Good evening. This is the Chorus Call conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Moncler Full Year 2020 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. Paola Durante. Please go ahead, madam.
Thank you. Good evening, everybody. Thank you for being here tonight with us to comment on our Full Year 2020 financial results. First of all, as usual, let me introduce you to the executive team on today's call. Our Chairman and CEO, Mr. Remo Ruffini, Luciano Santel, Chief Corporate Supply Officer, Roberto Eggs, Chief Marketing and Operating Officer. Before starting the presentation, 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 Moncler's 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 Moncler to control or to estimate.
I also remind you that press has been invited to participate in this conference call in a listen-only mode. Let me now hand over to our Chairman and CEO, Mr. Remo Ruffini. Remo.
Good evening, everyone, and thank you for attending the Moncler conference call tonight on our full year results. This is a moment that I like because it is when we review all together what we have done, what we have achieved, and what we are going to do. Tonight, I look at it more closely. 2020 has been challenging, but at Moncler, we have worked together to turn these challenges into opportunities. Since the COVID-19 outbreak, our first priority has been to protect our people, and in doing this, we have also worked to reinforce our brand, our community, and its sense of belonging. We immediately focused on the most important project while postponing all those not essential. Accordingly, our commitment to sustainability and to digital has remained unchanged. Two main pillars of our strategy. We have also been forced to evolve our marketing strategy, our CRM approach.
We have been able to reach exceptional results, like the 7 billion viewers of the Moncler Bubble Up challenge on TikTok, and more than 60,000 private appointments organized during 2020, while online achieved 15% of our sales. We opened our new flagship stores in Paris in Champs-Élysées, a store that embodies the essence of our brand strategy. In December, Stone Island joined Moncler, marking a milestone moment in our group's history. With Stone Island, the Moncler group reinforced its presence in the growing new luxury segment, which is about community, experience, and contamination. It is beyond luxury. Very important, a comment on our 2020 financial result. Of course, they are far from what we were planning even only one year ago. Nevertheless, I believe today we are reporting extraordinary achievements. 11% revenues decline in the years with the fourth quarter up 8%. 26% EBIT margin.
Last but not least, almost EUR 100 million of net cash generation. This result tells us that Moncler is strong and that our business model is flexible, agile, and most important, reactive. Looking ahead, I still see a lot of challenges for the global economy and for the sector. The 2021 outlook remains uncertain and difficult to predict. We are still experiencing important lockdown. Travelers continue to remain low, and the development of the vaccine campaign is still uncertain. This is the time to act even bolder, to stand firm on our strategy, and to invest in what is crucial for the long-term development of our company. We started to work very well with the people of Stone Island. In 2021, we still established the basics. The development guidelines are clear, clean, and well-defined.
For what concerns Moncler, we complete the internalization of our e-commerce, finally launching our new website. China will become even more of a focus as well as clienteling, with a strong attention on locals and new locals. Genius 2021 will evolve becoming a media hub, and the building will be its broadcasting studio. We'll explore every platform on which you could experience it. In 2021, Moncler Genius will come to you. All this cannot be reached without a superior product. We proceed investing in research technology, sustainable material, and processes. Our commitment to you remain unchanged. We'll continue to push for higher peaks. Thank you very much. Now let me now hand over to Roberto and Luciano. Thank you.
Thank you, Remo. Good evening, I'm very happy to have the possibility to comment the 2020 full year results. Let's start by the key highlights. As you have all noticed, despite a significant decline in traffic due to measures to contain the COVID pandemic, the second semester 2020 has shown very solid recovery for Moncler, confirming Moncler brand strength and efficient business model. Revenues declined by 11% at constant exchange rates, while Q4 revenues boosted by China and online increased by 8%. Retail revenues declined 12% during the full year, but with a strong recovery in Q4, with a plus 5% at constant exchange rate. Full year comp performance was at -18%, but with a -9% in the second half of the year. Wholesale revenues declined by 5% at EUR 351 million. E-tailers and very strong reorders boosted performance in Q4.
We perform at +31% during the last quarter of the year. EBIT for the full year was at EUR 369 million, with the margin on sales at 25.6%. Remarkable results on H2 EBIT margin that reached 39% versus 36.8% in the second semester 2019, thanks to a strict control on expenses and flexible supply chain. Net income reached EUR 300 million with a margin on sales at 20.9% versus 22% in full year 2019. We benefited from 13% tax rate in 2020 due to trademark fiscal recognition pursuant to the August Decree. Concerning net financial position, we reached EUR 855 million net of net cash, versus EUR 662 million at the end of 2019. This includes lease liabilities for EUR 250 million of net cash versus EUR 23 million at the end of 2019. Let's move to the revenue breakdown by region.
Moncler recorded a very strong recovery in the last quarter of the year with acceleration in all regions. Q4 2020 revenue rose by 8%, bringing full year total revenues at EUR 1.4 billion. Asia rose by 26% in Q4, with full year at plus 2%, driven by an outstanding acceleration of mainland China at more than 60% during the last quarter of the year, followed by a solid double-digit growth in Korea and in Japan. EMEA suffered from 35% of the store closed during the last quarter of the year, but despite that, the revenue only decreased by 13%, influenced, as I was mentioning, by the lockdowns, especially in November and December. Northern Europe, so Scandinavia, Russia, Belarus and Germany outperformed the rest of the region, with a positive growth during the fourth quarter of the year.
Performance in Italy remained difficult, probably the country most affected by lockdowns in Q4 and the lack of tourism. The Americas recorded a positive 5% growth in Q4, driven by robust performance both in U.S. and Canada and both in wholesale and retail. Let's look at the revenue breakdown by distribution channels. In Q4, Moncler performance accelerated in both channels, driven by China and the online. Retail revenues turned positive in Q4 with a plus 5%, notwithstanding the decrease in traffic in the region. Comp store sales was at -9% during the second half of the year, while we had a -30% in H1. E-commerce recorded a very strong double-digit growth, close to the growth that we had in China. Wholesale revenue decreased by 5% in full year, with a double-digit positive performance in Q4 at plus 31%.
