Okay, we have 26 people online. I think people will be gathering more, but it's time for us to start. Please allow me to extend a warm welcome to everybody attending our 1Q
Extend a warm welcome to everybody attending our first quarter of 2023 financial results. I have the privilege of opening this call. My name is Vasile Tofan , I'm the Chair of the company. It's been a very good quarter for us. My colleagues will elaborate in greater detail on it, and I want to flag it in advance. Yes, it was against the base of last year, which has had the effects of the Russian invasion in Ukraine. At the same time, the first quarter of last year was also a very strong quarter for Purcari, when revenues grew 13%. When you look at the results today, please factor in also the quarter of last year has been stronger quarter for Purcari.
As we get into this call, I want to introduce a few new faces for Purcari, and we're very excited to introduce two new board members for our company, Raul Găină and Paula-Cătălina Panu. Both of them are very accomplished executives with a strength at the intersection of legal, commercial, and branding. Exactly the type of backgrounds that we believe are needed for our company at this stage of development. Both of them are Cyprus-based tax residents of Cyprus, so that they also come to strengthen our presence in the jurisdiction that is home to our group. Without further ado, I want to pass the word to Eugeniu Baltag.
You see, there is some dependency here. So Eugeniu Baltag who will kick off today's call. Eugeniu, the floor is yours.
Good afternoon, everyone. Let's jump straight to the slides. Thank you, Vasile, for the introduction. You know, most of you already know about Purcari. Thus, we will organize the current call in a manner in order to leave more time for the financial and Q&A part. When speaking about Purcari, you know, behind the ticker WINE on Bucharest Stock Exchange or a bottle of wine on a shelf, we have to imagine about a team of more than 800 people. We have seven different nationalities, and we operate in more than three countries. One most important thing is here, but currently 1/3 of our assets are located in E.U. countries, in Romania and Bulgaria. Hope for the near future, all 100% of our assets will be in European Union.
At this moment, we have seven production sites and six family brands. Only one thing which connects us all, the passion for wine. We have more than 1,400 hectares of vineyards, and we can say now that the vines have come out of the winter well. There was enough rain, and we have the first signs of good harvest this year. Of course, it's too early to elaborate on this. We believe in diversity and diversification, and our group is diversified by both production platforms and geography of sales. We're exporting in more than 40 countries around the world. Happy to see here Bulgaria. You may see this in the right corner, like being part of our group. Currently it represents 2% of the group's turnover.
If to jump forward, of course, during the modern history of Purcari, we had some ups and downs with embargoes, crises, war in a neighborhood country. Over time, we stayed focused on what we can do best and delivered strong growth each year. We have doubled the sales since the pre-IPO, and we have increased our sales every year. Increasing volumes is very important, but growing the sales and keeping high margins is part of our credo. Actually, our business model is around this affordable luxury concept. The entire team is aiming to operate under 50%, 30%, 20% rule, where gross profit margin shall be around 50%, EBITDA around 30%, and net profit margin around 20%.
You may see how we have evolved, for example, on this slide since 2017 up to 2020, where we have achieved very close results. The rule I mentioned about. The performance you see on the slide comes mainly from our organic growth. Of course, we had several successful M&A deals along the years. Now that being said, we continue with operational results in the first quarter. I have as well good news for our consumers. We have expanded our Nocturne series with Viorica de Purcari . If to jump to operational figures, we had very strong growth in first quarter. We have increased our sales by 31% to RON 73.3 million, while keeping hyper stability.
Of course, with EBITDA margin and net profit margin at 29% and 17%, and managed to grow, of course, on a yearly basis as well. Despite the macro and geopolitical situation. Our EBITDA has grew to RON 21.1 million by 3% year-over-year, and net income grew by 7% to RON 12.8 million. We have to mention quickly about our key operational highlights is to be mentioned that we have registered double-digit growth for all brands on volume rise, which was mixed with effect on price increases, which we have pushed forward in 2022. As a rule of thumb, volumes has contributed to this growth by 55%, and we have received additional 45% in value term.
