Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining us for our Q3 sales presentation. We will follow the usual format and take you through the presentation and then give you a chance for some Q and A. So without further ado, over to you, Gilles.
Thank you, Julia. Good morning, everybody. I'm very happy to welcome you on this call, which is going to be my 36th and last quarterly financial communication. So looking forward to your questions in a few minutes. So, let's start with the presentation.
Continuation of very good sales with diversified growth, 6.3% organic year to date growth, driven by emerging markets, up 13%, with a continued dynamism in the Americas, up 6%, good performance in the USA and acceleration of Latin America, a very dynamic Asia Rest of the World, plus 10%, thanks to confirmed return to strong growth in China. In India, and in India, it was partly favored by the low comp in Travel Retail and in Africa Middle East. Europe was up 2% in the 1st 9 months with a good momentum in Eastern Europe and stability in Western Europe with, on the one hand, good performances in Germany and UK, but difficulties in Spain and in France. Q3 was strong at 9.3% growth, enhanced by favorable phasing of Chinese New Year and, to a lesser extent, the timing of Easter. So in those 3 months, we had a continued dynamism in the Americas, up 6%, with a good overall performance.
Asia Rest of the World was up 18%, thanks to a strong underlying performance enhanced by favorable CNY phasing in China and cycling demonetization in India last year. We had in the quarter a modest decline in Europe, minus 1%, with the continued difficulties in Spain and France, together with unfavorable shipment phasing in Russia and an adverse basis of comparison in the UK. So you have on Slide 3 the key figures. So net sales above €7,000,000,000 for the 1st 9 months. And on Slide 4, the different elements explaining the variation of net sales, so 6.3 percent organic year to date sales.
Reported year to date sales were slightly up by 0.2% because of adverse ForEx impact of €408,000,000 minus 6% in the first 9 months. On Page 5, you have the overview of the growth by region. As you can see, the acceleration is largely driven by Asia Rest of the World, up 10% in the 1st 9 months, whereas it was up 1% last year. On slide 6, you have the sales growth by key category. And as you can see, the acceleration is driven by the Strategic International Brands, up 7%, whereas they were up 4% last year.
So strong growth driven by Martell, Jameson and also the return to growth of Chivas. We also had some acceleration and some dynamic performance on our strategic local brands, up 7%, whereas they were up 1% in the last fiscal year. It's largely driven by Seagram Whiskeys, in particular in India, where we enjoyed a low comp, but also the strong double digit of our Tequila Olmeca Altos. The wine was stable in the 1st 9 months with Campo Bierro continuing to deliver strong results, but we had some adverse phasing at the end of March in the U. K.
And in Kenwood in the U. S, Q4 should be better. So let's go through the different regions, starting with the Americas, up 6% end of March, with the U. S. Up 3%.
As we already said in our previous communication, the market has been decelerating versus the previous year, and we estimate the growth in value of the market to be between 3% and 4%. And Pernod Ricard is very close to that performance. So it's a good performance. And in a way, even if the market growth has decelerated in the U. S, our relative performance has improved as compared to last year.
We have a strong momentum on Jameson, on Martell, which gaining share in the U. S. And on our Takeda portfolio, Avion and Altos, Absolute is still in decline. Canada showed a modest decline in those 1st 9 months. Travel Retail Americas showed some growth acceleration versus last year, driven by strategic international brands, Martell, Chivas, Absolut and Janssen in particular.
And we had also a good first 9 months in Latin America with a return to growth in Brazil in an improving context, driven by our strategic international brands, in particular, Chivas, Absolut and Ballantyne's and also Passport. An improved performance in Mexico following our strategic refocus, so disposals and reorganization of the company and a continued good performance in Argentina and in Cuba, thanks to the increased tourism in Cuba. Asia Rest of the World, up 10%, very dynamic with significant acceleration versus previous year. China, up 19%, very good Chinese New Year confirming the return to growth to strong growth indeed. Strong growth for Martell across all price segments.
Q4 expected to be weaker due to the tight management of inventories to ensure sustainable growth over the next years. Chivas has responded positively to the relaunch plan, but it's still too early to assess the success of new approach. That's a promising start, I would say. And very good performance of the whole portfolio of premium brands, in particular thanks to the new dedicated marketing and commercial organization we put in place 18 months ago. India was up 14% with a good performance across the whole portfolio, enhanced by a favorable comp.
