Good afternoon. This is the Chorus Call conference operator. Welcome and thank you for joining the Moncler Q1 19 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.
At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Ms. Paolo Durante, Investor Relations and Strategic Planning Director of Moncler. Please go ahead, madam.
Hi. Thank you, and good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for joining our call on Q1 2019 interim management statement. As usual, for Q1 9 months, the call is hosted by myself and by our Chief Corporate and Supply Officer, Luciano Sante. 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 and 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 3 of the presentation. I will just make a couple of quick comments. In the 1st 3 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 comparison, 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 commented that I also remind you that I will comment only cost and currencies performances. Let's move to Page 4, revenues breakdown by distribution channel. Both channels showed solid performances in the first 3 months. In particular, retailer 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 2019 collections and the contribution of Montclair Genius. Wholesale result has been strong in Europe, in particular in Germany and the UK and also in APAC. Let me also underline that our e commerce posted the strong double digit growth in both channels, largely outperforming the rest of the business.
Let's move to Page 5 of the presentation, revenue breakdown by region. In Q1, global expansion continued with international markets accounting for 88 percent 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 6 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 UK, 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 7, 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 1st 3 months of last year, the Asian region rose by 39%, with APAC and Hong Kong in particular, leading the growth. In the 1st 3 months of this year, China's mainland, along with Korea, significantly outperformed region. In the Q1 of this year, of 2019, the Chinese clustered 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 8 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 York Soho flagship store. Wholesale business remained solid and has been supported by good sell through for both fallwinterandspringsummer. Finally, Page 9 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. And as a result of this decision, multiple stores located at the same address, thus on different floors, locations normally divided by gender, by men, woman and fan are no longer counted separately, even that 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 4 locations, including the flagship in Singapore. We confirm that we have at least further 11 locations secured for 2019.
Therefore, total new openings should be around 15, 18 DOS with a similar number of relocation. 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 6 wholesale monobrand stores, including 4 airport locations. And we confirm we should open 15, 15 shopping shops in total in 2019. I finish my brief presentation.
I will then leave the floor to your questions. So operator, Luciano and myself will answer. Operator, can you please open the Q and A session? Thank you.
Thank you, madam. Excuse me, this is the Chorus Call conference operator. We will now begin the question and answer session. 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, but 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 these 10% constant currency growth that you 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. 2nd 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 shopping shops, physical shopping shops from new online partnerships and instead the underlying growth that you've been seeing with existing customers, that would be very helpful. And also, I have to think about the rest of the year, whether we should expect the low double digit growth also for the coming quarters?
And my final is on your margins. You've always been quite cautious on your margin progression, but 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 3 questions. The first question, I mean, your assumption, your guess is correct. Of course, we don't report the comp, but 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 6 shop in shop in the Q1 of this year.
The online business, the wholesale business with the retailers 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. But the good news was that because spring started earlier, our wholesale customers requested to receive a product earlier. And so we shipped out to our wholesale channel, to our wholesale customers most of the spring season product. And this was good for them even more than for our Celine.
About the margins, margin in 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 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.
But I mean, the way we run our business, we expect to still report very solid margins operating margins.
Great. Just a couple follow ups. So 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. So would that maybe high single digit be a fair estimate? And I'm just trying to understand the quantum of these impacts.
In the wholesale in the Q2, wholesale business is driven by deliveries. In the second quarter, we will not deliver a lot of pre 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 fallwinter season. I mean, what we conventionally call fallwinter because the very first delivery of fallwinter is expected to be delivered in May, more importantly in June. And so this is something that will impact our wholesale business in the Q2. 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. And 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, so that's correct.
Okay. Thank you.
You're welcome.
The next question is from Anur Bismuth of HSBC. Please go ahead.
Yes.
Hi, Annalie Smith from HSBC. So 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 digit. And my last question is about the performance in the Americas.
I know that you faced a challenging basis of comparison, but actually it's really down to 9%, so organic sales growth in Q1. So is it possible to have more details about this performance in the Americas? Thank you very much.
Hi, Alora. About your first question, April May, I mean, the very 1st days of May, business is doing very well, really very, very well. And 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 and the results are very, very encouraging. To be honest, also helped by some timing impact that impacted negatively 1st quarter, just to say one Easter timing that this year was in 2nd quarter, last year was in 1st quarter.
So on one hand, we comment a 1st quarter that was slightly negatively impacted by the fact that Easter was in the 2nd quarter. But on the other hand, I can tell you that the very positive impact of Easter in the Q2 in April was very, very visible. So I mean, we are very, very positive about current trend. About new space contribution, you are totally right. And 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%.
So 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 and lower because last year, as you pointed out, business in North America was very strong. So of course, when we look at current results, we cannot forget the results of the year before in the same period.
And again, 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. And 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 the product. Honestly, as I said in the past, we look at our selling because this is what we report. So it's important to look at this.
But 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 sellout of our department store customers in this current spring season is better than last year. And so this is again something that makes us very positive about the debt market specifically, which again is U. S. And Canada.
