Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Conference Call for Pandora's Q1 2026 Results. I'm Bilal Aziz from the investor relations team, and I am joined here by our CEO, Berta de Pablos-Barbier, CFO Anders Boyer, and the rest of the IR team. As usual, there will be a Q&A session at the end of the call. If you could kindly limit yourself to two questions at a time, that would be great. I also would like to draw your attention that at 12:00 P.M. CET today, there will be a national Danish emergency alarm system test. You might hear some background noise, but hopefully that doesn't interfere. Please pay notice to the disclaimer on slide two and turn to slide three. I will now turn over to Berta.
Thank you, Bilal, and welcome everyone. I am going to first start with a brief summary of our Q1 performance, before turning to an update on the strategic initiatives we outlined back in February on how we were going to re-energize growth. Let us start. In Q1, the quarter played out broadly as expected. We delivered 0% like-for-like growth and 2% organic growth. We delivered this in a challenging consumer environment, yet we are clear that there is more we can do to drive a stronger like-for-like growth, and I will come back to that. On profitability, EBIT margin remains solid. This continues to reflect our high gross margins, where efficiency gains continue to offset most external headwinds, combined, of course, with tight control of our OpEx. Finally, returns remain high at close to 40% despite the external environment.
Please, let's move to the next slide. Turning to guidance, we are maintaining both our top line and EBIT margin guidance. For the top line, we continue to target organic growth of -1%-2%, with like-for-like growth of -3%-0% and network expansion of around 2%. We have started the year towards the upper end of this range, which is a solid start. That said, it is still early in the year, and the external environment remains uncertain. Since we last reported, the geopolitical backdrop has become more volatile, and the implications for consumer demand are not yet clear. Given this, we believe it is appropriate to maintain our guidance at this stage. At the same time, we do see the need to step up execution across a few areas. The benefits of this will progressively build over time.
On EBIT margin, we continue to target 21%-22%. This implies a broadly stable margin versus 2025 when adjusting for external headwinds, which reflects continued investment in the business while still maintaining a high level of profitability. In terms of current trading, we are tracking around flat so far, flat like-for-like growth in this quarter. Let's move, please, to the next slide. Let me just do a very brief recap of what we covered back in February, and you probably recognize this slide. I am not going to go into detail today, but it's important just to set the basis. Our vision is to be the most desirable, accessible jewelry brand. We do see significant headroom to deliver sustainable long-term growth in Pandora.
This translates into three clear strategic shifts across design, marketing, and go-to-market, alongside progress on the new materials. Overall, the priorities are very clear for us. Accelerate like-for-like growth while protecting profitability. Let me just show how we are starting to deliver again this, and we'll see that on the next slide, please. This chart is as well something that you will recognize from the full year results and is showing how we are evolving our growth engine. The three areas that I mentioned, design, brand, and markets, and we are already starting to put this in motion. We are not standing still. On design, the priority is to re-energize our collections. Product development takes, of course, time, but it is a clear focus, and we are accelerating where possible. I have a couple of examples later on. We have appointed a new Chief Product Officer, Philippa Newman.
She's reporting directly to me, and elevating design is a central driver and a clear priority for her. Later today, I will introduce a new program, Pandora Wonders, that is designed to step change creativity and the perception of our craftsmanship. On brand, we have already start shifting towards activation-led engagement with earned media as a core KPI. Investment is already to start being reallocated towards channels and activations that are focused on driving cultural impact and earned reach. Last but not least, on markets, we are moving towards a model that is more calibrated by market maturity, supported by stronger local capabilities. Just to name one example, in Italy, a key market for us, we have already started to refresh some visual merchandising, update layouts on our store to better showcase our collection and some new introduction plan.
We are confident this is how we will drive growth going forward. Let's go please to the next slide. This is again, you will recognize this, is the key starting with design. Remember that I mentioned last time that when you look at the left-hand side, which is where we operate today, a large share of our business sits within a relative narrow aesthetic space in the market. Is what we are calling playful, where our main, our core sits, especially our Moments collection. This is where the portfolio is most mature and where our design effort has been focusing on. Growth is coming from elsewhere. Underrepresented aesthetics, while smaller for Pandora today, are big in the market and thus deliver a disproportionate share of incremental growth when we invest behind them. The direction is very clear.
First, we need to refresh the core with more distinctive design in our largest business. Second, we build depth in underrepresented aesthetics where the growth opportunity is higher. We have already started. We are already seeing early signs. Talisman that was launched last year continues to drive growth, and the Bridgerton limited edition is another example of something that we introduced in quarter one. The opportunity is to scale this more systematically across the portfolio as part of our evolved growth model. We are accelerating this work with impact building progressively from 2026, and more meaningful from 2027. Can we please go to the next slide? Building on that, we are starting, as I was saying, to bring this to life. As we have outlined, we are increasing distinctiveness across our collection.
This is a new program that will be introduced in a couple of weeks. We call it Pandora Wonders, and it's a key part of that. Pandora Wonders is a multi-year platform to elevate desirability and drive demand through a step change in creative expression. Each year, we will partner with a leading creative voice to reinterpret the materials we work with and how we craft them through limited edition capsules. This is intending to drive excitement, traffic, and reinforce our growth model of distinctive newness and earned media. We will start with act one, which will be a playful reinterpretation of the organic pearl. It will be brought to life through a signature artisanal technique that is the pearl micro-piercing. Now, we are building this platform over time, so you will see more coming every year.
You will hear more as we do, and as you may notice, we are not focusing on silver, but bringing a new material to Pandora that we are showcasing. A second piece of the news today is that we are adding carbon footprint labeling to our lab-grown diamonds. This means that consumers will be able to see the climate impact of every Pandora diamond and compare that with a mined diamond. The CO2 emissions of our diamonds are 90% lower than a mined diamond. Pandora is about being accessible, and being accessible is also about being transparent. We do think that this will reshape how the environmentally conscious consumers will be choosing within the category. As the leader, we have to be present providing the facts.