This was supported by higher in-season reorders for the Fall/Winter and a different timing in Fall/Winter deliveries. If you remember, the results of Q3 were at -6 and the last quarter of the year plus 31. If you look at the total result of H2, it was still positive at plus 4.5%. E-tailers significantly outperformed the rest of the channel. Let's move to the mono-brand store network evolution. As mentioned by Remo, December was marked by two very important openings. The first one was the store on Champs-Élysées. We'll come back to that in a few charts. Which is the largest flagship store that we have in the network, and the second one is the opening of our first retail store in Spain, in Barcelona. Both performed extremely well during the months of December. We have already secured 15 U.S. openings for 2021.
Monobrand wholesale counted 63 locations at the end of 2020, one unit less than in 2019. This includes five conversion of Holt Renfrew corners in North America that were converted from wholesale into retail. Let me highlight some of the key challenges and trends that we have been noticing during the course of 2020. I must say that these trends were already there. The COVID-19 pandemic has just accelerated these very important sector trends. The first one is the digital science. The second point is the China relevance. The third one is the client knowledge and relation centricity. The fourth one is the casualization, and the fifth trend that we have seen is the sustainability. We have the Moncler Way to address those important challenges and change that we are noticing in the market.
The first one, as it was mentioned by Remo during his speech, is evolution, is very strong evolution in what we call new luxury. A luxury that is going beyond the traditional boundaries and codes. A new luxury that is focusing on community experience and contamination. The second is our very strong engagement with locals and new locals. What we call new locals are the travelers that are back, that don't have the possibility to travel anymore, and that we have been reactivated with strong private appointments during the year and distance sales. The third is the e-commerce acceleration. We have been lucky to start with retail excellence already six years ago. These have been the founding pillars of our retail strategy on which we have been having the omnichannel since 2018, this has really been performing during the year 2020.
We are also approaching the market with a new communication strategy regarding Genius. We have been now embodying and integrating sustainability across the full organization and the full value chain. What are the key projects for Moncler for 2021? We are highlighting the most important ones. We would like to focus on six of them. The first one, as mentioned already by Remo, is the China focus. We have had a very intense work that has been done during the year to activate new locals. These travelers, these Chinese that were traveling abroad and buying abroad. We have been able to reactivate almost 40% of them during the year, thanks to a clienteling action. This, I'm giving figures that are broader than just China, because this has also been a focus that we have had in Korea, in Japan, and in Europe and Americas.
We conducted more than 60,000 private appointments during the year, more than 25,000 distance sales. This has been able to generate for us close to EUR 100 million turnover that we see as additional turnover to store being closed. We are going to focus also on digital communication for China, with a dedicated website that will be launched in September this year. We will continue our program with WeChat mini program. We have also, and this is something that we started before the start of the pandemic, strong project on retail regarding flagships. We have in 2021, the opening of Hangzhou MixC, Chengdu SKP, Wuhan, Dalian. We will refurbish Beijing Sanlitun as a flagship store, we have signed for Plaza 66, the largest store that we'll have in China with the opening that is planned for early 2022. Finally, the Grenoble Pop-ups.
We see the Olympics in Beijing 2022 as a fantastic opportunity to leverage on the DNA of Moncler, and we are currently planning for a large number of Grenoble pop-ups that will start in December this year and at the beginning of 2022 in the main mall and location in China. Second point of attention and project for us, it's the e-commerce acceleration. As we mentioned, the performance in 2020 has been extremely good, but we are even more ambitious than that. We will continue with the e-commerce in-sourcing. We have been successfully launching North America in September 2020, and we're currently working for the in-sourcing of EMEA, that will be followed by Japan and then China. The new website will be launched by June. As we already mentioned, it's a website that is inspired by a concept of fluidity and coming more from the entertainment industry.
We think that this will be a breakthrough in our approach to consumers. We are going to focus on KPIs improvement, especially on returns, by developing, and we are currently working on that, specific sizing elements on the website to facilitate and improve these very important KPIs. Third element is the new communication approach. We are going to transform Moncler Genius into a media hub. We have already started and opened our studio here. We are working and shooting for the new website, and we'll be moving from still life shootings to have more model dressed, and we are going also to introduce gradually more videos. We will continue with the phygital approach that has been very successful, and the event that was usually taking place in Milano will be an international event that will touch four cities, with the main one being located in China.
We are planning for this event, very important event, in September 2021. The last point is the focus on sustainability, on which we have been working a lot, that we'll start communicating much more in the future. Fourth project is to reinforce the omni-channel. I already disclosed the figures of the very important activities that we have had in 2020. We don't foresee travelers coming back to normal before 2023, but we think that the tourism will come one day back, we foresee a start of return by Q4 of this year. We'll continue to reinforce our distance sales and private appointment strategy. Wholesale retailization will continue. We have signed, at the end of 2020, selective distribution agreements with our wholesale distribution. We have further decreased by 100 units the number of accounts that we have in wholesale.
We have started negotiation with the e-tailers to move them into e-concession. Point number five, product. Product, we see three big trends on which we believe we are well-placed. The first one is casualization, the second one is personalization, the third one is sustainability. Concerning sustainability, we have launched, in November this year, our collection, Born to Protect, fully sustainable, and we will continue by introducing also in the Genius collection, a very strong part of sustainable elements. We are going to continue leveraging on the casualization trend, which is part of the DNA of Moncler, and we will launch a personalization project in September 2021 in our store in Champs-Élysées. That will be followed then by an online presence in 2022.
We'll continue also to work on the recycle of our garments, but as you know, we have very little leftovers as our commercial strategy is based on scarcity. Finally, point number 6 is Stone Island. Stone Island is a fantastic opportunity to leverage on what has been made in Moncler, but turn it into a Stone Island way. We want to strengthen the position in the new luxury segment. We are currently already working on the integration of corporate functions, and we will transform the business model in a more Direct-to-Consumer approach. To finish, two picture to show you the two last opening of the year. The first one is Champs-Élysées, the largest store that we have in our network. It is 1,600 sq m store, gross sq m. Net selling surface is 1,160 sq m.
This store embodies the values of Moncler and the DNA of Moncler, with the digital and immersive rooms on the ground floor. What we call refugio, which are VIP modular elements that we can turn either privatized or use it at the normal shop floor. With the personalization that will be launched, the room is already ready in September 2021. Last, the opening of the Spanish market for us, finally. Barcelona, that opened at the end of November. Very successful start. I remind you that we had another country opening. We opened Kyiv in Ukraine at the beginning of 2020. I leave the word to Luciano to comment the financial figures.
