Good afternoon. This is the Chorus Call conference operator. Welcome. Thank you for joining the Moncler Q1 2019 Interim Management Statement conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. If anyone needs assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star 0 on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Ms. Paola Durante, Investor Relations and Strategic Planning Director of Moncler. Please go ahead, madam.
Hi. Thank you. Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for joining our call on Q1 2019 Interim Management Statement. As usual for Q1 and nine months, the call is hosted by myself and by our Chief Corporate and Supply Officer, Luciano Santel. Before commenting on our revenues results, 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, are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause results to differ, even materially, from those expressed in or implied by these statements. In addition, let me also remind you that we have invited members of the media to participate in this call in a listen only mode. Let's move now to page three of the presentation.
I will just make a couple of quick comments. In the first three months of the year, Moncler posted a very solid set of results, reaching its 21st consecutive quarter of double-digit growth since the IPO. Consolidated revenues were up 11% constant currencies, notwithstanding the highly demanding basis of comparisons, the mild winter, the earlier date of the Chinese New Year, and also Easter this year being in Q2 instead of last year in Q1. Before going into the details, I also remind you that I will comment only constant currencies performances. Let's move to page four, revenues breakdown by distribution channel. Both channels showed solid performances in the first three months. In particular, retail revenues rose by a good 10%, following the exceptional 35% in Q1 last year, driven by positive organic growth and by new space contributions. All regions and all main retail metrics contributed to this growth.
China's Mainland and Korea have been the best performers markets. Wholesale also did well, driven by the enlargement of the shop-in-shops network, the good results of the Spring-Summer '19 collections, and the contribution of Moncler Genius. Wholesale result has been strong in Europe, in particular in Germany and the U.K., and also in APAC. Let me also underline that our e-commerce posted a strong double-digit growth in both channels, largely outperforming the rest of the business. Let's move to page five of the presentation, revenue breakdown by region. In Q1, global expansion continued with international markets accounting for 88% of total revenues. In the quarter, also our domestic market reported a solid 6% growth. I will now provide you a more detailed analysis by region. On page six, to start with, we focus on EMEA, including Italy.
Europe and Italy combined reported a 10% growth with a double-digit performance in both channels. In EMEA, we continue to see excellent results in the Middle East, in Germany, and also in the U.K., all growing sound double-digit. Italian revenues achieved good results driven by the retail channel, while in the wholesale, we continue to select our distribution. Let's move to page seven, talking about Asia, which, as you know and I always remind you, it includes APAC, Japan, and Korea. Asia recorded another double-digit results, growing by 12%, notwithstanding the challenging base of comparison. As you may remember, in the first three months of last year, the Asian region rose by 39% with APAC and Hong Kong in particular leading the growth. In the first three months of this year, China's Mainland, along with Korea, significantly outperformed the rest of the region.
In the first quarter of this year, of 2019, the Chinese cluster grew double-digit, driven by a stronger local demand. Starting from March, we have seen an acceleration in the cluster, also among travelers. Americas. Move now to page eight of the presentation. Revenues in the Americas increased 9%, with both distribution channels posting good growth. Retail business has been driven by sound local demand and has benefited also of some important openings like the new New York SoHo flagship store. Wholesale business remains solid and has been supported by good sell-through for both fall/winter and spring/summer. Finally, page nine of the presentation, we briefly comment on our store network. As already explained during the last conference call, starting from full year 2018, we decided to align our stores counting to the management of the business.
As a result of this decision, multiple stores are located at the same address, thus on different floors, locations, normally divided by gender, by men, woman, and kids, are no longer counted separately, even though they are managed as a single entity by ourselves, by Moncler. At the end of March, our retail stores reached 197 units. In the quarter, we opened four locations, including the flagship in Singapore. We confirm that we have at least a further 11 locations secured for 2019. Therefore, total new openings should be around 15, 18 doors with a similar number of relocations. To be mentioned, in Q4, we have relocated our stores in Copenhagen, which is a very nice store if you have the opportunity to visit it. In addition, in the quarter, we also opened six wholesale mono-brand stores, including four airport locations.
We confirm we should open 15, one five, shop-in-shops in total in 2019. I finish my brief presentation. I will then leave the floor to your questions, operator, that Luciano and myself will answer. Operator, can you please open the Q&A session? Thank you.
Certainly, madam. Excuse me, this is the conference call 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 your question, please press star and two. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. The first question comes from Elena Mariani of Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead, madam.
