Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Kering Q1 Sales Call. For your information, today's conference is being recorded. Your hosts today are Jean Francois Palu, Managing Director and Jean Marc Toupley, Chief Financial Officer of Kering. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Jean Francois Palou.
Please go ahead,
sir. Good evening and good day to all of you. I am Jean Francois Palleu, Managing Director of Kering and I'm pleased to welcome you to our Q1 2013 sales call. I would like to make a few rapid comments on the group's performance and key developments in the Q1 before passing on the phone to Jean Marc Duplex who will go through the details of each of our key brands. As you see here on slide 3, sales growth was driven by a satisfactory progression in our Luxury division in somewhat more challenging markets since the beginning of the year and against particularly demanding comps in the Q1 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 Life Science, the revenue drop in the quarter primarily stemmed from Europe, which represents roughly 1 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 Gulden and with group will regain the standing it deserves in its markets. Bjorn has the right mix of skills and experience to lead Puma in the next phases of its history and we are pleased to have attracting 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 Redcap's Nordic activities, Pelos 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 NAC.
Yesterday, as you have seen, we have announced the acquisition of a majority stake in Formulato. This leading Italian jewelry house 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 2 months embodies the concurring 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 Francois. This is Jean Marc Duplex. Great to be with you tonight on this call. I will now move on to slide 4, 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, twenty thirteen were offset in part by more contrasted 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 In the quarter, Gucci posted a 4% increase 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, 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, despite the 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 Tahoe performed remarkably well, resulting in an other double digit increase in no logo sales during the quarter. Conversely, and in line with the brand's policy to further drive upward 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 3 60 degree marketing communication strategy to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Gucci offer.
At March 31, Gucci operated 432 stores, a net addition of 3 stores during the quarter. Moving to slide 6, Bottega Veneta delivered another solid quarter with comparable sales up 9%. Growth was strong in retail, up low teens. Gross sales comparisons are less relevant as much of the delivery for the springsummer certain collections had been moved forward to Q4 of last year. Bottega Venator 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 game 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 BOSS Greater and Mainland China. By product categories, leather boots continued to post strong increases and all men's categories posted above average increases driven by outstanding performances in shoes and from the Crude collections. Smaller categories such as jewelry or perfumes continued to perform very well, confirming Bottega Venator's amazing had 205 old stores, a net addition of 9 stores during the quarter. On slide 7, you will find a recap of Saint Laurent's performance. In the quarter, Saint Laurent confirmed its strong momentum with sales up 19%, 1.9%, 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 crude 2013 collection this year compared to last year. All regions apart from North America posted very solid growth. As the brand reinvention undertaken by Hebe Sleeman gained speed, a complete overhaul of the product lineup across all categories is being unveiled in the stores, further fueling brands' desirability. The Fashion and Leather Goods category as a whole posted a sharp increase in sales, driven by significant growth of main ready to wear, higher sale of iconic handbags and an encouraging start for the new shoe size. We have planned further significant investments in the Saint Laurent brand throughout 2013.
9 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 8, 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 Telemarketing, Alexander McQueen and Bouffreux, which all posted growth in excess of 20%. At Balenciaga, the arrival of Alexander Wong as the brand's new designer has generated a very positive reception from buyers of the newly designed collections. Trends dropped at Girard Perregaux and Jean Richard 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. Gerard Perregaux for which China is an important market was no exception to this trend. Briony performed well in the quarter with 1st collections from new designer, Brendan Mullen, expected for fall winter 2013. So all in all, our other luxury goods brands posted good growth across most regions in the quarter. During that period, we also took the 1st step in the integration of the 2 smaller brands that recently joined the group, Hong Kong based jewelry brand, Killin and UK designer brand, Christopher King.
And we further invested in our brand retail network with 13 net new stores, while including the consolidation of key lean retail locations in Q1. Let's now turn to the Sport and Lifestyle division on slide 9. 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 Tumor and Volcom posted very satisfactory performances across retail, our sports 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 Cobalt Pimagels. But other categories had to cope with the more negative market environment and notably footwear in Western Europe.
In that region, Fuma 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. The prolonged winter in Europe also delayed sales of PUMA's spring and summer collections. Throughout the quarter, PUMA pursued the implementation of the brand's transformation plan announced last July whose execution is on track. The 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 the 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 sports 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 Pomerato acquisitions we announced yesterday that Jean Francois discussed in his introduction, we are expanding our Luxury division when the right opportunities arise. And we are also investing in our sourcing and production capacity as our recent acquisition of Francois Co.