We are actually presenting this today as we speak at the Copenhagen Fashion Summit, along with one of our ambassadors, Pamela Anderson. If you want more information, everything is now on our website if you are interested. Let's move to the next slide, please. I mentioned earlier that my second priority is clearly to protect our profitability. You know that a key lever here is our response to rising silver prices. In February, we introduced platinum-plated jewelry on our proprietary Evershine alloy. As you know, the alloy has been optimized for platinum plating, delivering a strong durability, including tarnish and water resistant, as well as being hypoallergenic. For consumers, as I mentioned before, this brings platinum, which is a precious metal, into a more accessible format, which improve everyday use.
This launch was prepared over the last year, 2025, with extensive consumer testing and validation that confirmed the strong acceptance of platinum plating within the white metals. Later this year, we have selected designs that will be introduced, and I remind everyone that the broader rollout will happen from 2027. We will be the first jewelry brand to bring platinum-plated jewelry to scale. It's important to know that plating is not new to Pandora. Today, over a third of our sales already come from outside silver. Plating today is pretty much a quarter today of our sales. We've been operating plating at a scale and high quality already for several years. This is a capability that we already run across the business.
This is all I was planning to detail in terms of the strategic update, I think it's good time now to turn to the quarter one performance. Quarter one , we deliver flat like-for-like. You can see the growth split between the core and the Fuel with More here. In the core, we deliver - 1% like-for-like growth. This was supported by good growth in our distinctive designs, Talisman and the limited edition Bridgerton. Of course, this decline also underpins the need to refresh the rest of the portfolio, which is what we are working on and we have already identified. Fuel with More, we deliver 1% growth, which was supported by the new collections of Pandora Essence and newness in Timeless. Let's move to the next slide.
As I mentioned earlier, as part of our strategy in addition to design, is how we bring the brands to market. We are becoming more deliberate in how we use cultural activations. Bridgerton was only one example. You see that in quarter one, we partner with Katseye to support performance in Minis, the Minis collection. We activated new brand ambassadors across selected markets as going forward, earned media value will be a key metric for us. These are just early examples about how we are applying this approach. The focus now is to scale this more systematically across the group, combined with a strong product execution. Now let's go to the next slide. Here you can see how we've been executing Bridgerton. It's a good example of what we mean by culturally relevant collaboration.
It's not just a partnership, but it's about being fully integrated into this cultural moment. It's about using talent from the show in our campaigns. It's about integrating our products into the show, and it's working in close collaboration with Netflix for the release day of the show. This is why this has resonated globally and actually perform ahead of plan. The global Bridgerton activation run across more than eight markets, drove 6% increase in earned media value through PR and influencers, and by the way, 11% on the key titles that really have a strong visibility. Importantly, we saw how all this activation translated into demand across the broader assortment, both in store and online. Very important as well, we over-index with Gen Z, and we also saw higher cross-shopping, so a clear halo effect that actually Timeless benefit from.
This approach, of course, will not be a one-off. We are now scaling the model across markets and collection, leveraging our design capabilities and making sure that we benefit from our vertically integrated business model to execute consistently at a scale. You will see every quarter more plans on this. Let's go now to the next slide, please. Of course, being in retail, we can also need to touch on the in-store experience. We are also working extensively to elevate this. We are including piloting new formats, with an updated visual merchandising. We are working on bringing more curated and clarity of our collections, a clear aesthetic segmentation that is designed to drive sales beyond charms and making sure that the new customers that come into our store can see what Pandora is all about.
Now, we are testing in Italy between other markets, and the plan is to scale that more broadly over time. In parallel, we are rolling out our digital screens across store facades to better showcase our collection and to strengthen our storytelling with the objectives of drive traffic into our stores. We also have plans to open flagship stores in Barcelona and in Milan later this year. This will showcase the full breadth of the Pandora brand. It will elevate storytelling, and it will set a new benchmark for the customer experience. Let's move to the next slide, please. I would like to finish before I pass it to Anders on our regional performance in quarter one, which was, as you can see, somehow mixed.
If we start with the EMEA region, our largest region, we deliver a 2% like-for-like growth, broadly stable sequentially. In Spain, Poland and Portugal continue to perform well. This was more than offset by weaker performance in Italy and the U.K. You can see, of course, that the performance was -2% like-for-like. In Italy, we are now implementing a new go-to-market approach. This includes shifting marketing investments away from traditional video towards influencer, PR, and more locally relevant activation. In North America, similar to EMEA, growth slowed down to -2%, and performance was impacted by lower store traffic, which really reflect a softer consumer environment. The brand remains healthy, and we will continue to drive traffic through targeted brand activations. I just touched on some of them before. Now, in Latin America, the like-for-like growth accelerated to 6%.
There, the price repositioning was introduced early this year and is now in place. We also drastically reduced promotion, and all this is driving positive results. We are, of course, supporting this with a strong local activation, influence, and engagement in line with our evolved growth model. Finally, in Asia, we deliver a strong growth of 12%. Our rollout in Japan continues to progress very well. Yes, we do remain in the early stages of building the brand awareness and reach there through increased marketing engagement, but nevertheless, it's an encouraging start. With that, I'm very happy to pass it over to Anders.
Thank you very much, Berta, good morning, everyone, please turn to slide 19. Berta has already commented on the top line KPI, I'll just follow or focus on a couple of other metrics. The key messages from us today is that we continue to manage the quite significant external headwinds in an effective way here in the first quarter, our core P&L balance sheet and cash metrics remained healthy. In Q1, our gross margin ended just below 80% at 79.5%, thereby it was down only 90 basis points versus last year, driven by the external headwinds of actually almost a 400 basis points from the tariffs, foreign exchange, and the higher commodity prices.
