Good evening, this is the Chorus Call conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Moncler full year 2022 financial results conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Ms. Elena Mariani, Strategic Planning and Investor Relations Director of Moncler. Please go ahead, madam.
Good evening, everybody, thank you for joining our call today on Moncler's full year 2022 financial results. As usual, let me introduce you to the speakers of today's call. Mr. Remo Ruffini, Moncler Group's Chairman and CEO, Roberto Eggs, Chief Business Strategy and Global Market Officer, Luciano Santel, Chief Corporate and Supply Officer, Gino Fisanotti, Moncler Chief Brand Officer. Before starting, I need to remind you that this presentation may contain certain statements that are neither reported financial results nor other historical information. Any forward-looking statements are based on group current expectations and projections about future events. By their nature, forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause results to differ even materially from those expressed in or implied by these statements, many of which are beyond the ability of the group to control or estimate.
Finally, I remind you that the press has been invited to participate to this conference in a listen-only mode. Let me now hand over to our Chairman and CEO, Mr. Remo Ruffini.
Good evening, everyone, and thank you for attending our call tonight. Let me start by saying that, I'm extremely proud of the great results we achieved in 2022. The group reached EUR 2.6 billion of revenues and EBIT margin of 29.8% and a net income of over EUR 600 million. In the fourth quarter alone, our group sales reached over EUR 1 billion, up 19% at current currencies, accelerating versus the third quarter. All of this was achieved in a very difficult and complex operating environment, which makes our results even more extraordinary. This is not just about numbers. 2022 has been a year full of achievements and key milestones for our two brands.
It was the years of Moncler's 70 anniversary and Stone Island 40 anniversary, during which we celebrate the history of our brands in exceptional way, with results going beyond our expectation. At Moncler, we started empowering all three dimension of the brand, Collection, Genius, and Grenoble, which clear brand initiative reinforcing their respective DNA and identities. Stone Island is processing in a way that will allow it to express its full potential. We are working to build a DTC business model and culture. This year, we internalized the management of some markets. We integrate logistic into a single group hub. We also launch a new store concept, a key milestone in the development of the distribution network. Sustainability continues to be a key pillar in our strategy.
Among many achievement, in 2022, the group was confirmed as first in the sector in Dow Jones Sustainability Index, World and Europe for the fourth years in a row. I'm proud to see our sustainability culture spread more and more in the whole group, but we know that more needs to be done to keep up with the challenge the world is facing. Now, as always, in Moncler, we celebrate our past achievements, but above all, we plan and think about the future. Moving to 2023, the macro contents remain complex and unpredictable. Uncertainties are very high, but now that we are used to live in a never normal world, we are once again ready to take up the challenge with energy and passion. We're keeping an agile and flexible organization and mindset to face these uncertainties.
We are confident that the strength of our brand, our clear long-term strategy, and our dynamic execution will allow us to remain on a very solid growth path. Thank you very much. Let me now leave the floor to Gino, Roberto, Luciano for more comments and results. Thank you.
Okay. Hello, everyone. Good night. Good afternoon. I think if we go to probably slide number four, just to start, we'll start talking about the brand. I think as Mr. Ruffini just mentioned, I think the year, but especially Q4, have been a great example of our renewed brand offense in place across the different dimensions of the brand. I wanna start just mentioning a bit of the 70th anniversary. As a quick reminder, this was a 70 days
Execution to celebrate the 70 years of the Moncler brand that started with a kind of an incredible event at Duomo that took place three days before the last quarter started. We've seen incredible results, I think from day one, from that incredible event with over 18,000 people in the street of Milano. All the way down to all the different work we have done across, I would say, a proper end-to-end approach from product, to retail, to digital, to different services and benefits all around and all connected around the 70th anniversary. We were able to reach over 15 billion people in the 70 days, something that had been unprecedented for us, and more importantly, have an engagement from customers around 725 million people.
This, of course, generated a lot of brand energy, a lot of what we believe, strong results that we will see in a second, across all the different access points to the brand. That's the first comment around the 70th anniversary. As we mentioned, before, continuing with the key parties of the brand in the next slide, we talk about kind of the reboot of Moncler Grenoble. This is something we discussed before. I think we definitely went back, or we're going back to the slopes. We're back to where everything started and where we belong to. I think this time, of course, we introduced our new high-performance collection in December.
This was not only introduce the collection into the market, but at the same time, we were able to go back and execute and become a visible brand in key ski centers around the globe. We can mention Saint Moritz, Courchevel, Niseko, Aspen as a few examples of that. On top of that, we have some very strong CRM clienteling executions around Crans-Montana as well. This give us the opportunity again to confirm our desire to be an extremely relevant brand when we start talking about winter sports and the role of Grenoble within the brand.
If we go to the next page, of course, we are just coming back on the back of a very special week with Genius in London, but we'll spend more time probably in the next quarter to talk about that. I wanna remind everyone that in the last 90 days, we were able to launch Palm Angels, including a top collaboration, featuring Naomi Campbell. We're able to launch the latest ALYX collaboration, with Genius, with Matthew Williams, HYKE. As I mentioned a second ago, in the last 20 days, we have been very vocal about what just happened in London that we will talk later on.
If we go into the, again, next page, I think the other aspect that we have been discussing in the past probably 10 months since Capital Markets Day was our intention to start building a sustainable footwear business model. I have to share with you that despite that this is a very small base and we're trying to make sure that we build a solid business here, we are pleased to see the results we are getting on the launch of Trailgrip family, especially the Trailgrip GTX footwear, who was the most successful footwear launch in the history of Moncler. I think it was the first time we were pleasantly seeing even design awards coming from media like Complex or Techhunter that were recognizing the product there.
On top of that, we believe that we have other products that are coming down the line that are super strong, including the Gaia Pocket Mid, that we believe has all the DNA of the brand included in that design. Last but not least, and I think this is something we mentioned before, but now is real, is when we are talking about Genius collections, everything we do on footwear is on the base of a Moncler footwear piece, which allow us to have extra dimension and extra depth in terms of the design of our footwear offense.
If we move into page number eight now, we're getting more into the business side, I will just comment before I leave the floor to Roberto, a bit of the results around direct online. We discussed probably in the last two, three quarters, we are very clear on the areas we really wanna focus our attention when we talk about our own online business. The first one is, if you guys remember, I think we talked about a login era and how we wanna make sure that we have a strong relationship with our customers in terms of people who sign up with us and have an ongoing relationship.
We're seeing a good result in terms of all the efforts, in terms of benefits and services that we are providing through our dot-com. That's why you see a growth of 140% year-on-year on terms of membership on dot-com. Traffic was up 17% for the entire year with a big push during the 70th anniversary. Then again, when we talk about revenues of just moncler.com was 72% year-on-year. Last but not least, I think we have discussed this before. October represented the formal launch of Tmall. I think we started a soft launch in June. October, with the beginning of 70th anniversary, was the formal launch.