Illustrates. In Sport and Lifestyle, we are confident that Bjorn'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 Snack, 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 brand, we are continuing to manage with a sharp eye on short term profitability to shelter our financial performances from the and containing expenses is not abating. This sums up what Jean Francois and I wanted to tell you as an introduction And we are ready to answer your questions.
Thank you. We will now take our first question from Thomas Chauvet of Citi. Please go ahead.
Good evening. Just without going too much into the detail of each brand, if we look at your geographic trends, the Q1, we've seen very, very different growth patterns from the last really 2 years. So Europe and Asia very, very soft. I think Asia continues to be soft. U.
S. And Japan pretty strong. And I mean is it the way we should look at the rest of the year? Are you expecting can you comment on each of the markets? 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. And secondly, could you perhaps given the softer trend in Q1 comment on April in both retail and wholesale whether you've seen an acceleration?
And secondly on Puma, could you perhaps briefly comment on the appointment of Puma as 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 lot of questions and especially the first one about sort of macroeconomic landscape. Basically, 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 figures of the Q1, 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 Bottega Veneta.
And also there is the strong weakening of the yen that pushes the Japanese people the
Japanese people customers
to buy inland and not abroad. So basically what we can say is that it's true that the trend in the U. S. Remain quite sound and we don't see why it should change. But 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 the traffic of the Japanese customers due to the weakening of the weight gain. Yen. And so and it just explained 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 to 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 percent more than 10% in China with something like 30% for Bottega Veneta. So basically, of course, the trend in China is not so buoyant as it was 2 years ago. As a reminder of Gucci in the Q1 2011, it was plus 52%. So we wait to see what will be the evolution of the market in China. So for example, 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 imagine that the local free and sale consumption is a little bit down. And also, we have the impact of the tourist flow which where we see a slowdown especially during the second half of the quarter. So 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, which is plus 6% in retail in Europe. So it's a quite good performance.
And it's mainly due to the performance in Europe also to the organization of the wholesale channel for Gucci and also for Bottega Veneta. So at this stage, I think that it will be quite ambitious to consider that the trend for the Q1 could reflect the trend for the whole year. Just about the trend in April, you know perfectly, Thomas, that we don't comment such that we don't comment such trends and especially because we have just finished the month. So and we are just in the month. And concerning the CEO of Kumar, I'll let Francois Francois comment on this.
Yes. Good evening, Thomas. We are very So, Bjorn will bring fresh and strong new leadership and also a new focus on products. And we have been preparing the analysis a very thorough and deep analysis of Puma in terms of analysis of Puma in terms of positioning, in terms of products, in terms of processes, in terms also of IT systems. And this will of course help Bjorn to accelerate his first decision taking.
So 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, but 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. And firstly just on Gucci.
You're talking 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? And then 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? And then also did you put any price increases through or can you just confirm the price increases in the period?
And then separately I just wanted to chat you about the future M and A. And obviously, we've had a couple of acquisitions announced. Is there any further big plans for watches and jewelry, particularly with Creelan 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. Yes, absolutely. Yes. In fact, this during the quarter, we have we've seen a continued improvement in the balance of the overall sales mix composition and a pursuit of the overall brand positioning strategy that was implemented over the past seasons. To illustrate this, in Q1, no logo sales started double digit growth as I said previously versus last year.
And within Laser Group handbags, the No Logo contribution is almost now 50% of the sales, largely due to the ongoing success for example of flying leather handbags such as so. And what is interesting is that in Asia Pacific, we made some significant progress with no logo sales in handbags, which increased by 16 16.16 basis points the penetration among the sales to reach 37%. So 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. So now the no logo sales are more than 30% compared to 9% 2 years ago.
So I think this is still on track. And in China, so now we are also above 30% for no logo sales. Concerning the trend in terms of like for like. So 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 see 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. And 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 carryover product to increase the price during the Q2, but not only in Europe or in America, but also in Asia. So there will be an increase of the price. But just as a reminder, you know that in in the for Gucci brand, the share of carryover sales does not represent the majority. So there will be an impact of this price increase during the Q2, but it won't be the only driver of the growth. And in China, there will be also some price increase.
But during the first quarter, no specific increase for that. Concerning the acquisitions, of course, we so we have announced yesterday the acquisition of Tomelato. I think it was not it was already said by Francois Epinot 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%. So 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 Killian, not if we believe it makes sense. There is no cannibalization and it's at the right price.
Thank you. And 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 already it's very selective. And for the moment, it's only for Gucci on the selective on the selection of carryover products because again there is a policy of increase for the seasonal items, but this policy won't specifically.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Catherine Rowland 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's where the trends in Korea and the current trends? And last question for the Gucci. Could you be a bit more precise regarding the wholesale revenue trends for the brand?
