures. We continued to strategically reinvest in the growth drivers of marketing, R&D, and technology across the year, while demonstrating our tactical ability to align our expense level as sales growth moderated in the second half. Reliably, we met our EBIT guidance of AUD 156 million, delivering another year of double-digit EBIT growth. With EPS increasing 15% to AUD 0.759 per share, our full-year dividend of AUD 0.30 per share, 100% franked, reflects the group's target payout ratio of 40%. In terms of cash flow, as forecast, FY 2022 was a year of cash outflow as we rebuilt working capital levels to equilibrium from their artificially low and operationally restrictive levels a year ago.
We also successfully pulled forward some of our peak inventory to help partially de-risk first half 2023 sales. All in all, another challenging but positive year. Sales grew solidly, margins were well managed, and we reinvested into future growth drivers at a rate that delivered double-digit and on guidance EBIT. As with previous years, we did what we said we would do. Turning to slide five, we see key segment performances. Our strategically key global product segment grew by nearly 20% or 18% in constant currency terms. We successfully raised price in this premium segment in all geographies to protect our gross margin percentage in the face of inflationary pressures. In the mass market distribution segment, we also saw good sales growth with Nespresso back in stock and solid growth in Breville local, offsetting slower growth in our lower-end Kambrook brand.
Gross margins in this distribution segment were more affected by inflationary pressures, given the lower retail value per unit shipped and higher shelf price sensitivity. Importantly, however, the distribution segment was again successfully managed to fulfill its strategic role of generating profit dollars for reinvestment in the growing global segment. Turning to slide 6, although today we're reporting on FY 2022, I thought it was worthwhile stepping back to take a look at what has happened over time. This slide shows the impact of our growth strategy and the progression of the global product segment from FY 2018 through to FY 2022. The portfolio is now nicely balanced, with EMEA and APAC of roughly equal size and together equivalent to the Americas.
Moreover, in terms of the multi-year growth, our consistent strategy of investment in NPD, new product development, complemented by enhanced digital marketing and geographic rollout, have delivered a compounded annual growth rate of over 22.5%. Different regions have led the charge at different times, but together they have more than doubled the business over the last four years. As we look to FY 2023, we will certainly be navigating through a dynamic environment with opportunities to lean into, risks to be faced, and as you would expect, tactical mitigants in play. Jim will talk more specifically about this at the end of his section.
With our consistent strategy in play, a successful inventory pull forward, our new product development pipeline beginning to release, and our geographic new entries continuing to mature, we believe that we are well-placed to deliver attractive growth in the medium term. Turning back to FY 2022 on slide seven, here we see the breakdown of the global growth by theater. We see second half 2022 strength in the Americas, partially offsetting the softness in EMEA and another solid performance from APAC. The Americas, our largest region, was also our fastest-growing region in FY 2022 at 22.7%.
Growth accelerated in the second half as the trade returned to an in-stock position and consumer sell-out proved resilient, with second half reported growth of 32% or 24% in constant currency terms. After a strong first half 2022, EMEA slowed in the second half, with consumer nervousness following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, exacerbated by a general retailer destocking. We didn't engage in the widespread discounting seen in the market in the second half 2022, and our sales declined by 15.9% in the second half over the PCP. Interestingly, overall, our market share held. Conversely, APAC delivered a solid performance in both sell-out and sell-in across the first half and second half. We saw good signs of things to come from the early performance of our new coffee SKU, the Barista Express Impress in New Zealand.
For the future, I should remind you that June saw our first direct entry into Asia, as we launched in South Korea. Overall, another strong example of our portfolio working for us and delivering a good result in volatile times. Turning to slide eight. Our strategy of reinvesting in the growth drivers of the business continued in FY 2022. On this slide, you can see that 50% of our gross profit increase, or AUD 36 million, is reinvested into these growth drivers. Whereas 22% is absorbed in overhead, mainly increased supply chain costs, and AUD 20 million or 28% is delivered as an EBIT increase. What's also behind this chart is the reality that as sales growth moderated in the second half, we demonstrated the ability to align our expenses with revenue within a guidance envelope. We successfully cut our cloth to fit our sales performance.
This is how we run the business and how we reliably met our EBIT guidance of AUD 156 million, while still investing in future growth. Now to slide nine and turning to the balance sheet. Here we clearly see the impact of working capital recovering to an equilibrium level and a deliberate pull forward of a portion of peak inventory to partially de-risk the first half of FY 2023. Last year, I told you that the group's working capital position of AUD 160 million was at least AUD 80 million below equilibrium, with insufficient landed inventory resulting in constrained sales and unusually low receivables. In FY 2022, we have successfully rebuilt that AUD 80 million and have pulled forward some of first half 2023 stock as our manufacturing partners have remained in full operation.