This gross margin performance was helped by good cost efficiencies in our vertically integrated value chain, promo detoxing, as well as some cost phasing as well. As you can see in the table, we've shown two KPIs for working capital, including and excluding commodity hedging. The 6.5% net working capital includes some significant unrealized commodity hedging gains, just like in the last quarter. To understand the performance, it's better to look at the KPI excluding commodity hedging, and here you can see that working capital is around 3.5% and roughly the same as last year. Speaking about working capital, we would like to add some words to the inventory development during 2026.
As you probably recall from back at the full year announcement in February, we did not initiate a share buyback program because of the increase in commodity prices. The commodity prices impact the business in two ways. It will impact earnings, mainly next year in 2027, until the transition to platinum-plated is completed. It will also impact inventories and thereby cash flows, and that happens already this year, as you probably know. At the current spot prices, inventories by the end of 2026 will increase by around DKK 2 billion year-over-year due to the commodity prices. On top hereof, we need to hold more inventory during the transition to platinum-plated jewelry, and we are making a few selected investments in inventory to improve stock availability.
All in all, inventories by the end of this year, end of 2026, will increase by up to DKK 3 billion versus last year. Now, it's important to note that this is mostly a temporary impact during the transition. As we complete the transition to platinum-plated jewelry, inventories will of course come down again. The exact sequence and exact timing is still in the making, we wanted to make sure that you have this overall storyline. Next slide, please. Here on slide 20, we break down revenue growth in the quarter.
Berta has already covered the key element on like-for-like, but on the network expansion, and that's the purple building block sitting at 3% in the quarter, that continues to track well, and the contribution in the quarter was largely due to the revenue from store openings last year ramping up quite well. Next slide, please. On the EBIT margin, our performance was solid, down only around 100 basis points year over year, despite over 400 basis points of external headwinds, as you can see in this bridge. As some of you have probably noticed, we did end a bit higher on the EBIT margin than our own expectations for the first quarter.
We did see a combined cost phasing benefit of around 200 basis points in total in the quarter, that's spread across a couple of P&L lines. It's partly related to lower retail costs, cost that sits in the cost of goods sold, and to lower marketing, which ended 140 basis points below last year as a percent of revenue. This will be neutral for the full year of 2026. We are keeping a tight control on our cost in this subdued revenue environment, our OpEx ratio was basically flat year-over-year on a constant currency basis. We've been executing on the Silverstone cost program, it's good to see those savings coming through to help the bottom line. Please go to slide 23.
As Berta already said, we've left our organic growth guidance unchanged. On a like-for-like basis, we started Q1 at 0% like-for-like. April has been roughly in line with that. Clearly we are trading at the higher end of the like-for-like guidance range of between 0% and -3%. A couple of comments to why we leave the guidance unchanged. First of all, it is obviously early on in the year. Secondly, the consumer environment remains weak. The broader macro risk has not become lower since we initially guided back in February. On the contrary, you're all aware of the geopolitical backdrop. That obviously increases uncertainty going forward for consumers. We don't know how this will play out. You should read our guidance range to account for some of this macro uncertainty.
Thirdly, we are indeed working on quite a few initiatives to drive a step change in like-for-like growth. We've seen some positive signs in Latin America and in Asia already, and we are working on measures in other important markets as well. But these initiatives will take time to feed through into a tangible improvement in like-for-like. As we said back in February 2026 is very much a transition year. Next slide, please. On the EBIT margin guidance, we've left things unchanged at 21%-22% margin. There's a few moving pieces within that guidance, but it all nets out to no overall change. Let me just quickly comment on the underlying moving pieces.
First of all, on the tariffs, the headwind is a bit lower due to the 150-day pause at a 10% tariff rate. After that 150-day pause, we assume that tariffs move back to the original 19% rate on Thailand. Secondly, we have lowered the upper end of the range for the headwind from commodities by 50 basis points to now sit between one and a half and 2% headwind. That's because the hedge ratio for this year is now between 95% and 100% versus previously between 90% and 100%. Finally, you will also note that we have accounted for some one-off cost amounting to between 50 and 100 basis points related to the transition to platinum-plated jewelry.
That includes, among others, additional resources that we need to drive this forward at high speed, some inventory write-downs, some tech investments, et cetera. There's one more thing that we wanted to make sure you are aware of in terms of the EBIT margin. We mentioned back in the full year announcement that the guided decline in the EBIT this year would be most visible in Q1, and then gradually improve sequentially. Due to this cost phasing that I mentioned earlier on, which helped the first quarter, this has changed things slightly, and we now expect the year-over-year decline in the EBIT margin to be most visible in the second and third quarter, and then be much less material when we get into Q4. Next slide, please.
We will transition a significant part of the business from silver to platinum-plated in the years to come, and we thought it would be good to help you visualize this transition a little bit better. The chart on the right on this slide is meant to help you visualize the transition to platinum-plated and the related reduction of our exposure to silver. Just a few comments on this. As a starting point and in line with what we said previously, we will transition 80% of the silver revenue to platinum-plated jewelry. That's 80% of the 65% number that was shown in the left column on the slide here. In 2027, we will transition roughly half of that 80%, and that's the red part of the middle column.
In 2028, we will transition the remaining part of that 80% from silver to platinum-plated. The end game after the transition to platinum-plated will be that our P&L and margin exposure to commodity prices will reduce significantly, and that's because the exposure to silver will decrease far more than the exposure to platinum will increase. This lower commodity exposure will be partly offset by higher labor cost, as it requires more crafting time to work with plating. Labor cost is a more stable and predictable cost element than commodities. Next slide, please. Let's see what this transition means for Pandora's profitability. Some of you will remember this bridge from back in February. We are on track. There's no change to the message, I won't spend too much time on this slide.