Hi, good evening, Paola and Luciano. I've got three questions for you. The first one is on your retail performance. I know you don't disclose like-for-like by quarter. You also know that you're always going to get this question. I just wanted to understand whether it is correct to assume that within this 10% constant currency growth that you've provided, there was a broadly balanced split between like-for-like and what we call space contribution, and that was pretty much in line with your expectations, I guess. Second question on wholesale. I was positively surprised by the 13% constant currency growth that you've reported. Could you help me understand what was the contribution from new shop-in-shops, physical shop-in-shops, from new online partnerships, and instead the underlying growth that you've been seeing with existing customers? It would be very helpful.
Also how to think about the rest of the year, whether we should expect a low double-digit growth, also for the coming quarters. My final question is on your margins. You've always been quite cautious on your margin progression. Historically, you've always managed to either keep them flat or improve them. What should we expect for the first half of this year? I think consensus is expecting margins to remain broadly flat year-on-year. Is this something you're comfortable with? Thank you very much.
Okay. Hi, Elena. This is Luciano Santel. About your three questions. The first question, I mean, your assumption, your guess is correct. Of course, we don't report comp. I can tell you that our comp was in the region of mid-single digit. So I think that your guess is good, is precise. About the wholesale, Elena, 13% was very good. Wholesale business did very well because overall, our wholesale business is very strong, very healthy. We keep growing in all the sub-channels you mentioned. Talking about the shop-in-shop, we opened six shop-in-shop in the first quarter of this year. The online business, the wholesale business with e-tailers is also doing very well.
I have also to tell you that in this 13%, there is some timing aspect due to the fact that, as you know, the weather during our winter season, including January, February, March, was not particularly favorable for our business because winter was pretty mild, warm. The good news was that because spring started earlier, our wholesale customers requested to receive a product earlier. We shipped out to our wholesale channel, to our wholesale customers, most of the spring season product. This was good for them even more than for our selling. About margins. Margins the first half of last year were very strong, and you can see that if you look also at the margins of the year before, that were strong, but not as much as last year when our retail business growth rate was particularly
particularly high. Of course, I can't predict margins for the first half of the year, but honestly, we are confident about the margins, even if, of course, we don't expect and we cannot expect such a growth rate we reported last year. The way we run our business, we expect to still report very solid operating margins.
Great. Just a couple of follow-ups. On wholesale, what you've just said, does it imply that we're going to see a bit of a slowdown in the second quarter because of this anticipation of shipments? Would that maybe high single digit be a fair estimate? I'm just trying to understand the quantum of these impacts.
In the wholesale, in the second quarter, wholesale business is driven by deliveries. In the second quarter, we will not deliver a lot of spring season because, again, as I told you, most of spring season was already delivered in Q1, but we are starting very soon deliveries to deliver the fall/winter season. What we conventionally call fall/winter, because the very first delivery of fall/winter is expected to be delivered in May, more importantly, in June. This is something that will impact our wholesale business in the second quarter. Overall, looking at the 12 months period, looking at the fiscal year 2019, we still confirm our overall guidance of 8%, more or less, growth rate for the wholesale business.
Great. One very small final point. Did I understand correctly, you said in your remarks that the Chinese cluster grew double-digit in the quarter, and you've seen further acceleration from March? Is that right? Did I understand correctly?
Yes.
Okay.
Yes, that's correct.
Okay. Thank you.
You're welcome.
The next question is from Anne-Laure Bismuth of HSBC. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, Anne-Laure Bismuth from HSBC. I have three questions, please. I just wanted to know as to whether if you can give us some indication about the April, May performance versus Q1. My second question is about the contribution from new space we should expect for the full year, because if I remember correctly, you mentioned previously that it should be around high single digits. My last question is about the performance in the America. I know that you faced a challenging basis of comparison, but actually it threw it down to 9%. Organic sales growth in Q1. Is it possible to have more details about this performance in the Americas? Thank you very much.
Hi, Anne-Laure. About your first question, April and May, the very first days of May, business is doing very well, really very well. I'm not talking only about the individual results, but in all the regions are doing well, which is very encouraging because, of course, we look very closely at the performances of our collection, our Spring-Summer product. Now we are fully in the middle of spring season, the results are very encouraging. To be honest, also helped by some timing impact that impacted negatively first quarter, just to say one Easter timing that this year was in second quarter, last year was in first quarter. On one hand, we comment a first quarter that was slightly negatively impacted by the fact that Easter was in the second quarter.