Then for Bottega and YSL, could you be more precise please regarding the split in terms of trends between retail and wholesale revenues? Thank you.
Yes. Concerning Gucci in China, I will be so more precise, Kathleen. The trend is in Greater China plus 5% in Greater China and above 5% in Mainland China. In Korea, the trends are still negative. It's if I remember though well, it's a minus sorry, it's positive plus 4 percent, but this growth was driven mainly by a rebound in the wholesale channel, especially in the duty free.
But 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 business the retail is still negative in Korea, less negative than it was previously. But globally, so it's a positive trend in Korea, but still negative on the like for like basis and in retail. So concerning just the wholesale revenues. For Gucci, the increase the retail was plus 6% with plus 8% in Europe.
And the wholesale was negative by -3%, mainly due to still to the reorganization of our distribution channel, still mainly in Italy, yes, because globally in the Western Europe we have minus more than minus 10% in wholesale. And it was totally self inflicted because as you can see we have a quite good performance
in retail. So your last question was about the
breakdown, if I remember well, between wholesale and retail. So So for Bottega Veneta, the wholesale was also negative. But the retail was double digit it was a double digit growth for the retail business at Bottega Veneta with strong double digit in Japan and Pac globally, especially in China, because in China for the beginning, 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 plus 50%. So there is a sheet of delivery.
So over 2 quarters, the trends for Bottega Veneta are totally consistent. Finally for YSL, it's a double digit increase globally. There was also and it's in the other way a shift as you remind of wholesale from Q4 to Q1. And in retail, the performance is slightly positive, but below 10% because of late deliveries in the retail because we decided to boost first the retail channel. And that's the reason why we have an assortment which is less extensive for the moment in retail channel.
We need to boost this and we are working on that to be sure that for the next collection, it will be on time in the retail channel.
Okay. And the wholesale revenue trends for YSL were about which figure?
It's double digit.
Yes. But do you give any more color? No. Okay. Thank you.
Thank
you, 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? And 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 the retail is a priority for Gucci and it's one of the driver of Gucci gross margin increase along with the strategy of upscaling the brand. So we don't provide of course any guidance as regards to wholesale sales for the year. But what I can tell you is it will continue.
And in Italy especially, we decided again to decrease the wholesale and it was more 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. So it was a double digit negative trend, but self inflicted again. Concerning the order book about the order book for the we don't provide such information. What we know is that we have clear indications that the 2013 for 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.
About the performance for Puma, The trends are particularly negative in fact in Italy and France. These two countries contribute to almost 80% of the performance of the performance of the brand in Europe and especially in the Eurozone. And it's mainly driven by footwear with very, 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 cobaltima growth. It's a double digit increase of the sales.
In apparel, it's also a quite good performance. So we gained market share both in accessories and apparel, but we have still the issue in the footwear with a quite negative trend. But 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 Zillone 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? And could you eventually disclose the like for like retail performances for both Gucci and Bottega Veneta? Then a follow-up on Ruiz's question regarding the Gucci Mainland China store network. Could you give us a precise figure?
Could you maybe elaborate on your full year dose opening plans detailed by brands? And then to conclude, what were the or 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. So about Bottega Veneta, it's your first question. So it's in the retail channel, we are at plus 30% globally worldwide with quite well balanced in fact growth because it's almost 15% for the emerging markets and 12% in the mature markets. And a very with a very strong performance as I said in Greater China plus 20% and almost 33% in Mainland China. So as you can see, there is still these brands enjoy still a strong momentum, especially considering the tough comparison basis for these brand in retail.
But taking
into account the maybe sorry to interrupt, but taking into account the still strong number of stores opening, will you give us a flavor of the like for like sales trend at the Tecogen Ester retail on the same for Gucci, please?
As you perfectly know, we never provide such information as regards like for like. I just mentioned answering to Louis Singularis that the like for like at Gucci was slightly positive and it's also the case for Bottigravir that's network in China or you want I think if you had a question about the Gucci performance in Mainland China, if I remember well, Marc?
No. In the overall network in Mainland China, I mean, you gave an answer to Louise and some of my other colleagues regarding the raw performances in China. Just can you give us the number of stores?
Yes, of course. 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. So we opened only 1 store during this quarter in China. So there was no change for Gucci at this stage.
And concerning globally the policy as regards China in terms of stores opening. As we already said, we look at this in a cautious manner and we will appreciate we will have careful policy about this and we want to open payback. So we are careful about this. So 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, 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 it's not there is no surprise from our side. I think we are globally very happy with this performance for the quarter in a difficult environment. And for the trend for the global year, of course, for the whole year, it's too early to predict what would be the performance of each brand. So globally, the management of each brand worked very hard and we are quite satisfied with the expectation no bad surprises and totally in line with our expectations considering the trends since the beginning of the year.
