Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Kering Q1 sales call. For your information, today's conference is being recorded. Your hosts today are Jean-François Palus, Managing Director, and Jean-Marc Duplaix, Chief Financial Officer of Kering. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Jean-François Palus. Please go ahead, sir.
Good evening. Good day to all of you. I am Jean-François Palus, Managing Director of Kering, and I'm pleased to welcome you to our first quarter 2013 sales call. I would like to make a few rapid comments on the group's performance and key developments in the first quarter before passing on the phone to Jean-Marc Duplaix, who will go through the details of each of our key brands. As you see here on slide three, sales growth was driven by a satisfactory progression in our luxury division in somewhat more challenging markets since the beginning of the year, against particularly demanding comps in the first quarter of last year. We believe that all of our key brands are continuing to lead their respective segments in terms of sales growth, particularly at the retail level.
In sport and lifestyle, the revenue drop in the quarter primarily stemmed from Europe, which represents roughly one-third of our revenues. We are encouraged by our performance in retail. The appointment of a new CEO at Puma marks the start of a new offensive for the brand, which under the leadership of Bjørn Gulden and with the support of the group, will regain the standing it deserves in its markets. Bjørn has the right mix of skills and experience to lead Puma in the next phases of its history, we are pleased to have attracted him within the group. Finally, we have continued to make headways with the transformation of the group.
Since the beginning of the year, we entered into an agreement to sell Redcats Nordic activities, Ellos and Jotex, while we closed the sale of its plus-size business in the U.S., as well as completed the disposal of its children and family activities. A few days ago, the board unanimously confirmed our plan to move forward with the spin-off of FNAC. Yesterday, as you have seen, we have announced the acquisition of a majority stake in Pomellato. This leading Italian jewelry house nicely complements our existing activities in this segment. We are looking forward to have Pomellato's brands reach their global potential, which is significant. We decided that we were close enough to our new configuration to adopt a new identity. The Kering name, which we should formally assume in less than two months, embodies the conquering spirit that motivates us all as we go forward.
With this, Jean-Marc, could you please guide us through the key figures of the quarter?
Thank you, Jean-François. This is Jean-Marc Duplaix. Great to be with you tonight on this call. I will now move on to slide four, which gives you a snapshot of the quarter in our luxury division. In Q1, our luxury goods business delivered positive performances across all key brands and all regions, resulting in another quarter of growth for the division as a whole, up over 6%. We view this as a substantial achievement in what has definitely been a weaker business environment. As a reminder, this quarter was achieved against the highest quarterly surge last year. In Q1 2012, we had posted an 18% jump in sales from our luxury activities. The very healthy performances we delivered in North America and Japan in Q1 2013 were offset in part by more contracted trends in Europe, where both local demand and tourism traffic were softer.
This is in line with the trends seen across the industry. Mainland China continued to post good growth with a double-digit increase in the quarter. We recorded a 7% increase in fashion and leather goods, and the growth across other product categories was well-balanced. The division pursued the extension of its store network with 34 net openings during the quarter. Let's now look at Gucci on slide five. In the quarter, Gucci posted a 4% increase in comparable sales, while sales in our directly operated stores were up 6%. In contrast, sales through the wholesale channel were down in the quarter as Gucci implements an ever more selective distribution strategy and generally seeks to reduce the weight of wholesale in its total sales mix. All regions but Western Europe posted higher or sharply higher sales.
In Western Europe, retail sales remained very dynamic in the quarter, up a strong 8%, while the slowdown was entirely attributable to wholesale. Despite a tough comparison, North America delivered another quarter of solid growth, confirming the appreciation of the brand across a very diversified clientele, both local and international. Growth in Japan was also strong on top of extremely tough comps. This partly results from the recent weakening of the yen, pushing Japanese shoppers to spend more locally than abroad. Lastly, Gucci's performance in Asia Pacific was mixed, with high single-digit sales growth in Mainland China. Growth was positive in all major product categories. Sales of leather goods grew in the quarter, driven by further improvements in mix towards higher-priced merchandise. To give you an example, leather lines such as Soho performed remarkably well, resulting in another double-digit increase in low logo sales during the quarter.