Again, despite that Tmall, revenues surpass expectations, I think it's important for us to remind everyone that we are not leveraging Tmall as a source of revenue. We are leveraging Tmall as a source of access point to the brand, especially for tier two, three and four markets in China, which is definitely delivering against that promise. I think it's important for us to highlight. That's all for me, and I will leave the floor to Roberto.
Thank you, Gino. We are on slide number nine. I would like to drive you through the results of Moncler, the revenues by geography. I would like to drive your attention also when you're looking at the growth, not only to look at it as been accelerating in the last quarter compared to the full year results. In total, we reached and we surpassed for the first time the EUR 2.2 billion with a +19% versus 2021, which is a +36% versus 2019. Q4 recorded a +16% growth on 2021 and +62% in sequential acceleration in all region.
Asia, that for us includes Asia Pacific, China, Japan, Korea, grew at 14% versus 2020 in 2022 versus 2021. Q4 reached for Asia a +12%, which is compared to a +14% on the full year. If you make the comparison with 2019, you see that the last quarter at +56% is in acceleration compared to the full year result at +45%. Europe grew in all region double digits. The growth was mainly driven by Italy, France, Germany, but also Switzerland, Benelux, and Spain, where we opened a store in Madrid at the end of 2022.
The growth has been of +30% for the quarter, +29% for the full year. Here also, the last quarter was in acceleration compared to 2019, with a +52% compared to a full year +27% versus 2019. Finally, the U.S. at +5% for the last quarter, for a total year of +12%. Here also, last quarter was at +38%, so an improvement versus the +35%, which is a full year results. If we look on chart number 10 at the revenues by channel, you will see that we reached EUR 429.8 million total year for the full year in terms of wholesale sales, which is a +6%. Last quarter was a +1%.
You probably remember that the last quarter in terms of wholesale for Moncler is usually a small quarter for the wholesale, representing roughly 16%-17% of the total sales. The sales of the D2C channel reached EUR 869 million, which is a +18% compared to 2021 for a full year at +22%. Here also, you see that there is an acceleration in Q4 versus 2019, which is a +55% compared full year, to a full year at +43%. Let's move to Stone Island results with a focus on the activity of the last quarter, where we had, we celebrated, this was the final part of the celebration of the 14th anniversary. We talked, Gino talked about the 17th anniversary for Moncler.
We had the 14th anniversary for Stone Island. This was celebrated by an reinterpretation of the iconic Tela Stella. Also a year that was where we concluded the celebration with a big event in Miami during Art Basel, where this was an opportunity to connect with the Stone Island families, the friends, and the communities in Miami. It was also an important quarter because in the milestone that we wanted to reach for 2022, there was the development of a new store format, which is the key element of the new retail strategy for Stone Island. These were developed by Rem Koolhaas, the OMA AMO design studio based in Amsterdam.
Successfully opened at the end of the year with already a format, developed different format for the corner based on the store of Chicago that was opened in December in Seoul Galleria. If we move to chart number 12 with the Stone Island revenues by geography, you will notice that for the first time, we reached the EUR 400 mark for the total business of Stone Island. Looking at the result by geography, we have had a +21% with a strong double-digit growth in Europe, in the main countries, Italy, U.K., Germany, and France, which is represent a +16% on a full year basis. A triple-digit growth on the quarter and the full year for Asia.
You remember that we transformed the business model that we had in Korea at the start in January 2022, and then during the summer, there was also the conversion of the business in Japan from wholesale to retail. This clearly helped the growth for the region, but even without the transformation, it would have been a double-digit growth. Finally, the Americas with a +13% at year-end on a full year basis at +34%. If we move to chart number 13, looking at the results per channels, you see that the retail channel is not yet the largest channel. It's still the wholesale that is the largest channel.
If we just look at the last part of the year, for the first time, the retail channel was representing more than the retail with EUR 57.6 million and a +95%. This is what has been driving the growth of the business at year-end, while the retail part, the wholesale part grew at +8% and a +7% on a total year basis. Clearly impacted by the conversion of Japan and Korea, where you see the results that have been positively impacting the results of the retail channel. To conclude on the chart number 14, on the total number of stores, you know that we like especially in Moncler, to open stores during the last part of the year, with our fall/winter collection.
In total, we have 251 stores for Moncler, 72 for Stone Island. The big changes occurred in Q4 for Moncler with nine openings. Amongst them, the new store in Miami Design District, the opening in China with Shanghai West and Chengdu Shin Kong Place. We opened also one strong store in Seoul Galleria and one store in Japan, Niigata Isetan to mention the main openings. Stone Island, I just mentioned the opening of Chicago with a new store, with the new format that we are going to roll out during the course of 2023. Some images to highlight what we mean by openings. You see on chart number 15, the Tianducheng Place opening with a concept that is going to be renewed on a semestral basis.
To give more strength to the concept. You see also the new concept on Miami District, a store that is developed on two selling floor. Finally, on chart number 17, the new store concept for Stone Island in Chicago, which is a very modular concept that can where you can move and rearrange the store itself also to accommodate events and create and animate the communities we are cherishing. I leave the floor to Luciano for the group income statement. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you, Roberto, hi, everybody, and thank you for attending our call today. We are now at page 18, where we report our group income statement. We reported the comparison with the fiscal year 2021. Just to remind you, in fiscal year 2021, we consolidated Stone Island starting from April 1st. The comparison between 2022 and 2021 is not totally meaningful. Anyway, talking about fiscal year 2022, we report a very strong set of results. Not only very strong top line, already commented by Roberto, but also a very good operating profitability that barely touched the 30% margin. Notwithstanding the difficulties we faced in Q2 and Q4 in China, which is a very important market for our business. Also, a very good net result, thanks also to the tax benefit of EUR 92 million.
We already discussed about it at the end of first half of 2022, due to the tax operation, the tax revaluation of Stone Island trademark with a tax benefit, a net tax benefit that was entirely reported in the fiscal year 2022 numbers of EUR 92 million. At the end, very good net result, over EUR 600 million. Let's go now at next page 19, where we report net CapEx. The CapEx, EUR 167 million. Not equally, but almost equally distributed between retail network, distribution network, and infrastructure. Important to highlight that within infrastructure, of course, we report information technology, logistics, and this is important, talking about the 2022 production.
Something important that happened in 2022 was the construction of a production factory in Romania in the same area where we already had, and we still have, our production facility. We built a second building that is already up and running, and we plan to double over the next two years our production capacity in that facility. In 2023, we still expect a CapEx in the region of 6% of our revenues. Let's go now at page 20, where we report the net working capital. Honestly, still very healthy working capital, thanks to very strong credit control and a very efficient inventory management. Nothing to add. Next page, net financial position.