And 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 shop in shop, which is still a plan we are working on. But also, we started and we will implement this year a plan to convert some of these shopping shops into concession stores. And so this is a process that is in place with, again, some important names like Bloomingdale's, talking about the conversion from shop in shop to concession store. And again, we are very positive about that market.
Thank you very much. Just to come back on your comment regarding the performance in Q2. So do you mean that it's even better than in Q1, so in acceleration versus Q1? Thank you very much.
We are here to comment on Q1, Laura. 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, some times may be positive. I mean, Easter, again, was negative for our business in March, but was very, 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, very well because, as you may remember, we started we launched our Genius project, and we reported very strong results. So June will be a nice battle with the last year. But again, I mean, business is doing well.
Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
The next question is from Piral Dadhania of RBC. Please go ahead.
Yes, thanks. Hi, Luciano, Paola. 3 from me as well, please. Could you please, on e commerce, quantify the revenue growth you've seen in the Q1. You've obviously said it's very strong and running almost 2 times the rest of the business, but any quantification will be very helpful there.
The second one is just on product category development. Obviously, with milder weather trends in the Q1 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 Q1? And then 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 Q1 for that as well?
Thank you. Okay. Hi, Felt. About e commerce, again, I can't report and represent any number. But again, believe me that business is doing very well and the growth rate of that business in Q1 was very strong.
And of course, it's not we have in our pipeline because we strongly believe that the online business will must represent an important part of our business and much, much more than what it represents now. Again, Q1 was very strong. About other category, I mean, outerwear performed well, but of course, last year, and this is 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, was winter all the winter was mild.
And of course, we sold, as you outlined and anticipated, we sold more lighter product and we started, as we said before, to sell earlier spring product. So if I look at our retail business in the Q1, I can tell you that we are happy because traffic was up. Commercial 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, rakat and sun. So I mean, overall, business did very well, but of course, the average selling price of our retail business was lower than last year. Honestly, this is the essence of the comment. But again, let me repeat and say again that the other categories are performing better and better and better than the outerwear, for sure. About outlet, unfortunately for outlets, but I mean, 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. But unfortunately for them, outlet business is doing fairly well, but 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. I mean, this was the case at the end of fallwinter2018.
Now we are, of course, in better shape. But again, we don't have so much product for our outlets. And so for sure, we miss, say, opportunities that honestly, as you know, because you know very well, our strategy is something that we are happy with because of what we look at and what we are interested in is our regular business, not outlet business. So outlets are doing fairly well, fairly well, but not well, not as much as regular stores.
Great. Thank you very much. Great quarter.
You're welcome.
The next question is from Susie Tibaldi of UBS. Please go ahead, madam.
Hi, good evening. I have three questions, please. So 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 analyze 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 the retail KPI, it's pretty, I would say, material. So 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? So have you opened any more stores at airports? And how do you see this going forward for the rest of the year? And one more question, a bit more on the macro maybe. Obviously, there's a lot of uncertainty again.
And hypothetically speaking, if the macro environment was to deteriorate a little bit and therefore, it will 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 still very important at this stage to keep going forward with the investments that you have planned? Or how do you think about the possibility of maybe slower growth or macro issues? Thank you.
Okay. Hi, Susie. About your first question, Genius, you're correct. Genius, I mean, as we said before, started last year in Genius with the very first delivery of a fragment, Rochifo Giouara. It was a success.
It was a strong contributor of our business in June in that month. So this is the reason or one of the most important reason why we face a challenging comparison in June. On the other hand, I mean, we plan to deliver our 1st full winter genius drop in June with Francisco Lagasse, Palmenjos that honestly make us makes us very, very positive, okay? Crossing finger, but I mean 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% to 9%. And I think that this year will not be much different. I mean, last year was about 8%, 9%. This year will not be much different from last year. Of course, in this in the Q1, we delivered 3, 4 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 a fragment. And the fragment, the drop in March was honestly very successful and developed a very good sellout. So programs for this year, I mean, as you know, we have new designers. So we have a very tough plan starting in June and every month and even twice a month, we will have different deliveries.
Your second question about travel retail, we opened in the Q1 4 travel retail stores. We have a plan for this year to open a total of 10. So other 6, we opened in Paris, Michard de Gaulle. We are opening shortly in July in Zurich, a 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. I mean, the Travel Retail, as you know, is an important channel. We are investing a lot and not only because we are opening stores, but also because we are working very closely on the specific merchandising of the stores, on the assortment, the product assortment of the stores. We believe that every day represents a very good potential and opportunity for our business. Your last question, of course, is more difficult most difficult to answer, Susie.
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 much 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. And because of that, we have to keep investing and not to slow down our investments that honestly for this year are very important. I'm talking about CapEx that will be significantly higher than last year, for sure over €100,000,000 110,000,000 but no plan at all to slow down this plan because all these investments are very crucial.
And not only the investments associated with our retail network, with our wholesale, but also the investments in our back office, the investments in logistics, information technology, the new online platform project. So 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. And this is something that, I mean, 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. I mean, the duty war between China and U.
S. Is something that we can't do anything. Okay.
Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
The next question comes from Melanie Flauquet of JPMorgan. Please go ahead, madam.