Our next question comes from Mario Aurelio 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 And this quarter was a bit soft for many reasons strong comps, a decrease of wholesale 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 whether this is strong growth or double digit?
The second question is about Puma. When you communicated the results of last year, you told that the strategy of Puma remained focused on being a brand focused on performance and lifestyle. Do we foresee you've got any change in the strategy, maybe a brand more focused on performance or lifestyle or will be still on these 2 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. And 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 Pomerato can become?
How big can become Pomerato next year, if you have got some targets of revenues or margins?
Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mario. Yes, about Bottega Veneta, again, I think that the quarter is should be not restated, but should be regarded with this unusual performance or in this one off performance in wholesale. Again, in retail, it's a double digit growth.
And I think that we already said that considering the size of Bottega Veneta, we can expect a midterm and short term normalization of the growth rate of Bottega Veneta. And we already said that we expected probably for the year double digit increase, but not at the same pace as in the past years. So for the moment, we are on track when we look at the retail performance, but it's too soon and we won't provide any expectation for the full year for Bottega Veneta.
Regarding the strategy for Kumaan, we will fine tune the brand positioning, particularly concerning the duality between sport performance on the one side and lifestyle on the other side. And the objective is to clarify the positioning from a customer perspective. Also, we want to bring more focus and more strength into positioning in all segments. So we will have some fine tuning of our merchandising and also our communication.
Coming back to your question about Pomerato, I won't provide any additional information concerning the majority stake we have in Pomellato. It's a significant maturity stake. As we said, Mr. Morante, we remain shareholder of Pomellato and the RABOLINI family won't be anymore 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 Promethe Auto is a brand with wonderful potential. Said, Pomellato to the next level. As it was said yesterday, because the sales of Pominator are close to €150,000,000 of revenues. In the past years, the compound annual growth rate was approximately 10% or a bit more. So 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 Femme Rea, Morantay. So I think we have a good basis for the next year. Deirdre, 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, they did 7% in the quarter. At the same time, you mentioned Stella McCartney, Alexander McQueen, etcetera, Bouffant doing more than 20% on balance. They get doing well.
So, I don't really get what went which were the brand which really significantly declined in the quarter. And second question was the price increase in Japan for Gucci. Was it as much as Louis Vuitton, I. E. More than 10%?
And finally, have you made an analysis of why Chinese travel trends slowed in the Q1? Do you think that is linked to the GDP slowdown there? Or is this linked more to another reason?
Thank you, Francois. Concerning the other brands, what we wanted to highlight is still the strong performance of Bouffron and the 2 British brands, which are performing above 30% in terms of both. Balenciaga did quite well. But as we mentioned, it's Gerard Perregaux brand, which suffered from the Chinese market conditions and also we had to endure some delays in terms of delivery to our distribution. So and Jean Michel also was supposed to be is a brand that we want to relaunch.
As you saw perhaps there is some advertising campaigns around the brand, but we have also some deliveries, delays in delivery for Rang Shah. And it does explain the performance of Saw Win that dragged down a little bit the performance of the brands. So concerning the Japan, in fact there was no at this stage a price increase for Gucci. So we will start some selected price increase during the Q2. But at this stage, there will be no change.
And in fact, the price gap with Europe was significantly reduced due to the weakening of the yen. We lost approximately something like 20 or 15 basis points in terms of price gap between Europe and Japan. Lastly, about your question concerning with your question about Chinese, it's very 1st of all, we have an increase of the sales of the Chinese story for other brands. So the but the issue is that we have a slowdown compared to the last quarter. We have as you have the data of Air China, of Aeroporte Paris, Heathrow Airport and we see that there is a slight slowdown.
I think that there are there is a global environment in China, not only with the tourists but globally in China with perhaps less enthusiasm to buy luxury food, perhaps because of some concern about the economic situation, but also still about the political environment. So the reason why I said as an introductory remark that we still wait for a rebound in the consumption of the customers. So this is 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 a follow-up on the other brands. I mean, for me, I mean, so when so Gerard, Perrigo, etcetera, and then it is quite small in the total. So are there any other brands? I mean,
You'd like to mention 30 royalty, which growth is quite soft. So I think that with Casualty and sewing we and plus some nice development, growth of the brands. So I would say that we have Bouffron and the 2 British brands performing very well. So we announced your OC soft and Balenciaga and Cerdureme Briony 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 Q1. We are of course available to address any other question you have in the coming days. A reminder that our annual meeting will take place on June 18. 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.