We had a strong performance on most of our key markets. We'll provide you with some details on later slides. Our business model proved to be resilient once again, amid the headwinds the entire economy is facing right now. Nevertheless, we see some good signs like cost pressure is easing. We already received revised prices for packaging, but we have to understand, all of us, but it takes time till we see the positive impact on margins. Of course, most of supply chain bottlenecks have cleared, so we have right now sufficient trucks and containers to ship our wine to consumers. The situation is completely different from one year from the last year.
Of course, you had a teaser from me on our hope that all the assets of Purcari Group will be in European Union. Moldova is doing active steps towards this direction. On 21st of May, we will have a national assembly here in Chișinău, called European Moldova, where all the citizens of Moldova are welcome on the central market to express their willing to go to the West, to go to join European Union. On 1st of June, Moldova is a host to the second meeting of European Political Community, which will bring to Chișinău over 40 heads of state. Indeed, very important things are happening on the political agenda for Moldova. Of course, the E.U. accession negotiations with Moldova are going to start by the end of 2023.
As well, we are looking forward to see you at our Annual General Meeting on 26th of May, where one of the items on the agenda will be the approval of dividend amounting RON 0.55 per share. Of course, we will have additional topics on discussion, on table of discussion. First quarter was very good, not only from operational perspective, but was very good from stock market perspectives too. Wine stock was number four best performing among companies in BET Index with 18% increase year to date. Next up, we have Mr. Victor Arapan , the CFO of the group, who will provide additional insights on financial evolution during the first quarter of 2023. Victor, please, the floor is yours.
Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Eugeniu. Good day to everybody. As my colleagues mentioned, the group had a good performance in Q1 with sales above guidance. At the same time, the cost of sales is affected by the stock of expensive bulk wine from the years 2021, 2022, which now participate actively in the bottling process. As well, by more expensive packaging, actually reserved at the end of the previous year to avoid any disruptions that could happen in the window of 2023.
Thus, the investments made in 2022 and put into operation in the previous quarter, plus the acquisition of Angel's Estate in Bulgaria generated an increase in expense and depreciation of about RON 2 million, in addition to year-on-year, which led to an increase in the manufacturing costs. In the same time, the increase of the share of services provided by Ecosmart, which increased to about 9% of total sales, had its impact on gross margin, as this have a net lower margin compared to our main business. All these factors led to a decrease in the gross margin from 52% to 45% in Q1, which was to be expected.
As you know, expenses registered an increase as a share of sales to 23% compared to 20% last year. In particular, we have a significant increase in marketing and sales, due to the much more intense promotion activity this year compared to last year when the Russian invasion in Ukraine took place and when marketing expenses were slowed down against the backdrop in increased uncertainty. We believe that, in the period of six months, there will be a stabilization of the growth compared to last year. Other income expense remains straight. However, on separate items we have significant changes such as increase of interest expense by 50% from RON 1 million to 1.4 million in Q1.
At the same time, as a result of MDL appreciation against EUR, the group recorded a Forex gain of RON 2 million. While in Q1 of 2022 it recorded a Forex loss of RON 1.4 million. EBITDA net profit registered increase of 3% and 7% respectively compared to the previous year. The margins of both indicators are above the guidelines offered. On the next slide, I excuse it. It jumped to one, Eugeniu. On slide 17 exactly. On slide 17, we have segregated the results of the quarter by business segment.
The segment of waste recycling management services, which is offered by Ecosmart in Romania is still insignificant in Q1 without impact of what we presented in the previous slide related to the entire group. We are sure that this year it will be brought back to a level of planned profitability as we discussed in past presentations. On next slide, I want to mention the group continues to have a very strong financial position over the years with a low level of indebtedness and an optimal liquidity. It should be noted that the group's goal is to maintain a Net Debt to EBITDA indicator of 1.5 times. There is still a reserve for sustaining strong growth in the future.
