Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to LatAm EMEA conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask questions during the session, you need to press star one on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star zero. I would like to hand the conference over to the first speaker today, Florence Tresarrieu. Please go ahead, sir.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. We're very pleased to welcome you to our EMEA and LatAm conference call. We are today hosted by Gilles Bogaert, Chairman and CEO of Pernod Ricard EMEA and LatAm. I guess most of you would have seen the video we posted on our website this morning. In the interest of time, I suggest we go straight into the Q&A session. Operator, could you please open the call to the first caller?
Okay, ma'am. Once again, if you would like to ask question, just press star one. If you want to cancel it, just press the hash key. Your first question comes from the line of Simon Hales from Citi. Please go ahead, your line is open.
Thank you. Good afternoon, Gilles. Good afternoon, Florence. Two questions from me, please. Gilles, I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how you see the midterm growth algorithm across both the Europe and the LatAm region sort of panning out from here. Is there any reason to think it will be different post the pandemic to what you were expecting sort of pre-pandemic? Now you've got sort of 12 months under your belt since we last had one of these calls. Secondly, I wonder if you could talk a little bit about sort of net revenue management in the region, perhaps how that's changed over the last 3-5 years as you've got a sort of better digital tool to allow you to manage those processes.
If you could give us any, you know, sort of numbers perhaps to sort of show how NRM has improved over that time period, that'd be very interesting. Thanks.
Sorry. Hi, Simon. Do you mind repeating the second question because the line was not very clear. We couldn't really hear you. The second one.
Sure. It was just around net revenue management, how that's put, how that's perhaps changed in the region, how you've managed sort of pricing and realized price, how it's perhaps improved over the last sort of three to five years, just to give us a flavor of how some of your digital tools have enabled you to sort of better manage that sort of revenue portion of your business.
Yeah, that's clear. Thank you, Simon. Thank you, Florence. Your first question was on midterm sales growth. I think what we have said in the past when we launched the Transform and Accelerate plan is that there were a midterm top-line objective for EMEA LatAm was close to mid-single digits top-line growth. We have not, I would say, updated any midterm forecast so far, and I will let the group to do so when relevant. What I can say is that the first year, fiscal year 2020, after COVID, we in EMEA LatAm were down 4%. Last year, fiscal 2021, we were up 12%.
Obviously, we'll see what growth will post this year, but it will likely be a strong growth with and we had a Q1 which was up 33%. Don't expect obviously this type of a top-line growth to remain at the same level for the quarters to come. We'll start to have easier comp in second half. But I think just looking at the sequence of those growth since COVID gives a good idea of the type of underlying trend that we have today. On the revenue management, well, we've been quite busy over the last few years on that. We've been very active on different fronts.
First on the tools. We've been equipping our market tools with new tools, data-driven, allowing to better help us to monitor our promotions, as you know, the depths, the frequency, measuring better the return on the investment, the return on the promotions. We start to further improve that with predictive data. This is something which is being deployed in all market codes. That's definitely something quite important. We have also strengthened the process of review of price increases with each market code during the year.
Obviously, in a context when inflation is up, the demand is strong, the supply is tight, so with a view to try to obviously maximize our pricing, which has always been part of our premiumization strategy. Nothing new there in terms of intents, but we start to be far better equipped. We have also hired revenue growth managers in most of the biggest markets, so that we're also equipped from a commercial planning standpoint with the right expertise to keep improving on that front.
Brilliant. Thank you.
Sir, your next question comes from the line of Edward Mundy from Jefferies. Please go ahead, your line is open.
Hi, Gilles. Hi, Florence. Three questions from me. First of all, just coming back to digital, I think Alex laid out his vision for this business to be a, you know, conviviality platform. As you look out over the medium term, what are the behaviors or processes that you're not doing today that will be implemented and help you know, with your commercial strategy? Second question is really around finance 4.0. Could you talk about how richer data is allowing you to better forecast and improve, you know, resource management across perhaps sales, COGS, NP, structural costs, however you think it's right to think about Finance 4.0?
The third question is around the low and no opportunity, where you've launched, you know, Ballantine's and Beefeater Light within Spain. Could you talk to the level of cannibalization for those brands relative to the mother brands? Is there an opportunity to roll this out into other markets?