The group typically builds to peak inventory in September of the year, allowing delivery to customers in October and November, to in turn meet peak seasonal consumer demand in November and portion of this peak inventory earlier than normal. To be clear, to meet our expected first half 2023 sales, a significant amount of stock still needs to be built and landed. This pull forward helps to at least partially de-risk our first half 2023, and it is in the AUD 446 million inventory held at 30 June 2022. Our receivable days remain well controlled and within norm at 61 days and reflect a more normal sales pattern than in the prior year, as well as exchange rate movements. Our higher payable balance largely reflects the inventory brought forward in May and June and general business growth.
Our fixed asset increases reflect a stepped-up investment in production tools as new products are readied for release. Our intangibles are growing in line with the business as we continue to strategically invest in product development. As of 30th of June 2022, the group had a net debt position of AUD 4.1 million. Our reduced net cash reflects a year of cash outflow as working capital was normalized and then inventory was pulled forward. An assessment of our evolving supply chain risks will inform our approach to inventory holdings in FY 2023. That said, the negligible obsolescence risk of our products makes holding stock a very sensible mitigant to current supply chain uncertainties. Finally, to slide 10. Before I turn over to Jim, a few key points I'd like to reiterate about our FY 2022 performance.
Firstly, another good growth year, both on top and bottom line, as we have consistently implemented our strategy. Secondly, the business has more than doubled in size over the last four years with a diverse geographic portfolio capable of absorbing shocks in a particular region. This year it was Ukraine, previously it has been Brexit, Trump tariffs and COVID. Thirdly, the business is well controlled and demonstrated both pricing power to protect gross margin and an ability to align expenses with sales to deliver EBIT as planned. Fourthly, we have successfully rebuilt working capital and partly de-risked first half 2023 sales by deliberately pulling forward some of our inventory build for peak season. Lastly, we did what we said we would do and met EBIT guidance of AUD 156 million. On that note, I'll pass over to Jim Clayton, our CEO, to provide an operational and strategic update.
Thank you, Martin, and good morning, everyone. On slide 11. Over the last couple of months, on multiple occasions, investors have asked me to include a section in this presentation on how we think about inventory. Admittedly, I'm a bit frustrated by this for a couple of reasons. First, if you count Breville against the other companies in the market over the last few years, you'll find that Breville is consistently the most efficient in the world at managing inventory despite our lack of scale, making this an odd metric to be discussing. Second, inventory is not a relevant predictor of future performance unless we don't have enough of it, meaning other metrics are infinitely more important from an investor's perspective. Nevertheless, if there's still confusion on the market over the topic, it means I've not done a sufficient job of explaining why it's the wrong metric to focus on.
For this, by definition, I own the disconnect, so I'm going to take time out of the presentation this morning to try again. Slide 12. The first inventory-related question. Martin has just reported an ending inventory in June of AUD 446 million, AUD 100+ million of which is goods in transit. Is this a high number or a low number? The answer is that given its June 2022, neither. It's a deliberate choice we've made, which I signaled in our first half 2022 presentation, then reinforced again at the Macquarie Australia Conference in May, so it certainly shouldn't be a surprise. On this slide, I've done some back of the envelope math review, beginning with the first half of 2022 to ground the analysis.
The question we're trying to answer here is between the months of June and December, how much product did Breville build, transport, land, and sell to report our first half 2022 numbers? In December of 2021, we reported an ending inventory number of AUD 293 million. This is the amount we had to cover January and February sales. If we add our first half COGS of AUD 516 million and then subtract our starting position at June of AUD 217 million, we can answer the question. Between the months of June and December of 2021, we manufactured and landed AUD 592 millions of product, AUD 516 millions of which we sold through to retail. Using the same equation, you can throw darts at the first half of 2023.
You know the starting position in June, it's AUD 446 million. Put your December 2022 ending inventory assumption in for X. Don't forget you need to cover January and February sales. Your first half 2023 COGS assumption in for Y, and you can derive how much we still have to manufacture inland to deliver the first half of 2023. Using a fairly wide range of assumptions, if you do the math, you'll see we're somewhere in the neighborhood of AUD 400 million-AUD 550 million short. Net net, while we have certainly de-risked our July 2022 position relative to how we started last year, we are still chasing a big number.
We are working as hard as we can to get it moved as quickly as we can to de-risk the chance that our first half 2023 number is negatively impacted by either China's zero-COVID policy or a logjam in the supply chain, both of which we experienced last year. Slide 13. This slide, this is a slide I presented at the UBS conference in November 2019 with one added element. This slide shows an aggregated view of a single SKU across ANZ, North America, and the EU in 2018. The dark blue line is the actual sell-out curve. For this SKU, sell-out is relatively stable from January through October. In November, it spikes on Black Friday and again in December for Christmas. To make a point so everyone doesn't get confused, this is the behavior of this particular SKU.