On the other hand, I can tell you that the very positive impact of Easter in the second quarter in April was very, very visible. We are very positive about current trend. About a new space contribution, you are totally right, at this stage of the year, I can only confirm what is not only our guidance, but again, this is the way we plan our retail business, which is a space growth contribution in the region of 8%-10%. High single digit is correct. Of course, for the year end, I'm not talking about a single quarter, but in the 12 months period, this assumption is still our own assumption. About America, you gave already a part of the answer, Anne-Laure, because last year, as you pointed out, business in North America was very strong.
Of course, when we look at current results, we cannot forget the results of the year before in the same period. North America last year, business was very strong. Something I can add is that, as you know, North America business is in good contribution given by wholesale business. The wholesale business is to some extent, as I said before, dependent on deliveries, on how our customers, specifically department stores, and when department stores request product. Honestly, as I said in the past, we look at our selling because this is what we report, and so it's important to look at this. We look even more and with much more interest to our department stores sell out, because this is what makes or not our brand, our business healthy.
What I can tell you is that the sell out of our department store customers in this current spring season is better than last year. This is again, something that makes us very positive about that market specifically, which again, is U.S. and Canada. In both markets, we are growing our business very nicely with the most important names of department stores that you know very well, and also with the strategy to develop that business, not only from the volume point of view, but also from the quality of our business point of view. You know that we started a plan to open a shop- in- shop, which is still a plan we are working on. Also we started, and we will implement this year, a plan to convert some of this shop- in- shop into concession stores.
This is a process that is in place with, again, some important names like Bloomingdale's, talking about a conversion from shop- in- shop to concession store. We're very positive about that market.
Thank you very much. Just to come back on your comment regarding the performance in Q2. Does it mean that it's even better than in Q1, so in acceleration versus Q1? Thank you very much.
We are here to comment Q1, Anne-Laure. I hope to confirm your expectations when we will hold the call in July. Honestly, I can confirm that April was very strong and May is still very strong. Again, when we look at the timing, of course, timing may be negative sometimes, maybe positive. I mean, Easter again, was negative for our business in March, but was very positive for our business in April. May is still good. We face also June, that is still ahead, when last year our business did very well because, as you may remember, we started, we launched our Genius project, and we reported very strong results. June will be a nice battle with last year. Again, business is doing well.
Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
The next question is from Piral Dadhania of RBC. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks. Hi, Luciano, Paola. Three from me as well, please. Could you please, on e-commerce, quantify the revenue growth you've seen in the first quarter? You've obviously said it's very strong and running almost 2 times the rest of the business, any quantification will be very helpful there. The second one is just on product category development. Obviously, with milder weather trends in the first quarter, relative to normal or even last year, could you provide us with some indication of how outerwear has performed relative to the non-outerwear categories in the first quarter? My third question is just on outlet versus full price. I think in full year 2018, you said full price was running ahead of outlet. Could you just give us an indication of what the trend is in the first quarter for that as well? Thank you.
Okay. Hi, Piral. About e-commerce, again, I can't report and represent any number. Again, believe me that that business is doing very well and the growth rate of that business in Q1 was very strong. Of course, it's not unexpected because we are investing in that channel, in the online business, in all the projects we have in our pipeline, because we strongly believe that the online business will and must represent an important part of our business and much more than what it represents now. Again, Q1 was very strong. About other category, outerwear performed well, of course, last year, and this is a part of the reason why last year business in Q1 was very strong, was because winter last year was very cold and very long. That means that we kept selling for winter product, heavy down jackets, until March. This year, weather was much warmer.
All the winter was mild. Of course, as you outlined and anticipated, we sold more lighter product, and we started, as we said before, to sell earlier spring product. If I look at our retail business in the first quarter, I can tell you that we are happy because traffic was up, conversion rate was up, units per transaction was up. Average selling price was a little bit down, simply because instead of heavy down jackets, we sold more spring product. Outer, and not only. To your point, we also sold very well, and we keep selling very well the other categories, specifically knitwear, cut and sew. Overall, business did very well, of course, the average selling price of our retail business was lower than last year. Honestly, this is the essence of the comment.
Again, let me repeat and say again that the other categories are performing better and better, and better than outerwear for sure. About outlet, unfortunately for outlets, because we have very valid and talented people who go after outlet business. They are very strong and they strongly work to make that business more and more successful. Unfortunately for them, outlet business is doing fairly well, not as much as our regular business. For one simple reason, that is something you know, I'm sure you do very well, and this is because we don't have a lot of product for outlets. This was the case at the end of fall/winter 2018. Now we are, of course, in better shape. Again, we don't have so much product for our outlets.