We want to emphasize once again that with this transition, Pandora will remain a structural high-margin company. You can see that on the slide to the far right, where we show that we expect to get to more than 21% EBIT margin in the midterm. In essence, this means that there will be no fundamental changes to our financial model. As you saw on the previous slide, the transition to platinum as such will probably be finalized during 2028. Before we get production scaled, optimized, and fine-tuned to the level where we will hit the above 21% EBIT margin, we need a little bit more time. For 2027 specifically, we continue to target an EBIT margin of at least 14% before one-off costs and at least 12% including those one-offs.
We know that some of you have already noticed that the bridge here is based on a silver price of $82, which is where the prices were when we initially issued it back in February. The spot rate this morning is a little bit lower, but it doesn't change the overall messaging. Remember that during this transition, our sensitivity to silver in 2027 will drop to around 14 basis points of EBIT margin for every $1 U.S. dollar move on silver prices, down from 30 basis points just a few years back. That sensitivity drops even further to around 6 basis points after the transition. On that note, I will hand back over to Berta.
Thanks, Anders. To conclude this call, let me just highlight a few key points. We have started the year in line with expectations. That is not to say that like-for-like growth is where we want it to be, but we are very clear on the actions required, and we are moving decisively. This includes a step change in how we approach design, marketing, and go-to-market execution in selected markets. We are seeing encouraging signs in some areas, and we are scaling these actions more broadly. Importantly, our brand remains strong, which give us really confidence in our ability to deliver on these actions and build sustainable growth. At the same time, we continue to demonstrate a strong cost discipline offsetting a significant part of the external headwinds. As a result, profitability remains solid.
We are also taking actions to protect profitability over the long term, including the rollout of our platinum-plated offering. Looking ahead, we continue to target mid-term EBIT margins about 21%, as Anders was explaining, while generating a strong free cash flow. With that, I just want to thank you for your attention, and we can open now to the Q&A.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press five star on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, you may do so by pressing five star again. The first question is from the line of Chris Huang from UBS. Please go ahead. Your line will now be unmuted.
Hello. Hi, it's Chris from UBS. Thank you for taking my questions. I'll ask two, too. The first one on regional trends. If you would be able to share some regional color within that flattish like-for-like in Q2 to date, in terms of which markets are outperforming, which markets are relatively soft? Connected to that, could you please elaborate on the markets that accelerated in Q1 within APAC and Latin America, or if we look at Rest of Pandora, which was impressively up 7% in Q1? I'm just trying to understand a little bit more on the exact markets that have been driving that acceleration sequentially. My second one on margins.
Anders, you clarified that the margins this year, you're expecting a more meaningful year-over-year decline at EBIT level in Q2 and Q3. I'm just wondering if you can help us a little bit more on quantification of how we put that 200 basis points cost-saving bucket of Q1, how do we put it into Q2 and Q3? Thank you very much.
Perfect. If I take the first one, Chris, then hand over to Berta and then Anders in that order. We won't get into too much detail on April, but for now, you can just assume the trends are broadly consistent with what we saw in Q1. Yeah, Latin America, Asia-Pacific still doing reasonably okay, and offset slightly by some weakness elsewhere. More of the same really, Chris. On that note, I'll hand over to Berta on Latin America and Asia-Pacific specifically in Q1 and what drove that.
In Q1, pretty much every market in Latin America was growing. Just to name a few, we had Argentina, Brazil, Colombia all growing in Q1. Mexico was about a flattish to 1%, so good performance across all the region. In Asia, the biggest contributor was Japan, where we got a big growth, a like-for-like of 220%. We also saw growth in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore as well. This is the main countries that we grew in Asia. With China, by the way, delivering a slight growth as well in quarter one.
Chris, to your question about the EBIT margin facing, it's, it will be Q2 and Q3 where you will see some of that 200 or all of that 200 basis point coming back and more so in the third quarter than in the second quarter. That's the broadly the storyline. At this, yeah, I'll leave it at that.
Thank you. Sorry if I can just follow up on that Latin American comment. I think the press release you mentioned a bit of price and positioning. Are you able to help me a little bit on how much of that like-for-like strength is coming from price and how much is coming from volumes, actually?
Yes, one of the things that we have done in the LatAm region is that Latin America, until Q1 this year, it was running in a different price corridor. The prices in Latin America were in average 50% higher than the rest of the world, and the strategy was a high low, so basically high prices and then lot of promotions. What we have done is actually bring back Latin America in line with the global price corridor, so a consumer can compare similarly in the U.S. or European prices. That's what they are getting in LatAm. And at the same time, we are reducing the promotions. What we see is really that this is impacting, it's been the main driver of the 6%.
Just for information, I don't know you remember, we talked about it I think in the Q4 call. We did this after having run an extensive test in Colombia. Seeing, in increase in Colombia in Q1 after more than six months running this strategy, it is definitely delivering the growth that we are announcing now on like-for-like.
Okay. Thank you very much.
The next question is from the line of Lars Topholm from DNB Carnegie. Please go ahead.
Yes, I will, yes, I will also stick to two questions for now. So, so better you highlight all the strategic initiatives you're taking, but also highlight that 2026 is a transition year, but that your strategic initiatives should lead to stronger like-for-like growth and be with full effect during 2027. And I'm not asking for 2027 guidance, but just as you have very specific targets for long-term profitability, can you elaborate a bit on what is the success criteria for this exercise should like-for-like return to, what you say, the old CMD targets of mid-single digit or what would you be satisfied with and when should we begin to see this?
Thank you, Lars.
A question number two goes to platinum plating, which I understand initially you planned to test in Holland, you decided not to do that anyway. I just wonder if you can put some comments on that, and maybe in connection with that, also comment on what Anders said, that there have been some writedowns. Was that on platinum plating? Thank you.