If I picked a different one, you might see a different pattern. For example, an ice cream maker would also show a demand spike in July, given its summer in the Northern Hemisphere. If the solid blue line is the sell-out pattern, the dotted line represents the theoretical sell-in line. It's just an offset. If retailers could perfectly predict sell-out, they would wanna take delivery of the SKU about four weeks before they sold it. The dotted line is the one we report to you as revenue. With that pattern set, the important line for our discussion today is the green line. This line represents inbound inventory. No manufacturer can run flat for ten months of the year and then deliver 4x that run rate over a two-month period.
To manufacture and deliver the number of products we need for the holidays, our manufacturers must start climbing the mountain much earlier. In a normal year, our manufacturers start working against the holiday demand in June. This means we take delivery of product in July that we may not sell until October. This production continues at an increasing slope across July through October. Beginning in November, manufacturing begins to ramp down to get back to the second half run rate. Make sure we're all tracking. There's nothing unique about this manufacturing product pattern. For every product company, like Apple, that faces a seasonal demand spike, you'll have a manufacturing pattern that resembles the one on this slide. To foreshadow a bit, when we report our inventory at the end of June, you're actually seeing two distinct pieces.
First, the inventory we are holding to support the sell-in of July and August. Second, the inventory we have started to accumulate to meet the spiked demand of October through December. Slide 14. In this slide, also a variant of a slide I presented in 2019, I'm giving you an illustrative example of how we are executing our purchasing pattern for the first half of 2023 versus the first half of 2018. In FY 2018, the green bars, we had a predictable supply chain. We started the Christmas ramp in May, really leaning into inventory receipts starting in August. In 2022, we have an unpredictable supply chain, meaning potential delays, which is the combination of congestion at ports and potentially China's zero-COVID policy.
To de-risk not having the inventory before the selling period, we began our first half 2023 holiday build in March, trying to get as much of it done as possible by September. When we look at June 2022 against June 2018 on this chart, you'll see a higher inventory number in June because of our phasing. To be clear, both the green and blue bars in this chart add up to the same number of units. This means that at the end of June, we are not reporting too much inventory. Instead, we are reporting the inventory that we deliberately landed by the end of June. As shown in the previous slide 11, we still have quite a bit of inventory to build and land in order to deliver the first half of 2023, regardless of your growth assumption.
Thus, what you're actually looking at in our June inventory number is the amount of risk we have taken off the table. You can back into how much risk is still on the table. Again, just to make sure we're all on the same page, this is a deliberate choice based on facts on the ground, an insurance policy of sorts. Once the risk comes out of the supply chain, we'll adjust the pattern back to our normal build pattern, just like we did when we managed through Brexit. Slide 15. The other rule of thumb I heard thrown around is too much inventory is a leading indicator that future gross margins will suffer. While this rule might work for retailers or a seasonal or short lifecycle product company, it does not work for Breville and many other companies. Let's put it to the test.
What does a hammer, a Rolex, and a coffee machine have in common? Believe it or not, if you oversee the company's supply chain, all three are exactly the same. They are long lifecycle, non-seasonal products with seasonal selling patterns. This means consumers buy the same products every month of the year after year. You might sell more at Christmas than at other times of the year. During its history, has Rolex ever had too much inventory of a particular watch in a country during a particular month? Surely. Have you ever seen a Rolex priced at 50% off in an inventory clearance sale? Never. Well, if you don't discount to clear the extra inventory like a retailer would, then what do you do? It's simple.
You just buy less of it in forward months and let the consumer monthly demand take the SKU back to equilibrium at full margin. You turn the purchases back on to keep up with consumer demand in forward months. In hopes of not needing to talk about this topic again, let me say it bluntly. In the seven years I've been at Breville, have we ever had too much of a particular coffee SKU in one of our warehouses? Absolutely. Over the same seven-year period, what is the number of times we have discounted coffee machines to move what we considered to be excess inventory at that moment in time? Exactly zero times . This does not mean we do not promote. While we as a company are not particularly promotive, we typically execute a handful of promotions throughout the year.
We actually have to bring in more inventory to support them. There are many potential drivers for this, typically share a voice through a retailer, but it is rarely because of an inventory position. We're better off selling it at full margin over time. The actual drivers of our gross margin tend to be, first, the mix of distribution segment versus global segment. Second, global segment product mix. Third, global segment channel mix. Inventory position just doesn't come into play. Slide 16. To summarize, each year we decide the amount of inventory we are going to buy for our holiday demand spike, as well as the monthly build pattern. In February, I told you I was going to pull forward the holiday inventory build to de-risk the supply chain. By May, China had shut down Shanghai.
Recognizing that the virus spreads at the Macquarie Australia Conference, I told you I was going to accelerate the pull forward even further given facts on the ground. As of June, we achieved AUD 446 millions of inventory, though AUD 100 million was goods in transit. That was the best our manufacturers could do. Across July and August, we have been hammered down trying to get our holiday inventory into our warehouses with the goal of avoiding the impact of any future delays. AUD 446 millions of inventory at the end of June is a deliberate operational decision. I would have taken more if I could have gotten it. On the margin front, I'm hopeful that everyone now understands why inventory and gross margins are not particularly correlated in this vertical.