As a reminder, demonetization had impacted Q2 and Q3 of the last fiscal year. The highway ban is now behind us. It's fully implemented, and we don't expect further disruption. We are awaiting clarification from GST Council as to the scope of the application of that tax. Korea still in decline due to Imperial, but trend is improving versus fiscal year 2017, thanks in particular to the strategic international brands.
Trial retail Asia, 11%, quite dynamic, in particular, thanks to a very strong H1. H2 will be is weaker. We had the commercial phasing split to H1. And as for China, the Q4 is expected to be weaker for Martell due to our policy of tight management of inventories to ensure a sustainable growth of the brand in the next years. Dynamic growth in Africa, Middle East, driven in particular by Turkey.
So we enjoyed a favorable comp there because of the COOP data last year. Page 9, modest growth in Europe, up 2%. So 2 difficult markets. 1st, France minus 4%, decline in a tough environment, in particular for Annis. We are innovating in that market, and we launched recently Ricard Plant Fresh.
Spain also minus 4%. The decline is due to the market deceleration. It has been amplified by destocking following the low summer and low Christmas. And it was also impacted by the political situation that created a decrease of the market growth by 1%. We also innovate in Spain, and we recently launched Bichter Pink.
Germany, up 6%, continued dynamic growth, enhanced by a favorable basis of comparison. We had some commercial conflicts last year and there's also the positive phasing for Easter. And we also have some price increases. There is, in particular, a strong development of the Aperative segment, in particular with the brand Lilly. U.
K, up 3%. It's a robust underlying dynamic with market share gains. Q3 was in decline due to unfavorable comp. There was some stop loading end of March last year prior to some price increases. Travel Retail Europe has shown some improvements, linked in particular to the return of the Russian travelers.
And Russia was up 10%, so we continue to have a strong underlying performance. Q3 was weak due to some unfavorable shipment phasing. We also want to highlight the renewed geopolitical tension with some new economic sanctions against Russia, which led to some weakness in the currency, the ruble. So Page 10, a very strong year to date sales with Acceleration versus fiscal year 2017, in particular in China, India and Global Trial and Retail. As we said, we expect the Q4 to be negatively impacted by lower market sales.
We want to have a tight inventory management to be able to ensure growth sustainability. Also Q4 was also, to a lesser extent, will be also negatively impacted by the phasing of Easter. For the full fiscal year 2018, we expect a strong and diversified sales growth, some limited operating leverage. So yes, the pricing has started to improve versus fiscal year 2017, and we keep benefiting from the ongoing focus on operational excellence. But we also have to deal with some adverse impacts like the GST in India and the strongly rising agave costs.
We have updated the negative ForEx on the operating profit from recurring operations. Our last estimate is a negative impact €200,000,000 for the full year. We confirm the fiscal 2018 guidance at the top end of the range with an organic growth in profit from recurring operations close to 6%. Slide 11, we also announced an evolution of our dividend policy. Due to profit growth acceleration and deleveraging in the last 2 years, Pernod Ricard's Board of Directors is recommending an inflection of its dividend policy, obviously subject to the AGM on the 21st November 2018.
And the objective is to have a dividend distribution to progressively increase over the next 3 years to circa 50% of net profit from recurring operations starting, obviously, this year. As a reminder, our historical policy of distributing dividends was 1 third close to 1 third of net profit from recurring operations. We obviously remain committed to value creating M and A, while retaining an investment grade rating. So thank you for your time, and I think it's time now for your questions.
We do have our first question from Simon Howells from Citi. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, Gilles. Good morning, Gilles. Three questions, please, Gilles. Firstly, could you talk a little bit more about the phasing impacts in Q4?
Maybe particularly again explain what's happening with that tight inventory management around Martell. Is any of that to do with the pricing I know you're taking on that brand? At the moment, it's been maybe more of a buying in Q3, and therefore, we're going to see some impact of that on Q4. Secondly, I wonder if you could just talk about the U. S.