Thank you, Lars. Sorry for interrupting you before. You did have right to two questions. Thank you. Yes. On the long term, this is my ambition, is to bring back Pandora to the success of Pandora, which is the mid-single digit growth, and this is what we are all working towards. As you rightly say, in 2026 we are activating as much as we can. Design and product development, which is the key one, is taking us a little bit more time. That's it. On the platinum plated, the plans are still to test in Holland. We did have a delay for commercial reasons.
One of the things that is key when we introduce this to the consumers, and that came very clearly on all the validation that we did, is that water resistance as well, you know, the tarnish resistance, the fact that they can take it to the seawater, it was critical. We did have a delay on one of the certifications for the water resistance, therefore we are just moving to the next cycle. Everything is still on plan to roll out it this year, still in Holland and other markets, and the transition in 2027 is still on plan and on time. Anders?
Very clear.
Yeah. Fair, fair question on the, on that, Lars. The inventory write-down that sits in this one-off cost back bucket is not on the platinum plated products. It's on the expected remelt of silver products happening next year. The way that it works from an IFRS perspective is that even though the transition will only sort of start happening next year, so the physical remelt, so to speak, of silver jewelry will happen in 2027. Once the decision has been made, the cost will have to be taken already in 2026.
That, yeah, that in remelt or inventory write-down is related to the expected remelt of silver products next year as part of the overall transition.
How much does it hurt earnings?
Yeah,
this year?
Yeah. It's included in this 50 to 100 basis point overall. It is one of the reasons that we have a range, is that there's some uncertainty exactly how much is the inventory write-down going to be. There will be some. There's also some levers to minimize it and avoid doing too much. Of course, when you transition over a couple of years 50% of your revenue from a product being produced in one way to another, there will be some write-downs. Exactly how much we can reduce it's still to be seen. That's why we keep a range on that one-off cost.
Thank you so much. I have more questions, but I'll jump back into the queue. Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Daria Nasledysheva from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Hi, can you hear me? This is Daria from Bank of America, and I have two questions. First one, you saw a meaningful acceleration in Asia and like-for-like revenue momentum. While you mentioned changing the go-to-market strategy in Latin America, what has changed in APAC for you? Is it better underlying macro, or are you also changing something in particular to really accelerate growth there? What are you doing differently in Asia compared to history when this was really a more challenging part of the business? My second question would be on main European markets. When do you think we can expect an inflection there, considering also some strategic changes that you have been implementing across those geographies? Thank you so much.
Yeah. Thank you. I think I'll take both questions. Thank you. On Asia, we are basically focusing on it. Let me just elaborate on that. On the Southeast Asia, we operate mainly through distributors, we basically now open a new office in Singapore, and we have dedicated teams working with the distributors to drive growth. Not long ago, we just had a distributor summit to bring them back all the growth plans that they could get and all the tools for Pandora. Focusing on those distributors. On Japan is an owned and operated market, there we are implementing our marketing model of reach and relevance. We have increased marketing budgets to continue to increase the awareness of the brand, we are working as well on with local cultural relevance activation in Japan.
Very simply see implementing what we are saying that we were going to do and doing that in Japan, either in owner operated, but also focusing on the distributor markets. That's for Asia. Your second question on the European markets, well, it is basically the whole diagnosis that I presented in Q4, and I have briefly remind everyone. While it's true that we are starting to do certain things into 2026, we cannot really activate the biggest pillar, which is new product development in our core. The plans for that will start from 2027. Rest assured, I'm doing everything I can with the teams in Pandora to see if we can accelerate something for Q4.
We need basically the entire program, which is product and marketing, to be able to start delivering. 2026, we expect still to be a transition year in Europe. Markets of Europe, of course, we have still Spain and Poland and Turkey and all that growing at high levels, but especially on the mature markets like U.K. and Italy.
Thank you very much.
The next question is from André Thormann from Danske Bank. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you for taking my questions. I just have two. First of all, on lab-grown diamonds, I wonder if you can elaborate a bit on the second quarter of quite a bit of decline in that category. What are you seeing there most particularly in U.S., I guess? Second on the remelt, I wonder if you can talk a bit about why this won't be a tailwind the rest of year as well. Thank you.
Yes. Should I start on the diamond or Okay. On diamonds, I think you were talking about our performance or the market? Our performance, right? Yes. What we see-
Yeah
on the lab-grown diamonds is that, we are actually sharpening the strategy. We have a part of our lab-grown diamonds where the high carat, the one carat, the two carat are high prices. For the consumer, there are not many that come to Pandora to spend $1,000-$1,500 and above. That part of the business we are slowing down and is the big chunk of the decline. However, what we are investing now is on what we call the micro-fine diamonds. Where the sweetest spot of pricing is between $250 on rings and a small pendant. That part is growing, and this is the part of the business that we'll be focusing on from now on.
Really, if you look at that, at that price, between DKK 200 and DKK 500, actually the like-for-like is positive in both in value and units, whereas it's declining on the above DKK 1,000. This is of course now carrying the entire business down.
André, on the question about right, remelt write down for the rest of the year, it's actually a good question. Well spotted. When we made the guidance originally, three months back, then in the budget, in the way that we did the guidance, the remelt cost for the year was based on a silver spot price of $82. That was the spot price back then. Now it's $75 based on the assumption in the updated guidance as of today. That gives a little bit of more headwind compared to when we made the guidance three months back.
That's why that remelt upside basically nets out for the, for the remaining part of the year compared to the original assumption.
Thank you.
The logic works the other way around when we speak about remelt, then a lower silver price gives a little bit more headwind.
Clear. Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Mr. Charchafji from BNP Paribas.