Now I give the floor to my colleague, Eugeniu. He will review the evolution of sales by brands and by end regions.
Thank you for the detailed information on financial figures. Now let's see how we have achieved these figures by jumping to commercial slides. On Romania, you may see we have double-digit growth for all brands here. Nocturne is performing exceptionally well. We're adding up additional locations for long-term HORECA branding contracts. As well we have doubled the number of SKUs in Lidl, so this is a good sign after, let's say, our continuous and long-term discussions last year with this key account. On Domeniile Cuza, we have accelerated by nine times year-on-year basis. We have to understand that this product currently is at the introduction phase, but it's performing very well.
We are listed in our most important channels, and we see very positive outcome from the beginning of this listing. On Moldova, Purcari and Bardar are leading the growth. This quarter was governed by strong negotiations with key accounts to push through price increases. We had came to agreement with most of our partners. Currently, Moldova stands for 70% of our total sales and grew this quarter by 19%. If to speak about Poland, we have registered a very strong quarter, so we have increased by 25%. Of course, we have to consider that we are comparing to a weaker first quarter in 2022.
We have to mention that the pressure in the mainstream wines market continues, but we remain firm, so we're focusing on prioritizing margins over volumes with most of them. Of course, we are pushing with Purcari for this premium segment, so we're expanding in HORECA. If to speak about Asia, it was a weak year start for overall Chinese wine market. Actually, this decrease comes from a weaker Bostavan sales. Nevertheless, Purcari brand performed very well, and we have registered a 35% year-on-year growth, albeit from a smaller base. I think the most important things to mention is that the outlook in China is improving on post-COVID reopening.
Our country manager returned to China, so after three years of travel ban for foreigners in this country, actually he has received a visa, and now he's back on the ground. This is very important for us because we'll be able to understand how the things are evolving just being present there. If to speak about Czechoslovakia , you may see it was biggest decrease in our per countries. It's -35%. Of course, it was part of lower consumer confidence in that countries. Is to be mentioned that if to consider April sales as well, we can mention that there were certain time shift in sales. If to analyze four months in the row, we are in black.
We are not negative. We grew. Please consider that April figures are still preliminary ones. Ukraine, we have registered a very strong quarter. We are beating the pre-war 1st quarter of 2021 by 24%. We continue to do what we are doing best there. We are keeping our local team. We are increasing our presence in key account channels. We export only with 100% prepayment in order to secure, let's say our investments and our sales in that region. One addition is, like, we are pushing with Bardar, we're increasing sales geography there. We started collaboration only for Bardar with Coca-Cola HBC in Ukraine. Now let's see how the things evolved per each brand.
What we can mention about Purcari is the following, but there is not a single market where Purcari brand didn't grow this quarter. Exceptional results in all countries for all sub-brands of Purcari. We are capitalizing on our brand value, and we are enforcing our presence in the existing markets and of course, we're exploring new ones. Bostavan as well, very good performance this quarter. Poland has done great, and you may see that the total figures is like Bostavan has grew by 22%. Of course, we had strong sales in Turkey as well. We have managed to fulfill the entire 2023 quarter just in the first quarter. We had registered good performance in Ukraine. Of course, it's a mix between volumes increase and price increases in this country.
Crama Ceptura, you may say it was some similarities with Bostavan. It had a very strong quarter, but in this case, not in Poland, but in Romania, which is the main market for this brand. We grew by 28% on first quarter. We continue like to develop our portfolio of Crama Ceptura and focusing on premiumization. We are gradually passing price increases in order to keep apace with current inflationary context. Bardar you may see 10 in 10. It means like 10% of our sales are from Bardar and they grew by 10% this year. We had a very strong quarter in Moldova, Romania, and Baltics. Unfortunately, no sales to China in the first quarter.
