Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining our call tonight on Moncler Group's first half 2026 financial results. 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. Let me also highlight that given the nature of our business, interim results can be influenced by seasonal effects and therefore cannot be taken as a proxy for full-year trends or results.
Finally, I remind you that the press has been invited to participate to this conference in a listen-only mode. Before starting our H1 review, I would like to hand over to Leo Rongone, our new Group Chief Executive Officer. As you all know, Leo joined the company just three months ago, and he would like to share some first observations and thoughts after his first few weeks into the company. Leo, over to you.
Thank you, Elena. Good evening, everyone. It's a real honor and a great privilege to speak to you today for the first time as the CEO of the Moncler Group. Before handing over to the team for the Q2 results and the Q&A session, I'd like to share a few reflections on my first three months within the company, an important time for me of listening, learning, and meeting so many talented individuals across the organization, from headquarters to our regional offices, from our stores to our production atelier. These initial months have been critical to gain a deep understanding of the Group, to shape my perspective, and to identify where we can continue to evolve and where we will focus our energy from now on.
You know, I have admired Moncler from the outside for many years and have always had great respect for what Remo Ruffini and his team have built over the years. Now, experiencing the company from the inside, my admiration has increased even more. What I've found since joining the Group is truly remarkable. An organization that perfectly combines outstanding creativity with strong operational discipline. You all know this is a rare balance, and to me, one of the key reasons behind the enduring success of this Group. I've also been impressed by the uncompromising commitment to product excellence. Quality, meticulous attention to details, and the constant drive for improvement are not simply processes here. They are deeply rooted in the culture of the company. There is something else, the way we tell our stories. In an industry that's becoming even more crowded and noisy, our communication is authentic and engaging.
We are able to make our voice heard, to build genuine and lasting connections with our communities. This unique capability is a real competitive advantage. Most importantly, however, is the people who have really inspired me. Across every function and every region, I have found a strong sense of ownership, a deep commitment to excellence, and a true passion. I've also met a solid leadership team that has built two of the most iconic and desirable luxury brands. This is an asset I deeply value and am fully committed to preserving and strengthening. Looking ahead, I see exciting opportunities for the group. As far as Moncler is concerned, our strategic priorities are clear. Building relevance in regions where we have great potential, cultivating a dialogue with our customers across all seasons, and unlocking the full potential of our three brand dimensions you are already familiar with, Collection, Grenoble, and Genius.
The focus now is on a further step-up in execution and making sure each of these priorities translates into tangible and consistent results over time. To do so, we will explore new ways of pushing creative and technical boundaries. Innovation in materials, for example, will be key to embodying the true value of the Mountain throughout the entire year, beyond the single season, and to elevate our product experience. The Mountains encourage well-being, intentional living, and a deep human connection, something we deeply rooted in our values and identity. Moreover, there is a significant potential to further extend the brand's legitimacy beyond the core outerwear category, always respecting our brand's DNA. Talking about Stone Island, I have found a brand with an exceptionally strong identity, a unique culture innovation, and one of the most authentic and engaged communities in the luxury sector.
The foundations that have been built over these past years are very solid. The progress we are seeing today reflects disciplined execution of a clear long-term strategy. Looking at the future, we will continue to focus on product research, strengthen the quality of our global distribution, and invest in consistent, culturally relevant brand communication. By doing so, we'll deepen our relationship with our loyal community while introducing Stone Island to a new generation of clients around the world. For both brands, the way we engage with our clients represent a clear opportunity. Over the years, we have built a strong platform and a powerful ability to reach and inspire wide audiences. Now, we want to translate this strength into even more direct, more frequent, and more personal interaction with our VICs, building stronger relationship with them over time.
To conclude, these first months have only reinforced my belief that many more remarkable chapter of this group story have yet to be written. I'm deeply honored to help writing them alongside Remo. His visionary leadership has been the driving force behind the Moncler extraordinary journey so far. Together with him and the entire top management team, we will keep working with a long-term perspective, committed to helping this group reach its full potential, always guided by the health and desirability of our brands. I'm very excited by the journey ahead. I look forward to meeting many of you in person over the coming quarters, when there will be the opportunity to share more on my perspective. Tonight, we are here to talk about our Q2 results. Now, let me hand over to Elena, Gino, and Luciano for the H1 review and the Q&A session.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Leo. For our audience, of course, there will be the opportunity to meet and get to know Leo in the coming quarters, and to have proper discussions with him. Tonight, we are here to talk about our Q2 results. I will now move on to host our H1 results presentation and Q&A session, of course, together with Luciano Santel, Chief Corporate and Supply Officer, and Gino Fisanotti, Moncler Chief Brand Officer. Before handing it over to Gino and Luciano, let me just present the key highlights of today's results on Page four. Group revenues in the first half of the year were EUR 1.29 billion, up 9% at constant FX. In the second quarter, group revenues were up 5% at constant FX.
The Moncler brand, accounting for 84% of the group's H1 turnover, was up 9% in H1 and 3% in Q2. The Stone Island brand, accounting for 16% of the group's H1 turnover, was up 11%, both in H1 and in Q2. In the first half of the year, the group also reached an EBIT of EUR 254 million with a margin of 19%. Net result was EUR 165 million with a 12.8% margin. Our net cash position at the end of June exceeded EUR 1.1 billion. Let me now hand it over to Gino for the key highlights of the Moncler brand in the second quarter. Gino, over to you.
Okay. Thanks, Leo and Elena. Luciano, good afternoon or night to everyone connected. Before we go into the details of the presentation with Luciano, I just wanted to take a second to share a bit of the strength we're seeing within the brand in the very first six months of the year. I think we've seen very robust results, not only in terms of the execution and the quality of the work that we were able, with the teams, to put out there, but equally robust in terms of the global reach and impact, the community engagement we saw, and more importantly, the organic brand interest in Moncler brand. In this case, I think the first six months were led by some very special and some first-ever executions for the Moncler brand.
I have to say that the three driven forces over the last six years have been, of course, Aspen with the show of Moncler Grenoble. Our return into the Winter Olympics, that was a very special moment for the brand with the whole story. Last but not least, something that we'll start covering now in detail, our first formal Spring/Summer end-to-end work. If we go to the next slide, that I think is Slide number five, we can start talking about our official first end-to-end work against Spring/Summer.
I think when I say end-to-end, and this is something we use a lot internally, it's about meaning that we make sure that we connect all the different consumer touch points under one single effort and narrative, from product to retail, from marketing to digital platforms, from wholesale to e-commerce, and even from paid media to traditional media, and so on. This is the first time we officially went into a Spring/Summer like this, and I know this is a conversation we have for many seasons with all of you, and hopefully you were able to see what was done in the last few weeks. This Spring/Summer campaign, to be honest, meant way more than just a seasonal effort for us.