If you ever doubt yourself, just ask, "What would Rolex do?" There is, however, one very important correlation related to inventory. That is the correlation between inventory and revenue. If you do not have inventory, you will not have revenue. The R-squared is one. This is the relationship that matters in this vertical. As a final comment on the topic, some retailers have been reporting elevated inventory numbers. This is not Breville inventory. As we started FY 2023, all our retailers around the world have a good channel weight with a couple of exceptions where they were running a little tight. No retailer started FY 2023 with too much Breville inventory. Slide 17. Now I'll transition to a topic that is relevant for future performance, which are our new products for the second 2023. Slide 18.
For the last four years, we have been in a multi-party collaboration to launch the Aboriginal Culinary Journey range. We launched the range at the National Museum of Australia in Canberra in May, where the originals are now on exhibit. This is a limited-edition range, with all the profits being donated to charities that create opportunities for Indigenous Australians. Slide 19. This was an extremely ambitious project, and it took a village. Alison Page, the founder of the National Aboriginal Design Agency, deserves much of the credit for bringing the participants together, which included Breville, the National Museum of Australia, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Dr. Terri Janke, an expert in First Nations intellectual property law, and four extremely talented and world-renowned Aboriginal artists. Slide 20. This project had two core objectives.
One, to enable the artists to tell stories of country using Breville products as the canvas. Each product represents contemporary design and reflects 65,000 years of ongoing Australian Indigenous culture, the fusion of Aboriginal and modern Australian design. Two, to define a gold standard for how corporates can engage Indigenous culture in their work. Slide 21. In Australia, we launched the range at the National Museum of Australia and partnered with David Jones and Qantas Marketplace as retail partners. Throughout the first half and the beginning of the second half of FY 2023, we, in combination with the National Museum of Australia and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, will be launching this range in London, Berlin, Paris, Brussels, New York, and Washington, D.C. In each city, the range will be launched at a local museum in partnership with one premium retail partner.
As an example, in London, we will launch the range at the British Museum, and Harrods will be our partner. We will be putting Australian Aboriginal stories of country into kitchens all over the world. I encourage each of you to go to acj.breville.com to learn more about the project. It is, without a doubt, the most complex and ambitious project Breville has ever been a part of. It is also the project we are most proud of. Slide 22. Now to a product with a development cycle that doesn't end, a first for Breville. Slide 23. Shortly after I joined Breville, I was asked when we were going to launch a connected product. I answered, "Only when we have to." This is because connectivity adds complexity, which means you have to deliver enough incremental value to justify it.
In March, we launched the Joule Oven Air Fryer Pro in the U.S. and Canada. As shown by Wired's review caption, we cleared the value-added bar. Wired said, "Breville's new countertop air fryer oven can be controlled by a mobile app. Unlike with many other connected appliances, that's a good thing." Looking at the reviews, the product is getting at Williams- Sonoma, consumers agree. This is a down payment on Breville's transition from a product company to a solutions company. With this product, we are not trying to sell you a better oven. That would be too easy. The target we are aiming for here is to make you a better cook. Slide 24. In a pure hardware model, once the product is launched, all features and capabilities are frozen. The only way to improve the product is to start over and build another one.
In a solutions model, new features and capabilities continue to be released after the hardware cycle is over, just like your iPhone. Said another way, the product we launched in March is actually the worst version of the product we will ever have. We will be launching food guides in the first half. Instead of cooking from a recipe with a food guide, you tell the app what you're trying to cook, and it will give you insight into how to achieve a great result with the oven. Slide 25. When we launched the oven in March, the ChefSteps and Breville Test Kitchen teams optimized 115 recipes for the oven. By the end of December, we expect to have 400. Customers who bought the oven last March are getting an even better, more useful oven every month.
Most compelling addition is our content ecosystem. In addition to ChefSteps and the Breville Test Kitchen optimizing recipes for the oven, our customers will also get optimized recipes from The New York Times, Bon Appétit, America's Test Kitchen, Williams Sonoma, Serious Eats, and an ever-expanding list of chefs in the US. These partners have never allowed their content to be used like this. A first for many of us. It is through the seamless combination of hardware, software, and premium content that will make you a more accomplished cook, something we could never do with hardware alone. Slide 26. I'll finish my section of the presentation with the other new products that will have their first holiday season. Slide 27. The new color range for the first half of 2023 is Red Velvet, which will be available across a wide range of our products. Slide 28.
The Barista Express Impress, which launched in New Zealand in May and Australia in July, will be launched in the other markets in the first half of 2023. This product, which won the Best New Product Award at the Specialty Coffee Association Conference in Boston and the Best of Best Red Dot Award, is yet another installment in helping customers make café-quality coffee at home. It has an intelligent dosing system that ensures the customer doses the right amount of coffee in the portafilter, coupled with an assisted tamping mechanism to deliver a properly prepared coffee puck every time. This will also be the first product to go through our launch version 2.0 process, a process designed to maximize a new product's run rate at launch versus version 1.0 that phased the rollout across retailers. Slide 29.