Okay. Thank you, Roberto, good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for attending our call today. We are now at page 11, where we report, as usual, the P&L of the year and the comparison with the year before. The profitability, we show in this slide, is good. Honestly, I would say very good if we think of the results and the mood at the end of the first half of the year when, for the first time in our life, we reported a negative operating margin for EUR 35 million. Now we report EBIT of EUR 368.8 million, with a generation of operating margin of over EUR 400 million. Thanks to a very strong top line and acceleration of sales, as Roberto said, in the second half of the year, starting from September.
Higher sales generated better sell-through and lower inventory, no need of any inventory write-down, after the extraordinary EUR 30 million write-down we reported, as you remember, in the first half of the year. Gross margin was 75.6% as compared to the 77.7% of last year, totally due to the EUR 30 million, again, additional write-down of the first half of the year. If and when you have time, please take a look at the slide we report in the appendix at page 21, where we report the breakdown of our income statement between the first half and second half. The profitability of the second half, as Roberto anticipated in the first slide was very good and totally in line with the profitability we reported in the same period of last year. Even a little bit better, because we decreased.
As you know, we made the strategic decision at the beginning of this year, we decrease our marketing budget because of the situation, stopping some very important but not urgent marketing events and slowing down our media buying activity. Again, gross margin was very good in the second half and at the end of the year, 75.6%. No particular comments on the other lines. Unless you will have questions later, I will be more than happy to answer your question. One important comment I have to make is about net income and the benefit coming from the tax rate that was unusually very low, 13%. Last year was already very low because of the last impact of the patent box.
As we said at the beginning of this call, we took advantage of a tax law that came out in August in Italy that allows the companies to align the tax value of their assets to the book value if there are difference, and this was the case for Moncler for the trademark. Based on accounting principles, we reported in the taxes and the benefit of EUR 55 million, which is an economic benefit that will produce cash benefits over the next 18 years. Again, the economic impact is totally reported in the P&L this year. We can move now to page 12. Page 12, we report CapEx. You may remember that last year before the outbreak, our plan was to spend in CapEx about EUR 130 million. We decided, and we communicated to the market, that we had a cut of 30% that budget.
At the end, we ended up with EUR 90 million, which is exactly what we expected to do. EUR 90 million in part allocated to distribution to the retail expansion and EUR 35 million growing component in our, what we call infrastructure, which is mostly information technology, logistics. This year, more than ever, but not only this year, also last year, the important project of insourcing our e-commerce. Let's move to page 13 now. Net working capital 11.5%, not so well as it was last year. Of course, we are talking about a year on which the inventory was for the reasons we know very well, was much higher than last year, even if the amount we report here is straight of the EUR 30 million write-down must still the good product we didn't write down, but we decided to carry over to 2021, was still bought last year.
We have a higher inventory, apparently higher receivables. Apparently, I mean, the number is much higher than last year, but there are two components in this number. One is the wholesale business component, which is totally in line on a percentage basis with last year total and full control of our wholesale credit. The other component is a positive ephemeral component due to the concession business we do in department stores, mostly in China, where we collect the money the month after. This is the result of the very, very strong concession business we developed in December, mostly in China. The money was collected in January. Overall, honestly, not well as much as last year, but I will say still very healthy working capital. Next page, please. Net financial position.
At the end, we report EUR 855 million cash, which is almost EUR 200 million cash generation during the year, which is, I will say, a remarkable result. Again, most of the result has been developed in the second half of the year. Next page, please. Balance sheet. Nothing to say, honestly, unless, again, you have questions later. Last slide, the cash flow statement where we report all the business components we discussed about during the call. Important to highlight the networking capital that was higher. The impact was higher than last year for the reasons I told you. The change in other liabilities, which is unusually very high, but it includes the EUR 55 million tax benefit that will produce cash benefit over the next 18 years. This year we reported the economic benefit, but still a tax credit.
At the end, the EUR 855 million with the EUR 193 million change in net financial position. After the results, an update, very quick update about the Stone Island transaction. We have completed the confirmatory due diligence with no exceptions at all. We are expecting soon, hopefully, the antitrust approval. We are very confident, and we expect to hold the EGM at the end of March and the closing right after the EGM by the end of March in order to be able to start integrating and consolidating Stone Island business from April 1st. From the beginning of second quarter. Next slide. Very important slide that would require a lot of time to discuss about, but just a few comments, but happy to answer your questions.
We presented in October, in November actually, our sustainability plan, which we call the Moncler Born to Protect, that is based on 5 main pillars. One is the climate change and our commitment to reduce year after year the carbon emissions. Not only the carbon emissions we are responsible for in our sites, but also in all the value chain of our business model. Second pillar, Think Circular, which is about the usage more and more of sustainable raw materials, starting from nylon, with a commitment to use by 2025, 50% of sustainable nylon. To recycle as much as we can through a project that already started and that is doing very well. Also, the finish coats after their normal life in the stores and in the outlet.
Third pillar is the fairness, which is the base of any relation we have with anyone, but specifically also with our supply chain suppliers, with which we require them to be fair as much as we want them to be with their people, and to develop a stronger partnership with them. Fourth pillar, Nurture Genius, is about diversity and inclusion, which is something embedded in our strategy, in our vision, in our values. We have an important value, which is called Bring Other Voices In, to bring other opinions, different opinions, other concepts, and this is the only way to grow and to build a stronger culture. Last but not least, what we call the Give Back, which is about supporting communities, donating money, but also, and even more importantly, sometimes even more difficult, time, our time and our employees' time.
I'm done with the presentation, and we are ready now 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 yourself from the question queue, please press star and two. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. Anyone with a question may press star and one at this time. The first question is from Louise Singlehurst from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good evening, everyone. Thank you very much for the information so far and taking my questions. I wonder if I could take the opportunity to ask the first question for Mr. Ruffini, please. You kindly talked about the change in approach to customer engagement. I wondered if you could take this opportunity to summarize the key one or two points as you look back on 2020, the surprises to you both in terms how the business has reacted internally, but also from a customer perspective, and any particular surprises by nationality, cluster, demographic would be really helpful. Secondly, with regards to online, obviously with the internalization of all the e-commerce activities which is underway, I wondered if you could provide us with any examples or anecdotes of how you think this is really enhancing the customer engagement.