This represent the kickoff of a long-term commitment that we have as a brand, and we strongly believe that this kickoff means for us the opportunity to become relevant and meaningful across the entire year. Of course, this campaign was called Have a Puffy Summer. For us, Have a Puffy Summer means summer the Moncler way. We believe that with this campaign, we're able to create a unique opportunity for the brand to tackle this very interesting transition that happened between the spring to summer through a solution that we believe is a system of dress, which artfully expressed through the power of layering that we showcase in the campaign and of course, through the retail experience. This was an effort to push a different tone for the brand while remaining authentic to who we are, despite our strong heritage and of course, DNA into winter.
From very impactful executions across media pop-ups in Europe or Asia, all the way down to countless press coverage, editorials, and digital and retail execution. This was just our very first season, an effort that we'll keep building on the back of this very important first step. To be honest and to share with you, and I'm sure we'll go into details later in the Q&A, we are happy to see the level of results we were able to achieve during this period. We were able to experience not only a strong global reach at a global scale, but more importantly, great results in terms of the consumer and community engagement on top of the performance of the collection itself.
Last but not least, we're equally excited about the learnings we were able to capture this season to keep building even stronger plans and execution towards next spring season and the ones to come. With that, I'm happy to go probably to the next slide that has other highlights for Q2. First of all, on the back of the special season, we discussed about Spring/Summer for Moncler. Of course, we did our first efforts as well in Spring/Summer around Grenoble. If you think about Grenoble, I always think we discuss about this, the reset of this very important brand I mentioned just a few years ago, and even our first Spring/Summer product started very shy, less than three years ago.
To be honest, I think we are very excited to see the acceptance and the global acceptance that this collection is having, the performance that this dimension of the brand is having, and of course, the opportunity for us to keep reaching and inviting new and more customers into the brand. Following to the next part of the last few weeks, of course, we just launched our pre-fall 2026 for Moncler Collection. We introduced this collection, obsessing what we call the language of detail behind this collection. This is the great attention we pay not only to the layering and the solutions that we are going to, again, in this case, from the transition from summer into fall. Last but not least, a few weeks ago, we hosted at Moncler global headquarters, a new season of Studio Ascenti .
For those who doesn't remember what it is, StudioAscenti is our annual platform where we present our coming footwear collection to media editors, celebrities, and people from the sneaker culture and beyond. I have to say that despite, I think I repeat myself, that we don't want to become a footwear-led company. I think we're happy with the calculated efforts regarding this category. We are really happy with the progress we're making in terms of this dimension of footwear this season, introducing new styles like the City Trek, sorry. Especially new products and collaboration that create some press coverage before launch, like the Clarks Trailgrip or some of the Fragment collaborations that are about to come. On top of new innovations like the Trailgrip Ultra, a new concept that will be launched in 2027. Sorry, one more thing. I forgot one more.
I said last but not least. One final thing for me to share with you all is, I want to take the opportunity to thank, of course, the entire Moncler family for the efforts made. We are extremely proud to share with you that Moncler was able to win the very first Grand Prix Award at Cannes Festival. Same for other recognitions like a Gold in the Clio Awards and a Graphite Pencil Award as a great testament to the work done behind Warmer Together Campaign that we launched a few months ago featuring Al Pacino and Robert De Niro.
Clearly, we're not just happy because of the awards or the recognition itself, but as we mentioned many times to each of you in the past, we strongly believe that we as a brand in the power of storytelling and by share our values and DNA in a way that can create emotional connection and long-lasting relationship with our customers out there, something that I think Leo just mentioned a second ago. I think when we get the news and we learn about this, I think Remo Ruffini said that advertising come and go, but emotional connections and creativity remains forever, and we strongly believe that that's the opportunity to keep doing season after season. So that's all from my side. Of course, we'll talk later. I will pass you to Luciano to go into the next part of the presentation. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Gino. Good afternoon and good morning, everybody, and thank you for attending our call today. We are now at the Page six, where let me spend a few words, Page seven, sorry, where we report some highlights of Stone Island marketing initiatives. One is the NO SEASONS project that was represented during the Milan Design Week, featuring an iconic outerwear item designed in the early 1980s in six of the most iconic fabrics of Stone Island, all of them in the same piombo tone. A second activity is about the capsule collaboration with New Balance, revisiting the world of football and featuring two professional football players, Endrick playing with Brazil and Bukayo Saka playing for England.
Last, still very important, a project presented at the end of June that is called Community as a Form of Research, featuring the world champion table tennis player Xu Xin wearing a pinnacle item of the fall-winter collection. Okay, let's move now to Page eight, where we report our results for Moncler brand. Revenues by geography. In the second quarter, Moncler brand grew 3% positive. A good growth rate, not good as much as in the first quarter, but still something we are happy with. With a very strong contribution of Asian market, +12%. Good contribution of Americas, 4%. A weaker, softer Europe, EMEA region, down 8%, mostly due to softer tourism flows, particularly from Asian, but also from Americas, also a still weak, very weak online performance.
Americas, the +4% we present is a weighted average of a percent in the direct channel that is slightly higher than the 4%. This is something important to highlight because, of course, that channel is very important for us. Let's move now to next page, Page nine, where we report the same revenues of Moncler brand by channel. Both channels grew 3% in the quarter with a comp store sales in the first half of the year of 7%. Again, both channels, mostly the DTC channel, was affected the most in Europe by the weaker tourism flow. Wholesale, good. I mean, it was positive first quarter, still positive in the second quarter, better than what we originally expected. Thanks to the good pre-orders coming from the wholesale market, which represent evidence, a good sell-out of our wholesale network.
Okay, let's go now to Page 10, where we report Stone Island revenues by geography. Stone Island, as Elena just said, for the fourth quarter in a row, reports double-digit growth rate of 11%. Good growth in all the different regions, particularly strong in Asia, very strong in America, of course, on a smaller base, but still very encouraging for our project in the future, and a weaker but still positive growth in Europe. Asia, of course, includes APAC and China, very good, and Japan and Korea, both very strong. You may remember that Korea, until last year, was not particularly good, but now, I mean, also in the first quarter, is doing very well, and of course, much better than in the past. Okay, let's move now to Page 11. Still Stone Island revenues by channel.
Again, behind the average growth rate of 11%, a very nice, remarkable, and encouraging 15% in the DTC channel. That, of course, is particularly important and encouraging for the management team, and a good solid 6% in the wholesale channel. Next Page 12, we report our retail network for both brands. We opened three stores in the quarter for Moncler, one in Monterrey, one in Vancouver, Oakridge, and the third one in the airport of Osaka Kansai Airport. Okay, let's move now to Page 13, where we report, as usual, our profit and loss for the first half of the year. Elena anticipated some important numbers. Of course, top line, we already gave you some comments, a total of EUR 1.29 billion. We were slightly below EUR 1 billion in gross profit, EUR 995 with a 77.2%, better than last year, slightly better due to a positive channel mix.