We are also launching two new accessories for the espresso range, the Dosing Funnel and the Puck Sucker. The Dosing Funnel helps minimize any mess in the dosing process and helps you get an even tamp. The Puck Sucker is quite an innovation. One of the frustrating parts of the espresso workflow is banging the coffee puck out of the portafilter after you've pulled the shot. It's loud, not the most enjoyable process, and can sometimes leave a bit of mess on the benchtop. Puck Sucker solves this problem. With this accessory, after you pull the shot, you place the portafilter on the Puck Sucker. The product creates a vacuum and pulls out the puck. I've had an early production model at my house for the last few months, and it is ranking very high in my personal best Breville product ever category. Slide 30.
In Australia, we have launched two versions of the AquaStation. These products were developed by our local Australian team as a further evolution of the Aquaport acquisition, much like the Breville Air range. These products have many consumer advantages, large water capacity, a longer lasting and faster filtration process, and instant hot water at selected temperatures with volumetric control. The global theater teams were so impressed by these products; they are picking them up and will launch them in markets outside ANZ. Slide 31. I'll end with the first new product to launch from the Breville Baratza collaboration. This project started shortly after the acquisition closed. Many consumers getting into specialty coffee would like to have a single coffee grinder to use across various coffee drinks, espresso, drip coffee, pour-over, French press, et cetera.
Unfortunately, no company has been able to effectively deliver this for a simple reason. Grinding sweet spot for espresso is really small, and the sweet spot for filter is quite large. A grinder designed for filter coffee is under-resolved for espresso, and a grinder designed for espresso is over-architected for filter. This problem exists for a very simple reason. Every grinder in the world has one thing in common. Each step click of a grind setting moves the grinding bur a fixed distance. Slide 32. With the Encore ESP, Baratza is going to launch a first-ever solution to this problem. The Encore ESP has 40 grinding steps. The first 20 steps will move the upper bur 40 microns per step, giving fine resolution for dialing an espresso.
For steps 21 through 40, as you're moving into the range that requires a coarser grind, the slope adjusts, and each step will move the upper burr 90 microns per step. This gives you the resolution and control you need to dial an espresso while also giving you the resolution you need to dial in filter coffee. Product also includes a static-free dosing cup for 54 mm and 58 mm portafilters to make the espresso workflow process easy and clean. As I've said previously, first half of 2023 is the beginning of the release of all the new products we've been working on during the COVID period. With this first batch, we are leaning into two of our strongest categories, coffee and ovens. We're excited about these new products, and those already in market are performing well. Slide 33.
I'll end my section with an assessment of FY 2023 as it looks today. FY 2023 is setting up to be a competition between headwinds and tailwinds. Starting with the headwinds that apply to everyone, it's what you read in The Wall Street Journal. The Ukraine war and its second and third order effects on Europe and the world, a strengthening U.S. dollar across all currencies, making the purchase of products priced in U.S. dollars more expensive, and the continued rise of inflation coupled with the various central banks' efforts to knock it back by raising interest rates. Against these market-wide headwinds, we have the tailwinds of FY 2023. At the macro level, employment levels are high, consumers are in a strong balance sheet position, and logistics costs are beginning to drift downward versus last year.
In addition to this macro push and pull, Breville specifically has tailwinds resulting from the strategy we have executed over the last seven years. FY 2023 is the beginning of our new product launch wave, the unlocking of all the R&D work we did during COVID, and we'll be using our launch 2.0 process for these new products, process designed to maximize the launch revenue trajectory for a new SKU. All of the countries we entered during COVID and before will be one year older, increasing their proportional relevance. We have the market rollout of both Baratza and Lelit ranges across our direct markets. With this clash of tailwinds and headwinds, we have a series of risks to manage. First and foremost is the supply chain. We are not done with this one. It's just morphing, though as a general rule, improving.
China's zero-COVID policy hangs like the sword of Damocles because of its binary implications. In the logistics lag, it's a game of whack-a-mole. The reasons differ, but the result is the same, managing against delay. To date, because we pulled forward our first half 2023 build, we've been able to absorb the various delays across the system without affecting sell-in. How the war in the Ukraine evolves and how long it lasts will matter in the EMEA theater. Lastly, we may see some retailers hitting financial challenges. As of the start of FY 2023, we've gotten in front of what we can. We pulled our holiday build forward to the extent our manufacturers could deliver.
We've hedged our net Aussie dollar exposure at $0.74, and we've provisioned for potential credit risk exposure. As with the prior two years, we've bet on black and red at the same time. We start with a tight cost structure, land inventory to cover the upside, then true up our expense and inventory levels in the second half. Lastly, we use our product and geographic revenue diversification to our advantage by leaning into strength to take pressure off of areas more challenged. As with FY 2021 and FY 2022, it means getting in front of variables we can control both risks and opportunities while positioning the company to react quickly to any surprises along the way. As I've said every year at this time, July and August are not very predictive of first half performance.