I don't know if there's any examples specifically for the U.S. that you might be able to share with us, which may also give us a bit of a feel of what's to come from the other regions going forward. Finally, my last question, just in terms of the e-concession model, which you highlight again with online, and the direct relationship with Farfetch, is there any particular region that you think the e-concession model can really help expand Moncler and Moncler's engagement above all the others? I wondered if you could talk about the margin dynamics of the e-concession model as well. Thank you very much.
Yes. As you know, the world was changed. Since March, it was really quite sad to not able really to react to this lockdown, especially in Italy, was quite tough, the mood of the people around. Having said that, we say we have to do something. We have to change the approach. We have to be really keen to give a lot of energy to our people, to our customer, to our everybody. Having said that, we realized soon that the market was changed, the people not traveling anymore. The commerce was very important. The relation with retailers was super important because at that moment, we thought it was the only chance to have relation with our customer. After that, we start to have a different approach in term of clienteling, in term of relation again from the store to the client.
We realized after a few weeks that the market was changed. Basically, Europe was actually locked down. There is no any more tourist. There is no any more energy. We realized that all the Far East, all the Asia was very interesting, very strong, especially China, as well Korea and Japan at that moment. The big surprise at that moment was United States was quite successful all the period until basically end of October. Before the election, I think America was quite a surprise for myself. Having said that, the way to work was basically totally different because we start really talk with the customer through different tools. Our communication was, again, totally different. We have a relation with the customer with what we call Voices, with the new project.
We start talking with the people in the company with the new project through Instagram, to our in-house network. The world was changed. I think the relation is still very strong. I think the numbers reflect what we did in the last years, basically, the last nine, 10 months. We're really confident that we have in front of us another year that could be more or less like 2020. I feel now we have better ideas and better feeling to react of this situation. I think Roberto can go into the details, and thank you.
Good evening, Louise. Regarding the question you raised, the first one, on our approach on clients during the pandemic, I think that all the work that has been done over the past five years to develop a well-defined and rich database, the fact that we have provided tools to our sales force, more than 1,500 people, and that we have been empowering them to do clienteling action has been really key. I think we had, prior to the pandemic already, all the, let's say, the substance, the basis to leverage. Clearly there was a demand from consumer not having the possibility to come into the store to stay in contact with the brand, and it has been a communication that has been going both senses, us calling us and us calling them.
These 60,000 action that I was describing, the fact that we start introducing already from March distance sales, with videos showing the collection, leveraging on what we call our preferred client, has been a key factor of success of the sales that we have had and the acceleration we have seen at the end of the year. The enriched database with more than 3 million clients that we have now has been an incredible asset in the performance that we have had at the end of the year, and we think we can go even beyond that because we don't have, for the time being, an omni-channel that is including also, let's say, the connection with all the stores and so on. This is something that is going to be in place when we will launch the new website, when we finalize the internalization with YNAP.
This one pool inventory is something that we are going to start leveraging from June this year and will be probably another step in the possibility to give a better service to the consumers. Regarding the demand on different nationalities, the start of the year with the closure in February and March of a lot of store of China has decreased the weight of Chinese during the first half of the year. There has been an incredible rebound and very successful action that we have been able to take on the Chinese market during the second half of the year and especially last quarter of the year. At the end, the weight that we have on our Chinese consumer is absolutely in line with what we had in 2019. Even slightly, we gain one percentage points on the weight of Chinese.
The reactivity of China and our Chinese organization has been extremely good and extremely efficient. Our Korean market performed very well throughout the year, despite the fact that one-third of the business in Korea is usually done with travelers. We have no travelers in Korea during the year, but we have been able to grow positively quarter after quarter, even in reaching a double-digit growth in the last quarter of the year. An extremely good performance, and here also, the weight of the Korean has increased by one percentage point. The performance of the Japanese has been in line with the global performance. Americans have also performed very well with a positive growth at the end of the year with this +5%. I must say that the performance was even stronger during the month of October.
We had a very strong double-digit growth in October, and then with the election, there was a little bit more bumpy towards the end of the year and with a strong recovery at the end of December. These are for the main nationalities. Globally, our business has become more of a local business during the year. Usually, we have, if I'm taking international travelers, that represents 35% of the total, and then we have another 15% for local travelers. For example, the Germans that are traveling to France or the Italians that are traveling to Switzerland, these are called local travelers. The local travelers is 15%. The local travelers, we have had some traffic this year, but the international travelers, they decreased by more than 70% this year. If we look at the last quarter of the year, they decreased by 90%.
I think all the action that we have been able to take during the year on the local client that we have, the activation is what has been paying off during this year. I see the return of, let's say, international travelers, as something that is going to come on top of the current growth. I think this refocusing on local client is something that we have been pushing since five, six years, and this has been a year that has been really seen and some concrete sign of success. Regarding the concession, I think it's difficult for the time being to give you some elements on the commercial negotiation because they are not finalized. We don't see that something that is going to be dilutive for us. We see that as an opportunity to get better control of the image of Moncler and the brand.
We consider this as a very important channel, one of the most important channels, and we want to be working together as a partner with the retailers on this. I think that the potential on this channel is strong. We think that we can double the business with retailers within the next three years. We will start, we are currently negotiating with them, and I think we can probably disclose some positive comments during the first half of this year, but it's still a little bit early to see more than that.
That's really impressive. Thank you so much for all the information. Thank you.
The next question is from Susy Tibaldi with UBS. Please go ahead. Ms. Tibaldi, we cannot hear you. Maybe you are on mute.
Hi, everybody. Thank you for taking the question. Hello, can you hear me now?
Now yes, Susy. We missed you.
Hello. Okay. Perfect. That's strange. Okay, thank you so much for taking my question. Clearly, you had a very strong end of the year, and I wanted to check if this kind of positive trends have also continued in the first part of the new year. Obviously, still very early days and still a lot of disruptions. Any comment there would be quite helpful, maybe some trends that you've been seeing in Chinese New Year. Also, I was wondering, if I'm not wrong, Q1, January is the most important month. Could you remind us how much in terms of weight it represents in Q1 in a normal year? A question on the retail KPIs. Obviously, it is a little bit unfair to compare to previous years because we had a lot of store closures.