Yes, good evening. Thank you for taking my questions. My first question is regarding profitability. I know this is a sharp call, but given the specificity of the Northland business, you likely have a very strong visibility on your profitability over the first half because the second half the second quarter is of course a lot smaller than the Q1. Can you just clarify because I wasn't sure I got this right?
Do you expect H1 2019 EBITDA or EBITDA 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 career part? And my last question is on Genius.
Could you help us understand whether the weight of Genius' 8% to 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 the profitability, what I said about H1 is that last year, we reported very strong profitability because our retail business specifically grew very, very, very strongly. Also, the organic growth of the retail business was very, very strong and this made our selling expenses unusually small because of the productivity of the stores was very, very high. So I think that it's very, 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 in line with the last year. That would be a very good result. So this is but tell me if it's not clear. Of course, I mean, 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 the profitability will still be good, very good, but impossible or 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. And so 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. So again, we cross our fingers, but so far so good. And 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 4th 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 I mean in all the other regions is the business is run by operated by YNAP. About Genius, I mean, last year, again, we said 8% to 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. But because we want this business to be not to be very, very high. Again, 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 seasonal driven than our main business. But still, the fallwinter business, Genius fallwinter business is stronger than spring. But your point is correct. I mean, it's much, much less season driven, is much, much less outward driven. And so this is very important strategically, and I'm sure you know what they mean.
Yes. Thank you very much. All clear.
Thank you.
The next question is from Paola 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 more, 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. So are you experiencing impact similar to the beginning of this project, let's say, or is, say, the impact somehow normalizing or fading, let's say? And with a similar approach, I would also ask you to compare how wholesale clients have reacted in their orders of Genius for the full winter season compared, which was, let's say, the 2nd year in a row, to the springsummer, let's say, more about the feeling that you are experiencing rather than the seasonal contribution?
And 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.
Paola, about your first question on Genius, honestly, the impact we saw in every deliveries, in every drops of the current season was very good. Again, let me say it again, I mean, collections are different. Target customers are different and 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. So Craig Green was very, very impact in terms of traffic of people, the same day of delivery and the days after was very good. Of course, the salability of that product is, by definition, different from the saleability of Fragment again.
So Fragment in Rochifo Juara is as much as Greg Green, a very, very strong designer. We held an event with him in Hong Kong the same day of the launch of the drop, March drop and it was very, very successful with a lot of energy. I mean, the impact of all the different collections, non excluded, was very good. KPI, again, talking about traffic, 1st was very good. About wholesale, wholesale 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. So we made some of our customers angry because the problem with the Genius is that everyone would like to get the product. But again, our strategy this year, even more than last year, was very, very selective.
Your last question about OpEx associated with the e commerce, the eventual eventual insourcing of the e commerce. And first of all, I mean, 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 lineup, but we want to make sure that if we want, we can run that business. So we have first to make sure that we can drive the car. And in order to be able to drive the car, we have to invest in people.
And so our OpEx on that specific segment are growing now, but it is an investment for the future. So I can tell you that we are trying to save money on that segment because we have to get people, talented people, we have to create the team, 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, dollars 35,000,000,000 company. And I mean, she's building the digital team. And so OpEx on that side, yes, are growing, but this is very, very important.
The next question is from Nikki Ito of MainFirst. Please go ahead.
Hello.
Yes, your line is open.
Hi, sorry.
Sorry, could you hear me?
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 Hujiwala was particularly popular with the Asian clientele?
And also, do you think the price reduction in Mainland China and maybe also in Japan drove volume increase? And my second question is the sales trends for other nationalities, please, in Q1, Americans, Europeans and Japanese. Thank you.
Hi. About I mean, genius sorry, Chinese cluster, I mean, you said correctly, there was an acceleration in March. Honestly, even if fragment was very successful in China, but because of the contribution of Genius, I don't think that that was the most important driver of the increase of the cluster, honestly, not at all. Other nationalities, I mean, 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 and 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. So I mean all of the different nationalities are growing in line, more or less, with our business. Some are a little bit better, like Chinese, some a little bit lower. But I mean, overall, we don't see any specific point of attention.
Thank you.
The next question is from Silke Agrawal 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 per square meter. I remember Luciano said you would struggle to increase them further from here, larger store formats from the 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 on 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 Q4. And just a 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 the Sustainacity, of course, as you said, the sales density is different month by month, season by season. So 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 per square meter is something that we hope that this year will be at least the same or hopefully even better. 1st quarter is totally, totally meaningless.
I can tell you that I mean because our retail business did pretty well in the Q1, our sales density is totally in line with the last year and with our plan, even a little higher. But I mean, Q1 is still it is still meaningless. But I mean, it is good. About e commerce, again, I can't give you numbers that also could be meaningless in one specific quarter, but we keep growing very nicely, not only our own e commerce, as I said before, but also our business with retailers. And so the 2 of them still 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, but it's premature now.
Thank you, Luciano.
You're welcome.
At this time, Ms. Torrance, 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 answer 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 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, Alica 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.