Conversely, in line with the brand's policy to further drive upwards its mix and image, sales of certain logo fabric handbags were down in the quarter. Performance was also particularly strong in shoes, up 8%, driven by men's shoes. The trend of the category in the quarter also benefited from a 360-degree marketing and communication strategy to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Gucci loafer. At March 31st, Gucci operated 432 stores, a net addition of three stores during the quarter. Moving to slide six, Bottega Veneta delivered another solid quarter with comparable sales up 9%. Growth was strong in retail, up low teens. Wholesale comparisons are less relevant as much of the delivery for the spring/summer 2013 collection had been moved forward to Q4 of last year. Bottega Veneta is fine-tuning the timing of its deliveries to distribution partners to better support performance and sell-through.
The house is also continuing to rationalize its network of independent distributors in Europe and the U.S. By region, Western Europe performed particularly well in directly operated stores, up over 20%. By contrast, trends were somewhat softer in North America as positive trends on the continent were offset by a slowdown in Hawaii, where the sharp weakening of the JPY has impacted Japanese tourism. The same factor had a positive impact on Japanese buying in their home market, with Bottega Veneta posting a solid 12% increase in sales in Japan. Lastly, Asia Pacific saw a solid increase in sales, driven by surges of more than 20% in both Greater and Mainland China. By product category, leather goods continued to post strong increases, and all men's categories posted above-average increases, driven by outstanding performances in shoes and from the cruise collections.
Smaller categories such as jewelry or perfumes continued to perform very well, confirming Bottega Veneta's amazing potential to extend its reach beyond its core categories. At March end, Bottega Veneta had 205 owned stores, a net addition of nine stores during the quarter. On slide seven, you will find a recap of Saint Laurent's performance. In the quarter, Saint Laurent confirmed its strong momentum with sales up 19%, one-nine, despite extremely strong comps across both the retail and wholesale channels last year. This quarter's performance was driven by strong growth in wholesale, partly reflecting the later delivery of the Cruise 2013 collection this year compared to last year. All regions, apart from North America, posted very solid growth. As the brand reinvention undertaken by Hedi Slimane gains speed, a complete overhaul of the product lineup across all categories is being unveiled in the stores, further fueling brand desirability.
The fashion and leather goods category as a whole posted a sharp increase in sales, driven by significant growth of men ready-to-wear, higher sale of iconic handbags, and an encouraging start for the new shoe styles. We have planned further significant investments in the Saint Laurent brand throughout 2013. Nine new stores were opened in the quarter, and we have an ambitious pipeline of investments scheduled for the balance of the year. Moving on to slide eight, I will now discuss our other Luxury brands, which altogether enjoyed revenue growth of 7% in the quarter. Sales growth in the quarter was driven by outstanding performances at Stella McCartney, Alexander McQueen, and Boucheron, which all posted growth in excess of 20%. At Balenciaga, the arrival of Alexander Wang as the brand's new designer has generated a very positive reception from buyers of the newly designed collections.
Sales dropped at Girard-Perregaux and JeanRichard compared to last year's Q1. As you all know, selling data in the watches industry, particularly to China, has been weak in the quarter. Girard-Perregaux, for which China is an important market, was no exception to this trend. Brioni performed well in the quarter with first collections from new designer Brendan Mullane expected for fall/winter 2013. All in all, our other luxury goods brands posted good growth across most regions in the quarter. During the period, we also took the first steps in the integration of the two smaller brands that recently joined the group, Hong Kong-based jewelry brand, Qeelin, and U.K. designer brand, Christopher Kane. We further invested in our brands' retail networks with 13 net new stores, when including the consolidation of Qeelin retail locations in Q1. Let's now turn to the sport and lifestyle division on slide nine.