A very good contribution of selling expenses below last year, and a good contribution of G&A that have been affected by a one-off EUR 8 million related to the new governance structure. EUR 8 million in the first half of the year, that will be at the end of the year, less or slightly less than EUR 10 million. Most of this one-off has been reported in the first half of the year. Marketing expenses in line with last year, 9.5% with our usual expectation we didn't change of a 7% contribution of our marketing budget for the year-end. At the end, an operating margin of 19%, better than the 18.3% we reported last year. Just a comment on the net financial expenses that are higher than last year due to higher interest expenses on lease liabilities. At the end, group net result, 12.8%, slightly better than last year. Okay.
Let's move now to Page 14, where we report net CapEx, EUR 89 million, with the distribution between infrastructure and distribution in line with last year, slightly higher in percent on revenues, but still with an expectation for this year to go back to the 6% incidence by the year-end. To go back because last year, due to some important investments we made last year, the incidence was closer to 7%, as you see, 6.9%. Many projects on the distribution side, including the upcoming new opening of our store in New York, Fifth Avenue, but also many projects on our infrastructure. Okay, let's move now to Page 15, where we report a net working capital at 10%, higher than last year due to a higher inventory level, due to a strategic decision in investing in some strategic raw materials, particularly in down, for several different reasons.
Everything under strict control, nothing to highlight. Still with a plan for the year-end to go back to a percent substantially in line with what we reported last year. That was 9.7%. Net financial position at Page 16. Okay, EUR 1,112 million at the end of June as compared to the EUR 981 million last year, end of June last year. Just a comment about our lease liabilities that are equal to EUR 1,199 million as compared with EUR 1,109 million last year. Okay. Let's go quickly to Page 18 where we report our cash flow statement. I don't make comments on balance sheet, but of course, please, if you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask me. Cash flow statement, the free cash flow, very good, much better than last year, EUR 34 million versus EUR 15 million last year, mostly due to the better operating margin, better EBIT than last year.
Important to highlight that net cash flow was negative, but after the payment of EUR 374 million of dividends. Okay, we are done with the presentation now. Thank you for your attention and ready to answer your questions.
Yes. We will now hand it over to the operator for your questions. I kindly ask you to stick to a maximum of two questions per person. Operator, you can now open the Q&A line. Thank you.
Thank you. 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 touchtone telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and two. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. We will pause for a moment as participants are joining the queue. First question is from Natasha Bonnet, Morgan Stanley.
Hi, good evening, thank you for taking my questions. The first one would be, could you please give us some color on the performances by cluster for the Moncler brand, also in terms of volume price mix, because I believe pricing was low single-digit in Q2. The second one, did you see any difference in trends throughout the quarter per month? Anything you can give us on current trends you've seen so far, what's the mood like in Q3 for these first few weeks? Thank you very much.
Okay. Thank you for your question. About the cluster. Cluster of course, nationalities, I can tell you that Chinese and Americans were positive, Koreans and Japanese flattish, Europeans, of course, negative, single-digit negative. About contribution of price volumes in the second quarter, pricing was predominant. Volumes were flattish, slightly negative in the second quarter. In the first quarter, as you may remember, they were positive, second quarter reported a slightly negative volumes. Something about the quarter. Okay, the quarter has been good, not great, good, very good in the first two months of the quarter. Honestly, April and May were both very good months of the quarter. June, softer, much softer due to an evident and clear decline in traffic in all the different regions.
Something we observed in June was a behavior of customers, of people that is more and more a Buy Now, Wear Now. This is something different from the past that we started seeing a couple of years ago, last year, this year, even higher than last year. That, of course, implies a little bit delay in purchasing of the fall-winter season. On the other hand, the good news, not visible in the results, strategically very good for us, for the management team, is that in all the three months of the quarter, equally April, May, also June, the Spring/Summer collection performed very well. Of course, the very good performance of the Spring/Summer collection in June was not enough to offset the decline in the fall-winter collection.
Again, it is still a very good and encouraging sign because as you know, as Gino said, the effort and the investment we made for this collection was only the first, very important step of a long journey project that, of course, will see Moncler more intentional, even more intentional next year. Something I said during the presentation that, of course, impacted the slowdown in traffic, mostly in June, was the evident significant decline in tourism that, of course, impacted Europe, EMEA, more than the other region. Of course, this is an explanation not only of the softer results in EMEA, also of the softer results overall. This is something we saw again mostly in June. Remember that our business historically with the tourists still is very important in second quarter, mostly in third quarter, much less in Q4 and Q1.
This year, even more than last year, we face a decline in tourism coming from Asia and from America to Europe.
Thank you.
Next question is from Anne-Laure Bismuth, HSBC.
Yes. Hi, good evening. Thank you for taking my question. My first question is on the split between space and like-for-like in Q2. Would it be possible to have an indication of what was the space contribution in Q2? How should we think about it in the second half of the year and for the full- year? My second question is about the U.S. We have seen strong performance across the few companies that have already reported. For Moncler, it's a slight sequential slowdown. Is it only linked to the normal seasonality of the business and all the campaign was received, the Spring/Summer campaign was received in the U.S.? Maybe a last one still about the U.S.
When you have the big flagship opening in New York in September, and given we haven't had any Genius event since October 2024, should we expect a Genius format event linked to that opening or any, or a different concept that you will deploy around that opening? Thank you very much.
Okay, Anne-Laure, thank you for your question. First question, of course you know that we don't report this information by quarter, not because we have something to hide, but because the space contribution in one quarter is honestly not particularly meaningful. I can tell you that for the year-end, we plan for this year in line with what we said, and I'm sure you remember, in about 4% space contribution. Of course, in the quarter was slightly below, but again, nothing particularly important, honestly. About the performance in America, again, I wanted to highlight that the 4% we report, of course, is the weighted average between wholesale and DTC. Why is that? Needless to say, wholesale is driven by our deliveries plan. Of course, in America there is our wholesale business is with the department stores, with what was Saks Global, now is out of the Chapter 11.
Long story short, of course, we delivered less than what we could deliver. What is very important to highlight is that the DTC business was higher than that 4%. Overall, I don't know. I do know, but it's meaningless to compare Moncler with other brands that for sure have become more relevant in that region than what Moncler is now. In any event, I can tell you that our growth rate in North America and in the U.S. specifically, is something we are happy with and encouraging to keep investing in that country.