We ended up with EUR 818 million net cash after distribution of dividends for EUR 161 million, a share buyback implemented exactly one year ago for EUR 48 million, the upfront tax payment due to the evaluation of the Stone Island trademark, I told you before, for EUR 124 million. Something important we want to highlight that is planned to happen over the next couple of months is the distribution of dividends. This board has approved today to submit to the shareholder meeting for EUR 1.12 per share. Last year was EUR 0.60, we decided to propose the distribution of a double dividend per share for a total cash out of over about EUR 300 million. Next page 22, we report the balance sheet statement.
Honestly, nothing to comment unless you have questions. Page 22, we report a cash flow statement. A cash flow statement, of course, is the recap of all the economical and financial events I told you before. Something important I want to highlight is the line change in other assets liabilities. That is deeply negative because it includes the tax assets associated with the evaluation of the Stone Island trademark equal to EUR 216 million. Again, EUR 216 million is the tax asset over the next five years. EUR 124 million is the upfront tax payment paid in June of 2022, and the net benefit is the difference for EUR 92 million that is reported in the taxes.
Nothing to add, again, happy to answer your questions also on this slide, if any. Last but not least, a slide reporting our sustainability activity during 2022, and the key results of the tier. I mean, two points I want to highlight. The bullet point, number three and number four, which express our commitment on the circular economy. Now, in 2022, almost 20% of nylon and polyester as utilized in our production came from recycled materials. We plan for this year, 2023, to double this percent. To touch, or to barely touch 40%. The second point is associated with nylon scraps, that 100% of nylon scraps in our production cycle has been recycled, giving them a second life.
Thank you. I mean, we are done for the presentation, and ready to answer your question. Thank you.
Excuse me. This is the Chorus Call conference operator. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch tone telephone. To remove your question, please press star and two. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. The first question comes from Edouard Aubin of Morgan Stanley.
Yeah. Good evening, guys. Thank you for taking my questions. Three questions for me. The year ended better than expected by the market in terms of top line. If you could please comment on how the 2023 year started, obviously particularly in China, but we'd be curious to know about the U.S., Europe, and markets like Korea, which are obviously quite important for you guys. That's question number one. Question number two, which is related. You had a nice top line beat in Q4 versus market expectation. The flow through in terms of the operating margin was a little bit more limited.
You had an EBIT margin compression in H2 versus same time last year of about 250 basis points, if I calculate correctly. If you could come back on what drove the compression, to what extent it's related to the spending related to the 70th anniversary. I saw that your marketing spend for the full year was down, but what about H2, and what about the around 30% mark in you're kind of targeting in the medium term? Sorry, last question on the US, which you've been historically under-penetrated in this market. At the CMD last year, you indicated that you wanted to increase a bit your share in that market to around 20%, if I remember correctly, by 2024.
So far the under-penetration has remained to around the same level of 16, partially because you're doing so well, obviously in Asia and Europe, but also because you're underperforming some of your peers in over the past three years in the U.S. market. If you could come back on why the underperformance and how you see the U.S. market going forward. Thank you.
It's Roberto Eggs. Hi, Edouard Aubin. Thank you for the question. I will start. With the start of the year, now we are current trading since a couple of months. The year started very well. I think we had a very strong brand momentum that is extremely solid. We have been growing in all the region. I will start, as you ask some details on colors, on the different region, I will start with EMEA, because it's probably where we're expecting much better than foreseen. A very solid demand both from the locals and from the tourists.
I'm saying here tourists, meaning mainly still Americans that are coming, that are explaining also a little bit the lower performance that you see in the cluster of the U.S. The Americans are growing double-digits, still very strong in January this year. A little bit less in February, still far above the level we have seen pre-COVID in 2019. The other cluster that is working extremely well in terms of tourists in Europe is Korean. Korean are still really strong. They're also at, let's say, at a level that is higher than the one we had pre-COVID. Still limited amount of Chinese coming to Europe, we are expecting them to come more in the second half of the year.
They're starting to travel, and I will explain that when talking about the China, but they are more traveling to Macau, to Hainan, and to Hong Kong. Also very solid result on EMEA. Americas, again, if you look just at the result of the region, you have a +5%, but if you include the sales to Americans outside of the Americas, mainly Europe, it's a good double-digit growth that we have seen with Americas. Japanese and Korean, strong start of the year for both nationality. They continue to grow double-digit.
Let's say the good, the positive surprise is that in China, as you can imagine, and answer a little bit also of your question on Q4, China was a little bit fluctuating in when looking at the result of the first quarter. We had a very good month of October with Golden Week. That was good. Restrictions, so we had some closure in November. I think the team managed to do extremely well in December, despite the fact that was a spread of the virus.
More than 90% of our team contaminated, we had a strong acceleration in December last year that we continue to have in January and February. January helped by the fact that this year there is the Chinese New Year that is only positively impacting the months of January, while last year it was also impacting the start of February. You know, we always look at the results two weeks before and one week after the Chinese New Year, and there the impact is really positive, and it was growing both before and after the Chinese New Year with a very strong comparison base.
This I think is showing that there is a strong brand momentum and desirability around the brand, that is also perceived and feel very alive with the Chinese consumer. As I mentioned, Macau, Hainan, and Hong Kong are growing very well since the beginning of the year. Is where we start seeing the first travelers from China now that the restriction are being alleviated. To take a little bit more time to see them coming to Japan, Korea, and to Europe.
Okay. Thank you for the question. About the profitability, the profitability the second half was slightly lower than last year. First of all, what I said before, the comparison between the two fiscal years are not totally meaningful because the consolidation is not comparable 100%. In any event, of course, you're right. I mean, we spent more in marketing this year than last year in the second half due to a shift of marketing budget from H1 and H2. The second point that is quite important is that our business in Q4 has suffered significantly by the COVID restrictions in China and the lockdown between mid-October and end of November.
That period, those six weeks affected our business and unfortunately a little bit our profitability, because at the end we are talking about honestly a small difference between last year and this year.
The next question.
I think yes, on the U.S. market, I give already some colors by saying that, we were trading at +5% in Q4 and overall positive on the American cluster. The same for the start of the year. If I look at the American cluster, it's also a growth on the double-digit base still with some of the let's say consumption done by American especially in January, done outside U.S. especially in Europe.
The next question is from Chiara Battistini of J.P. Morgan.