Yes, thank you very much for taking my question. It's Anthony from BNP. I have just two, please. The first one is under gross margin phasing. Do you expect any disruption in Thailand and Vietnam facilities stemming from the conflict? Will it be fair to assume gross margin ex the 100 basis points one-off, so 78.5% to be rather similar in the next three quarters with the plus and minus between the components? My second question is on space. Given the performance that you are delivering versus guidance, but also it was the case last year, seems that your new openings over the past 12 months are performing quite well.
Just curious to know if going forward as a space, in terms of like-for-like, would you say that the like-for-like will be even more supported by those? If it's if there is anything to keep in mind on this. Thank you.
Thanks for those questions, Anthony. On the impact on the gross margin, if I understood the question correctly, then the way to think about it is that, of course, we do spend some energy. We have energy cost in the P&L. We do have some freight cost in the P&L. It's in the big scheme of things, it's not a lot of money. There will be some a little bit higher cost, but not something that have been big enough for us to talk about it as part of our guidance and in the gross margin. We don't have any critical suppliers in the Middle East.
From that perspective, we're also okay as well. In general, I think it's also maybe worth noting that in the electricity supply in Thailand as a country, is not that dependent on the Middle East. It's, if I understand it correctly, it's just around 10% of energy or electricity in Thailand that comes from the Middle East. Net-net, we're not that exposed apart from fuel through the consumer behavior, obviously, and the macro.
On the question about the good performance on the stores that we have opened, I think the way to think about it is that it's the when As you know, during the first 12 months of a new store being opened, it counts in organic growth only, not like-for-like. Now we're just getting a bigger base to start from to calculate like-for-like once the stores have been open for more than 12 months. As a like-for-like contributor source, that's not a factor.
The next question is from the line of Grace Smalley from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Your line will now be unmuted.
You on the slowing you've seen in recent quarters in the U.S. Do you attribute that slowing fully to macro and what we're hearing in terms of the K economy? Or have you also identified any sort of Pandora-specific factors that are also playing into that weakness into the U.S. and any actions that can be taken to help drive improved trends in the U.S. outside of relying on improved macro? Just to follow up on the implications from the Middle East, appreciate the situation is changing very quickly, and you've spoken through the supply chain considerations. Could you just also comment on whether you've seen any knock-on impact from the recent developments on consumer sentiment in any of your European markets in the last couple of months? Thank you.
Yeah. On the U.S., yes, we do see the impact of the macro and the K-shaped economy as you were referring to. What we see is that the consumer sentiment is disproportionately degrading with the middle and the lower income. As a reminder, Pandora over-indexed on middle income. Of course, this macro is not helping us. What we see is a decline in traffic fundamentally. Conversion and average basket and all that remains pretty much stable, but where we are really seeing the impact is on the traffic. Again, we are not just standing still. These are the things that we cannot control, and that's why we continue to invest in the U.S.
That are the plans as well for this year and continue to bring excitement and marketing and product, et cetera. The second question was on-
Consumer sentiment.
Yes. Again, how much of that is coming because of the Middle East and how much is impacting, I cannot say. What I can say is that it was already declining in Q4 in the U.S., and it continues to deteriorate. Of course, the situation on our consumers' daily life with high oil prices, all that is definitely having an impact. The amount of disposable income that they may have for discretionary categories may be impacted. How much, I cannot tell you. In Europe, what we are seeing is that it's been low. We haven't seen a major deterioration in Q1.
It is not, is not improving, is not going down, but it's still stably low, especially on the markets that we are having some trouble like U.K., et cetera.
Okay. Very helpful. Thank you.
The next question is from the line of William Woods from Bernstein. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. The first question is just on pricing. Could you just comment on how much pricing you've put through in Q1? Just interested in EMEA specifically. Obviously, on the two-year stack, there's a bit of a slowdown there in the like-for-like. How much pricing have you put through in EMEA, and do you think the elasticity there specifically is still around one, or do you think you've seen a deterioration in the elasticity? Thank you.
On the first question here, William, on pricing year-over-year in Q1 is to the tune of 4% as a global number, global average number.
That's not new.
I'm sorry?
Yeah.
No, it's not new. It's the year, Bilal just clarifying. It's the year-over-year number, so it's not the Q1 action. We actually didn't change pricing during the first quarter. Year-over-year, based on the actions that we've done prior 12 months, it's a 4% ASP uplift. Thereby, with a 0% like-for-like in the quarter, then units are down equivalently.
Understood. Thank you. Any comments specifically on EMEA and elasticity or anything to say?
Yeah. It is broadly in line with the expectations we have, Will, so it is around one, the elasticity, in EMEA as well. No change at all in that.
Understood. Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Thomas Chauvet from Citi. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone. My first question on tariffs, Anders, perhaps. Can you indicate the status of your tariffs refund with the U.S. administration? I think you talked about this earlier this year. What is the amount that you claimed, and is any of that part of your margin guidance, or it's completely ? Secondly, on your 2027 margin guidance, have you started hedging silver? If so, at what price? Just a follow-up for Berta on North America, please, and the LFL turning negative.
You come back to the new pricing strategy in the U.S. and how the consumer is responding and if you're not touching the entry price points, is it why perhaps there is a bigger gap now between Fuel with More gross margin, which I think was stable and core, where you have a lot of charms, I think, where prices are not touched? I think the GM gap between the two has widened in the first quarter. Thank you.
Thanks, Thomas. On the I'll start out with the margin questions. On the tariffs, the gross amount of tariffs that we've paid under the IEEPA scheme is just above $70 million. In our guidance, we have not assumed that any of that will come back. If that should happen, then that would be an upside to the guidance whenever that might happen one shiny day. The only sort of upside on tariffs that we have built in is the temporary lower tariff level during this 150 days pause that runs until I think it's early July, mid-July.
On the silver hedging, you're right in that now with the a little bit of additional hedging that we've done since we met last, there is some of the P&L for 2027 that is hedged. If you dig into the bottom of the company announcement, you can see that the first quarter of 27, the P&L is hedged at a blended rate of $46. If you took that specifically into the 27 margin guidance, then that would translate into 70, 80 basis points of EBIT margin upside for next year.