I was thinking, especially, in Q4, if we just look at the stores that have been open, how would you say the KPIs compared in terms of store productivity, so the number of units per transaction, the selling price? I can imagine that the conversions have gone up, but perhaps you had some restrictions in terms of how many customers were allowed in the store at one time. Just would be very interesting to see how the KPIs compared. Then just to follow up on the question on the e-tailers. It sounds like you see it as a very important channel. I was just wondering, given that now you're internalizing your own e-commerce, how do you think about the balance between your own e-commerce and these e-concessions?
Wouldn't it be beneficial to maybe also to your margins to convert some of those e-concession sales to your own e-commerce? How do you think about these two different channels? Thank you.
Thank you, Susy. I don't know if I would be able to answer to all your questions because you have some quite detailed question. Let's start with the current trend that we have been experiencing. I cannot disclose the weight of January, but as you can imagine, January is more important than March in our sales. We started well with a trend that is in line with the performance that we have seen at the end of the year. Difficult to give a real true picture on the Chinese New Year. As you know, Chinese New Year, usually we look at it in three different steps.
The seven, 10 days before the Chinese New Year, the week of the Chinese New Year, and then the follow week after the Chinese New Year, as you know. The basis of comparison is a little bit tricky because last year, Chinese New Year was on the 25th of January, and most of the Chinese, or a lot of Chinese were still traveling abroad, so buying abroad to bring back the gifts at home. This year, it was on the 12th of February. There have been some restriction in China, and the government has pushed and has recommended to Chinese not to travel to their hometown or village. There was less opportunity to go buying. At the same time, last year in February, a lot of stores were closed.
Clearly when you see the current performance that we're having, it's a very strong triple digit growth that we have in China. You need more to compare the results towards 2019 than towards the figures of February 2020. Overall, we are satisfied, I think, even slightly better than we were expecting at the start of the year. I think that March will be probably, and April, May, June, also good months, because there we will have a base of comparison that is an easier one. This, unless there will be new lockdowns in Europe. I would say a good start of the year, in line with the performance that we have seen in Q3. In Q4, sorry. Regarding the retail KPIs, I will try to give you a flavor of it, but here again, difficult to comment.
Usually we don't comment on comp sales per quarter. You can imagine that this very strong performance, our performance on comp sales, despite of having 20% of the network closed in December and 10% in November during the last quarter was flattish. It was a very good performance that we have overall. The net selling surface during the year increased by 10%, and the average store size is getting closer to the ideal, which is we aim to be slightly above 200 sq m. That year we increased by 5%. Sales density has suffered, but if we reword this data by the number and months of closure, we have not been that far from the very good result of 2019.
What has been really suffering, and I think this is for all the retail industry, with the lockdowns and the measure taken by the different governments, is the traffic. traffic has been the KPI that has been the mostly impacted, but the big parts of this slowdown in traffic has been recovered by a very high conversion rate. didn't fully compensate, at the end we got some less transaction, but the conversion has been very high. which means that the clients that were entering the store were more willing to buy, and I hope that also our client advisor have been able also to take advantage of less traffic to do a more qualitative work. Globally, our sales per transaction increased by 8%. Our unit per transaction increased by 1%, and the average transaction value increased by 8%.
I think that the retail KPIs, with the exception of traffic, that has been the KPIs that has been really impacting the business. Overall, they have been good to very good. Sorry, the last question on retailers. Yes. Quickly on that. I think the way we see retailers business, and even if we convert it to concession, I think it's the same like when somebody wants to enter in a mono-brand store, he prefer to buy in a multi-brand store. I think both are important. We don't see one as a competitor to other, but it's more something, it's a different type of consumer that you're attracting through retailers. I think the question here is more how to deliver a better image, better service, developing also a specific capsule and so on, to be an attractive brand also with the retailers or e-concession.
I think it's like saying, "I don't want to be wholesale, I want to be full retail." I think there is complementary. There are different typology of clients. Some feel more confident to buy in a multi-brand environment. Some others, they want to have the full experience with the mono-brand store. What we would like is to improve on both internalization of e-commerce for the business we're managing ourself, and moving to e-concession and developing even more as a partner with retailers.
The next question is from Luca Solca with Bernstein. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much indeed, and good evening. You mentioned that you have worked very effectively with Stone Island, and that you are now in front of a clear and precise set of actions that you want to take on this business. I wonder if you could elaborate on that a bit, and if you could, in particular, give us how confident you are about the ability of Stone Island of sustaining a direct retail strategy that could potentially shift your distribution over time, from wholesale to mono-brand stores and to direct-to-consumer digital distribution. The second question is on customer data. It seems that you have done an incredible amount of work contacting consumers directly and offsetting this way the lack of traffic and the lockdowns and so on.
I wonder about your strategy moving forward, building up this capability and the actions that you have in the pipeline, and how this compares to what you're doing when it comes to digital distribution. How much of the client data can you capture through digital concessions, for example? Is that putting you in a position to have a direct dialogue with consumers or not? If you could give us a bit more color on what has been going on with European consumers and a bit more granularity on the different nationalities and trends you've been facing in Europe. Thank you very much indeed.
Okay. As you know, we received a lot of offers to buy some company in the near future, in the last two, three years. We always refuse because we never found the right company, the right position, and the right idea of what we have in mind to develop this ward for the near future. Having said that, when we start talking with Stone Island, we soon realized that it was very similar to our mentality, to our culture. It was very similar to how it was Moncler like more or less 10 years ago. The company is very wholesale. They just start the retail. The real experience is in wholesale for sure. I think the culture they have in the company is very strong in term of product, in production.
As you know, they are quite unique in this kind of world of garment dye that is very trendy at the moment, but it's really trendy since 30, 40 years, because actually when they found many years ago.
Sorry, there is a background noise. I don't know if possible.
When they found the company like 40 years ago or 35 years ago, near Ravarino. It was found by Massimo Osti. The company was soon very successful. We really felt that this company was a really good company for us, for our mentality, for our way to work. Again, the culture in term of vision, in term of rigor, in term of distribution, it was very close to Moncler like 10 years ago. Having said that, talking about retail, basically they're not starting yet. For sure, as I said before, the culture is very in wholesale, we're really confident that we can help them to develop the retail business. Not only, they are quite strong in digital as well.