I mean you flagged and you've seen for a while the slowing general market backdrop. What do you think is driving that? I'm interested in your thoughts there. And then with regards to absolute, which you said was still down in the period, what have you seen in terms of consumer reaction to the Nothing to Hide campaign? And then just finally on FX, can you give us any indication at all as to how we should think about FX for fiscal 2019 now, Gilles, given that we're rapidly approaching that?
So I think if I look at consensus estimates, consensus is expecting just a $34,000,000 EBIT headwind from FX next year. Are you comfortable with that?
Well, thank you for your question, Simon. First question on the phasing impact in Q4 and what we said on Martell. What we want to do is to be able to deliver sustainable growth on Martell this year and the following years. What do we target? Low double digits growth in value top line for Martell for both this year and the following years.
And to date, at the end of March, the Martell growth is above that trend. So I think it's very important for us to limit the volumes so that we can ensure a sustainable and regular growth pattern over the next years. So it's not directly linked to the pricing, even if, obviously, with that strong demand on Martell, we have decided increase prices and most of the price increases took place in the second half of the current fiscal year. But most of the impact of that pricing increase will be next year. So we could expect, let's say, in the repartition between volume and value growth on Martell, you could expect this year to have maybe a stronger growth in volumes as compared to the next years.
But the price mix the following year should be a bit higher than what we have in fiscal year 2018. In the U. S, yes, there is a slowing market. It has been the case for now 12 months. Consumption as a whole is a bit less dynamic, not just specific to spirits.
So, we observe some prudent consumer behaviors. We know also that the growth is a bit heterogeneous and it's stronger for the high end products. It tends to be less strong for the standard brands. So by the way, it's good because premiumization is still very much alive. At the same time, pricing is almost nil today on the markets.
So, nothing really worrying. I think that we are well positioned because we are well exposed to premium brands. Jameson is still quite strong. The launch of Castmates is a success. The launch of IPA is very promising.
And Martell is gaining share. From a low basis, we're gaining share with Bruce Swift and the Versus Single Distillery. The Tequila portfolio is doing quite well. Absolute yes, it's still down, but at the same time, I think all we've done has been well received. The brand indeed has a relative performance as compared to the other premium and super premium vodka brands, which is not so bad.
I mean, we outperformed many of the brands, not all of them, but many of the brands. We have not been able to stabilize the brand at this stage in an environment which is probably tougher than what it was 2 or 3 years ago. But I think we are doing the right thing. And clearly, the campaign, Absolute Has Nothing TO Hide, has been well received. I mean, highlights of the transparency of the brands, the quality of the products, the authenticity of the product of the brand, and this is what we need to keep doing going forward.
In terms of ForEx, I think it's too early at this stage to give you a flavor for next year. We'll do it in our next communication. What I can tell you is that the assumption we took for the parity euro dollar for the full fiscal year 2018, so as part of this €200,000,000 negative impact on the operating profit, is roughly €120,000,000 and the current spot rate is €123,000,000 I think we communicate every 6 months our exposure to the currency fluctuations. So I think you should be able to make your own estimate based on that.
Okay. Thanks. And just going back to the phasing, Gilles, just can you help us at all think about how much of an impact on Q4 specifically the timing of Easter, maybe the Russian phasing changes as well as the inventory management you're having on cognac will impact on the Q4 sales
number? Well, I won't quantify the Q4 top line objective. What I can tell you is that we had 6.3% top line growth at the end of March. And at the end of June, we'll be below that. And I think this is quite consistent with our updated guidance, close to 6% with the mention that we'll have limited operational leverage for this year.
That's brilliant, Julien. Many thanks for all your interactions as CFO over the years and all the best in your new role. Thank you.
Thank you, Simon.
We will now take our next question from Olivier Nicolai from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, Gilles. Just a couple of questions. First of all, in your guidance, could you please quantify the adverse impact from GST and agave cost inflation? Are those the only driver to explain the lack of operating leverage? Or should we also expect marketing as a percentage of your sales to increase year on year?
And the second question is actually on France and on your new product Ricard Plant Fresh. I was just wondering, what are you targeting in terms of consumer? And how much cannibalization do you expect with the Ricard brand, which is, I think, from memory, about half of your sales in France? Thank you.