Anne-Laure, good to what Luciano said. I think we discussed this probably in the last few calls as well about the journey the brand is in to the U.S. I think we can even correlate this to probably the last two calls we have. I think Luciano said we are happy with the results we have. That said, I think it's important to keep reminding ourselves that this journey, in terms of the level of maturity and awareness that we have in the U.S., is very different from what we have in Europe and in Asia. Therefore, we keep seeing this as the opportunity and the challenge in terms of the execution. I will say, you mentioned something specifically about Spring/Summer or the campaign. I think I will reinforce what Luciano said. We're happy. I think things work well.
For us, of course, sometimes we expect more to go into that potential. I think as we discussed at the beginning of the year, we just come at the first three months of the year with execution with it in Aspen, the opening of the new Grenoble store. Of course, we're going to September when we'll open Fifth Avenue and Moncler biggest store in the world. Of course, the expectation here is, again, building blocks towards that opportunity to unlock that market. Again, we don't believe in today's world that there's a silver bullet that will unlock everything in one go. I think what we're doing right now is, of course, working heavily in terms of leveraging the opening of this store in the context of something that is an offense altogether for the U.S. across all the different touchpoints.
In a nutshell, I think I could understand more or less some comments about is this a type of Genius or something. Again, we will open the store, as I mentioned before, in September. We are working through that for a few months now. We are excited about what you come. Personally, I will say on behalf of the team, we're equally excited about the journey we're embarking into and something we started on the back of last year, beginning of this year. Of course, results are positive. We expect more, we all want more, but we have to do the work and build a stronger foundation, and this will come as a consequence season after season.
Thank you.
Next question is from Thomas Chauvet, Citi. Mr. Thomas Chauvet, your line is open. Next question is from Luca Solca, Bernstein.
Yes, hello, good evening. Maybe a stupid question, but you do have a global retail network. I would like you to maybe help me understand how is it that tourists not coming to Europe cause you a dent in revenue growth? How come that these tourists cannot be recaptured elsewhere in Asia or in America? Is it because maybe they exploit the big geographic price differences so that you continue to have a significant price gap between Europe and Asia, I wonder? My second question, given that we have the pleasure of having Leo on the call, I was wondering if Leo, after three months, on top of appreciating the great strengths that the Moncler Group has, if you identified any specific areas where you could potentially bring your experience and improve how the company performs, and which would be these areas? Thank you very much indeed.
Hi, Luca. Your first question is a very good and right question. Actually, I may have been not precise, my comment about tourism flow was mainly related to Europe to explain the soft performance of Europe that unfortunately is something we have been facing for a while, because also previous quarters were not particularly good for Europe. You are right, I think that people that did not come to Europe purchased in their local markets. I think that this is also the reason why Asia was so good, because plus 12%, honestly, I believe is quite remarkable. It's not the over 20% of the first quarter, I think that nobody expected to replicate that, let me say, unusual number due to the Chinese New Year, whatever.
12% mostly driven again by China, Korea, and to a lower extent, but still a positive single digit by Japan. The same for the U.S. Again, you are right, in part because, of course, it's difficult to provide a scientific answer, I think you are right.
Thank you, Luciano.
On the second question, of course, Leo will share some thoughts. There will be dedicated opportunities in the coming quarters to meet him and discuss all these broader topics with the time and attention that they deserve. Here tonight, we will focus on Q2, Leo, over to you for some thoughts.
Yes, of course, I can share a bit of color, and thank you for the question, Luca. As was mentioned before, together with extraordinary abilities that are very clear in this group, I've also noticed a few opportunities we're going to develop. Based on your question, I'm going to stick to your curiosity, let's say, on the clients. I would say that for sure, Moncler clients, let's say, frequently rank among top spenders in other brands in the luxury industry. We have demonstrated in the past years to be able to talk to large audiences, wide audiences. A clear opportunity that I see, and for sure will be a key focus starting for both brands on this, is that we can translate this ability into something which is more curated. Let's say, allowing this strength into more direct, more frequent personal interactions with our VICs.
I'm sure that this dedication to key clients will further nurture our business globally, especially in those countries where we see today high potential to express our abilities.
Thank you very much.
Next question is from Daria Nasledysheva, Bank of America.
Hi, this is Daria from Bank of America. Thank you for taking my questions. I have two. First one would be on profitability. With 19% EBIT margin in 1H and actually 60 basis points higher excluding the one-off, could you please share any comment on margin outlook for the full- year considering the cost control that you have exhibited? Consensus currently models just 10 basis points improvement on the year. My second one, sorry for this question, can I please quickly follow- up on the current trading? You have very helpfully answered on the shape of the quarter. Should we assume June trends continuing into July, or has there been any sort of inflection since? Thank you very much.
Thank you, Daria, for your question about profitability. I'm sorry, our usual answer is that we don't know, but simply because operating profitability is mostly dependent and driven by the top line, which is difficult to predict. Of course, first half of the year, profitability was good for two main reasons. One is what you said because our attention to cost control is quite high, we all work to become more and more efficient in everything we do. The other important point is that the top line in the second quarter was fairly good, but it was much better and very good in the first quarter, that also is much more relevant than the second quarter. This is what made profitability, operating profitability, very good, that, as you pointed out, taking out the one-off would have been significantly higher than last year.
What may it be for the year end is difficult to say. Of course, as you know, we have not a target, but an ambition, a goal to protect our profitability that over the past years has been in the region of 29%, 29%+ . This is still our ambition. Honestly, difficult to predict now what may be. It will totally depend, again, on the top line in the second half of the year. That, of course, needless to tell you, is the most important half of the year. About the current trading, nothing to highlight more than what I said. June was softer than the first two months of the quarter. July, we have only two weeks behind us. Beginning was in line with June, then a little bit better.
Please don't make me comment business results of yesterday or the current trend of today because it will be totally meaningless. Again, from the qualitative point of view, we see, and let me say again, there are two factors. One is negative for the results of this period of the year. It is the Buy Now, Wear Now approach, a behavior of people, of customers. The other that is very positive because strategically it's extremely important for the brand and for the future and for our project, is the very good performance in April, May, June, and also for what it's worth, the first two weeks of July of our Spring/Summer collection. This is something that, sorry to say it again, but is something we are very happy with. Okay?
Thank you very much.
Next question is from Oriana Cardani, Intesa Sanpaolo.
Yes, good evening. Thank you for taking my two questions. The first one concerns the share of new customers within the overall customer base. What percentage of the total did new customer represent for Moncler and Stone Island in the first half of the year? Should the strong momentum for Stone Island be attributed to the acquisition of new customers or to an increase in the value of existing customers? The second question is on space contribution and price effect. Could you already provide some guidance regarding these two drivers for 2027? In particular, what are your expectations regarding the price increases for next year? Thank you very much.