I think to really match the two culture between us and them, I think we're really confident, we're really trusting we can build up a company very solid, very strong, with a very strong brand perception. I give the floor to Roberto just to add more details on that.
Good evening, sir Luca. Regarding customer data, we have been working very strongly these past years and developed a full set of services that we wanted to offer. Our team was already trained to get and to be proactive and to contact the client, with calls, emails. What we have been having this year, something we are not used to do, is videos, live stream videos, with groups and so on. Working also with small influencer, local influencer, to transform and stylist also to transform these remote sales as something more exciting. This is definitely something that we have been having this year.
Where I think we can still improve because it's really a learning curve and something where not everybody feels confident to do, but let's say the return on investment, because part of the marketing budget has been really allocated this year to this very effective tool, has been bringing a lot of positive results. We believe that this next level of service we will be able to provide it through the internalization of the e-commerce. Not only the fact of benefiting from the one pool inventory, but also the fact of being able to merge live the data from the website with the database that we have currently done in a remote way when we are receiving on a monthly basis data from YOOX Net-a-Porter. This will be done live. I think this is opening a full set of new services and more informed information.
This one famous, one vision of the client with all the touch points, this will be something that we will be able to leverage from middle of this year. We are really looking forwards to that. Regarding your question on European consumers, overall for the year 2020, they have been growing positively despite the fact that we have had really a few months of lockdowns in Europe and all nationalities, they've been growing positively. The best performing sub-region in Europe has been Scandinavia. Probably also because they are already more keen to buy online, so it has been also something that has been easier to leverage. The same for the Germans. The Swiss also have been performing well, and also the Benelux or the Dutch and the Belgians has been also performing extremely well.
As well as mentioning, all the nationalities they have been growing positively for us. Some double-digit, the one I mentioned, some others more flattish or slightly positive. You can imagine that when we have four months or five months of lockdowns, it's impacting more your business. Overall, what we have seen is a business that has become more local towards the end of the year. The last quarter of the year, we were 90% local, which is something unseen before. We were more at 40% of tourists towards the end of the year. It had become, this year, because of the lockdowns, the pandemic, and no travelers, a business that has been much more local. All the action that we have been putting in place have been an accelerator of the growth of our local business.
Thank you, Roberto. Can you tell us a word about how you can capture consumer data through digital concessions, if possible, or?
To tell you the truth, Luca, it's a topic that is on the table. It's a little bit like when we started to negotiate and move our business from wholesale into retaining concession. It's always a hot topic, where everybody believes that it's his own client. I think that when you find clever people around the table, usually it becomes a shared data, and that is something that you can leverage together to be even more effective. It's something that is not solved yet.
I really appreciate your candor. Thank you very much indeed, Roberto, and thank you all. Thank you, Remo.
The next question is from Anne-Laure Bismuth with HSBC. Please go ahead.
Yes, hi, good evening. I have two questions, actually. The marketing to sales, you managed to decrease the marketing to sales ratio to around 6% in 2020, and I was wondering if we should expect a return to more normalized marketing to sales ratio in 2021 around 7% of the group sales. Given the fact that you have developed a certain level of agility during the pandemic, it should be in between. That's my first question. My second question is about the CapEx budget we should expect for Moncler in 2021. Thank you very much.
Good evening, Anne-Laure. Regarding the marketing spend, as I was mentioning, we're really concentrated this year on the most effective investment with a high return on investment for us. We want to go back to what we believe it's a normal level of investment with the 7%, especially this year, with the fact that we are going to internalize our e-commerce. We want to really focus on this launch and provide the digital team, the e-commerce team, with the means to become visible and to attract qualitative traffic on our website. We believe that 7% is the right amount, and we feel confident with this figure. We are not planning to decrease it for this year. For CapEx, I leave me to Luciano.
Yes. Hi, Anne-Laure. About our CapEx budget for 2021, it is now higher, significantly higher than the number we reported as actual for 2020. It is a little lower than what we originally planned last year, but it is in the range of under EUR 20, under EUR 25 million. Of course, again, as I said before, last year originally we planned under EUR 30 million. For the reasons you know, we adjusted down that plan. We maintain a good, strong, important degree of flexibility. We set priorities for everything, including our CapEx plan. Right now, our plan is in the region of the under EUR 20 plus million. Honestly, we all hope to maintain that plan. Again, the way we manage our budget, including CapEx, is to be ready any time to react to a different scenario.
Thank you very much.
The next question is from Chiara Battistini with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
Hello, good evening. Thank you for taking my questions. I had just a few follow-ups, if I may. Firstly, on wholesale and the trend of wholesale in Q4, just if you could help us understand how much was just timing of the shipments in Q4, and how much we should actually consider as a run rate going into 2021 and in the first half of 2021. The second question, sorry if I missed, how much was in the end e-commerce sales as % of total sales in 2020? Finally, on the store pipeline for 2021, if you could help us with the number of openings you have planned for Moncler, and maybe if you have any color already on Stone Island as well from a store pipeline perspective, and the phasing we should be thinking of, please. Thank you.
Good evening, Chiara. Let me come back first on the results of the wholesale. As I was mentioning during the presentation, we had a very strong Q4, but there was a calendar effect in terms of shipments of the remaining part of the fall, winter, and spring, summer season. Basically, we had a weaker Q3 with a minus 6% and a plus 31% with some of the shipment that has been moved from September to October. I think to have a clearer picture of the performance of the wholesale, you need to look at H2, and H2 was close to 5%, I think 4.5% to be more precise.
Which means that the performance is more linked to the fact that there have been a lot of reorder for the fall/winter season, where we cut it at the beginning of the year, some of the orders because of the pandemic, we were not sure. This was in discussion with the wholesaler. We told them that it was maybe better to reduce their orders, not knowing if the merchandise will be too much for the end of the year. Basically, with the reorders that they have put in place, they almost match the cancellation that we have had during the Fall/Winter campaign. We have a very sound and healthy situation in terms of stock with the wholesaler. There is no overstock there. In December, we conducted our Fall/Winter 2021/2022 campaign.
This campaign has been very positive because they came not physically, because this campaign has been run fully digitally for us with just the showroom that we have in Milan. The result has been really positive. I would say a very high single digit growth, compared to 2020. We are happy about the same campaign. This is a good sign of the performance of Moncler with the wholesaler at the end of the year, something that is giving us some good hope for a good performance on wholesale also in 2021. Regarding the e-commerce, it's a figure that was disclosed by Remo in his initial speech. The total weight of e-commerce is 15%. It has been growing from more than 10% - 15%. Clearly growing faster than the rest of the business. Did I miss some other points?