With that caveat, I can say that as of today, sell-out is up and we are on plan for the first half. Net-net, no surprises yet. Slide 34. That concludes my section of the presentation. I'll now hand back to the operator to open up the call for any questions you might have about our FY 2022 results.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star then two. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. The first question today comes from Lisa Deng from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Oh, hi, Jim and Martin. Thank you for your time this morning. Just two questions from me. The first is actually about this transition from a product to a solutions model. Obviously, we now have a longer lifetime for the actual hardware, but a lot more solutions to draw in the consumer. How do we actually see a change in our revenue model, please? Or how do we monetize this additional value provided?
It's something that plays out over time. For now, and I mean FY 2023, FY 2020 and so forth, think of it as hardware acceleration. You monetize it by selling more hardware. The example I would give you, if you go back 15 years or whatever it was when Apple launched the App Store. That didn't change their revenue model. In fact, it was a cost center at the time. What it did was accelerated hardware and actually bankrupted about 90% of the other phone providers. If you look at Apple 15 years later, you see something very different, where the App Store has become a part of their, you know, kind of recurring revenue and so forth. It has long-term option value, but in the short run, especially coming from a hardware base, just like Apple, you're gonna be driving hardware acceleration as the core ROI.
Is the price point higher as well, even for the hardware? How much by, if so?
It is. Easiest way is to go to williams-sonoma.com and just look at the delta. The BOV900, I think, is $399, and this is U.S. I'm not making this up. I think this new oven is $499, I think.
Got it. Yeah.
It's about $100. If you do the black stainless-steel version, I think that may be another $50. Anyway, just go to williams-sonoma.com.
Got it.
Go to U.S. website.
Got it. I know you don't wanna talk inventory anymore, but it's more about our confidence that the retailers don't have any sort of excess inventory and therefore, you know, we won't be discounting per se due to excess inventory that you mentioned. How do we get confidence on retailers not having excess inventory and the fact that the demand will be there to digest this early build? Also, in terms of the inventory, is there any way to split for us what is sort of existing product versus new product that we're launching?
Oh, that's a lot all balled up into one. How do I know that the retailers didn't have too much inventory? The short version is because I can see it. We track across all markets, sell out and sell in, and we have visibility for most of our retailers. We have visibility into the amount of inventory they hold. That was really important during COVID, and I say that because we were not allowing. Okay, that was one part of your question.
How much is new product?
How much is new product? I don't know, meaning in percent. You have to conceptually think about it. We've got about 100 products plus or minus.
Yeah.
We have the new products that are in flight right now is the oven, and the Barista Express.
Mm-hmm.
Under the new launch process, we lean very heavily into pulling in a lot of stock before we launch. That's certainly in there. The big Martin, you might have a little bit more.
Yeah. I don't think we're gonna monetize it, but it certainly was part of the pull forward. Yeah. Because when we say we pull forward some of July, August, September inventory, we were certainly looking into the launch of the BES876 in the States, for example. Of the inventory holding, about 60% of our inventory holding is in the Americas, and about 50% of our sales is in the Americas. Some of that differential will be accounted for by launches to come rather than launches that are actually in play at the moment.
I think that just to bounce on that one, the other reason the U.S. is intentionally overstated.
Yeah.
In a sense. When we do the stock holiday build, we have to build for every country that we sell into. Some 120 volts, some 240 volts. And so forth. As a part of this, production plan that we lay down every year, we also decide the order. Meaning who's gonna go first. Are you gonna build Australia first? Are you gonna build Australia last? This year, we brought the U.S. To the front of the queue, because of all the mess we dealt with the L.A. port last year, thinking that the U.S. was gonna be the region that was gonna potentially suffer from the longest supply chain delays. We really leaned into the U.S. in that March, April, May kind of time frame to try to clear them out and then move on to others.
That's why.
Yeah.
When you get to the end of June, you got this heavy U.S. tilt in that number.
Okay.
We still have to make all of it for everyone. Like, so the problem doesn't go away, it's just where you're gonna take the logistics risk.
Got it. Thank you so much.
Thank you. In the interest of allowing everyone a chance to ask their question, please limit questions to one per person. Please re-register for any follow-up questions. The next question comes from Apoorv Sehgal from UBS.
Morning, Jim and Martin. Okay, my one question then I'll focus on the Europe result. If you look at constant currency sales, as you said, 15 half, can you give a feel for what that's looked like over, say, April, May, June? Because presumably in the first few months of the half, you were probably growing double-digit year-on-year. Just wanna get a feel for what the declines sort of looked like in the last few months and whether from your perspective, have things got any better over July, August, please?
I actually don't have the answer to the first one. What I can tell you in July through August is that across all theaters, sell-out is up year-over-year.