For sure, we miss sales opportunities that honestly, as you know, because you know very well our strategy, is something that we are happy with because what we look at and what we are interested in is our regular business, not outlet business. Outlets are doing fairly well, but not as much as regular stores.
Great. Thank you very much. Great quarter.
You're welcome.
The next question is from Susy Tibaldi of UBS. Please go ahead, madam.
Hi. Good evening. I have three questions, please. The first one, I was wondering if you can give us an update on Genius. Especially given that from June, as you mentioned, we are going to annualize it, and we all know that the contribution to the actual sales is just about 10%, but obviously the contribution in terms of traffic and all the retail KPI, it's pretty, I would say material. How should we think about it when it annualizes from June onwards? Secondly, have you done any progress on your travel retail plans in Q1? Have you opened any more stores at airports? How do you see this going forward for the rest of the year? One more question, a bit more on the macro maybe.
Obviously there is a lot of uncertainty again, and hypothetically speaking, if the macro environment was to deteriorate a little bit, and therefore it would become a little bit harder to keep such level of growth, let's say very hypothetically, how much room do you think that you have to maneuver in the sense, are there measures that you can take to protect your profitability, or do you think it's very important at this stage to keep going forward with the investments that you have planned? How do you think about the possibility of maybe slower growth or macro issues? Thank you.
Okay. Hi, Susy. About your first question, Genius, you're correct. Genius, as we said before, started last year in Genius with the very first delivery of Fragment and Hiroshi Fujiwara. It was a success. It was a strong contributor of our business in June, in that month. This is the reason, or one of the most important reasons why we face a challenging comparison in June. On the other hand, we plan to deliver our first fall/winter Genius drop in June with Francesco Ragazzi, Palm Angels. That honestly makes us very positive. Okay, crossing fingers, but that brand is very hot now and the collection, honestly is very good, very strong. About the contribution of Genius, you are fairly correct. It is about 8%-9%. I think that this year will not be much different. Last year was about 8%-9%.
This year will not be much different from last year. Of course, in the first quarter, we delivered four different collections. Craig Green-1952, Simone Rocha, and Fragment. Again, as you know, some of these collections are very strong for the brand, but more conceptual, less commercial. Other are still very good and strong for the brand, but also pretty commercial, saleable, like Fragment. Fragment, the drop in March was honestly very successful and developed a very good sellout. Programs for this year, as you know, we have new designers, we have a very tough plan starting in June. Every month, and even twice a month, we will have different deliveries. Your second question about travel retail. We opened in the first quarter, four travel retail stores. We have a plan for this year to open a total of 10, so other six.
We opened in Paris, Charles de Gaulle. We are opening shortly in July in Zurich, very important new opening. Probably the most important opening will be still in July in Istanbul, in the new airport that just opened a few weeks ago, the airport, but our store will be opened in July. We are opening in Beijing and others. Travel retail, as you know, is an important channel. We are investing a lot, not only because we are opening stores, but also because we are working very closely on the specific merchandising of these stores, on the assortment, the product assortment of these stores. We believe that travel retail represents a very good potential and opportunity for our business. Your last question, of course, is most difficult to answer, Susy.
I think that we have to live with the current environment and whatever will be in the future, maybe better, maybe worse, maybe better in some markets, worse in others. What is very important is, first, to keep investing in our brand, because whatever may be the economic scenario, what makes brands successful is how strong they are. Our brand is very strong now, but it's not enough. We have to keep investing from all the different point of view, not only communication, not only product, everything. Because of that, we have to keep investing, not to slow down our investments. That honestly, for this year, are very important. I'm talking about the CapEx that will be significantly higher than last year, for sure over EUR 110 million, but no plan at all to slow down this plan, because all these investments are very crucial.
Not only the investments associated with our retail network, with our wholesale, but also the investments in our back office and investments in logistics, information technology, the new online platform project. What is very important, of course, again, is to keep investing in the brand and to make the organization, the structure of the company as much as possible, flexible and quick in reacting to any kind of event. This is something that we are working a lot as a management team and to be ready to react very quickly. Again, I can't say anything, and I can't do anything about the overall environment. The duty war between China and U.S. is something that we can't do anything. Okay.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Welcome.
The next question comes from Melanie Flouquet of J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead, madam.