Good evening. Thank you for taking my questions. Firstly, if I can come back on China. Firstly, a clarification on Q4. You mentioned that in December you managed to accelerate despite the fact that the staff was actually sick. I was just wondering if you could expand on the actions that you actually took to continue to engage with the consumer, despite indeed the population's been sick and the staff been sick and your peers not being able to deliver this. On the current trading comment you just mentioned on growth in China before and after the Chinese New Year. Just to confirm, we were talking about single-digit growth or maybe better trends than that.
My second question on your pricing actions for this year that you're planning. If you could remind us how you're thinking about pricing for 2023, possibly maybe splitting by regions if possible. If you could remind us of what you've done already in 2022 and it's annualizing in 2023 as well. Finally, maybe not beyond the current trading, if I could ask you how you're thinking about your Western consumer, your North American consumer and European consumer as you go into 2023, and possibly that's related also to my question on pricing. What are you embedding in terms of expectations on the development of your sort of more, yeah, your domestic European consumer especially? Thank you.
Thank you for the question, Chiara. Just on China, let me explain maybe in more details the way we have seen to the end of the year. We usually in Moncler, we plan for a strong Q4. We take, we recruit people, we train people already starting from the summer to have them operational on the floor since the month of September. I think the team was extremely well prepared. This is why we had this very good start of October with the Golden Week. With the lockdowns, clearly we suffered for as Luciano said, for about six weeks. When the restrictions were stopped, I think we have seen a rate of contamination at a speed that was unseen in the other region.
Basically, we had 90%, and I think this is something probably that is valid for the other peers, for our peers. 90% of the retail population was infected in a month, we had a very light version of the COVID. Usually people, they were staying out for four to five days. Because we anticipated the recruitment and we trained the people, we were able to operate our store in December almost normally. This is explaining the very good, let's say performance that we had on the month of December that partially compensated the, let's say, the performance of the months of November and this good trend. Now, the full team is operation since the start of January.
Basically in one month's time, the issue was solved and operationally we were at our best. January started very well for China. To answer your specific question on the Chinese New Year, I was talking double-digit growth before and after. Regarding the pricing strategy, what we have already implemented this year, since the start of the fall winter is a +10% price increase, where we haven't seen a negative effect as you see on the results. This is what has been in a way well accepted by consumer, probably because talking about inflation now it's, you know, unfortunately, I would say, they all used to have these type of price increase.
We continued with the spring summer that we started to sell in at the end of November, beginning of December with this +10%. Is also what we are planning. This is still to be confirmed for the full winter that will be starting to sell in June or July this year. This is to cover the increased cost that we have in production and not is not something that is planned to have additional margin.
Regarding the differentiation that we have amongst the region, I think we mentioned something during the last call where we have a slightly higher increase in Europe, slightly lower in China and slightly lower in US in order to come back for the fall winter season, starting from June, July, to a price differential that is similar to the one we had pre-COVID.
The next question is from Thomas Chauvet of Citi.
Good evening. Thanks for taking my question. The first one, on your +15% retail like-for-like in 2022, how would you split this number between volume, price and mix? Is it fair to assume the fourth quarter saw something like low teens retail like-for-like, which is a pretty strong number? Secondly, after Q3, you commented that some of the more classic, higher price points outerwear were outperforming. Are you seeing some weakness in the more, or at least relative weakness in the more entry level price points, whether for jackets or sneakers with your younger clientele in markets like the U.S. and Europe?
You know, can you talk about the initiatives you're taking to push perhaps further brand elevation towards a more classic higher end offering in jackets? Finally on Stone Island and the priorities. If I understood correctly at the end of last year, you said 2022 and 2023 would be years focused on the takeover of distribution, the new store concept, improving the retail ceremony. Is it fair to assume that it's only next year that you will start perhaps to make more important changes to the product or the communication? Could you, Roberto perhaps remind us the key markets you'll take over this year and roughly the size in terms of wholesale sales as you did for Japan and Korea, for instance, last year? Thank you.
Well, thank you for the question. Let me start with the growth like-for-like and how much is driven by volumes and by price. You know, usually we have on a normal year without this strong price increase, we'll have 80% driven by volumes and 20% driven by price. Clearly, with this +10% that we implemented since mid of this year is something that is clearly more balanced this year. Part of the, let's say, strong part of the growth has been coming from price effect. This is something that we think will be normalized back in 2024, there will be probably during this year, still a strong push that will be driven by the price increase.
For the price, the brand elevation, I will leave it to Gino. Just on, maybe on the Stone Island priority, just to conclude, yes, clearly 2022 has been a strong year of change of business model, where we have started to take the ownership on the most important markets, starting at the start of 2022 by Korea and during the summer we took over UK and Japan. It's still a work in progress. It's something that is not finalized. Yes, we have put in place all the system, the IT support, the management tool. We have been launching the retail excellence in this three region. I would say successfully, but I'm not completely happy yet on the final result.
We are now working also to go to step up, which is the omnichannel excellence. Really leveraging what we are doing online together with what we are doing on the retail side in a much more integrated way. We have been working also, maybe it's less visible from the outside, but I think that our wholesaler have seen also the clarity that has been brought to the different collection, the three dimension. We have also three Sub collection in Stone Island with Marina, with the main important collection and with Ghost. I think we have clarified the identity of this collection, and this has been well received by our wholesale account and clearly by our internal team too.
For 2023, the focus will be really to make the machine that we have put in place work. again, we have been summarizing two years with the real change of culture internally, something that has been taking 3- 4 years in Moncler. we want this year really to have the machine that should be really performing before moving to the next step in terms also of communication.
Again, once again, thank you for the question. Just to wrap up the comments from Roberto. Regarding brand elevation, to be honest, we haven't experienced any downside, neither on the lower price in product or neither with the young customer. I would say that for us, especially if we think about examples on Q4, between everything we have done around our iconic product on 70th anniversary and even leveraging our Maya jacket or even all the way down to footwear, I would say that we've seen the opposite. We've seen bigger acquisition into even new customers across both retail and digital, and sometimes even new customers who came to buy specific items were completely new customers.
I think for us, have been all about adding, brand meaning and added value to the product and to the proposition we have. In a nutshell, we haven't seen that, in Q4 or even the beginning of this year.
Um, and Thomas-
Thank you.
This is Elena.
Yeah.
Just to follow up on one of your questions. When it comes to the impact from the conversions, one thing that I can mention is that excluding these conversions from wholesale to DTC, growth would have been double-digit both in wholesale and in DTC in 2022 and also in Q4.
Okay. Any markets you will take over this year that would be meaningful, at Stone Island?
I think we are, we have been taking over the most important market. The last one, we leave the best for the last, but also because we are planning now to go and visit this market, which is China. I think we want to have all the rest of the machine be completely working, and we have planned an important tour of China, and this is planned for the start of 2024.
Okay. Well, thank you and all the best for the year ahead.