Okay. Thank you for your question. On the first one, the conviviality platform thing, I invite you obviously to spend time with Alex the next time you have a call with him on that topic. That's obviously a long-term vision. We are creators of conviviality, and we want to leverage digital as part of our transformation to be able to better leverage the power of data to engage in a more efficient way with all our key stakeholders, you know, customers, consumers.
with a view that doing so we should be able at the end of the day to be able to activate potentially more brands, optimizing also the allocation of resources between brands by touch points and omni-channel, which is definitely what we want to achieve.
What it means for us from now on, and we have obviously already embarked on that digital transformation, is to we have different initiatives that we deploy across the group to try to help us to be better data-driven company in the marketing area, in particular, the advertising and promotional expenses allocation by touch point, by brand, by country, with a way to optimize the way we allocate investment and optimize the return we get from that investment. You know, being more data-driven, we have more ability to be guided in the way we should do that.
We have some promising pilots in that respect in some markets, which is just still early days. Also in the sales part, I think I mentioned before the revenue growth management. Definitely we have some initiatives to help us to better manage pricing and promotions, leveraging the same type of data-driven tools. In the sales part, it's also a way to help us to guide our salespeople on how to spend their time, their money, their activities between the different channels, the different outlets, with a view to improving our distribution and to have a better execution of our commercial initiatives. We are definitely engaged in that transformation.
The end game, the vision is to be able to turn Pernod Ricard into a conviviality platform. As far as Finance 4.0 is concerned, I would obviously invite you also to spend time with Hélène de Tissot on that transformation. Let's say that apply the same type of evolution applied to finance. We want to go to the next level in terms of a data-driven approach to finance to have more powerful systems with a better granularity, more predictive also, and more integrated between the different modules, including with all the S&OP system, with a view to be even better in the way we manage business planning.
This is all that it is about. Obviously, it is supported by a lot of IT developments, and this is in progress, and this will continue in the couple of years to come. Your last question was on no-lo. No need to say that conscious drinking is on the top of consumers' expectations. It's definitely a key pillar of our innovation strategy and innovation opportunities. Yes, you're right to say that we've been active there. We launched Ballantine's Light and Beefeater Light in Spain. This is the first year.
I think they were launched half a year ago, so it's still early days. Encouraging results, getting good traction, bringing new consumers also to the brand. I think that we are still in research mode on those results before deciding what we do in the other countries. Definitely we'll remain active on No-Lo on those two brands and also on other ones with current innovations and potentially new innovations to come in the years to come to seize that great opportunity.
I would like also to add, you know, the fantastic performance of Lillet, which is also with a lower ABV and which is definitely addressing this type of trend. That's across the brand and across the whole portfolio.
Great. Thanks, Gilles.
Sir, your next question comes from the line of Sanjeet Aujla from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi, Gilles, Florence. A couple of questions from myself also. Firstly, just looking at your Q1 performance, I think your organic sales across the region were up around 30% against pre-pandemic levels. Were there any restocking or anything which would have caused the shipments to deviate from the sellout trends across the regions you're seeing? Is this a reasonable way to think about the balance of the year when we compare to pre-pandemic levels? Thanks.
Well, yes, the net sales were up 33% in the Q1 . Largely driven by the strong rebound of on-trade, whereas off-trade was still resilient, but growing at a lower pace than in the previous year. That's the way you should look at it. Obviously, the demand was very strong, and as evidenced by the sellout and that you can see in the Nielsen. At the same time, there was in some channels, in particular in the indirect route to markets, some rebuilding of the inventories to be able to deliver this new type of course.
Let's say that a large part of that performance is directly linked to sellouts. Obviously, this is Q1, so ahead of Christmas, so this is definitely a period of time when we, I would say, have higher level of inventories to be able to deal with the Christmas sales. It is impacted also by the way that the supply is quite difficult, so we are delivering this type of performance with low level of, let's say, internal inventories at market level and also at the level of some customers.
This is something that we try to monitor as well as we can in that current tight supply constraint. I'm not comparing here with the pre-pandemic, you know, trends or figures. I'm just highlighting the channel dynamics as compared to what we had last year. Just to give you a flavor, when we look at volumes in Q1 as compared to what they were two years ago, that is to say the last first quarter before pandemic in the region on average, off-trade is at an index of more than 120 when the on-trade is slightly above 100%.
It means that in Q1, on-trade is almost back to the situation we had pre-pandemic, and it's in a way normal because we almost did not face in Q1 any adverse sanitary constraints or very limited, I would say. We still need to make sure that it will remain the case in the months to come. Some countries were above that. Some countries were still below 80% levels, like Spain, for instance. It gives an idea of what the business looks like today as compared to the pre-pandemic situation. Another example, e-commerce was almost multiplied by 3 between the two periods.