Our sport and lifestyle division sales were down 2.5% comparable in the quarter, held back by a tough textile and sporting goods market, especially in Western Europe. Against this backdrop, while both Puma and Volcom posted very satisfactory performances across retail, our sport and lifestyle brands recorded lower wholesale sales. Volcom and Electric sales were down 6% in the quarter, impacted by difficulties at some key retailers that we already commented upon in H2 last year, impacting growth rates in the most mature regions. On a more upbeat note, we saw some very positive signs in fast growth regions. On slide 10, a snapshot of the performance of Puma in the quarter. In Q1, Puma's comparable sales were down 2%. Accessories had another strong performance with a 12% surge in sales, driven by the outstanding performance of Cobra Puma Golf.
Other categories had to cope with a more negative market environment and notably footwear in Western Europe. In that region, Puma faced a very tough trading environment, in France and Italy in particular. Due to the further weakening in consumer spending in this market, our wholesale partners decided to be very cautious. Northern Europe proved more resilient. A prolonged winter in Europe also delayed sales of Puma spring and summer collections. Throughout the quarter, Puma pursued the implementation of the brand transformation plan announced last July, whose execution is on track. A total of 45 underperforming stores were closed during the quarter, with particular focus on Western Europe. The underlying performance of the remaining retail stores was good in the quarter, which we believe is a strong testimony to the strength of the Puma brand.
We are also rejuvenating Puma's product lineup with particular emphasis on the performance running category. The new Puma Mobium line was launched in March. This is a great example of a new product offering breakthrough, well-differentiated innovation. Thanks to dedicated marketing support, this product is already delivering encouraging initial sales. Going forward, while the situation in Western Europe is set to remain challenging for the coming quarters, we believe that our stronger innovation pipeline, a leaner and more efficient overhead structure, a resized retail network, combined with the impetus provided by a new management team, will allow Puma to return to sustainable growth. To conclude with slide 11, I would like to reiterate our absolute confidence in the fundamental strength of our businesses. Our brands in sport and lifestyle, as well as in luxury, enjoy tremendous potential and we continue to invest in their future.
In luxury, we are actively supporting the expansion of our existing brands through store openings, refurbishments, and extensions. As demonstrated by the proposed Pomellato acquisition we announced yesterday, that Jean-François discussed in his introduction, we are expanding our luxury division when the right opportunities arise. We are also investing in our sourcing and production capacity as our recent acquisition of [inaudible] illustrates. In sport and lifestyle, we are confident that Bjørn's arrival at the beginning of the second half of the year will give the company new momentum and put it on a new growth path. Along with the confirmed spin-off of FNAC, we are moving closer to completing the disposal of our other remaining retail assets and are on track to finalize our strategic transformation.
Finally, while keeping our sights on the long-term development of our brands, we are continuing to manage with a sharp eye on short-term profitability to shelter our financial performances from the potential negative impact of events around the world. Our vigilance in preserving gross margin and containing expenses is not abating. This sums up what Jean-François and I wanted to tell you as an introduction, and we are ready to answer your questions.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question at this time, please press the star or asterisk key, followed by the digit one on your telephone keypad. We will now take our first question from Thomas Chauvet of Citi. Please go ahead.
Good evening. Without going too much into the detail of each brand, if we look at your geographic trends, the first quarter, we've seen very different growth patterns from the last really two years. Europe and Asia, very soft. I think Asia continues to be soft. U.S. and Japan pretty strong. Is it the way we should look at the rest of the year? Can you comment on each of the market and where there's been a lot of one-off disruption? I'm just trying to understand when do you expect perhaps Europe and China to pick up? I think on Japan particularly, I think you had a very strong Q1 last year. Can you elaborate on the strength here and whether this was effects of price increase or repatriation of Japanese tourist demand perhaps at home, or is it a long-lasting phenomenon?