Yes, good evening. Thank you for taking my questions. My first question is regarding profitability. I know this is a sales call, but given the specificity of the Moncler business, you likely have a very strong visibility on your profitability of the first half, because the second quarter is of course a lot smaller than the first quarter. Can you just clarify, because I wasn't sure I got this right. Do you expect H1 2019 EBIT or EBIT margin, whatever you prefer to use, to be up year-on-year, or are there costs coming in and a very tough comp base that should make this quite challenging? My second question is more strategic. Could you update us on the progress of your e-commerce Korea path? My last question is on Genius.
Could you help us understand whether the weight of Genius, the 8%-9% contribution that you're citing on a full year basis, is similar in H1 and in H2? Thank you very much.
Okay. Thank you, Melanie, for your question about profitability. What I said about H1 is that last year we reported very strong profitability because our retail business specifically grew very strongly. Also, the organic growth of the retail business was very strong, and this made our selling expenses unusually small because the productivity of the stores was very high. I think that it's very difficult to replicate such profitability or even do better. I would say that we don't aim at all to do better. We aim, and we plan to do more or less in line with last year. That would be a very good result. Tell me if it's not clear.
I can't predict the future, but based on our current visibility, based on our current sales trend and our current expenses, I think that profitability will still be very good, but impossible or very difficult to do better than last year. About online business, online project, Korea. The project is doing well, even if we are very close to the start of the project, the go live. Not the go live with the market that is expected in the second half, but we are ready to start with the first test of the platform. We have, I would say half of our company that is traveling to Korea next week because, again, we are starting the real test on the platform. We cross our fingers, but so far so good.
The plan is still to go live in the second half of the year at the beginning of second half, of course, let's say July, in order to capture the full season. Needless to say, but let me reiterate the fact that Korea is very important, not only because Korea is an important market, but because this is the very important test of an online platform that in all the other regions, the business is operated by YNAP. About Genius last year, again, we said 8%-9%. This year, even if we have the spring season, we don't plan to do more than that, 9, maybe 10, but again, not more than that. Because we want this business to not to be very high. This project is not aimed to develop volumes, but to build a stronger and stronger perception with our brand.
Of course, from the seasonality point of view, even if Genius is much less season-driven than our main business. Still Genius fall-winter business is stronger than spring. Your point is correct. It's much less season-driven, is much less outerwear-driven. This is very important strategically, and I'm sure you know what I mean.
Yes. Thank you very much. Okay.
Thank you.
The next question is from Paola Carboni of Equita. Please go ahead, madam.
Yes. Hi, good afternoon, everybody. I had a similar question on Genius, not so much in terms of contribution by season, but actually comparing the launches of this Spring/Summer with the launches of the last Fall/Winter, or let's say in terms of buzz you have experienced overall on the brand, the kind of impact you had in the days immediately after the arrival of every single collection in the stores, how KPI are changing. Are you experiencing impact similar to the beginning of this project, let's say, or is the impact somehow normalizing or fading, let's say? With a similar approach, I would also ask you to compare how wholesale clients have reacted in their orders of Genius for the Fall/Winter season, which was, let's say the second year in a row compared to the Spring/Summer.
Let's say more about the feeling you are experiencing rather than the seasonal contribution. A second question is instead on evolution of your OpEx throughout the year. Just wondering whether we should think about any different phasing maybe ahead of any potential internalization of your e-commerce operation going forward and therefore possibly, let's say, a sequential acceleration somehow in the OpEx linked to that project. Thank you very much.
Hi, Paola. About your first question on Moncler Genius. Honestly, the impact we saw in every deliveries, in every drops of the current season was very good. Let me say it again, collections are different. Target customers are different. Also we did, and we are still doing a very important selective clustering activity in order to target each customer, depending on the specific collection. Craig Green was very impactful because Craig Green is a very strong designer. The impact in terms of traffic of people the same day of delivery and the days after was very good. Of course, the saleability of that product is, by definition, different from the saleability of Fragment again. Fragment, Hiroshi Fujiwara, is as much as Craig Green, a very strong designer.
We held an event with him in Hong Kong the same day of the launch of the March drop, and it was very successful with a lot of energy. The impact of all the different collections, none excluded, was very good. KPI, again, talking about traffic first, was very good. About wholesaler is doing very well. What I can tell you is that our plan for this year was to be even more selective than last year. We reduced the number of customers. We were very careful in selecting only what we believe are the best wholesale customers. We made some of our customers angry, because the problem with Moncler Genius is that everyone would like to get the product. Again, our strategy this year, even more than last year, was very selective. Your last question about OpEx associated with the e-commerce, the eventual insourcing of the e-commerce.