Good evening, Oriana. On your first question about customers, I didn't get it if you were asking specifically about Stone Island or both brands. Maybe I can just give you some color on Moncler. I think this is a figure that we provide typically on a yearly basis. We don't give Q1, H1. What we have been seeing over the past few years, and it's been pretty stable, is that about 50% of our revenues are coming from new customers. About 50% of our revenues is coming from existing customers that are already loyal to the brand. From the point of view of numbers, we are slightly more skewed towards new customers. It's about 60/40, 60% new, 40% existing. This means that the loyal customers, the existing ones, are spending a little bit more. The share of revenues is equally split.
Gino, maybe you want to add.
No, I think, Oriana, the only color commentary there is beyond the factual data that Elena shared with you. The opportunity regarding new customers around Spring/Summer is a real opportunity. As we were mentioning before, this is something that, as a reminder, this Spring/Summer was executed deeply in few doors of our entire network. We will keep increasing this. This is driving a new interest and new customers into the brand. Spring/Summer, again, if you were referring to this Q2, we have good reception from existing clients, it's allowing us to start capturing new demand and new clients into the brand. Even some specifics that hopefully we'll start sharing later about gender behavior, et cetera, regarding the product proposition we have around Spring/Summer.
On Stone Island, as you can see from our numbers, it's a very nice balance between capturing new customers and also keep cultivating our loyal familia. For Stone, this is very consistent with the strategy that we have. Keep a very strong connection with our loyal audience, also adding new and recruiting new customers into the brand. On this, our results, as you know, are very organic. All the retail KPIs on Stone Island are positive, very encouragingly. It's a very high-quality growth, coming from just the underlying development of the brand. As you know, there is no space. We are seeing both type of customers buying into the brand.
Oriana, about your question about space and pricing, I understand that you are talking about Moncler. Moncler for 2027, honestly, it's quite premature and early to give you a precise number. I can tell you as a rough indication that we expect the space to be still in the region of 4%. The pricing based on the current production cost increase and the current level of currencies, of course, should remain low to mid single- digit. Of course, any more precise indication will be provided in the next future when we have a better understanding of what may happen next year.
Understood. Thank you very much.
Next question is from Melania Grippo, BNP Paribas.
Good evening, everyone. This is Melania Grippo from BNP Paribas. Thanks for taking my questions, and congratulations to Mr. Rongone on your appointment. My first question is on online. I understand this is performing is a bit weak, and I remember it was also the case in Q1. Is there anything specific happening to this channel? Is there anything that you can say around it? My other question is on the Spring/Summer collection. I actually had the opportunity to visit some of your stores in the past week, and it seemed to me that, yes, there were not many products that would be worn immediately. I was wondering whether you intend to change the cadence of the deliveries to give more floor space to Spring/Summer products. Thank you.
Melania, thank you for the questions. I think on the first one, online, I think Luciano mentioned a bit this before, but I think the reality of the picture of online, I will almost tell it in two halves. I think we have a weaker performance in Europe from the beginning of the year. This is something we saw in Q1 and Q2, while the other parts or the other regions have been performing in pair or even in some cases better than physical retail. I think this is a bit of the context. I think we have good performance in the U.S., in Americas, solid performance in all the different Asian markets. I think in Europe specifically, we are seeing a bit of a softer demand, and a bit of a softer traffic while the other regions it's exactly the opposite.
Right now, as you can imagine, we're working through those details. We understand that there are opportunities for us to do better in certain markets within Europe. Again, I will say the overall picture is almost two halves. It's Europe and the rest of the world with very disparate performances between Europe and the rest. Regarding Spring/Summer, I think it's a great question, and I think I want to go back to a few comments we made at the beginning. This Spring/Summer for us was, as I mentioned before, the first ever wide effort, and I think, the other important reminder is when we execute this initiative, we literally use a small percentage of our retail network to fully deploy the collection and everything we have done around summer because we really wanted to learn about this, as I mentioned before, was the very first step.
In some cases, we found out that some of the styles and the new products were performing quickly pretty well, better than we were expecting. Of course, I think this is, as you mentioned before, I think as you were going into June, we're already having pre-fall in some of the stores. They're starting to have a more fall type of assortment versus a bit more of a Spring/Summer. I think as you mentioned before, when I mentioned today, we are taking the learnings of this Spring/Summer as we go to next year as well.
One of the areas we're focusing more is to make sure that our offering will be not only relevant as we believe we have the product, but even extended to make sure that we can cover the season entirely and not having a specific push on the very beginning of the season and then run back into old behavior. Again, take it as we said at the beginning, we are happy. At the same time, we are the first one to know that we have tons to do and tons to improve, and this is part of the process.
Thank you.
Of course.
Next question is from Erwan Rambourg, Goldman Sachs.
Hi, good evening, everyone, and welcome to Leo Rongone, and thanks for your enthusiasm. Two questions on my side. First, given the magnitude of the New York opening and potential events around, maybe Luciano, can you mention what influence it has? Will it be visible on the cost base, and do you have any other major openings that are planned in H2 that could weigh on the cost base? Secondly, can you talk maybe about Korea, South Korea, how relevant it is in terms of Asia growth, given the wealth creation we've seen recently, what is the weight of Korea? Is it relevant? Is it a real standout, or is the growth in Asia really broad-based? Thank you.
Thank you for your question. Starting from Korea. Korea represents about 10% of our business overall. It is still growing very nicely. Remember that Korea has been very strong for Moncler since many years ago. Even during COVID, Korea was the only region that was growing and kept growing in 2020, 2021. Last year, there was some kind of slowdown in Korea, but this year is still growing with very high sales density. I'm saying that because we keep growing, but we have a base of comparison that is quite important. About New York Fifth Avenue cost impact, let me see if I understand the question because there will be an important cost impact associated with the cost of the store, with the rent, and with the cost of people that will operate that store.
We don't disclose the cost, let me say again that for sure it is an important cost. What we expect from that store is to perform very well. This may not be 100% the case in the first three months after opening of 2026. We have great expectations for that store in the next years. Please tell me if I understood correctly your question.
No, I was wondering if it had an impact in terms of the weight of H1 versus H2 in terms of your cost base relative to a normal year. I was also wondering if you had other big projects that were lined up for H2 outside of this New York opening.
Yeah. There are other projects, but for sure, this is the most important one. All of the expenses associated with New York, as well as all the stores, are reported in selling expenses. It will depend how much will be the top line, and as a result, how much will be the productivity of the store. There might be some dilution maybe, I don't know, honestly, nothing I need to highlight right now because I don't know. I expect the first weeks after opening to be good, I hope, but for sure not as much as we expect the store to perform after one year, after two years. Okay?
Very clear. Thank you.
Thank you.
Next question is from Charles-Louis Scotti, Kepler.