I'm just surprised by the mix of growth in the different regions. Secondly, could you perhaps, given the softer trend in Q1, comment on April, in both retail and wholesale, whether you've seen an acceleration? Secondly, on Puma, could you perhaps briefly comment on the appointment of Puma's CEO, and how it fits into the restructuring, repositioning of the brand? Are you expecting him to implement what you've already discussed with us over the last few months, quarters, or are you expecting perhaps a different approach to that transformation, or is he going to just execute? Thank you.
Thank you, Thomas, for your questions. A lot of questions, especially the first one about sort of macroeconomic landscape. I think that I would like just to stress that, in my conclusion, I mentioned that we remain vigilant. We remain vigilant because I think that we have some contrasted and mixed trends in the different areas, and it's true that basically it's not so easy to read the figures of the first quarter, especially because we had, as you know, delayed some delivery in wholesale for Saint Laurent brand. At the same time, we had anticipated some deliveries in the wholesale for Bottega Veneta because it does explain the performance of the Bottega Veneta. Also there is the strong weakening of the yen, that pushes the Japanese customers to buy inland and not abroad.
Basically what we can say is that it's true that the trend in the U.S. remains quite sound, and we don't see why it should change. We remain careful because the performance globally in North America was a little bit dragged down by the performance in Hawaii because Hawaii at Kering is within North America, and in Hawaii, we lost the traffic of the Japanese customers due to the weakening of the yen. It does explain partly the strong performance in Japan. As long as the yen will be down, I think we can see such trend in Japan. Concerning the other regions, just come back to your comments about China. As a reminder, in China, our brands, especially in mainland China, the performance in China is close to 10%, more than 10% in China, with something like 30% for Bottega Veneta.
Basically, of course, the trend in China is not so buoyant as it was two years ago. As a reminder, Gucci, in the Q1 2011, it was +52%. We wait to see what will be the evolution of the market in China. The growth is there in China, but it's true that we didn't see, at this stage, any strong rebound that would push the sales higher than this, in the average 10% for our brands. Finally, in Europe, I think that you can imagine that the local clientele consumption is a little bit down, and also we have the impact of the tourist flow, where we see a slowdown, especially during the second half of the quarter.
It's very difficult to anticipate what will be the trend for Europe, even if I would like to stress again that we have significantly worked still on the wholesale channel. Gucci is plus 6% in retail in Europe, so it's a quite good performance. It's mainly due, so the performance in Europe also to the reorganization of the wholesale channel for Gucci and also for Bottega Veneta. At this stage, I think that it would be quite ambitious to consider that the trend for the first quarter could reflect the trend for the whole year. Just about the trend in April, you know perfectly, Thomas, that we don't comment such trends, especially because we have just finished the month. We are just in the month. Concerning the CEO of Puma, I let François-Henri comment on this.
Yes. Good evening, Thomas. We are very happy with the appointment of Bjørn Gulden, who was introduced to the Puma team on Tuesday and Wednesday in Herzogenaurach. Bjørn will bring a fresh and strong new leadership and also a new focus on products. We have been preparing the analysis, a very thorough and deep analysis of Puma in terms of positioning, in terms of products, in terms of processes, in terms also of IT systems. This will, of course, help Bjørn to accelerate his first decision-taking. We think that, of course, those proposed solutions that we set up are in line with the transformation process that was initiated by the previous management at Puma. We go further and deeper into that.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Louise Singlehurst of Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good afternoon to you all. Just three questions for me, please. Firstly, just on Gucci, you talk in the commentary about no logo sales, obviously growing or outperforming. Can you just tell us how much of the brand that you would describe now as logo? Secondly, back on the mainland China figure where you talk about the high single-digit growth for Gucci, can you confirm, is that a comparable store number in terms of growth? Also, did you put any price increases through, or can you just confirm the price increases in the period? Separately, I just wanted to chat to you about the future M&A, and obviously, we've had a couple of acquisitions announced. Is there any further big plans for watches and jewelry, particularly with Qeelin and the announcement of Pomellato this week? Thank you.
Hello, Louise. Can you just repeat? The first question was about the performance in China?
In China, but also the-
Yes, the logo, sorry.
Thank you.