First of all, we are investing a lot in our digital business, and we are investing now to be ready one day in the future to be able to run this business. We don't know yet because we are very happy with the YNAP, but we want to make sure that if we want, we can run that business. We have first to make sure that we can drive the car. In order to be able to drive the car, we have to invest in people. Our OpEx on that specific segment are growing now, but it is an investment for the future. I can tell you that we are trying to save money on that segment because we have to get talented people. We have to create the digital team we need for the future.
You may remember that we hired last year in October, a very talented Chief Digital Officer. She's an Italian girl coming from a very strong U.S. company, Mars, a $35 billion company. She's building the digital team. OpEx on that side, yes, are growing, but this is very important.
The next question is from Niki Ito of Mindfirst. Please go ahead.
Hello?
Yes, your line is open.
Hi. Sorry. Could you hear me? Hello?
Absolutely. We hear you now.
I've got a couple of questions, please. Thanks for taking my question. My first question is, again, on the Genius project. You mentioned the Chinese cluster sales grew double digits in Q1 and accelerated in March. Do you think that was somehow supported by the Fragment collection that dropped in March? Because Hiroshi Fujiwara was particularly popular with the Asian clientele. Also, do you think the price reduction in mainland China and maybe also in Japan drove volume increase? My second question is the sales trends for other nationalities, please, in Q1, Americans, Europeans, and Japanese. Thank you.
Hi. About Chinese cluster, you said correctly, there was an acceleration in March. Honestly, even if Fragment was very successful in China, because of the contribution of Genius, I don't think that was the most important driver of the increase of the cluster. Honestly, not at all. Other nationalities. All the nationalities are growing very nicely. I can tell you that Japanese is a cluster that is growing also, not only in Q1, but I can tell you also in April of this year. Not only in their local market, but also in other markets around the world, of course, in North America, but not only. Korea cluster is doing very well. All of the different nationalities are growing in line more or less with our business. Some a little bit better, like Chinese, some a little bit lower.
Overall, we don't see any specific point of attention.
Thank you.
The next question is from Silke Aggrawal of Citi. Please go ahead.
Hi, it's Thomas Chauvet from Citi. Just a quick question on your sales densities. Last year, they were at about 36,000 EUR per sq m. I remember Luciano said you would struggle to increase them further from here. Larger store formats from new openings, refurbs, and product diversification into lower ASP categories. I know quarterly densities are very different, but could you confirm maybe in Q1 that indeed you were capped year-over-year versus Q1 2018, or has sales density actually increased a little bit further? I know it's probably a much lower density obviously than in your fourth quarter. Just follow up on the e-commerce. Could you give us, as of Q1, the weight of sales online when you take both the direct e-commerce and the wholesale partners? Has it reached now 10% of your group sales? Thank you.
Okay, thank you. About sales density, of course, as you said, the sales density is different month by month, season by season. What we report for the year end, actually we don't report, but it's a number that we normally represent, that last year was about 36,000 EUR per sq m. It's something that we hope that this year will be at least the same or hopefully even better. First quarter is totally meaningless. I can tell you that because our retail business did pretty well in the first quarter, our sales density is totally in line with last year and with our plan. Even a little higher. Q1 it is still meaningless. It is good. About e-commerce, again, I can't give you numbers that also could be meaningless in one specific quarter.
We keep growing very nicely, not only our own e-commerce, as I said before, but also our business with retailers. The two of them last year represented about 8%. This year, considering the growth rate that is much stronger than the rest of the business, I think that we may see a higher number. Double digit maybe. Okay, about 10% maybe, it's premature now.
Thank you, Luciano.
You're welcome.
At this time, Ms. Durante, there are no questions registered.
Okay. There were a few questions from the webcast, but I think we answered to them. If not, please call us anytime after the call. In any event, I think we answered to all of them. In the meantime, I thank you everyone for participating in this call. Let me just give you a quick reminder of the upcoming releases. First half results will be published on July 24th, as usual, close of business, after market close. The conference call will take place on the same day, while our quiet period will start on June 25th. For any follow-up question, as I said before, please feel free to call the IR team, myself, Alice, or Carlotta anytime. Thank you, and have a good evening. Bye.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over, and you may disconnect your telephones.