Okay. Clearly there's been a recovery then in Europe, logically.
Yeah. I think you have to be careful when. Remember, what we're reporting to you is sell-in.
Mm-hmm.
What is the mean reversion line? Retailers along the way with their own inventory, but ultimately you get back to mean reversion. You will see what you would've seen at some point in the second half with Ukraine and everything else is retailers pulling back on what you know what's happening. Well, that can stall out sell-in, but that doesn't. You still got sell-out trickling at whatever it's trickling at, right? That once they figure out and kind of get grounded, then they can you know realign all of their various inventories against the sell-out line.
When we go through these periods, these discontinuity periods of sorts like this, I just stare at the sell-out line because I know that's where that's the line we need to be lining up behind, and the retailers will manage their own kind of stuff in between. We'll all head back to that line. Again, this is the last six weeks. I just pulled it because I know you guys would ask questions. I looked across every theater; sell-out's up on the global segment in all three theaters. Maybe, and I say maybe, you know, we've gone through the retailer's kind of pulling the stick and doing different things that they do on sell-in, and now everybody's got to line up for holiday and so forth. Maybe it'll stabilize a little bit.
Okay. Thanks, guys.
Sure.
Thank you. The next question comes from Alexander Mees from Morgans. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Jim, Martin. Thank you for taking my question. Just with regard to working capital, but not inventory, Martin, could you talk through the increase in the receivables and the payables? I'm sure the payables up by 66% is to do with the higher inventory purchasing. Just interested in color on that and also receivables, so if there's any issues with credit risk at this stage. Thank you.
Yeah, sure, Alexander. Payables, you're quite right. The biggest driver in that movement is absolutely the inventory pull forward and that we haven't paid for all of it yet. That one's quite simple, business growth plus that pull forward. Receivables is also quite simple in that in answer to your last question first, is there any problem with receivable days? Absolutely not. They're rock solid at about 61 days. I think this time last year they were 59, so they've basically stayed in the same pocket. That number is really to do with the shape of sales. May and June last year were particularly low as we ran out of inventory, which pulls us back to the inventory number, and May and June were much more normal this year.
The main number that I look at, Alexander, is receivable days, and at 61 days, I'm very comfortable with it.
We should assume that that's a number to forecast going forward.
Indeed, if you look at the receivables balance as a percentage of sales, annual sales, if you like, FY 2022 is a very normal number and FY 2021 was a very unusually low number.
Perfect. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Keegan Booysen from Jarden Group. Please go ahead.
Thanks, sir. Jim, first question for me is just around the NPD pipeline. You've given some pretty good color for the first half 2023 with the focus on coffee and ovens. Can you talk to some of the other categories you might be focusing on later in sort of second half 2023, 2024, and whether the NPD is gonna be accessory-driven or new category-driven, please?
I can't. Sorry, I don't. That's just not something we can disclose. The engine you have to imagine. I mean at some level, we've been working on stuff for the last three years, so it's the whole team's been working all the way through. There wasn't. It's whatever our resource allocation was, you know, since three years ago, then two, then one. Over the next, like, two years, you're gonna see products, not only in these two categories, but in other categories as well. The accessories are just a little bit of a pickup, but those are much smaller projects.
That's great. I might have a crack at another question then. Just looking at sort of your growth in Americas and in general across your theaters, can you talk a bit about the drivers around, you know, whether a bit of it is pricing power coming through or inflation and general consumer strength differences between EMEA and Americas, and then also penetration within retailers in America in particular, please?
Let me start with the last one, and I'll try to work my way back. Penetration, how do I say this? Penetration in retailers in the Americas is total and complete and has been for years and years and years. We drive growth through new products and then in newer markets, and I'm gonna put Americas in a newer market, is new customers to the brand. So that's where our customers come from. They don't come from channel expansion. I think the difference, and this is one of the things, I think, not only for Breville but, as you guys deal with every company, you need to be really careful with denominators this time around. Which is we're sitting on top of COVID. One of the truths of last year, remember, we didn't have enough inventory.
We were chasing demand, having trouble catching it. The Americas came up short, meaning they have a weaker denominator. The U.S. and Canada didn't actually go through COVID, in a sense, because they were supply constrained all the way through. I think that's part of what we see in the Americas, is whatever cycle the other countries went through, the U.S. just didn't experience that because we ran out all the way through. I think, yes, is there a difference between the consumer in Europe and the consumer in the U.S. and the consumer in Australia? Absolutely. I think Russia has a bit to do with that, and everything around it. Yeah, I think the US is definitely firing a little bit more solidly than EMEA. Australia seems to be steady as she goes.
Mm-hmm. I see that.
Thank you. The next question comes from Tim Lawson from Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Thanks, gentlemen. Thanks for taking my question. In terms of just can you expand the comments on South Korea, so cost sort of investment needed to get there? I'm thinking of how much you spent going to Europe and obviously multiple countries that followed. Can you just talk about whether you would have gone into South Korea if that was the only market you were to go in Asia and then in the new product development operating leverage it gives you?