Thank you.
The next question is from Antoine Riou of Societe Generale.
Good evening, everyone. My first question is on the sales densities. Can you update us on what level you reached at end of 2022? Is it fair to assume for 2023, given you don't have any more COVID restrictions in any market, that you could eventually come out on above the 2019 levels? How confident and what timing do you see to reach the EUR 4,000 per sq m that you mentioned at the Capital Markets Day? That's my first question. My second question on the non-outdoor wear categories. Shoes and knitwear. Can you remind us and tell us what levels you reached as a % of sales in 2022?
You used to be at around 25%. Has that risen given the success you did mention in footwear? What do you expect for 2023? Do you expect footwear and knitwear to outgrow the rest? My last question is on the Stone Island margin, EBIT margin. You used to say that a fair level was 27%-28%, and the objective was to maintain it at 27%-28%. Are you still comfortable to maintain this level in 2023, even if you seem to be really ahead with the sort of retailization of the business? Given the sales densities for the Stone Island stores must not be as high as that, the one you do have at Moncler. Thanks.
Antoine, thank you for the question on the sales density. If you remember well last year, we mentioned that we reached EUR 32,400 per sq m. This year, of course, we increased the average size of our stores with the new format that are slightly bigger than the one we had in the past. We reach EUR 34,200, which is plus 9%, which is, in my view, a very good performance, taking into account the current context.
Reaching the performance back of 2019, as we mentioned, is yes, we mentioned when there would be no more restriction, but we mentioned also that will be when we have also the Asian travelers traveling back in a normal way, which is yet not the case, at least not in Europe, not in Japan, not in Korea. I think we will see, if we see a normalization of the travelers in the second half of the year, I think we can, for the last quarter of the year, probably plan something that is close to what we had in 2019. This will depend on the ability of Chinese to travel around the world.
Regarding the EUR 40,000, we said it is not a target, but more, let's say, an ambition that we have. We would like to achieve. We are working very hard on this. In the mid to long term, I think it's something that remains something that we are aiming to achieve, we need to find a really a world that is back to normal for this.
Antoine, regarding knitwear and other categories, I will say that this is something that keeps growing, of course, at the pace of the growth of the company and what we saw today. I will say more importantly, I think it's important for us to keep growing these different categories in terms of becoming a more all year round brand, something we already discussed before. This is growing across the three different dimensions of the brand. That's on knitwear and other categories. Regarding footwear, I will say that footwear sales were double digits up in Q4 and in the second half of the year. Remember that the introduction of our new footwear concepts have been at September, we are really much on the early stages.
We are happy with the pipeline of the products we have for the next fiscal year and after that. For us, it's more about keep tracking on not only on the offense we discussed, but even on the midterm ambition that we present at Capital Markets Day. We are, we're on track towards that.
This is Luciano, Antoine. About your question about operating margin, operating income for Stone Island, yes. I mean, we have this percent in mind that this is what you said about the 27%. Just to make it clear, I mean, about Stone Island, I mean, Stone Island is a very precious brand, a very precious machine. The way we try to drive this precious machine is not only targeting and being obsessed by the operating margin, but being totally aware that we want to make this brand that is very strong, stronger and stronger. We are more looking at what Roberto said.
First of all, this year, we will be 100% focused on organic growth to make all the internalization of the markets and the conversion from wholesale to retail of these markets working, introducing, developing, the retail culture. That is what we make at the end to improve our profitability. Again, your assumption is reasonable. Again, I want you to understand what our strategy is. That is, right now for Stone Island, more than ever, very qualitative in developing this kind of retail culture that will allow us to achieve better results.
Yes, thanks.
The next question is from Anne-Laure Bismuth of HSBC. Miss Bismuth, your line is open, madam.
Yes. Hi. Good evening. I have three questions, please. The first one is regarding the marketing expenditure. Should we expect a marketing to sales ratio getting closer to 7% in full year 2023? My second question is about the store opening pipeline for this year. Should we expect probably the same number of openings and same contribution from new space in 2023 than in 2022? Finally, coming back on the performance in China, would it be possible to quantify what was the performance in China in Q4? Some of your peers were mentioning a performance that was down 23%-24%. What was it for Moncler? Thank you very much.
Thank you very much again for the question. I think quick one regarding markets, expand. I think we will still remain around the 7% for the entire year as we always been shown in the past few years. That's the plan. I think what you are seeing from us is a probably a very precise focus on the areas we really want to invest on based on the strategy we present last year and the three dimension that Mr. Ruffini mentioned at the beginning of the call.
Good evening, Anne-Laure. Regarding the store opening pipeline, we are going to open a similar number of stores than one, the one we had this year. A figure around the 15 stores is what we have secured for Moncler for the time being. We continue to work on it. Already also some openings for 2024. Clearly focusing also on the flagship and on the key and the most important cities, with also a plan to for some important relocation, for example, in Zurich and in Vienna, but also some key openings in China with China World and with Plaza 66, where we'll finally we have got a ground floor location, so an access from the ground floor.
This is going to be the focus for the year. The year, for the full year, we expect a selling space that will grow at mid to high single digits, as we usually give as a guidance. That the one we give during the capital market is also valid for 2023. Regarding Stone Island, the number of stores we're going to open is more in the range of, you know, mid-single digits.
Really, the focus will be also on transformation of some of the location that we have, relocation and implementation of the new concept. Regarding your question on China, our result overall with the good start of the month of October, the lockdown in well, let's say November and the restart in December, the result for China for us has been flattish. In Q4. In Q4, sorry.
Thank you very much.
Positive for the year.
The next question is from Louise Singlehurst of Goldman Sachs.
Hi, good evening, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. That's a very impressive result for China, and broadly, you must be delighted with the performance at the end of the year. I wonder if you can just help us think about the customer base. Presumably, you're getting a very nice uptick in new customers to the brand, particularly with all the seventieth anniversary engagement activities towards the end of the year. Can you talk about the mix of existing customers and new? I know historically, Roberto, you've kind of given us some indications around like the repeat purchase being very strong and the loyal customer base growing. I'm just trying to think about that as we consider the benefits of the Genius and the relaunch into 2023.
Secondly, just following up on the margin comments that you've already made. Thinking about the positives and the headwinds, I suppose on the positives, we've got pricing, China recovery. We've also got the engagement activities in the marketing. Are we fair to assume that we'll see, at this, at this plan at this early stage of the year and a growth in the margins this year? Thank you.
Hi, Louise. Thank you for your question on the clients. They are really our priority in the company. I think there are two things we are cherishing. One is the brand, the second one is the clients. The results of the full year have been driven both by good rate of recruitment, the number of new clients is above 60%, so in line with what we have had in the other year. A slightly younger consumer that has been accessing to the brand also thanks to all the activities that we have been generating in 2022 around the 70th anniversary. Regarding the loyalty, we continue to increase the loyalty rate.