Hope this will recover in the second, third, and fourth quarter during this year. One thing is to mention is, like, we have managed to increase double digit. Nevertheless, we had an increase in excise duties in Moldova, which are enforced from January 1st for branded products. Nevertheless, these price increases which are coming from the excise duties, we have managed to grow firmly. Of course, Angels Estate, our latest addition, it represent 2% of our sales. It undergoes a transformational process like covering commercial part, agricultural part, and operational part. We are solving the past efficiencies on the go. Of course, it will take some time to make it work right.
Prior to jump to the Q&A session, I would like to pass the floor to Vasile Tofan to continue our presentation with our guidance for 2023.
Yeah. Just a sound check. Please confirm you're genuine, you hear me well.
Yes, got you.
Excellent. Just to comment briefly on the guidance. As you know, we have the practice of issuing the guidance for the year at the beginning of the year. I think the numbers speak for themselves. It's a very strong hit on the guidance in terms of results of the first quarter. We decided to keep the guidance for the year unchanged, though, in line with our long-term principle of managing our promises and focusing more on the delivery side. Again, I don't want to comment more on this one. We're very pleased with the first quarter. We're seeing a good evolution in the second quarter too.
At the same time, we decided to stay prudent in line with our pre-previous experience and keep the guidance for the year unchanged.
Gentlemen, I think we can, and ladies, we can move to the Q&A part. Please free to ask all the questions you have, and we are here, like executive team, board of directors to answer your questions today.
Hi, this is Iuliana Ciopraga from WOOD & Company . On the sales, indeed, growth was extremely high in the first quarter, and you're still keeping guidance for the full year. Can you provide an inkling of what could go wrong? I mean, why are you cautious on the sales side? Indeed, first quarter of last year was very low. I mean, it was a low base, basically. What's the expectancy for the following quarters?
Yeah. Iuliana, first of all, thank you for your regular write-ups. We read them always carefully at WOOD. Thank you for keeping the investors up to date. We also read you yesterday's uplight, your yesterday's write up. At that time, I'll allow myself to maybe very, very slightly contradict you. I wouldn't say that the base of last year was a low one. If you look at the last year results, we actually grew 13% year-on-year, which was actually a decent growth against like 2021. It was not one of those very weak quarters. I think this even this brings home the point even more how strong the first quarter was.
At the same time, that being said, I will make two comments. The second one, a repetition of what I said before. First is that the first quarter is still seasonally not the strongest one. You know, we have a very high dependent on the fourth quarter, which is seasonally the strong. The fourth quarter typically brings in about 35% of sales for the year, give or take. The first quarter is on contrary, one of the lower seasonally, so at the distance from the first fourth quarter. That's why we think it's prudent to wait for the year to progress more and then potentially revise the guidance.
The second, the main comment is, again, with the risk of repeating myself, we have, I think, a good tradition of keeping the prudent on the guidance but then over-delivering on it. Again, I don't say that we'll over-deliver this year. I'm just referring to the past track record we have.
I mean, I didn't mean to say necessarily the first quarter of last year was weak. It was weaker if we look at the growth in the following quarters, right? I mean, year-on-year growth in the following quarters was considerably higher compared with what we've seen in the first quarter. Just to conclude, you think that what we've seen in the first quarter would be sustainable going forward in terms of growth rate?
I would maybe hate to be misleading here, so I have to choose my words carefully. I think. At the same time, I think growing every quarter by 31% is a little bit too ambitious an assumption. That's why I think looking at our guidance makes more sense. At the same time, please note that year after year after year, we're exceeding our guidance.
If I may, something regarding margins. Margins have improved from the levels of the 2nd to 4th quarter of last year. Is that sustainable? Gross margins, I mean.
I'll defer to Victor Arapan, our CFO here, to elaborate in greater detail on margin. Victor, over to you.
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Iuliana. We anticipated our margin should are sustainable. Now we will have more wine, bulk wine from last year harvest from 2022, that will participate in the production process, which is cheaper than previous stocks. We see that packaging, the price for packaging for bottles, for label and boxes is going down. We think that our margin is very sustainable. Very sustainable.
You rather see reasons for margins to increase, not decrease basically right now from what you're seeing?