Yes, absolutely. Yes. In fact, during the quarter, we've seen a continued improvement in the balance of the overall sales mix composition and a pursuit of the overall brand repositioning strategy that was implemented over the past seasons. To illustrate this, in Q1, no logo sales passed a double-digit growth, as I said previously, versus last year. Within leather goods and handbags, the no logo contribution is almost now 50% of the sales, largely due to the ongoing success, for example, of plain leather handbags such as Soho. What is interesting is that in Asia Pacific, we made some significant progress with no logo sales in handbags which increased by 1,616 basis points, the penetration among the sales to reach 37%. The repositioning of the brand is quite rapid.
It's also the case in Korea, a country in which we have increased the no logo sales by 25 basis points. Now the no logo sales are more than 30% compared to 9% two years ago. I think this is still on track. In China, now we are also above 30% for no logo sales. Concerning the trend in terms of like-for-like. Globally, before answering specifically for China, in Q1, retail growth has been muted, especially towards the back half of the quarter. The like-for-like trends were soft in regions such as Western Europe and Asia Pacific. They were, as you can assume, quite solid in Americas and Japan. In Asia, it's still dragged down, to be clear, by Taiwan and Korea, despite some signs of improvement at the end of the quarter.
In China, it was still slightly positive, quite flattish on a like-for-like basis. In fact, there was no, in the quarter, any effect of pure price increase. It's still the impact, in fact, of the improvement of the product mix that helped increase the average selling price, but there was no pure price increase. What was decided is to adjust on the selection of carryover products to increase the price during the second quarter, but not only in Europe or in America, but also in Asia. There will be an increase of the price. Just as a reminder, that for Gucci brand, the share of carryover sales does not represent the majority. There will be an impact of this price increase during the second quarter, but it won't be the only driver of the growth. In China, there will be also some price increase.
During the first quarter, no specific increase for that. Concerning the acquisitions, we have announced yesterday the acquisition of Pomellato. I think it was already said by François-Henri Pinault that we want to increase our market share in that segment of the jewelry and watches. With the acquisition of Pomellato, in the luxury division, the share of watches and jewelry should be close to 10%, we will increase our share in that respect. We rely mainly on organic growth, and I think that, as we said, this acquisition complements smartly the existing portfolio with this fine jewelry, with Italian DNA, not overlapping with Kering. Not at all. Of course, we are ready to contemplate any other opportunities if we believe it makes sense. There is no cannibalization, and it's at the right price.
Thank you. Just as a last one, are there any plans for price increases this year at Gucci? I think you mentioned something for China. Thank you.
No, it will be really very selective, and for the moment it's only for Gucci on the selection of carryover products, because again there is a policy of increase for the seasonal items, but this policy won't change specifically.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Catherine Roland of Kepler Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Good evening. I have several questions, actually. First of all, regarding Gucci, could you be a bit more precise regarding the sales growth rate in mainland China and in greater China in Q1? The second question was about Korea. Could you tell us what were the trends in Korea and the current trends? Last question about Gucci, could you be a bit more precise regarding the wholesale revenue trends for the brand? For Bottega and YSL, could you be more precise, please, regarding the splits in terms of trends between retail and wholesale revenues? Thank you.
Yes. Concerning Gucci in China, I will be more precise, Catherine. The trend is in greater China, +5% in greater China and above 5% in mainland China.
In Korea, the trends are still negative. If I remember so well, it's positive, +4%, but this growth was driven mainly by a rebound in the wholesale channel, especially in the duty free. As regard, and it's our focus because as you know, we want also in Korea to increase the share of the retail business. The retail is still negative in Korea, less negative than it was previously, but globally. It's a positive trend in Korea, but still negative on the like-for-like basis and in retail. Concerning just the wholesale revenues, for Gucci, the increase of the retail was +6%, with +8% in Europe. The wholesale was negative by -3%, mainly due still to the reorganization of our distribution channel, still mainly in Italy.