This has been driven partially by the fact that, let's say, thanks to the COVID, thanks in bracket, our team have been able to focus much more on the local clients. We continue, and this is going to be one of the focus for 2023 is don't lose all the work that has been done in these past three years to develop the loyal clientele, while of course welcoming all the opportunities that we will have thanks to the travelers that will especially coming from Asia, that will restart to travel to Asian destination, to Europe and to US. Capitalize on what we have learned and what we have been doing successfully. Also, the new way of selling, where more than 20% of the sales are distant sales, omnichannel sales, clienteling activities.
This is something that is starting also for Stone Island. All these are clienteling activities very strongly now. Now we know better our consumer. We know there is this culture coming from Moncler adapted to Stone Island that is starting to work also, and we hope that will start seeing the benefit of it.
One thing to add to Roberto's point, I think definitely we're seeing current and new customers connected to the brand. I truly believe that the way we are approaching the different dimension of the brand with a very clear customer consumer target in mind is working for us. I think this is allowing us to reach and engage in a more meaningful way, customers. Last but not least, to reinforce what Roberto was saying, I think we're seeing this effect in different ways. The idea of going omnichannel, where digital is playing a critical role even to engage with new communities as well, is very important. The answer, of course, to your question is yes, we're seeing that.
I think the idea of having a more precise approach to different customer base is helping us to reach out to new and more customers.
Okay. About, about margin, Louise, I mean, first of all, a clarification. When, you mention pricing, I mean, our pricing strategy and decision to increase prices in 2023 is totally due to the production cost increases. There is no margin effect coming from the price increase in 2023 as well as in the second half of 2022. About China. China is, of course, a big question mark. I mean, you may be right, I hope you are right, that, I mean, China may be a nice, a nice surprise, but the problem is that right now we don't know.
I mean, just to remind you and to remind everyone that, only in mid-October we were extremely excited by the results in China, right after the event we ran in Milan, the seventieth anniversary, because business started to take off, literally to take off. For six weeks, business was totally down because traffic was down because of the COVID restrictions. That situation has not been solved yet. I mean, we are totally aware that we live in a very uncertain world, we have to plan our business being aware of this situation. Again, we are, we hope that China may be a good, a good surprise in 2023. Honestly
I can't right now tell you that we plan for this possible hopeful upside. Not at all. Right now, I mean, the way we run our business is to be, as always, very, very prudent on one side, but also very flexible and reactive on the other side. Because should the market demand be higher and better than what we plan now, I mean, we have the capability to react and to meet the market demand. Of course, margins right now, we don't plan any higher margin than 2022. Also, because a margin, an operating margin in the region of 30%, as we said, since ever, is a good operating margin. We are not obsessed by increasing that margin, but we want to protect that margin for many, many years.
Whatever may be the uplift, whatever may be the upside, I mean, we are totally aware that we have to keep investing in our brands, both of them, in product design, marketing, and in organization, and in the infrastructure. Strategy is very important, but execution is important as well. In order to execute a strategy, you need some people, talented people. I mean, long story short, we don't know margin. I mean, our ambition is still the 30%, you know very well. Honestly, we don't aim to do more.
Thank you.
The next question is from Luca Solca of Bernstein.
Yes, good evening. My first question is on Stone Island. You presented Stone Island as the Moncler of 10 years ago. It seems to me that in order to fulfill this mission, it has to become very strong in both international appeal and retail execution. You mentioned the development of the retail culture at Stone Island. I wonder where you stand on that front, and what is the retail space productivity in terms of sales per square meter, gap between Stone Island and Moncler at this point?
A broader question is on the apparent shift that we're seeing in the market, if we have to take note from what was presented at the Milan Fashion Week, with a sense that many of the top brands are veering towards more of a timeless and demure approach. I think Gucci changing designers, the fashion show that Prada staged and so on. The sense that some of the best-selling products that we had seen in the market recently, like sneakers, would seem to be losing some of their shine. I wonder what the strategic impact for Moncler would be from all this, both in terms of brand equity and in terms of product offer.
Talking about product offer, my third question is about the branching out of the Moncler brand into other product categories. My impression is that so far, irrespective of the % of sales that come from knitwear or footwear, these product categories are tagging along sales of down jackets, and they're not attracting traffic in their own right. I wonder if I'm wrong, and if indeed you have some home run successes of note that you could potentially mention, and that you're starting to see consumers coming to the Moncler stores to buy the Moncler shoes, for example, or any of the other products that are not, you know, in the core of your DNA, like down jackets. Thank you very much indeed.
Good evening, Luca. Roberto speaking. Regarding Stone Island, yes, what we launched is a very broad project. Again, as a reminder, what we started to implement is something that is touching on which we talk about change of culture. It's not only about the people, the change of mentality. It's not only about putting the right tools in their hand, about training. It's also a different sequence in terms of how we bring product to the stores, what is the animation we are going to bring to the stores, what are the different drops. It's a full set, it's a full ecosystem that we are putting in place to really start activating this brand as more of a D2C brand.
The changes we have, we have put there in place, changing sometimes store manager, putting people with the right attitude, people able to animate and creating communities in the store is something that is something of a very large magnitude. I think we are not yet ready to share figures regarding sales density. The aim that we have on the long run is to get as close as possible to Moncler, but we are not there yet because we have still some elements that we need to put in place, one of these being also the omnichannel. Linking what we are doing online with what we do in the stores in a seamless way. There is still a lot of effort in training to be put in place. I was mentioning the three
Different product categories that we have redefined. Now we need to push them with the right moment to animate those category in the store. The, let's say the agenda for 2023 is more than full. I think in one year time, we'll be able to share more regarding the KPIs performance. I think one of the things I'm looking now is the number of action that our client advisor in Stone Island are doing on a weekly base. How many clients are they able to, you know, to get the data from. We are starting from really far, even more far than Moncler back in 2015. We have now data collection that are not far, already not far from Moncler.
We are at 80% for Stone Island, which is a figure that is absolutely amazing. This is the starting point from where we're going to start building on this. On top, the other change is what we call the retailization of the wholesale. Now, it's not only retail action, but also how can we elevate, let's say the visibility because still, more than 60% of the business is done with the wholesale channel. There also, we are working with the team elevating the let's say, the brand positioning in the stores, finding better location, when we talk about shop in the shop, working also to have different drops in and animate the wholesale like we are doing in Moncler, but of course in the Stone Island way.
I think the route is the roadmap is clear for us. I think 2023 will be a year of consolidation, where we are co-starting to leverage all the investment that we have been doing in this past two years, including all the part of the supply chain.