The opening paths.
The opening paths. We have secured for this year 15 openings. Most of these openings, let's say 80% of the openings, will take place in Asia. Half of the openings, which is eight openings, will take place in China and the APAC region. Clearly, a focus that was already there for us when we were discussing, it was pre-COVID, pre-pandemic in 2019. It was part of the plan. We wanted to increase the footprint of Moncler on the Chinese market, and I think we have been, in a way, anticipating where the market was going. We are happy to have this possibility to open it. Most of them will be open between June, July, and September.
Super. Thank you very much.
The next question is from Omar Saad with Evercore. Please go ahead.
Thank you for taking my questions. My first question is for Remo. I would really like it, if you're comfortable, maybe to talk more about the Moncler as a platform for new luxury. What your long-term vision is for the franchise through this lens. What are Moncler's kind of unique competitive advantages to be the group that builds a platform for new luxury brands? What's scalable in this platform? What's not scalable? My second question, I'd like to ask you about price increases. It doesn't sound like there was many in 2020. Some other brands have taken price increases. I'd be curious if price increases, given the brand strength, obviously, and the great products and becoming more directly engaged with the consumer. I'm wondering if price increases are something we should think about this year and beyond. My last question is around cold weather.
As we sit here in New York, there's another big storm. Half of the U.S. is in a deep freeze right now. I'm curious if, given the buy now, wear now mentality that consumers have, if you're seeing consumers respond to the weather, or do most people buy their jackets and coats at the beginning of the season and then wait till next year if they missed it? Thank you.
Hi, Omar. Basically it was my dream, like three, four years ago. When I start Genius, I soon realized that the old luxury world was not anymore part of the Moncler strategy, Moncler approach. I start Genius because I have the possibility to talk with the young generation. I have a project every year, every month, sorry. I have this unique position. What we call new luxury actually is this position between the real luxury or whatever it is, the super big companies, Hermès or Chanel, whatever, and let's say the company is Nike. I always looking for a position in the middle of these two worlds. When I started, like three years ago, we decided to move a little bit with this approach, with this attitude.
Actually, it was quite lucky because many companies, I don't want to say they follow us, but they position the.
Their company in this area is, I can say, company brand like Balenciaga, as well Gucci, when they're repositioning after the change in management, they really go very fast in this positioning. Having said that, when we have the possibility to think about Stone Island, it was one of the few company that was interesting in the market. We soon realized that they are not on this positioning, I think the big chance or the big possibility is to take them on the new luxury world. That could be a big opportunity. For sure, as Luca mentioned before, retail is very important. Digital is even more important to really move them there, I'm quite confident. Think about platform, I don't know. Anyway, this is the positioning of anything we have that I really trust a lot.
I really think is the next step for a company like Moncler. Thank you.
Good evening, Omar. On the price increase and cold weather, let me address these two points. Yes, we have planned for price increases in 2021. It's something that we are using also in our strategy to reduce the price gap between Europe and the Asian countries and America. Clearly, we are continue in this strategy that has been able, where we have been able in the course of the past three years to decrease by half the price gap between Asia and Europe. We know that we are not completely done on that, and there is some more efforts to be done. Even now, we are more in the region of the 40s plus in Asia, and we were more around the 70, 80% four years ago. An additional effort will be done this year in terms of price increase in Europe.
Regarding the cold weather, yes, it has always an impact. We still have our Fall/Winter season because you know that the Fall/Winter season is sold during a much longer time for us. We start selling the Fall/Winter season already in June. Usually we are selling it until March, April. Yes, it's still a good time for us. If it's becoming really cold, personally, I prefer when the cold is coming earlier. If a very cold weather in December has more impact than in February, because now it's what we call the period where we are moving merchandise and we are increasing the visibility of the spring-summer. Clearly, when we have this type of event that are coming, we are very fast in adjusting our visual merchandising, and it's something that is very flexible, that we're reviewing on the weekly basis with the region.
yes, of course, in U.S., we have changed a little bit the visibility and the presence of the Fall/Winter because there is more request.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Good luck.
The next question is from Antoine Riou with Societe Generale. Please go ahead.
Good evening, everyone. Thank you for taking my questions. Just two from me. Just wanted to know if in e-commerce it was possible to get a sense of what was the share of customers new to the brand that you have. What about the retail KPIs in terms of, I don't know, unit per transaction, conversion, these kind of things in e-commerce? Is it higher than in a physical retail? The second question is, just wanted to know if in your view, maybe paradoxically, but the Moncler business today is probably more resilient and stronger than pre-COVID. Maybe with the stronger focus on locals, the forceful development of e-commerce, maybe more flexibility on cost with the maybe more valuable rents. In your view, would you say that the business today would be more resilient to future crisis? Thank you very much.
Good evening, Antoine. Regarding the e-commerce, it has been our main channel for recruitment of new customer this year. With the lack of openings and the lockdowns that we have had and a lot of stores closed, I think it has become the preferred channel for recruitment. I think that this year, let's say, the sales on e-commerce, they have been largely more than 70% geared towards acquisition of new customer. This has been really positive because it has helped us to balance, while the retail has been much more focusing through all the clienteling action on activating, reactivating the existing consumers. Usually, the KPIs that we have in terms of average basket in the e-commerce is quite similar to the one we have on the retail side, more than EUR 1,200 per transaction. I think where we see more differences between the Genius collection and the non-Genius collection.
Usually, with the Genius collection, we have an average basket that is 25% higher than with the non-Genius collection. With the Moncler collection, and usually we have also there a unit per transaction, both in store and on the e-commerce that is higher. We are usually around more 1.8 for the e-commerce in terms of unit per transaction, while we are more around 1.4, 1.38 for the retail part.
For the cost, I leave maybe the question to Luciano.