At the end of Q1, all channels are above the level that we had, you know, two years before.
That's great, Gilles . Just a quick follow-up on margins. I think the presentation you called out organic margins up 400 basis points against fiscal 2019. Can you just talk a bit about how much of that is from gross margin versus A&P and structural costs and where you see future opportunities coming from?
Well, yes, I think it's over the last three years, we've been very busy also in not only growing the top line, gaining share, but also improving our margins. That's what we've done. As you said, we've organically improved our operating margin by close to 400 basis points. Definitely three main levers, the gross margin level thanks to some improved price mix. The A&P, let's say, optimization doesn't mean that we invested less, but we invested better that behind the best priorities. As I said earlier, we are today in a better situation to be able to properly allocate our investment behind the best opportunities.
Obviously, structural costs now, which remained almost flattish on average in, let's say, the last three years, including the current fiscal year, which shows our ability to remain very disciplined on structure while net sales was up. I would say that probably the main driver has been the structural discipline, followed by, you know, premiumization, so price and mix, positive price and mix, and smart A&P allocation in that order.
Thank you.
Sir, your next question comes from the line of Trevor Stirling from Bernstein. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Good afternoon, Gilles, and Florence. Two questions from my side, please. Gilles, I think you mentioned that, you know, your sales are up 33% in the Q1 . Europe as reported, which I appreciate includes France and Ireland, a different footprint was about 17% pre-COVID. Clearly, the region's in good shape compared to pre-COVID. I'm just wondering, is Spain basically the only one that was still below pre-COVID? Maybe just a little bit of color there would be great. Then the second thing, you also talked on the call on your presentation about supply chain constraints, and is that both ocean freight to places like LATAM and Africa and ground transportation in Europe? Maybe a little bit of color on that would be great as well.
Yeah, thank you for those questions. On the first ones, I would say yes. Southern Europe and in particular Spain are probably the only countries which are still today below COVID. It's market driven. It's as you know, markets which are a lot exposed to on trade. It's more than half of the Spanish market. The recovery of on trade has been far more recent. Even in Q1 at this stage, the on trade is not back to the level of two years before. It will take probably a bit more time, even if we remain confident, you know, on the potential of Spain to go back to good growth.
Very clearly in the first quarter, Spain was back to good level of growth, and it was a 22% top line growth, whereas last year it was still down 13%. As you can see, we are on the right track there leveraging in particular the rebound of the on trade. Most of the other markets, not to say all of them, are now clearly above the business that they had, you know, pre-COVID. On supply, yes, it's a tense situation, and it's not specific to Pernod Ricard. It's even not specific, obviously, to the industry. We just need to deal with it.
We've been increasing our production capacities to be able to bottle, you know, at a very high pace in particular in Chivas Brothers or in The Absolut Company. I would say that today we are running full speed there. The other main bottlenecks obviously are our supply from dry goods and some wet goods also, and logistics, which are probably the biggest bottleneck that we see today. Have we lost sales? I would say that, yes, we have some out of stock in some SKUs in some countries. I would say Spain has been probably the most impacted market so far.
The net, I would say, business impact so far is not too significant. We are just working with minimal inventory in the market, which makes things more difficult. We may have some time to change plans from a supply standpoint and a logistics standpoint from one week to another one. It's not easy to find trucks. It's not easy to find drivers. It's not easy to find boats. That's definitely a tough situation we have to deal with. We still have to deal with in the months to come. I'd say so far it has not prevented us from posting strong growth.
Very good. Thank you very much, Gilles.
Sir, your next question comes from the line of Olivier Nicolai from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Bonjour, Gilles and Florence. Just a question. Actually, three. You flagged a strong sales growth in the prestige category across the region during your presentation. In that context, should we interpret this as the beginning of a strong premiumization trend in Europe post the pandemic? The reason I'm asking this is because the percentage of premium brands in Europe is much lower than in the U.S. That would be great to have your view on that. Secondly, on e-commerce, you mentioned it was 5% of your net sales. Which market within EMEA or LATAM are leading on that? Also, may I ask, what have you learned so far from the Whisky Exchange deal? Any thoughts on how that acquisition might impact your e-commerce strategy? Thank you very much.