Yes. Hello, good evening. Thank you for taking my questions. I have two. The first one on Stone Island, which delivered a very strong performance in the first half. Could you please elaborate on what explains the relative underperformance in EMEA? I would assume the brand is less exposed to tourist flows than Moncler. Also, now that the wholesale to retail transition has largely been completed and the brand momentum appears particularly strong, does it give you a greater confidence to accelerate store openings in line with the ambition you initially outlined at your Capital Market Day a few years ago? Secondly, on licensing, if I'm not mistaken, your fragrance licensing agreement with Interp arfums expires in December of this year. There is apparently an option to extend it for another five years.
Has the decision already been made regarding the renewal, and more broadly, would you consider entering into a long-term licensing agreement with a bigger player such as L'Oréal, for example, and adopting maybe a less selective distribution strategy in order to build a much larger beauty business as many of your peers have done? Thank you very much.
Hi, Charles. Thank you for your question. About Stone Island. Stone Island performance was very good. To your point, in Europe, less than in other regions, for sure. Europe is, for sure at this time, we discussed a lot about Moncler, but I think for all the brands, Europe right now is not a particularly strong region. There is a slowdown in demand, and this is what makes the growth rate of Stone Island good but not as strong, not as much as in other regions. Also in the region, in Europe, there is a very important and relevant wholesale business that is under review, under, let me say, scrutiny because we keep selecting that channel. We keep selecting the best wholesalers. Of course, this implies a negative impact in terms of wholesale doors. Overall, the organic growth, even in Europe, is very good.
Talking about the future and how much the current momentum may imply, let me say, a distribution growth over the next years. I believe that for the time being, to the best of our knowledge, we don't have very important plans of new openings for 2027. Our strategic approach will still be to make that channel to grow organically. Of course, maybe next year, during next year and hopefully the year after, we may start to open, still on a selective basis, some additional stores. We want first to make sure that the brand achieves a relevant top line and a significant sales density. Other question?
Yeah. Charles- Louis, thank you for your question. Shortly, I think, yes, it's true our license expired regarding fragrances. I think we decided together
To put a pause for a second and decide our next step. I think this is the process we are in right now in full transparency. I think for us as a brand always is, in these cases, being extremely selective in terms of the strategy we have and try to make sure that we have a relevant proposition at the highest level in the market. More to come, but thank you for the question. We're in the process of evaluating the best next step forward. Thank you.
Thank you.
Next question is from Carole Madjo, Barclays.
Hi. Yes, good evening. A couple of questions from me as well, please. The first one on Spring/Summer. Can you come back on how much of your offering in store in Q2 was Spring/Summer compared to being your classic Fall/Winter offering? How should we think about the split evolving in the year to come? Second question, similar question still on the Spring/Summer. Any comment on the economics of the Spring/Summer versus Fall/Winter in terms of basket size, sales density? Anything to keep in mind here around that? Last quick question, to come back on your comment on see now, buy now, what do you think is the reason behind this trend? Have you seen it across all the key markets, or is it maybe a bit more influenced in Europe where there was really hot weather in June?
Any comment around this see now, buy now trend and how long do you think it can last going forward, could be interesting. Thank you.
Okay, thank you for your question. The first one about Spring/Summer impact in terms of product in second quarter, for sure, April, very important, May, very important. In June, we start to deliver to our stores the pre-fall, or I mean the first delivery of the Fall/Winter season. Overall, Spring/Summer is predominant in the second quarter, but in June, as I said before, Fall/Winter season is important, too. About economics, some of your questions are something that we don't look at, honestly. I can tell you that Spring/Summer collection did very well in terms of conversion rate because this is something that we monitor and we looked at specifically for Spring/Summer, also in terms of basket, in terms of UPT.
In terms of sales density, honestly, it's quite premature to give you numbers also because again, this was this year the very first, let me say, intentional investment we made for this season. You said see now, buy now. Actually, what I said is slightly different, is Buy Now, Wear Now. See now, buy now is the behavior we saw in the past, honestly, when some people coming to the store wanted to buy prematurely a product of Fall/Winter season because they saw them, they liked them, and they bought them even though they knew that they could wear them in September, October, or November. What I said is Buy Now, Wear Now. They may see the collection, but they prefer to buy the collection in season. They buy now what they can wear now.
Product that for sure is lighter, again, Spring/Summer product, and this is one component of the good result of Spring/Summer, and of course, a Fall/Winter product too, but to a lower extent as compared to the past.
Sorry. I meant just what you said, Buy Now, Wear Now. Do you see this trend across all the key markets or just in some particular region?
This is a trend that we saw in all the markets. Honestly, this is across the markets. Of course, in some markets, less than others, and this is demonstrated by the results. In Asia, we do see this approach, this behavior, but of course, the results are very good and much better than in other regions. Of course, in Europe, this together with, as I said before, the tourism, the decline in tourism made the number of Europe negative. The Buy Now, Wear Now behavior is something we see across the different regions.
Thank you.
Next question is from Chris Gao, CLSA.
Hi, management. Thanks for taking my question. I have two. My first question is also about the Buy Now, Wear Now behavior. Just wondering if the consumer behavior will continue. Does it mean that more demand of your Fall/Winter products will shift from June to the second half of the year, maybe in the winter? If that will be the case, for your store level plans, events, what could be your plan ahead of your peak season, to better drive the sales? Would you do something in terms of your supply to make sure when people come to Buy Now, Wear Now during the peak season, you have enough of the inventory to supply so that you won't see the shortage of supply? This is the first question. My second question is regarding Stone Island. We have been seeing a very strong D2C growth here.
Could you help us break down a little bit about the contribution of volume mix pricing at the back of the strong D2C growth? How should we look at the midterm EBIT margin trajectory? How will it contribute to the group EBIT margin elevation? Thank you.
Thank you.
Chris, I will take the first one. Good to hear your voice. I think, again, a few things. I don't think we need to overdo what we are discussing about Buy Now, Wear Now. Of course, we are obsessed about trying to understand customer behavior, right? That's what we do every single day and try to understand what's going on. I think as Luciano said, we see a bit of this starting last year and this year. This doesn't mean for us a radical change in the way we do business, right? I think, of course, we still have customers who come to us and buy when we launch pre-fall, and we launch fall and winter later in September, et cetera.
Opportunity for us, as we discussed already, is to extend our offering as we go into Spring/Summer, have that opportunity to understand that Spring/Summer can be even a bit longer than we originally planned. Of course, we will keep leveraging the core of our business as we have been doing and improving it every time we come. I think what we are trying to do in the context of this conversation is to share a bit of the behavior we're seeing right now. Again, none of those things will radically change today the way we are doing business. Of course, what we do is try to monitor day by day, the learnings we can get from customers and see if there's a certain slight delay in terms of weeks, but not a dramatic change there.