Yes. Of course, we learned a lot, as everyone, during this unfortunate situation. We learned that we can do better, we can do with less resources, even more on the top line, as Roberto said, but also on the cost side. During 2020, we reacted immediately to protect our profitability, to reduce our expenses on the retail side first, also sitting together with landlords to negotiate rents, to implement more variable rents. At the end, one of the most important reasons why our operating profitability in the second half was very good, was also because we reported in our selling expenses the good results of these negotiations with a total, for the full year, about EUR 25 million rent reduction. We got the benefit from the government initiatives to help companies during the lockdown, when the stores were closed.
At the end, I think we all, as a team, did a good job. Of course, this year will depend. I strongly hope that we will not have these opportunities. I hope that, of course, business will not be like it was last year, not in the first half. Having said that, to answer your question about whether or not Moncler is more resilient, I think that, yes, Moncler is more resilient, also because we adapted very soon to a completely different scenario. At the end, we made it. We reported the results that speak by themselves. I'm not talking about expenses, costs only, but also everything that Roberto said, that I'm not going to repeat.
The different way, the new way we develop our business, even when the stores are closed, with our salespeople , client advisors working from their home, the distances, the private appointments, the virtual private appointments. I think that the company now is still the same strategy, same vision, but we showed ourselves that we can work in a different way. To answer your question, yes, I think that we feel ourselves more resilient.
Operator, I think we have time for one final question if there is. Thank you.
Yes, we do have another question. The next question is from Piral Dadhania from RBC. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everybody. Just three very quick ones, if I may. On Genius, could you please share a bit more on what the future of Genius will look like as a media hub? Are we expecting a big launch, or will it be a soft launch, and the timing around that? I guess, will you continue to collaborate with external partners under this new vision? Secondly, just a quick one on product. Has there been any material changes in the product mix through 2020 as demand has shifted online and stores closed? Finally, just in terms of your China store network, could you please remind us how many stores you have in China and what you see as the midterm potential for that market? Thank you.
Thank you for the question. I think we have this idea already before the pandemic, but for sure, we're looking for the next step of Genius. The idea is really change the approach, change the attitude. 10 years ago was good if you have 300 people at the fashion show. Last year in February, we have in Milan 10,000-15,000 people at the show. I think now is the moment to have 200 million or 100 million people that they're watching your show. I think the idea is based on the broadcasting. It really depend the pandemic, but the idea is to have a totally different approach. To have, if we can, a physical event, but not in one location, in different location, really based where the designer are.
Maybe if it is possible to travel to have the base in China, the idea is to have the base in Shanghai. Having said that, we want to have the base in Tokyo as well, in Milan, in Paris, in London, maybe, I think in New York. It is really think another approach. I think we want to really talk with the customer in different way. Since after we have this good news that we make the last challenge on TikTok, we reach 7 billion people. That, for me, was quite something crazy. Not I realize, but it confirmed that the world is totally different. We have to have inside your ideas. You have gaming platform, you need to have art platform, you need to have music platform as well, cinema and TV platform. Means is really another approach.
The idea is really based on that, based on some physical approach, some physical destination, but.
To have the possibility to talk with huge community. This is the dream. The pandemic for sure is a concern, but the project is based on that. The project is based to launch this idea in next September.
Concerning your question on the product mix, I think we have seen two steps in 2020. First, during the first lockdown, when we were selling the spring summer collection, as people really couldn't go out and so on, we have seen a huge increase in cut and sew and tricot and shoes, and slightly less on the outerwear. Soon as the fall winter season started in September, and with the very good results of the month of October, we have seen a raise again of the outerwear, and especially then in November and December, the outerwear came back to the level it was. There have been one percentage point less of outerwear in 2020. I don't see really a material change, knowing that the trend and the way we are pushing and developing the collection was anyway in our mind.
Currently, we are 25% non-outerwear and 75% outerwear. We are, anyway, looking to move it to a 70/30 in the years to come. No dramatic change that has been seen in the pandemic. Just during the first lockdown, yes, we have seen much more cut and sew and polo T-shirt and so on that have been sold. Regarding the position in China, we currently have 35 stores. We are going to reach a number of 40 stores by 2022. The point here for us is less the number of store, but more the size and the position of the stores and the quality of the positions, as I was mentioning, with the opening of Hangzhou MixC, with the new flagship store that we will have in Chengdu, with also Plaza 66 that will open at the beginning of 2022.
We are gone in Sanlitun in Beijing, that will be completely transforming to a flagship store. I think this is more the way we want to go, and also an interesting concept that we're going to introduce. We are going to have, let's say, in terms of design and digitalization, what I call a more digital and younger concept in the city of Chengdu that is really driven by young consumer, very digitalized. We are going to experience their pilot store in terms of flagship for the Chinese market that we would like probably to replicate in some other location in China. To close the point on this, I think the other important way to invest on the Chinese market is not only in physical retail, but it's a lot about also digitalization. We are working for 2022 to open on Tmall Luxury Pavilion.
I think this is going to be another important milestone for us in 2022, the launch of our website with a dedicated website for the Chinese market. It's going to be the only one that is not the same. The rest of the world will have one, and we will have a dedicated one for the Chinese market. Finally, the other part that is an important part of the strategy on the Chinese market is the pop-ups, where we have seen that this has been something that was really successful, not only in terms of image, but also commercially. I was referring to that at the beginning, and I think that I've been reading that there was a question on the Olympics.
We are not an official partner of the Olympics, but the Olympics will bring the knowledge and the awareness around the ski and winter even stronger. We have a fantastic collection that is growing up that has been one of the fast-growing collection within the Moncler collections, and we want to push this forward and use it with the pop-ups to create and re-expose our DNA to the Chinese consumer.
Okay. I think that with these three questions, we have to close. Can I just go with the final remark, operator? Let me go.
Yes, thank you.
Okay, thank you to everybody to participate. I just give you the normal quick reminders. Q1 2021 interim management statement will be released on April 22. The silent period will start on March 24. The same day, we will also have our annual general meeting. I take also the opportunity tonight to anticipate that to provide you with a larger set of information on Moncler 2020 results earlier than normally required by the regulator, we are going to publish a full year 2020 management report by the end of February. Annual report will then be published within the term provided by the applicable law as usual, as always. Thank you to everybody. We've been a little bit longer, but it's a full year results call, so it's due. In any case, for any follow-up, there are a few questions. We have seen it also on the web.
We are available, Alice, Carlotta, and myself, we are here and we remain at your disposal. Thank you. Talk to you very soon. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over, and you may disconnect your telephones.