In Western Europe, we have more than -10% in wholesale, and it was totally self-inflicted because as you can see, we have a quite good performance in retail. Your last question was about the breakdown, if I remember well, between wholesale and retail also for Bottega Veneta.
YSL too, please.
Okay. For Bottega Veneta, the wholesale was also negative. It was a double-digit growth for the retail business at Bottega Veneta, with strong double digits in Japan and in Asia Pacific globally, especially in China, because in China, for Bottega Veneta, it's still above 30% in retail. It was negative because it was a shift of delivery, as I said before, because in the Q4 2012, the wholesale channel was +60%. There is a shift of delivery. Over two quarters, the trends for Bottega Veneta are totally consistent. Finally, for YSL, it's a double-digit increase globally. There was also, in the other way, a shift, as you remind, of wholesale from Q4 to Q1. In retail, the performance is positive, but below 10%, because of late deliveries in retail, because we decided to boost first the wholesale channel.
That's the reason why we have an assortment which is less extensive for the moment in retail channel. We need to boost this, we are working on that to be sure that for the next collection, it will be on time in the retail channel.
Okay, the wholesale revenue trends for YSL, were about which figure?
It's double digits.
Yeah, do you give any more color?
No.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you, Catherine.
As a further reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypads. If you find that your question has already been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star two. We will now take our next question from Rogerio Fujimori of Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Hi, everyone. Could you please update us on your wholesale rationalization efforts, especially in Italy? There's still a lot to be done. My second question is whether you could give us some color on your early indications for your order book for the next autumn and winter season. My third question is if you could talk a little bit about market share trends for Puma in Europe and in the U.S. Thank you.
Okay. Concerning the wholesale rationalization, we will continue this rationalization in the year, so that as a consequence, the growth recorded in the point of sale that Gucci should keep could be partly or totally offset by the impact of the rationalization. In the long run, such focus on retail is a priority for Gucci, and it's one of the driver of Gucci growth margin increase, along with the strategy of upscaling the brand. We don't provide, of course, any guidance as regard wholesale sales for the year. What I can tell you is it will continue. In Italy, especially, we decided again to decrease the wholesale, and it was a double-digit negative trend in Italy and globally in Europe. It was also more or less the same trend because Italy is the main driver for the wholesale channel for Gucci in Europe.
It was a double-digit negative trend, but self-inflicted again. Concerning the order book, we don't provide such information. What we know is that we have clear indications that the 2013 fall-winter collections products are well received by our wholesale customers for all the brands globally, for Gucci of course, but also for the other brands. The trends are particularly negative, in fact, in Italy and France. These two countries contribute to almost 80% of the poor performance of the brand in Europe, and especially in the Eurozone. It's mainly driven by footwear, with very negative performance in footwear in these two countries, and more globally in Eurozone. In North America, the performance is quite good in accessories, especially driven by the Cobra Puma Golf. It's a double-digit increase of the sale. In apparel, it's also a quite good performance.
We gain market share both in accessories and apparel, but we have still the issue in the footwear with a quite negative trend. As you know, we are working on that and improving the time to market of our products, the innovation of the product, and we believe that the launch of the Mobium should be quite successful considering the first feedback we have.
Appreciate it. Thank you very much.
Our next question comes from Marc Zullon of Raymond James. Please go ahead.
Yes, good evening. Thank you. I've got several questions. The first one will be on the Bottega Veneta, the retail performances. As far as I've understood, you quantify as being a low-teen growth. For Bottega retail, could you confirm this? Could you even really disclose the like-for-like retail performances for both Gucci and Bottega Veneta? A follow-up on Louise' question regarding the Gucci Mainland China store network. Could you give us the precise figure? Could you maybe elaborate on your full-year store opening plans, detailed by brands? To conclude, what were the performances you are the most proud of in Q1, and the performances you consider the most disappointing in Q1? Thank you.