Yeah. It depends a lot if compared to Q1, we have to mention that in Q1 this year we have a mix with a strong quota of Purcari, which is a high margin brand. If it will maintain the same quota for the rest of period, of course our margin will increase. As we are planning to develop all our brands, so to develop a more a mix with Bostavan, with Angels and Crama Ceptura, we expect to maintain at least this level of gross margin.
I'll ask my questions later. If there are any other questions coming from the other participants.
Good afternoon. I will also have some questions. First of all, congratulations for the Q1 performance. Moving to my questions, can you please comment the evolution of financial revenue and financial expenditure? I noticed that very significant higher the financial revenue year-on-year.
Victor, I think, it's a question to you, if you can take it. I understand it's about foreign exchange gain probably, if I got the question right, but maybe you can elaborate in greater detail.
Yes. As I mentioned during my presentation that interest expense increased 50% year-on-year. This is mainly because compared to Q1 last year, our loan portfolio increased and as well interest rates increased significantly on all markets, both in Romania and in Moldova, where we have more loans from banks. At the same time, as I mentioned, we have gain from foreign exchange. This is as I mentioned, due to the fact that Moldovan leu appreciated against euro. We have our balance sheet in euro has a short position. We have more loans in euro than account receivables in euro.
This fact led to gain from the appreciation of Moldovan leu against the EUR. You can see details about this on our in our report. On note 20 we have, you'll see detailed breakdown of our finance income and finance costs.
Okay, thank you. That was all from my side.
Thank you, Daniela.
What I was going to ask next was about Angel's Estate and, first, how is it going? Secondly, are you going to launch Purcari there or Crama Ceptura? What are the plans in Bulgaria?
Maybe I'll start on this one. I invite my colleagues to add to this. Eugeniu and Iuliana too, whose project Iulian comment on. Quick update on this one. First I would reiterate, we believe it's a very attractive purchase, which showed also in the gain with bargain and purchase we had to recognize in the previous quarter. We believe it has a very strong potential within our group. Indeed, as you first thing we did in this project, we appointed a very strong GM, one of our rising stars. Grigore Meriacre , who was Marcel Grajdieru , Head of Romania's deputy right-hand in Romania, moved to Bulgaria.
That's also a step up for him, an opportunity to grow professionally. He's very hungry, very excited. He's playing a GM role now. That is, I think a very strong move we did. We've also dispatched quite a significant team of winemakers from our group to Bulgaria to introduce the best practices that we see having a very strong impact on the yields there. One of the issues with Bulgaria was that they were having low yields because of some we believe problematic practices of managing the vineyards. We're already looking at a very significant boost in yields this year by running the vineyards in line with our group's best practices.
Of course, this will lower costs and this will increase the commercial business quite significantly. In terms of your question with what do we plan on the sales side? Indeed, we plan to use the platform of Angel's Estate in Bulgaria to introduce our our brands Purcari. Bulgarian, for example, just give an example. Bulgarian resorts are very popular for Romanian tourists and Romanian and Moldovan for that matter. Already we have a very significant tourist volume that are familiar with our brand. You immediately have a base of consumers there. We also introduce, of course, our wine to the broader Bulgarian public.
At the same time, we want to use our sales platform across CEE to introduce Angels Estate. I'll give you just a few example. For Poland, the very big market for Bulgarian wine, traditionally, some of the leading wine brands in the country are Bulgarian. Of course, Poland is a natural launch market for Angels Estate. Of course, we also want to use our pan-European e-commerce partnerships we have. For example, our participation in 8Wines to introduce the Angels Estate portfolio. We'll gradually be introducing Angels Estate across our sales platform.
Please do not take Vasile's word for granted. Most of you are from Bucharest, you are 68 km from Huși. You may go there and see what some of Purcari wines, I think two SKUs are already listed in Metro.
My words for granted.
You basically already started the work there with HORECA and as well as with retailers basically on or to distribute Purcari in Moldova. That might help in the following quarters as well.