That's not built into the slide in the investor presentation, yet, but as we're not sort of specifically guiding for next year, but yeah, on an isolated basis, 70, 80 basis points of upside for next year locked in.
Yes. I think on the gross margin of Fuel with More is basically driven by the growth in Timeless. Timeless is today 80% of Fuel with More. Because Timeless has been growing, then the gross margin of Fuel with More is growing. It's as simple as that.
Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Kristian Godiksen from SEB. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Just a question on the platinum-plated product. Based on the website in the Netherlands, you had up for a short while, can you confirm the intention to raise prices for the silver products and that this is not included in the margin bridge? Furthermore, on the decision of the platinum-plated products to be priced at a one-to-one to the silver prices as they're priced today, and that is, and just wondering based on precious metal-plated products today are already priced higher than the solid silver prices you have. Furthermore, the platinum-plated products, they have better capabilities both in terms of water and tarnish resistance.
Yeah, which are important to consumers. Wondering why these products are not priced higher?
Sorry, I think I got all the questions. We had a little bit of a noise here. I'll if I miss something on my answer, please correct me after I have finalized. Yes.
Thank you.
We can confirm that the test that we are putting this year will be about raising silver higher than the platinum-plated products. The reason for that is very simple. Silver prices are increasing, and if we keep them at the same price, our gross margin will severely deteriorate, we are really trying to understand that. Having said that, the reason why we are keeping the platinum-plated as well, versus silver, it came out of all the extensive testing that we did last year. As a reminder, we went to 35,000 consumers, and what the consumer willingness to pay for a platinum-plated product was actually slightly lower than for solid silver. We are pretty much respecting the learnings.
Having said that, we will learn more from the test that we are going to be having into this year. That's why we are testing and not going as straight into a rollout. If the insights are different, we'll come back on that, of course.
Okay. That is, that's actually very clear. Thanks a lot. I'll jump back in the queue.
Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Piral Dadhania from RBC. Please go ahead. Your line will now be unmuted.
Okay. Thank you. Good morning, everybody. I just have one question on the P&L profile and margin composition. As you move towards a midterm EBIT margin of above 21%, now we were just wondering what level of gross margin that would assume and how we should think about the evolution of operating costs as the business transitions to its new raw materials mix. Thank you.
Thanks for that question, Piral. I think in broad terms, you should think about it as the gross margin coming back to the level where we will be in 2026. This year we have guided for an EBIT margin of 21%-22%, and basically saying that that's where we're getting back to in a couple of years. Structurally there will be no difference between so GM and OpEx ratio. Implicitly we are saying that the gross margin gets back to where we will land this year. Now, we're not specifically not guided for where the gross margin sits this year, but it will be in the very high 70s. That's the way to think about it.
In a way, if you look on the surface, on the P&L in a couple of years, it would look very much like today. It's just if you double-click on the cost of goods sold, then there will be a different commodity. Exposure is more diversified and lower than what it would otherwise have been, and then there's more labor costs sitting in the COGS. Otherwise, it's the same business.
Thank you, Anders. Just as a quick follow-up, if we may, like, could you just help us understand why you have higher labor costs? Sorry if we may have missed that. Is it just a more complicated process? Is there more labor cost per unit in terms of the manufacturing side of things?
Yeah.
Yeah, any help there would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
A super fair question. The way to think about it, if you produce a charm in silver today, it is one process in a very simplified finance language. If you then produce it in platinum-plated going forward, you first produce the core, which is basically the same as doing the silver solid charm. On with platinum, there is a step two where you need to sort of add the plating process, which is somewhat labor intensive. It is the second step that adds the labor cost going forward, just like on our gold-plated products today.
Totally. I just think to add, Anders explained it very well. Important to note that that's why we've been working on this signature alloy that we call Evershine. It can behave the same as silver, therefore the first step of the production will not suffer or will not be impacted. It's only on the second part, which is just the plating part.
Very clear. Thank you very much.
The next question is from line of Erik Sandstedt from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Hi, Erik Sandstedt here with Kepler Cheuvreux. Two questions for clarification. Firstly, could you just repeat what you said regarding the inventory buildup? Where should we expect inventories to end up, and how long do you expect it to take to normalize it? Are there any offsetting effects on working capital, or should we basically expect the inventory buildup to fully flow through into higher working capital?
Thanks for that question, Erik. It's very valid. On inventory, last year, total inventories ended at DKK 5 billion. End of this year, think about it in round numbers as being going up to around DKK 8 billion, so from DKK 5 billion to DKK 8 billion. Of that DKK 3 billion increase, DKK 2 billion is very mechanical. It's simply that silver and gold prices will be higher, plus the tariffs that will be sitting on inventory. The other up to DKK 1 billion, most of that will be driven by that we are getting ready for the platinum-plated transition. We'll, at the end of this year, both be holding silver jewelry and platinum-plated jewelry for the same designs.
The last but smaller, smallest piece is that we've, in a couple of areas, decided to increase inventories to reduce the amount of stock outs, so improve the stock availability in the stores. That's the 2025 to 2026 journey. We will stay at that elevated level through 2027 as we go through the transition and then step by step through 2028 and probably into 2029, maybe even, that's still to be determined. We will get back almost towards the level that where we started, where we started out. Probably not all the way down to five, but somewhat above that. That's in I know that's very round thinking, but that's the shape of it.
You're of course, very right that when you pay more for your gold and silver for the, from the refiners, yeah, it hits your inventory, but our trade payables will go up as well. That's an offsetting effect. I'm just looking at my IR colleagues here, maybe you remember, but I think underlying the net working capital, the way to think about it is underlying we ended at -1 last year, and we're gonna end at mid-single digit-ish this year. A 6%, 6%-7% increase in net working capital. I'm just doing the math here in my head.