Hi, Chris. About your question on Stone Island, the growth rate, of course, implies a growth in volumes for sure, but also the second component is price mix, not the price itself because we didn't increase the prices significantly, again, about low single- digit. What was and still is quite important is the price mix impact due to a continuing shift in the categories we sell. You may remember the long story that in the recent past, I mean, at the time of the acquisition, business was doing very well, but mostly driven by entry price categories like sweatshirts, like T-shirts, pants. Right now, I mean, the day after the acquisition, we decided strategically to reinvest in the categories that made the origin, the identity of the brand that are outerwear and knitwear.
These categories now are performing very well, and the contribution of outerwear is way higher than what it was a few years ago. This, of course, implies a higher average selling price. Talking about profitability, needless to tell you that growing organically as Stone Island is doing implies a better operating profitability and a higher opportunity to increase that profitability. Having said that, of course, it is still a long journey also because profitability, operating profitability, as you know, is driven by the sales density. Sales density for Stone Island is much better than one year ago. That was better than the year before, but still not at the level we want and we believe that the brand can achieve. In any event, yes, with such organic growth rate, if this will continue as we hope, profitability will improve.
Thank you. Very helpful.
Next question is from Jean Danjou, Oddo BHF.
Thank you. Good evening. I wanted to come back on a point raised by Carole on the mix between Spring/Summer and pre-fall and Fall/Winter during Q2 and Q3. Could you tell us historically how much of the sales in Q2, Q3 were driven by Fall/Winter compared to Spring/Summer? I suppose this mix must be shifting pretty rapidly.
I understand your question. I mean, we don't disclose in details this kind of information, honestly. I can tell you that in Q2, Spring/Summer is extremely important and more important than Fall/Winter. In Q3, Spring/Summer is less important than Fall/Winter, simply because we sell Spring/Summer in July, in August, in September, our most relevant sales start to be with Fall/Winter season. Again, this is the pattern of our business. April, May is Spring/Summer. June, we start with the Fall/Winter. July is still a mix of the two. August, more or less the same. September, predominantly Fall/Winter season.
Jean, just as a reminder, we provide an indication for the full- year in terms of sales. Last year, we had about 25% Spring/Summer sales versus 75% Fall/Winter. I mentioned this in the past, but it's worth reminding everyone that actually the share of Spring/Summer has slightly increased sequentially over the past few years. The only thing that I would add to what has already been disclosed is that, as you might imagine, particularly in Europe, when you have tourists coming to buy, often, not all the time, but of course, if you have Asian customers coming to Europe sometimes in July, August, given that we have pre-delivered Fall/Winter, in the past, perhaps they were anticipating the purchase. So given that we are perceiving and feeling this lack of tourists in Europe, this has been felt a bit more in this region.
Okay. Thank you.
Next question is from James Grzinic, Jefferies.
Thank you. Good evening, all, and congratulations also from me to Leo on his appointment. I just had a quick one, particularly given the time. Gino, really on your point that only a small percentage of the retail network carried the full Spring/Summer offering Q2, can you perhaps share what proportion exactly of the retail network did have the full assortment? I'm wondering, are there any constraints on merchandising the full offer really driven by average store size that you're looking to overcome maybe for next year? Thank you.
Thank you for the question because you allow me to clarify something. What I meant is, of course, the full collection was spread out across the entire network. When I talk about a certain part of the network was the full experience around Spring/Summer. I think if you look about this is not a collection that we put on a specific jacket, a specific knitwear, a specific cut and sewn. This was almost around 24 looks full of layering. What we tried to do was, while the collection was spread out everywhere, is in this X amount of stores that we have, and a percentage of these stores, was the full execution. Again, it's where you were able to see the whole layering system, where you were able to see the whole collection.
We're having not only windows by each store execution, where the whole customer experience was regarding this layering system and the way it was approaching the retail experience. That's what I meant when we said, for us, it's very important that we are, as always, trying to learn from what we do, knowing that this is entering a different behavior for us as a company and a different behavior that we're asking customers to start looking at ourselves. That's why for us, while the product was spread out and available in the entire network, for us, it was very important to take the lessons and learn from the stores that we want full execution. This is something that you will see gradually as we go season after season.
Not only the product and the offering will get better, but in terms of the experience we'll provide for customers. I think this is something that when Luca was asking Leo about opportunities there, I think he was mentioning about how we can even elevate our experience at retail, especially in two VICs. This is something that we will keep evolving, not only in terms of the network and the amount of those we have, but even in the experience we will provide around that.
Makes sense. Thanks for the clarification.
Next question is from Paola Carboni, EQUITA SIM .
Yes, hello. Good evening, everybody. Just two follow-ups for me. The first one is about Korea, which was mentioned as one of the main drivers for the DTC performance of Moncler in APAC, but at the same time, the Korean cluster was mentioned as flat. If you can comment a little bit here about the different behavior of tourists in the country and local customers and the different weight this have in your revenues there and what you expect, what you see as a future evolution of this region. A second question is about the initiatives for Q4. You have surprised ourselves in the last few years with different events or a very powerful marketing campaign of last year.
I was wondering if you can spoiler us something, if not in detail, but at least let us understand the magnitude of your efforts that we should expect for the core winter season going forward. Thank you very much.
Yes, Paola, your first question about Korea, you are totally right. Korean cluster is flattish, but Korea market performed very well, which implies that apparently they didn't travel as much as in the past. Honestly, I don't know why. I can tell you that this is a trend I saw also in some publication, if I remember correctly, Global Blue. In any event, business with the Korean in Europe is down, significantly down as compared to last year. Business with them in their local market is good. At the end, the cluster is more or less stable, but with these peculiarities I told you.
Yeah. The only thing I wanted to add is that, of course, we've captured Asian tourists into Korea. The fact that Korea was the strongest market that we've had in Asia is reflecting both good local consumption, but also tourists going into the country. A lot of the explanation, as you know, comes down to FX.
can you please add-
Paola, thank you for-
sorry. I was wondering if you can-
Go
if you can add the exposure to local demand in Korea versus inbound tourism. Thanks.
Of course, I'm not providing numbers, Paola, but I can tell you that in Q1, the inbound tourism from China was quite relevant. In second quarter, much less. In any event, demand in Korea from locals is very good. This is common to other brands, as you know, and as far as I know, as I understand, this is due to several different factors, including, let me say, the wealth effect, but also the fact that Moncler brand in Korea has been since ever, and of course, it is now very strong. Again, long story short, very strong demand in Korea, let me say, mostly from locals in the second quarter, and a much weaker, significantly weaker business with Korean customers in Europe.
Thanks.
Paola, I will quickly answer your second question regarding Q4. First of all, I was happy to hear that you said that we keep surprising you every year in the past few years in Q4. We will try to keep that promise up. We will try to keep surprising you with the work we will deliver. As you know well, I think we are talking today a lot about the work we are doing Spring/Summer, and all the different initiatives we have. That is always an add-on, on top of what we will do always around Q4 in our core season. I think it's important to remind ourselves. Of course, I cannot share the deals, but we feel confident about what we have planned for the second half of the year.