Yeah, thank you. On prestige, it's not new. It was one of our key transversal battlegrounds for EMEA, LATAM already in our plan three years ago, and it remains so. I think our intent at that moment was to grow at twice the speed as before, and that's what we've done in the last three years. You know, adjusted obviously from the COVID impacts. I think it remains our objective going forward. I, we are strong believer of the premiumization. We were strong believer before COVID. We are still strong believers today. I wouldn't say that it has further strengthened the potential. The potential was there. It's still there.
I think we are organizing also ourselves to fully seize that potential, including with the creation of some prestige teams, dedicated teams in more and more relevant markets. E-commerce, yes, you picked up the 5% share of sales of the region. Not very similar to the level of the group. It was far lower two or three years ago, so we probably did two or three years of e-commerce growth in one year. Post-COVID. We believe it's a strong trend that will continue in the region. Countries like U.K. or Germany are already very strong in e-commerce, but it starts to be relevant too.
It starts to drive growth in, let's say, most of the key markets, in LATAM, in Italy, for instance. This is also a big trend, obviously. Unfortunately, there are some markets where we still cannot do e-commerce, and that's the case of Poland or Russia. Elsewhere, it has been a booming trend. There also, we have organized ourselves to have some dedicated e-commerce teams to be able to seize that potential as well as possible. It's about e-retail. We're working better with e-retail. It's about working with, also with pure players like Amazon, Glovo, Rappi or Jumia in Africa, or potentially also The Whisky Exchange.
That was your last question. You know, this business will be managed, we'd say separately from the rest of the group and from the core business. We'll be a supplier, we'll remain a supplier to Whisky Exchange as other spirit players. I think the intent for us is to try to build a strong marketplace for wine and spirits for all players, for all brands, bringing you know premium products with a very good level of service. That's the vision.
Thank you very much.
Once again, if you would like to ask questions, just press star one. Sir, your next question comes from the line of Laurence Whyatt from Barclays. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi, Jules. Thanks very much for the questions. Three also from me. You mentioned in response to one of the previous questions that the structural costs were flattish on average over the past three years, and that shows your discipline. You also mentioned structural cost discipline in your prepared remarks. Should we assume that going forward, that discipline will remain and we shouldn't really expect to see an increase in structural costs across that, across your part of the business? My first question. Secondly, you mentioned in the prepared remarks your innovation hub. I was wondering if you could give us a bit more information on how that works and what sort of data goes into driving which innovations are made and which ones are left on the drawing board.
Finally, in your remarks, you mentioned that you'd increased the number of women in band C and above roles from 19% in 2018 to 30% in 2021. I was wondering if you could let us know what policies or procedures that you've put in place that really drove that change. Thank you very much.
Thank you for those very diverse questions. On structure cost, when I say it would be flattish on average, it's for fiscal year 2021 and 2022. The one that has started. It has been flattish, yes, because we've been very disciplined in during COVID times, and also because we want to keep, you know, a very tight T&E strategy. For instance, people will not travel as much as pre-COVID because we adapt to the new hybrid, you know, way of working. It's also the consequence of some important adjustments of our organizations over the last 3 years that are not directly linked to COVID. Just to be a better fit for purpose, to be more efficient.
We try to leverage better our management entities. You know this. This is the way we are organized with 11 in the region with a lead market, which is the biggest one, and some smaller ones reporting to the lead market with a view to share expertise and share some of the teams, you know, in support functions. Also potentially in marketing, like consumer insight, or digital center of excellence for instance. These are things that we've been doing. We've been also putting some countries together, like Benelux, like Peru and Andina, like the Balkans, just to give a few examples.
with the objective to pool resources and to be more impactful in those markets, but with as a consequence an optimized structure while remaining consumer-centric. Going forward, what you can expect obviously is for us to accompany the rebound. Yes, after freezing the headcounts during the COVID times, we plan to recruit again the needed jobs, particularly in the sales area. After also one year of freeze of salary in fiscal year 2020, we are back to, I would say, normal salary increases in the context also of higher inflation.
This year, this fiscal year 2020, structural costs will logically be up, but this is definitely our objective for this year and for the years to come. To keep decreasing our ratio, structural cost to net sales within it, within the EMEA LATAM. Your second question was on the innovation hub. You had a quick summary video accessible to you on the internet. The purpose of the innovation hub is clearly to be more consumer-centric and to be able to to leverage more consumer research, consumer insights, to better assess the new opportunities, size them and arbitrate with objectives to have fewer but bigger and more successful innovations.