The DKK 3 billion increase in inventories, let's call that 10% increase, and then there's 4 percentage point is going the other way with trade payables, not the least, leaving a net increase in net working capital of around six. I know there's a lot of numbers verbally. I hope it makes sense, Erik. Otherwise, happy to follow up.
No, that's great. Thanks for clarifying and very helpful. Just finally, on the 50 to 100 basis points transition costs that are included in your 2026 margin guidance, just to basically confirm, are these not incremental to the cost already communicated for 2027? Or does it reflect the phasing so that the transition cost will be lower in 2027? Just wanted to double-check that.
It's good that you double-check on that. It is our current thinking is that it's incremental, so on top of the two points of one-off cost, transition cost next year. A couple of things, it is we need even more extra labor during the transition than what we thought a couple of months back. We wanna so that's one element. The tech cost in making the systems, our systems able to handle the transition, I can elaborate on that if needed, That requires a bit more tech cost than what we had thought.
We build in, honestly, a buffer for potential inventory write-downs when we sort of stop selling silver, then how much is left on inventories and how much do we need to remelt. Building a little bit of buffer there because it is a big transition. Long story short, the 50 to 100 basis points is on top of the 200 basis points next year.
Perfect. That is very helpful. Thanks.
Next up, we have a follow-up from Lars Topholm from DNB. Please go ahead. Your line will now be unmuted.
Yes, it is actually related because you, of course, suspended buying back your own stock because of A, the margin pressure, which is temporary, but also the higher need for working capital. How should we think about when you might be able to resume share buybacks? It is obvious EBITDA would be lower in 2027, but are you willing to temporarily increase leverage, knowing that that will be a trough and then margins will ramp up again? Have you any view on when you could begin buybacks again? Thanks.
Yeah. It's a very, very relevant question, Lars. I think the short answer is yes. I think that there could be a situation where we say it's okay to have a higher leverage than the capital structure policy for a short period of time. If we went out initiating a share buyback program today, then we would be above the capital structure policy for, let's say, two years, which is probably too long also for the credit agencies to think that's a good idea. We also have that in the back of our mind.
Could there be somewhere in between where we say now it's X quarters where the leverage might be a little bit elevated, not too crazy, but a little bit elevated? I think that's, that could be. Before we reach that point, we're still some quarters down the road.
Yeah, of course, I realize that. I could just foresee at 2027 where your CapEx will come down because your, the present and plating investments peak this year. Also, if you see the jump in working capital this year and it then, let’s call it stable next year, then your cash flow from operations should improve quite significantly. You would be looking into potentially a big free cash flow acceleration in 2027. Is it completely far out to discuss buyback in 2027?
I think the way I would answer, Lars, is that the hurt on the net working capital this year and inventories, that will come back at a point in time. There will be as we are in the unfortunate situation that we don't do a share buyback this year. There will also likely be a point in time where you can do more than what you would normally do because your inventories and net working capital is building back down again. Exactly then when that comes and triggers a share buyback, it's too early to talk about at this point in time.
That's fair enough, Anders. Thank you.
The last question for today's call is from Kristian Godiksen from SEB. Please go ahead. Your line will now be unmuted.
Thank you. Just in relation to the confidence level you have in terms of the newness, resetting the design in order to trigger an acceleration on like-for-like, that would be the first one. Maybe following up on that, I guess also should you not see a step up in like-for-like in the fourth quarter due to newness, both in terms of the new designs coming in, but also the expansion of the Talisman you comment are something that consumers take well in, and then also the easier comps. Maybe the second part of the question would be if you could comment a bit on the expected split in terms of the design variations launched within the different aesthetics going forward. Thank you.
Yes. Let me just try to address this in a synthetic way. The impact of the newness that we are seeing so far is that when we have launched distinctive newness, the consumer is responding to it. Again, we have just seen Talisman, we have seen Pandora and Bridgerton, and we have seen Essence. We know that when we do it, the consumer respond positively, so the level of confidence is high. What is coming on the rest of the year, you will have to be patient and see what we are doing. You rest assured that whenever I can accelerate, we are doing so. As a reminder, our development timing, you can have a point of view whether it's long or short, but it's about 18 months from a sketch to product in market.
So again, trying to do our best with those development times. Then for the rest of the year, we are keeping guidance. It's too early to know how the world is going to develop. That doesn't stop us from working at it, but I cannot say anything else.
Okay. On the expected split in terms of design variations within the different aesthetics?
Oh, sorry, yes. There, the way you need to see, again, I'm not going to go into my whole collection plan and line plan and by aesthetic, but the way to think about it is that the first priority is that we need to address what is happening on our core business. We need to make sure that our core business or the playful aesthetic continue to be refreshed and exciting. That's why the small program that we have, we are launching Pandora Wonders, is exactly doing that. It's playful aesthetic. It plays exactly into Pandora DNA, and we are bringing a step change in creativity that is not what consumers are looking forward to it. That will be, by all means, our number one and number two and number three priority is to bring that core back to growth.
On the remaining, you should not expect us moving into more aesthetics. You have them in that chart. The bold, the playful on that, it will be pretty much equal weight. Disproportionate on playful.
Okay. Thank you. Just a very short follow-up. Just in terms of the first time for a very long time that online preferred worse than the physical stores. Were there any specific reasons for this, and you expect this to continue? Thank you.
Sorry. We saw that decline mainly coming from the U.S., and I can only say what we just said before. We are seeing really a tough situation over there. It's impacting both. Yes, you see that happening mainly in the U.S. We haven't done anything differently, seen anything differently than just traffic going down both online and offline.
Perfect. Thanks a lot.
Yeah.
Cool. Thank you very much, everyone. We hope to speak to you in August. Thank you. Take care.