I will say, just to tease a bit more, if you like, is I just mentioned that in September, we'll be opening the flagship store in New York. From there on, you will see kind of a relentless approach towards the end of the year and beginning of 2027. Count on us again on trying to surprise you again. Then you will tell me.
Okay, good. Thank you very much.
Next question is from Piral Dadhania, RBC.
Okay. Thank you. Good evening, everybody. My first question is just on the gross margin, please. Could you help us walk through the main moving parts? We would have thought that maybe there was a bit more margin optionality, given the positive regional mix, the positive channel mix, and likely Grenoble outperforming the Moncler Collection. Could you just help us understand where those headwinds come from? I imagine it's probably to do with raw materials and inflation, but any help there would be useful. My second question is just on, again, sorry, coming back to Spring/Summer and the way you set the business up.
If we read between the lines, is it fair to say that perhaps the inventory availability and the risk-taking wasn't as high as it could have been, and therefore, there was a kind of a product availability issue for some customers in store which impacted conversion, and that's something that you'll address with perhaps better or higher inventory levels next year. Is that the right way to think about what you've been saying this evening? Thank you.
Okay. About gross margin, the improvement of gross margin is totally driven by channel mix. Gross margin overall has been impacted. There are several different factors impacting gross margin. Honestly, nothing material to highlight. Of course, markup was substantially in line with last year. The need of a reserve for obsolescence was substantially in line with last year. Some negative impact of FX, of course, but again, honestly, nothing particularly relevant to highlight. Of course, when I'm talking about channel mix, that was positive. This applies to both brands because, again, at this point, not only channel mix of Moncler, but also the impact of channel mix of Stone Island that has been growing in the first half of the year, mostly in the D2C business. About your-
I'm happy just to give you a short answer there. I think the question, just Luciano, for all of us was more about there was a feeling or sensation that we were maybe short on inventory on certain things if we didn't take enough risk. I would say the answer is, for me, is a bit the opposite. There was a risk that we took, but it was a calculated risk. I want to go back in perspective. I think when you think about it's the very first real effort against Spring/Summer in almost 75 years of the company.
It wasn't easy for us to think that on the communication, on the message, on the approach, on styling, on the amount of different classifications, it's not that simple to put all that together and then go full on into an uncalculated risk. The risk was there. I strongly believe that we like to be on this scenario versus the opposite of scenario of having a lot of inventory and not able to connect with customers. I think what we have been saying for the entire call is we're very happy with the results. We have good results, not only in terms of the performance of the collection, but even as a brand overall, that give us the confidence to keep building into this. For us, I think we always said from day one, this is a building block.
We don't have a silver bullet that can make us Spring/Summer relevant in the first season. As I mentioned before, we feel more confident being on this side of maybe we were short of certain items and we didn't have enough inventory than being on the other side of this conversation.
Thank you for clarifying.
Next question is from Thomas Chauvet, Citi.
Hi. Good evening. Can you hear me?
Yes, of course.
Sorry for the bad connectivity earlier. I hope you can hear me. If not, I will take this offline. Two quick questions, please. Firstly, coming back to the DTC growth by nationality. The Chinese cohort was up over 20% in Q1. Luciano, you said the cluster was positive in Q2. Can you be a bit more specific? Was it still up double digits? How did domestic versus offshore compare? Secondly, could you come back to the reasons behind the softer performance in June versus April and May, especially as you started delivering the pre-fall into stores? Thank you.
Yes. Hi, Thomas. Nice to hear you again. About nationalities, Chinese cluster was up. Again, let me say yes, double digit. The other nationalities, as I said, Americans also were up. Korean and Japanese are flattish. Europeans, unfortunately, negative. Let me know if I answer your question. Yes or not?
Yes. Was the Chinese cohort
Okay
better offshore than onshore? You talked about Chinese and Korea.
No, I think it was good both onshore and offshore for us.
Okay.
There was no particular difference. Let me also take this chance to take the second question, because I believe we've been quite clear about the performance over the quarter, June, and the reason behind it. I don't know if you were able to follow the entire call, but otherwise, happy to take it offline.
Okay. We'll take it offline. It's quite late. Yeah, I did follow the call, but I wanted some clarification. We can discuss that in a few moments, Elena. Thank you.
The next question is from Chiara Battistini, JP Morgan.
Good evening, everyone. Thank you for taking my questions. I have just two very quick follow-up questions, actually. The first one on profitability on the second half of the year. Rather than talking about profitability, thinking about the OpEx development in H2, you delivered very tight cost control in H1. Should we extrapolate that into H2, or should we think about an acceleration of OpEx? To that, when thinking about the New York opening, I'm guessing that the rents are already in the OpEx space, so it would be an acceleration of employees, but no rents. Am I correct? The second question, just to come back on the like-for-like, very quickly on Q2, I know you don't comment on quarterly like-for-likes, but just trying to square the 7% for H1.
Is it fair to assume that like-for-like in Q2 was positive and actually space was negatively impacted by online? Thank you very much.
Yes. Hi, Chiara. About topics, in the second half of the year, we don't see any material significant element to highlight. As I said before, let me think. As I said before, the one-off will be much, much smaller. It will be about EUR 2 million, slightly less than EUR 2 million as compared to the EUR 8 million we reported in the first half. Talking about selling expenses, you're totally right about the range for New York. For any store we open, we start report in our results the rent cost at the time we take over the store. Independently on when we open the store, and of course, something I didn't highlight, but the rents without revenues is a metric we monitor, and in the first half of the year was quite important and higher than last year.
Honestly, at this point, to the best of my knowledge, in the second half of the year, I don't see any significant element. Of course, there might be elements that are very volatile and so very difficult to predict associated with the cost of energy. Honestly, right now, apparently it's better than what we expected just a couple of months ago. This is a completely open issue, but this may be a risk. Right now, we don't assess that risk as particularly material. The other question?
I think you've asked about the like- for- like in the second quarter.
Like- for- like in the second quarter. Yeah, of course, we don't disclose this number, but let me give you some qualitative answer. The first quarter was very good. 7% is the weighted average of a very good compare in the first quarter and much less in the second quarter. There was another question, I don't remember, but correct me.
No, I think it was the last one.
Okay.
yes, just slightly positive is a good assumption. We are generous today.
Thank you very much.
Okay.
Ms. Mariani, there are no more questions registered at this time.
All right. Thank you very much to everyone. Just a quick reminder of the next release, our Q3 2026 results will be released on October 21st, post-market close, and our quiet period will start on September 22nd. Thank you again. For any follow-up questions, as usual, you can contact me anytime. Have a great evening, and for those of you going on holiday, we wish you a wonderful summer break. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over. You may disconnect your telephones.