Luca, regarding your second and third comment, I tried to follow all the comments and feel like a little bit of the opinion from your end. I would say the first thing I wanna say is I think the efforts we're trying to put together is to put the brand first. When we talk about brand first, it's not necessarily about one item or one specific collection. It's we're trying to make sure people see who we are, what we stand for, and allow people to interact more with the brand. I know this could sound very conceptual at some point, but it's true in terms of everything you've seen from 70th anniversary, from Grenoble, from probably what you seen or heard last week.
I think what that is doing for us is making Moncler more culturally savvy and more culturally relevant beyond any specific item or beyond a specific product. That I think is the first caveat to the third point you make about if we're seeing customers connecting with us beyond a jacket or beyond a puffer jacket. The answer is yes. I think we mentioned this before. I think you can do that around, you can see that around knitwear, you can see that around cut and sew, you can see that around footwear. There's two aspects of that. One is that probably loyal or current customers are the ones who are adding more into their consumer or the purchasing behavior with us.
More importantly, we're seeing a lot of new customers as well, not only from the retail standpoint, but dot-com as well is helping us there. I will say this is what we're seeing so far is on top of the existing kind of business we have on our winter, more traditional product spectrum. It's not taking from that. All in all, I think I wanna go back to the first point. I think what we're trying to do is to elevate the brand. When we see that we have a strong brand momentum because people have a different level of connection, and they see a different cultural relevancy of the brand, I think what we can do is, of course, push for more of the traditional product that people used to buy.
I think people are seeing the opportunity to go beyond that because the brand is starting to mean more than before.
Thank you very much indeed.
The next question is from Susy Tibaldi of UBS.
Hi, good evening. Thank you. First question for Roberto, if you can give us an update on the retail KPIs, such as the average transaction value, the units per transaction, the traffic that you've been seeing over the past year. Secondly, on the new Moncler Genius that you launched last week, I mean, in terms of concept, we have seen that you've been branching out beyond just fashion designers. When it comes to the distribution, is it going to be similar to what we have seen for the previous Moncler Genius chapters? Maybe can you also touch on the rationale of some of the new collaborations, what type of customers you're trying to attract?
Lastly, on wholesale, if you can comment on your order backlog and what growth we should be expecting or you expect for 2023, both for Moncler and Stone Island. Thank you.
Hi, Susy. I start with the KPIs and wholesale and then leave the floor to Gino for the Genius question. Regarding the KPIs, I must say they are positive on the year. We are already commenting on the sales density. Also, we had positive space contribution linked to the 14 stores we opened and also the slightly bigger average surface that we have. The average surface move up to 187 sq m, so it's a +3% compared to the year before. The traffic went up double digits. The conversion went slightly down, which is normal when usually you increase your traffic, you lose a little bit in terms of conversion. More in the range of a low mid-single digits.
Overall, the, let's say, the conversion rate, thanks to the higher traffic was positive. We have had, thanks to a strong fall winter season and strong Q4, a good increase in terms of average selling price and average transaction was positive also. Regarding the whole wholesale, I think the indication we gave during the Capital Market Day, which is a mid-single digit, is something we are always aiming to. These always will depend on the amount of conversion that we will be able to drive.
To give you some colors also on the Q4 performance that we have had in wholesale regarding Moncler, if you, if you take into consideration the fact that we stopped completely selling to Russia, and Q4 was a strong, Q3 and Q4 were strong quarter, sorry, for the Russian market, that for us was at 70% wholesale market. Only we had only one store that we are managing and that we have closed is the one in GUM. You could have added five points, five percentage points on the performance of the wholesale. Completely in line with the performance we were expecting.
We had also conversion this year with Mytheresa and Luisaviaroma that were converted into a concession and e-tailer model. We had some also store that have moved from wholesale into retail, like Le Samaritaine in Paris, that is performing really well since we took it over as a retail business. I think the indication is there. It will depend if we are able to still continue to convert. We plan with this mid-single digit, and depending on our ability to transform the business model, it may vary a little bit, but this remains the indication that we have.
Susy, thank you for your question. Regarding Genius, I think we have been expressing this for the past few months, I think in the opportunity for us to evolve a model that have been extremely successful for the brand. This is why I think last week we started talking about this idea of moving from a collaboration platform that was basically focused on fashion and luxury to a platform of co-creation, right? This idea of how we can work with different entities that allow us to create something new or something that didn't exist before. Probably, I think, following Moncler, you heard this line multiple times about the idea of pushing the brand beyond fashion and beyond luxury. Even we see others using the same line. I think for us, Genius is that.
It's about how we can open up ourselves and the brand to go for real beyond fashion and luxury. That's a little bit of what you saw last week. For us, it's a big opportunity to inspire, not only to inspire, but to inspire and invite almost a new generation of luxury customers to the brand, right? I think we really want to leverage the power of the brand to not only to connect, but to influence other industries. I think when we talk about cultural relevancy, the opportunity to have a brand who can influence other industry is very, very important. This is why you've seen us last week moving just from luxury into art, entertainment, music, design, et cetera, right? We always believe in a company where creativity is very, very important.
That creativity lives at the intersection of what's possible. I think Genius is at the core of that idea of creating something new or create a little bit of what we call the unexpected. That's the intention. We are again, of course, we will talk probably in the next quarter about last week. We're extremely proud and happy of not only the results, but the way we present this evolution of Genius to the market, and we're extremely happy with the response we got so far.
I think the last comment, probably the caveat here in terms of distribution, of course, working with different industries allow us not only to sustain what we have down the time in terms of distribution of Genius, but open up new opportunities for us because at the very end, distribution play another critical role in terms of connecting and interacting with new customers. This is everything that Genius is all about.
Thank you. Sorry, on the wholesale comment, for the mid-single digits, does it also apply to Stone Island?
In Stone Island, we are still in this transformation phase. Yes, as an indication, this is what we have broadly, here we are still working really to redefine the distribution. Yes, you can take it as an indication, it may vary a little bit depending on the opportunities that we have and the way we are going to transform the business. We are still some conversion that are possible with the Stone Island business, it will depend. As an indication, yes, mid-single digits.
Okay, thank you.
The next question is from Charles-Louis Scotti of Kepler Cheuvreux.
Hi. Good evening. Three questions from my side. The first one, some of your competitors, are pointing out a moderation of demand from younger customers, especially below 30, as well as for accessible and cheaper SKUs. Do you see the same pattern with your customer base at the moment? Second question on the price gap between China and Europe. It seems that it is one of the highest in the industry, if I'm not mistaken? How confident are you to be able to narrow the gap before H2? What will be the risk if you are not able to do it, before Chinese resume traveling fully in the second part of the year? Third question, is there any relevant foreign exchange or hedging impact we should have in mind when forecasting your gross margin and EBIT margin for 2023? Thank you.