Okay. I think I understand the question, which is when did we absorb the cost of going into South Korea? Is that the question?
Yeah. Yeah.
Most of them. Let's see. There would've been a chunk of them in the first half of 2022. I think we went live in May.
Mm-hmm. May, June.
The team that, you know, getting the table set, all that kind of stuff would have been in the first half of 2022. In the second half of 2022, you would get, you know, the incremental kick when you got to maybe February, March, because you would have cut the deal with the 3PL, so you'd have the warehouse, and then you'd start landing inventory.
As I said, the working capital numbers are in the numbers you're seeing at the half year. The inventory is there, the business is trading, so the working capital.
Yeah.
It's small compared to the global number.
It's rounding error. I'd also put Mexico in that bucket. Meaning.
Is it-
For new countries, you're by definition starting out with a small demand line. You can have good inventory coverage with that ends up not really hitting working capital. The bit that was different with Europe is we went into Germany and then out from there, but we were ultimately landing an inventory pool that was going to support a series of country go lives over the years that we took it. If you thought of Europe as a single entity, as a single go live, then it's essentially comparable, other than the fact that it's got 550 million people. Things like Mexico and Korea in the working capital world show up as kind of rounding error.
Does any of the investment you've made in South Korea effectively apply and help you go into other markets in Asia?
Sure. I'd say no. It was investments that we made before South Korea. Mainly, and I know you guys don't like it. I always talk about platform, but the platform that we built that allows us to render South Korea in a sense. It's what lets us go into every new country at a very small marginal cost. It's that platforming nature that lets us then turn on country after country after country. There's nothing unique about South Korea. The inverse, the good news is it wasn't a lot unique. That's why we're able to go in relatively quickly and smoothly.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Grant Saligari from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thanks. Would you comment on your price increases you've been able to achieve relative to the cost of goods inflation and whether the price increases you found have generally stuck to date?
Yeah. The biggest inflation impact, Grant, in FY 2022 was actually the shipping cost or the ocean freight. We did also experience FOB increases. If you put the two together, that's what you've seen flow into our margins. We managed to take, if you average it, and it's a difficult thing to average across the board, you're talking about 5% or 6% price increases across the whole range. Though it's of course not taken across the whole range. It's decided, product by product. That's about the offset that we took to hold margins steady in FY 2022. If we move into FY 2023, I think, we're all seeing ocean freight maybe come off a little bit or at least stop accelerating.
We're seeing some noise in the U.S. dollar and some FOB increases coming through. We'll constantly look at our prices to see if we need to make any further adjustments.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Tom Kierath from Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
Morning, guys. Yeah, just wanna ask on the outlook for the FY 2023 statement. You're saying that in the first few weeks of FY 2023, sell-out is up on the PCP, and we are on plan for first half 2023. Can you just maybe elaborate on what on plan means? Because obviously, I don't think we've kinda seen any kind of budget or anything that you've set out.
You haven't. You won't. We every single year don't give guidance at this point because the first half is kind of such a big part of the year, and within that construct, we don't know what it is. We give guidance when we get into February. At this point, I can tell you that internally, we are on plan after six weeks, but you know.
We set our annual budget in April, May of the year, and that's what Jim's referring to when he says we're on plan. We're on plan for our budget, for the first half of 2023, in fact, for the full year at this stage. Yeah, we don't share that externally, until we've got confidence in how the year is unfolding.
Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. Just to follow up on that, I mean, there's been a huge turnaround in the EMEA sales trends first half to second half. Yeah, I'm just interested in how the sell-out is up in the first few weeks. Is there anything specifically that's happened there, or is anything in the base?
Maybe a couple things, which is one, and this is. Look, I've been here for seven years, and across those seven years we've had these events. One of the patterns that I see anytime there's kind of a shock event is both consumers and retailers migrate during some period of time, and then they start to kind of settle in to whatever that new normal is. I'm accepting that it's still relatively dynamic there. I think the other thing that is different in 2023 over 2022 is Amazon had a Prime Day this year. They had one last year, but it kind of wasn't real. I don't know when they did it. Maybe they did it. I think they did it in June last year. It's in July this year.
Mm-hmm.
The one thing that is different, if I go back maybe three or four years ago, is Amazon would announce it pretty early, and that gave all the other retailers time to line up and execute their own version of that. That is how it used to work. This year Amazon announced it very late, I think to prevent exactly that. Amazon was kind of flying by themselves, and I think that would be the only difference. Yeah, Martin, can you think of anything else?
No. Apart from, we've watched sell-out week by week, day by day, and that's what the numbers are showing at the moment.
The other difference for, at least for ANZ would be we've launched the Barista Express Impress.
Yeah.
We've got a new product launching in those geographies. I don't know. I think I'm out of my depth.
That's great. Thanks, guys.
Thank you. That does conclude the question and answer session as well as today's call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.