To involve the brand companies and the brands at a later stage, once we have identified the opportunities. Those innovation hubs, or we have one by region and one for North America, one for Asia Pacific, and one for EMEA/LATAM. It has been operational since March. We have close to 20 people now based in three different locations, London, Madrid and Berlin.
Those people work very closely with the consumer insight teams, very closely also with the markets, to identify the best opportunities and then to come with some ideations that are then tested and then arbitrated before you know brand companies you know actually work on launching those products on the market. We believe it will help us to be bolder on innovation. Innovation is already delivering quite good results, because last year it was an incremental 3% top line growth to EMEA LATAM. Our intent is for innovation to represent an even further growth or share of the growth of the region going forward. Your last question was about our diversity agenda.
You rightly noted the progress we've done in the last years. Women now represent 30% of our, let's say, top management. You know, the group objective by 2030 is to be a balanced organization. That is to say, between 40% and 60% male women or women male. How did we do that?
It has been a continuous process to put far more focus on diversity, a mix of work on the mindset, obviously, and also the very strong tone from the top, to make it happen, to also make sure that we have the right pipeline built over time to be able to have more women in top positions, through internal promotions, but also through external recruitments. I think that my colleague from the Comex, Ann Mukherjee, is a very good example of it. It's not the end of the game because we are at 30%. We need to go above 40% in the years to come.
Be sure that whenever we have our discussions on HR talents and on moves, D&I is one of the top priorities and top criteria.
Ladies and gentlemen, we're gonna take the two last questions.
Okay, our next question comes from the line of Celine Pannuti from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everyone. My first question is on the consumer both in Europe and in LATAM, if you could reply separately on that. Obviously you have had a very strong Q1 and you kindly shared with us the off-trade doing very well while the on-trade has been also resilient. As you look into next year or the next 12-18 months, how do you expect the consumer to behave given the externalities that we know about from on the one hand, the macro rebound, but as well, you know, is there a bit of an issue that you foresee in some countries with dealing with the level of inflation overall for the consumer? My second question is on digital.
We are talking about your sales force, and they were equipped. Could you explain a bit, you know, how the go-to-market has been digitalized and what does it change in your relationship with your distributors or your end customers? Could you as well tell us about data collection, how would that work? Do you get your firsthand direct data or do you have to rely on your customer data? Thank you.
Thank you for your questions. In terms of consumer behavior, it's fair to say that in the last six months we've seen some, let's say, euphoria of consumers. You know, after so many months of lockdown, people being able to go out, you had what some call, you know, the revenge or the comeback, the strong, very strong comeback of conviviality. Let's say that people fully, and fully understood and felt as a pain during lockdowns how conviviality is important.
I think that obviously after that period of time they came back you know very strongly to sharing good moments of conviviality with friends with family and it has been something positive for our brands. And also part of it is linked to the fact that most people didn't do anything else. They could not travel. There were not so many other types of entertainment that were possible at that time. At a moment when some had saved also money during that period of time. Yes, probably it helped, I would say, the very strong boom that we are currently seeing.
That said, I think that we've seen some trends that seem to be, I would say, sticky or sustainable. For instance, the pleasure to indulge a good drink at home, the cocktail trend that we've seen at home is something that is still there, you know, even six or eight months after on-trade has reopened. I think this is definitely something encouraging. In terms of other trends, we know this local leaning is something that we still want to capture with our brands and with our communication platforms. This consumption at home is definitely another one that we want to keep, you know, leveraging and going forward.
We spoke about the no-lo before. We have not spoken a lot about the sustainability and responsibility roadmap, but definitely this is another expectation from our consumers and our brands. On top of the corporate commitments, our brands need to play a role and to be socially responsible, and it should also feed the way we look at the next campaign and the way we look at innovation in the months to come. In terms of digital, let's say that our salespeople are far better equipped than they were, and it's a process, so it will take time before all markets, I would say, get those new tools.
It's a mix of new SFA tools powered by stronger data, with also change management, so that our salespeople are able to leverage the power of this data to help them to increase the distribution of our products, to better manage the activation of our brands on the last three feet, better merchandising, all the classical, I would say, initiatives that a salesman need to have. Obviously, when we speak about data, it's our internal data, but it also some data we get from you know, from Nielsen. It's data we get from our customers. Getting the right set of data with the right granularity, the right frequency is a key objective.