Good evening, Charles. I think I commented, and I think it was also restated by Gino, on the fact that, no, we have not seen a decrease in the consumer demand from younger audience. Just the opposite. I think it's probably linked to the fact that we have been able to create these communities around the brand and to push the brand and the elevating the brand and desirability of the brand that is driven. We have seen that especially with the Genius event, the crowd that we have had in London last week was really amazing, and it was really a young crowd, the one that we want to attract to the brand.
Regarding the price gap, we have the ambition to come back to the price gap that we had pre-COVID by increasing more the prices in Europe with the arrival of the fall/winter season. With the spring/summer, the price gap is already narrow. We had higher price gap for the winter, lower for the spring/summer season. We are already now with the spring/summer, not so far from what we had pre-COVID. We want to realign the price of the fall/winter starting from June by increasing higher the price more in Europe, a little bit less in China now. If, as you mentioned, we would have Chinese traveling to Europe before the H2, they will be pleased to get prices that are even more attractive.
I don't see that as something that is going counterproductive regarding the increase of the Chinese cluster. What we want in all the nationalities we are working with, is to increase the local demand. This is why we want to reduce the gap in order to be able to leverage and develop more of a local clientele. Clearly, if Chinese will start to travel before that in Europe, of course they are more than welcome and it will be even more interesting for them. This is the objective, is to realign with the pre-COVID figures with the June delivery with the fall/winter.
Your question about the margin and our hedging activity. I mean, just to make it clear, to make sure I understand your question. I mean, our hedging policy is aimed to neutralize any effects impact, which is by definition unpredictable. We don't target any change in our gross margin based on our hedging policy. We target to protect our gross margin at the time we implement our pricing strategy, because we normally implement the pricing activity about six months before we start selling the product. In order to make sure that at the time we will sell the product, gross margin will still be what we have defined strategically six months before, we implement our hedging activity in all the most important occurrences. No impact on gross margin, but protection of the gross margin.
Again, let me understand if I correctly understood your question. Thank you.
Hello. Thank you. It's from the Jean Charles as expected. Thank you.
The next question, the final question registered is from Flavio Cereda of Jefferies.
Thank you very much. Hi. You'll be reassured to know, given the time, that I actually only have one question. It's for Luciano. Luciano, it's about work networking capital and the mix of networking capital. I appreciate it's a snapshot in time, but it does show an uptick in your inventories as a percentage of sales, and it seems the accounts payable particularly aggressive on that one as well. Is there anything that we can... I mean, this could be read either way. Can you give us a sense of how to interpret these two metrics in particular? Thank you.
Yes. Thank you Flavio for your question. I mean, networking capital overall is very good. You're right, inventory is significantly higher than last year, than the year before. This is due to several different factors. One positive factor is that we anticipated the production of the fall/winter 2023, and so we anticipated also the acquisition of raw materials, whatever. Second factor is due to the conversion of Stone Island business from wholesale/distribution business in some markets to retail business, and this implied an increase in inventory. The last, but not least, honestly, the fact that at the end of the year, our finished product, inventory was higher than the year before, mostly due to the difficulties, the problems we discussed about before in China in Q4.
The good news is that, considering the strong business trend in all the regions, but in China as well, in January and February, that inventory, let's say is not a problem, but a higher amount of inventory has been absorbed by the good business in January and February. I mean, your point is correct. Inventory is quite higher for these reasons I told you.
Anything on the payables?
Yes. The payable, I mean this is more, more timing, Flavius, due to the fact that, I mean of course again, there are many different factors, but one is associated with the fact that we opened the majority of the stores in 2022 in Q4 and many of them in December. Part of that expenditure that is reported under CapEx was in our variable not paid yet.
Lovely. Thank you. Thank you all.
Excuse me, sir, we have another question registered. This time it's from-.
Yes, we have time for one last question. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you madam. It's from Piral Dadhania of Royal Bank of Canada.
Thank you. Good evening. Thanks for fitting me in. Just two quick ones. The first one is just on the tax rate. Obviously, you have a tax saving coming through this year, and your tax rate has been up and down over the last years. Could you just help us understand how we should model the effective tax rate for 2023 and going forward? That was the first one. Second one is just on the way that you're planning the business in terms of growth for 2023. Historically, you know, around the time of the IPO and for a good few years after that, you always talked about mid-single digit, like-for-like, is how you planned the business from a conservative standpoint.
The bigger you get, the faster you seem to be growing, with 15% like-for-likes delivered in 2022, and obviously 10% pricing coming through in 2023 expected, should we expect a similar level of like-for-like growth in terms of the way that you're planning and expecting to grow in 2023, please? Thank you.
Okay, about your first question, I mean the tax rate has been very volatile for several different reasons, mostly associated with tax opportunities in some jurisdictions where we operate our business, first in Italy, and this was the case in 2019 and in 2022 for the evaluation of the Stone Island trademarks. Having said that, the 29% more or less tax rate is our guidance for the future for 2023, and also for the following years, unless something new may come out. Again, 29, about 29 is, let's say, the standard tax rate. About the second question, the way we plan our business, I mean, you're totally right, and you remember very well. This is the way we plan our retail business which is mid-single digit.
Of course, I understand your point, considering the price increase, should we implement, achieve a mid-single digit growth? Of course, this would imply a decrease in volumes. The problem is that we don't know. The reason why we keep planning our business at mid-single digit is that exactly we don't know what the future may be. Considering that the situation in the world is still very uncertain, we prefer to be very prudent. On the other side, as I said before, over the years, we have developed a pretty flexible and reactive supply chain that will be able to meet the market demand if the market demand will be higher, and not only due to the price increase, but also due to additional volumes.
This is something that will allow us, hopefully, to react to the market demand. Again, the reason why we plan our business very prudently is that, again, planning the business prudently means that we produce less product. Again, this is something that belongs to our strategy, but even more to our mindset. We don't want to run the risk to end up at the end of the season with too much inventory. We prefer to run the risk not to have enough inventory. In any event, of course, we aim to offset both risk and to have the right amount of inventory. That's why we plan our supply chain in order to be ready if the demand of the market will be higher than what we plan to meet that demand. I hope I answer your question.
Yes. Thank you, Luciano.
You're welcome.
Okay. Thank you very much, everyone, for participating in this call. Let me just give you a quick reminder of the next release. Our Q1 2023 interim management statement will be released on May 4th, after market close, and our quiet period will start on April 5th. Thank you again for all your questions. For any follow-ups, do not hesitate to contact the IR team any time. Thank you and have a fantastic evening.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over and you may disconnect your telephones.