Indeed, because some of the largest retailers in Romania are the same,
Yeah.
in Bulgaria. We have an excellent relationship with Carrefour in Romania. Not the easiest, I have to say, customer, of course, when it comes to negotiation, but I think we've built a win-win relationship with them. Carrefour is also one of the largest retailers in Bulgaria. Of course, we're leveraging that.
Regarding Turkey, I see you're reporting Turkey separately. Do I understand correctly that you started selling in Turkey only in the fourth quarter?
We started selling in Turkey early, earlier. It can be seasonally stronger, strong quarter, that's why maybe we brought it forward. In general, we are quite excited about the potential in the Turkish market. Maybe just two words about this market. It's a protected market because there's a local wine industry, the tariffs on imported wines are relatively meaningful, play an important part of economics. The tariffs on Moldovan wines are more lenient and the quotas than maybe on wines from other countries. I know there's a very strong priority on behalf of the Moldovan government to further broaden those quotas for non-tariff imports, which puts us in a good position in that market. We cannot comment on when those quotas are going to be broadened, but from what we know, one of the priorities of the trade agreements between Moldova and Turkey.
If we were to look at your year-on-year growth on sales, what would it be in Turkey? You weren't selling much in the first quarter of last year. Do I understand correctly?
Eugeniu, maybe you can help here on the actual volume so that Elena can get a sense of the actual volume.
Yeah, yeah. We didn't have any sales to Turkey last first quarter. Actually, sales Turkey started to grow gradually from the second quarter to the fourth one, when the quarter was fulfilled. This year we have achieved the entire quota for 2023 in the first quarter. It means that the next sales in such a preferential, let's say, conditions, could be in the last quarter of this year. Nevertheless, our commercial team are undertaking actions in order to sell our products in standard conditions. As Vasile mentioned, this market has some specifics. They had elections. They will have the second round of elections. This is why it will be the safe side not to elaborate too much on this market.
We are happy that we have achieved very, very strong results in the first quarter. Here, to quote Mr. Bostan, "What you didn't sell this year, well, now you will not sell in future time." We have managed to sell and have a very strong first quarter. How things will evolve in next quarters, we have to be patient and to wait to see how things will evolve.
Regarding quota, what you mean to say is that you had some preferential treatment basically, on tariffs, on exercises, I guess, until a certain volume is reached, right? That's what you mean by quota?
Yes.
Okay. Now I understand. 'Cause you mentioned quota.
Yes.
I didn't know exactly what you meant by that.
Yeah, it's a quota for entire wine, Moldovan wine industries, not only for Purcari.
Okay.
It's something. This quota has been achieved.
Okay. Regarding marketing sales and G&A percentage of sales, it was a bit higher than 22% in the first quarter, if I remember correctly, or, just a second. I don't have it open right now. You keep 22% guidance, right? The longstanding 22% guidance.
Yeah. We will stay around 20%-22%. This quarter is a little bit higher this quarter, as we explained, it's just more active promotional activity that takes into one.
Okay. Thanks a lot.
Colleagues from commercial department now will not have any excuses not to increase sales because we have this internal, let's say, target to marketing and selling to be at 22%. Now we are at 23%. We have to sell faster.
Thank you.
Hello. Can you hear me?
Yeah, Dan. Hi. Yeah, it's perfect.
Hi. Hi, everybody. I have to congratulate Mr. Arapan for being more vocal than in the past. That's something new. I wanna just have a remark regarding the presentation. I'm already four years in a shareholder of Purcari, and I can't see much a lot of updating things in how you compare Purcari with the rest of your competitors. When I was in Bucharest last time, I saw. Maybe it's not the right, the. It doesn't offer the full picture. But I saw that at...
What I saw on shelves is that, this, what I see here is not your main competitors there. I see companies like Gitana or some others from Moldova that followed in your step and now are. I guess they are trying to eat our lunch. I would like to see how you perceive this competition, which I feel is very strong. I never. I used to see a Purcari on the front everywhere. Now I sometimes it's the shelf is taken by some other really good-looking products. How worried are you about this, and how do you intend to present to us, this competition? This would be my first question. Sorry for being too long.