Thank you, Marc, for these questions. About Bottega Veneta, it's your first question. In the retail channel, we are at a +13% globally worldwide, with a quite well-balanced, in fact, growth, because it's almost 15% for the emerging markets and 12% in the mature markets. With a very strong performance, as I said, in Greater China, +20% and almost 33% in Mainland China. As you can see, this brand enjoys still a strong momentum, especially considering the tough comparison basis for this brand in retail.
Taking into account the, Sorry to interrupt, taking into account the still strong number of stores opening, would you give us a flavor of the like-for-like sales trend at Bottega Veneta retail and the same for Gucci, please?
As you perfectly know, we never provide such information as regard like-for-like. I just mentioned, answering to Louise first, that the like-for-like at Gucci was slightly positive. It's also the case for Bottega Veneta, it's positive. Concerning the Gucci network in China, or I think you had a question about the Gucci performance in Mainland China, if I remember well, Marc.
The overall network in Mainland China. You gave an answer to Louise and some of my other colleagues regarding the store performances in China. Just, can you give us a number of stores?
Yes, for sure. In China, we have now almost the same number of stores as last year, at the end of the year, because we have 73 stores in Greater China for Gucci, among which 59 in Mainland China. We opened only one store during this quarter in China. There was no change for Gucci at this stage. Concerning globally, the policy as regards China in terms of store opening, as we already said, we look at this in a cautious manner, and we will have a careful policy about this, and we want to open stores with good return and rapid payback. We are careful about this. For the moment, we don't plan to speed up the pace of store opening globally, worldwide, and especially in China, to safeguard the exclusivity of the brand in China.
Just as a reminder, globally in China last year, Gucci opened in Mainland China something like, or in Greater China, it was something like 40 stores last year. Of course, this pace should decrease this year. Concerning just the performance of which we are proud or not proud, or happy or not happy, I think there is no surprise from outside. I think we are globally very happy with this performance for the quarter in a difficult environment. For the trend for the global year, of course, for the whole year, it's too early to predict what will be the performance of each brand. Globally, the management of each brand worked very hard, and we are quite satisfied with the performance of the brands, with no bad expectation, no bad surprises, and totally in line with our expectations considering the trend since the beginning of the year.
Thank you for all those details on that explanation.
Our next question comes from Mario Ortelli of Bernstein. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, everybody. I've got three questions. The first one is on Bottega Veneta. Bottega Veneta used to surprise us with incredible great results, this quarter was a bit soft for many reasons, strong comps, a decrease of world sale doors. In your expectation, in the next quarters, Bottega Veneta will continue to provide the result as this quarter, or we will see the result of the past with this strong growth, double digit? The second question is about Puma. When you communicate the results of last year, you told that the strategy of Puma remained focused on being a brand focused on performance and lifestyle. Do you foresee you've got any change in this strategy? Maybe a brand more focused on performance or lifestyle, or will be still on the two pillars?
The last one is on Pomellato. If you can disclose which percentage of the company have you bought, because in your press release it was quoted just majority. If you can give us some color of how much Pomellato can become in the next year.
Sorry, we didn't catch the end of your sentence. How Pomellato can become?
How big can become Pomellato next year? If you have got some targets of revenues or margins.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mario. About Bottega Veneta, again, I think that the quarter should be not restated, but should be regarded with this unusual performance, or this one-off performance in wholesale. Again, in retail, it's a double-digit growth. I think that we already said that considering the size of Bottega Veneta, we can expect a mid-term and short-term, a normalization of the growth rate of Bottega Veneta. We already said that we expected probably for the year, double-digit increase but not at the same pace as in the past years. For the moment we are on track when we look at the retail performance. It's too soon, and we won't provide any expectation for the full year for Bottega Veneta.
Regarding the strategy for Puma, we will fine-tune the brand positioning, particularly concerning the duality between sport performance on the one side and lifestyle on the other side. The objective is to clarify this positioning from a customer perspective. Also, we want to bring more focus and more strength into positioning in all segments. We will have some fine-tuning of our merchandising and also our communication.