Going forward, we need to work more and more with our clients, including the retailers, so that we can get more data and grow our business together in a more efficient way. This is definitely one of the objectives we have for the months and the years to come, at a time when many customers and retailers start also to engage on that digital transformation. This is something that we'll need to do together.
Thank you.
Sir, your last question comes from the line of Javier Gonzalez Lastra. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yeah. Thank you. Good afternoon, Gilles and Florence. A couple of questions on my side. First one on margins. Sorry to insist on this one. You've shown a very strong performance through the pandemic on the margins of the European business, the 400 basis points you alluded to in the presentation. You've mentioned structural costs are a big driver behind that, but I just wonder, is this a permanent new base from where you expect to grow, or would it be reasonable to expect some of those gains to be reversed or given back as marketing investments increase in the post-COVID environment? My second question is on Lillet. I just wondered if you could talk a little bit about the success of the brand, not only in Germany but in other markets.
How exportable is that brand to most of the other European markets, and how successful is the brand at taking share from the big spirits players, so Aperol. Lastly, I was curious to understand or learn the reason behind or the reason why Ireland and France are outside the scope of the EMEA division.
Okay. Your first question on margins. I invite you to look at the group's indication on margins, which is an annual improvement of 50-60 basis points. Obviously, EMEA/LATAM is part of that. We've delivered a very strong improvement of margin in the last years also because we consider that the level was too low and that we needed to work on some of levers to be able to bring it to a higher level, in particular in Europe. That's something that we have delivered.
There was a kind of one-off initiative on our organization to leverage better our management entities to have more fit for purpose organization that has delivered some significant savings over the last few years. Now, going forward, I think after fiscal 2022, we'll have a more normative basis. The objective is to keep you know improving our operating margin through a strong price and mix. This is definitely a hot topic because of the high inflation that we face on some input costs. We'll keep you know optimizing you know allocating our A&P in a smart way.
At the time also when the rebound is quite important and fiscal 2022 is a very important year for us to make sure we invest the right level behind our key brands and key markets to be able to fuel that top line rebound and to deliver that objective to gain share in most of our markets. We'll keep doing so this year after adjusting down the A&P at the beginning of the COVID period. Since the beginning of the current calendar year, we have accelerated a lot on the A&P, and you can expect that to remain in the current fiscal year.
On Lillet, this is definitely a very promising brand. As you said, it grew very quickly in Germany. In Austria, it starts to have a very good also momentum in Benelux. It's totally aligned with what consumers want today. It's low ABV, high quality ingredients, easy to mix, women like it, and very premium. This is definitely a priority for all EMEA/LATAM region, including emerging markets. Even if some markets will put focus on the brand at a later stage.
Definitely, let's say the U.K., Italy, LATAM, South Africa, these are countries where we have started to seed Lillet with the ambition that it could become, I would say, a big brand also in those geographies. Yes, it's not just about those markets. It goes beyond that.
Sorry, I think you had a third question which we didn't catch.
Yes. Just a quick follow-up on Lillet. Is the brand successful at gaining share from the market leader, from Aperol spritz? Or if you could give us a flavor as to the areas of the market where it's sourcing the market share. The third question-
Wait.
Sorry.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Please, your third question was?
Yeah, the third question was the Ireland and France, the reason why those two markets are not part of the scope of EMEA.
I'm not sure I'm the best person to answer that question because it's not part of Europe. I think France has historically been a big market for the group. It just went through a big, an important merger between Ricard and Pernod. I think that there was a very strong group focus on that transformation, which I think is on a very good track, by the way. Ireland happens to be reporting to our distillers brand company because they are both based in the same place.
It's a good way also for the brand company to test some of the new initiatives in the home market. Back to your first question. Lillet is gaining share from the aperitif moments. This is what it is about. In a way, it can compete with all products that are strong in the aperitif moment, including the gin occasion of consumption, for instance.
As compared to the brand you mentioned, which I suppose is Aperol, Lillet has been growing at a quicker pace in the last two years and at a far more premium price level, which is clear on Lillet. We want to establish the brand as a premium brand with a high level of quality of the ingredients. The source of business is broad, right? It's about, let's say, the opportune moments targeting women, but not only. The results have been very good so far.
This is definitely one of our top regional priorities.
Excellent. Thank you. Thank you very much.
This conclude our Q&A session. Thanks a lot, Gilles. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for all your questions. We wish you a very good rest of your day. Thank you.
Thank you.
That concludes our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now all disconnect.