Dan, thank you. Thank you for your question and actually for being so, what's the right word? Trying to be informed as a consumer and shareholder. Thank you for your backing over the last four years. Let me address this question because it's clearly a question that we pay a lot of attention to. First of all, first of all, we have a practice of publishing the Nielsen market research data twice a year. We're doing the research twice a year, and we publish the market share data. As you have seen in our market share data, which we constantly gain market share.
For the moment, we are, you know, just under 30% market share in the premium segment in Romania and about 11, 12 market share in overall market, including the other segments, not only premium. Question about Another data point, if you can look at DiVino. The DiVino, of course, which we regularly compare and the number of Purcari positions versus competitors' positions in the top 30 wines in Romania. Again, in that sense, we are trying to give to be as transparent as possible with market data in terms of relative benchmarking versus competition. Again, You're making a good point. If there's a perception that maybe you would like to have even more information about our relative position competition, we're happy to do that.
To your second question, or related to this, the performance of brands like Gitana or Domeniile Davidescu, from Moldova, we certainly noted them. We are actually pleased that other wineries from Moldova are following in our footsteps and have built actually, have done a good job, I think, in the retail market in Romania. Still, they are incomparably small to Purcari. We have the numbers, we have the numbers, and just trust our words, they are just incomparably small. For me, it's difficult to give you an exact number, but what they sell in a year, we sell in a week, just to give you a sense.
In terms of the dynamic, please rest assured we are not complacent, and I mean this in the sense that we understand we are a brand-driven company, and a brand has to stay relevant and stay fresh with consumers. If you want, we are always very paranoia whether we still are a fresh and modern brand. To that end, we have contracted very recently a marketing research agency called Review, and we've done very extensive marketing research in terms of both assessing quantitatively the perception of our brand with our core consumer groups and in-depth focus groups. It's so important for us that members of the board, members of the top management have listened into the focus groups in addition to, say, just seeing them.
I personally listened in a number of focus groups to give a sense how important this is for us. The good news of that research, and again, the company is called Review, one of the, say, very solid marketing research agencies in the market, is that Purcari is continuously perceived as a very up and coming brand. Despite being the leader of the premium market, it's perceived as an up and coming brand. Not a dusty brand, not kind of a tired brand, but as a fresh brand. For me, it was extremely reassuring. When I say this, we, because we are quite paranoid, we tested explicit things.
For example, the kind of questions we tested with consumers is, I feel Purcari is too much present in the market, which makes me doubt its premium quality. I think and you understand. We tested against the exact hypothesis like this. Are we too widespread? Is there too much Purcari that may affect our premium positioning? To be honest, we, I think so far we've been navigating it very well. We have lots of good examples of premium brands globally. For example, Moët & Chandon, which frankly you can buy everywhere. You can buy Moët & Chandon in IKEA now, but still they manage to preserve this premium appeal.
So far, for Purcari, too, I think we've managed to preserve a very premium appeal, and the research confirms it. Last thing I'll say, both Gitana and Domeniile Davidescu are priced in a slightly different category, which also explain their much lower volumes. The very last thing I will say, probably where you've seen more Gitana is in Mega Image. I think the Mega Image being this retail chain in Romania, probably, what you're seeing outside of Mega Image is a much weaker footprint.
Yep. Great. Thank you very much.
We are 51 minutes into this call. Any other questions from the audience? If no more questions. On my side, I want to maybe extend a warm invitation to our AGM, which will take place actually as early as next week on Friday, May 26th in Bucharest. Please do join us for the AGM. You know, we always try to make these AGMs engaging. We want to see as many as possible institutional investors, but also retail investors. Please come say hi. Please come to ask your questions. We'll have wine at lunchtime, which is one of the benefits of attending AGMs of wine company.
We're very much looking forward to see as many as you all possible on May 26th in Bucharest.
Thank you so much.