Coming back to your question about Pomellato. I won't provide any additional information concerning the majority stake we have in Pomellato. It's a significant majority stake. As we said, Mr. Morante will remain shareholder of Pomellato, and the Rabolini family won't be any more a shareholder of the company. Of course, I would like to reiterate the fact that we are very happy with this smart acquisition. We believe that Pomellato is a brand with a wonderful potential. Mr. Morante has a clear vision of what has to be done to bring Pomellato to the next step, to the next level. As it was said yesterday, because the sales of Pomellato are close to EUR 150 million of revenues. In the past years, the compound annual growth rate was approximately 10% or a little bit more.
I think the brand has the potential to grow still at the same pace, and we have many projects for the brand that we have already shared with Andrea Morante. I think we have a good basis for the next year.
Gabri, one final question, please. Is there a final question?
Yes. Our next question comes from Antoine Belge of HSBC. Please go ahead.
Yes, good evening. Actually, you've mentioned that the other brands, the smaller ones, that did 7% in the quarter. At the same time, you mentioned Stella McCartney, Alexander McQueen, et cetera, Boucheron doing more than 20% on balance, they are doing well. I don't really get which were the brands which significantly declined in the quarter. Second question was the price increase in Japan for Gucci, was it as much as Louis Vuitton, more than 10%? Finally, have you made an analysis of why Chinese travel trends slowed in the first quarter? Do you think that it's linked to the GDP slowdown there, or is this linked more to another reason?
Thank you, Antoine. Concerning the other brands, what we wanted to highlight is still the strong performance of Boucheron and the two British brands, which are performing above 30% in terms of growth. Balenciaga did quite well, but as you mentioned, it's a Girard-Perregaux brand, which suffered from the Chinese market conditions, and also we had to endure some delays in terms of delivery to our distribution. JeanRichard also is a brand that we want to relaunch. As you saw, perhaps there is some advertising campaigns around the brand. We have also some delays in delivery for JeanRichard, and it does explain the performance of Sowind that dragged down a little bit, the performance of the brands. Concerning Japan, in fact, there was no, at this stage, a price increase for Gucci.
We will start some selective price increase during the second quarter, but at this stage, there was no change. In fact, the price gap with Europe was significantly reduced due to the weakening of the JPY. We lost approximately something like 20 or 15 [inaudible] in terms of price gap between Europe and Japan. Lastly, about your question concerning with your question about Chinese. First of all, we have an increase of the sales to the Chinese tourists for all the brands. The issue is that we have a slowdown compared to the last quarter. We have, as you have, the data of Air China, of Aéroports de Paris, Heathrow Airport, and we see that there is a slight slowdown.
I think that there is a global environment in China, not only with the tourists, but globally in China, with perhaps less enthusiasm to buy luxury goods, perhaps because of some concern about the economic situation, but also still about the political environment. The reason why I said as an introductory remark that we still wait for a rebound in the consumption of the Chinese customers. It's difficult to assess if this rebound will occur as we had expected initially in the Q2, and we see perhaps this more during the second half.
Okay. Maybe just to follow up on the other brand. I mean, for me, Sowind Group, Gérard Darel, et cetera, maybe it's quite small in the total. Are there any other brands? I don't know, Sergio Rossi. I mean, for me, all the brands that you've mentioned are the bigger ones. How did you get to seven?
You're right to mention Sergio Rossi, which growth is quite soft. I think that with Sergio Rossi and Sowind Group, plus some nice development, but not double-digit of Balenciaga and Brioni. It does explain the balance of the growth of the brands. I would say that we have Boucheron and the two British brands performing very well. Sowind Group and Sergio Rossi, soft, and Balenciaga and Brioni quite well, but not below 10%.
Okay. Thank you.
Okay. As a conclusion, we want to thank you for your questions tonight and hope our answers have given you better insight into our performance in this first quarter. We are, of course, available to address any other questions you have in the coming days. A reminder that our annual meeting will take place on June the 18th. With this, thank you and have a good evening. Goodbye.
Thank you. That will conclude today's conference call, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.