Thank you, Olivier. So the GST impact on fiscal year 2018, as announced at the beginning of the year, is estimated to be €15,000,000 on the operating profits. We mentioned in our communication that we still await clarification from the GST Council as to the scope of that GST because there could be a risk that it could be extended also to wet goods. So, I think at this stage, we are waiting for clarification on that. But the impact we have for this year is €15,000,000 And for the agave, within the last 2 years, we had a hit of almost €25,000,000 over the last 2 years.
So that's a significant impact that penalized, I would say, our COGS evolution in that period of time. You also had a question on the A and P to net sales ratio. I think our objective is to keep it more or less stable over the years. It doesn't mean that it couldn't be slightly up or slightly down in a specific year as compared to a previous one. We clearly want also to keep some flexibility to invest behind our best opportunities, especially at the time of stronger growth acceleration.
But overall, we believe that we have the right A and P to net sales ratio to be able to keep delivering the type of growth that we've had so far. The launch of Ricard Plant Fresh, I think the objective is to create some newness around the Ricard brand, which is a quite traditional brand in France, attract connoisseurs to the brand franchise with leveraging also the new trend of fresh products, natural products. So this Plant Fresh should bring that. It will be sold at a higher price point than the core rig car, 20% above. So it's also positive for the margins.
So yes, potentially, we could have some cannibalization, but we mainly expect that, again, to bring some newness, be positive to the brand equity of Ricard and also potentially bring new consumers to the brand.
Thank you very much, Gilles. I'm looking forward to try it. And all the best for your new role.
Thank you. We'll try it with 7 volumes of water for 1 volume of Ricard Plant Fresh, whereas for core Ricard, we suggest 5 volumes of water. We want it to be more diluted and more fresh for Ricard Plant Fresh.
Thanks a lot for the advice.
We will now take our next question from Sanjeet Aujla from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Hi, Gil. Three questions, please. Can you just let us know what Martell is running at year to date? And when you're talking about the sort of low double digit value growth ambition over the next few years, how do you see that splitting between volume and price mix? Secondly, on India, I appreciate you had some easy comps, but have you seen any impact from distributor changes in the period?
And thirdly, just on Spain and France, those markets continue to be weak in the period despite some of the destocking that you saw in H1. Can you just elaborate on some of the underlying trends there? And would you expect any improvement going into Q4? Thanks.
Well, we won't disclose the year to date top line growth for Martell. What I can tell you is that the objective is to be low double digit in value this fiscal year and the following years. Let's say, at the end of March, we are above this low double digit. We are, let's say, above 15%, to make it simple. We would expect going forward the volumes to grow high single digits starting fiscal 2019.
And so the difference between high single digits and low double digits being the price and mix, price should be positive because of the price increasing we've done and we're doing. Mix could be slightly negative because of the objective to make the brand more international to grow it in the U. S, in Africa, in Eastern Europe. And so we could have a slightly negative mix. For this year, we would expect the volume growth to be a bit higher than the high single digits, but the price and mix maybe to be a bit lower than what we expect for the next years.
In India, you're right to say that there are frequent route to market changes in different states. And some of them were possible in a state like Ariano, in particular, and Punjab. Nothing has happened so far, but we are still obviously monitoring the situation. And whenever there is a distributor change, it can create some short term volume disruption. Spain and France, yes, I mean, the performance is weak.
Our underlying trend is a bit better than the minus 4% we posted in both markets. We estimate that in Spain, we the underlying decline is more 1% and in France, it's more 2%. That said, these are still negative figures. I think that in Spain, after the good rebound we saw 2 years ago, following 7 or 8 years of crisis, there is some stabilization taking place. People seem to buy more durable goods rather than consumer goods.
That's a trend that we've seen recently. And the year was also impacted by the issues in Catalonia and also by the very, very hot summer. But very clearly, the market which had grown 3%, even 4% after the 7, 8 years of crisis is not growing anymore at that pace. And we would see the market to be close to stability over the next couple of years. In France, the market is not growing very strongly, but we are losing share today, mainly because of the difficulties we have in the anise category.
And as you know, we are quite exposed to that category. That's also why we need to innovate and the Lancashire L'Anse Ricard Plant Fresh is an attempt to innovate and bring some newness. We also need to deal with the deflation that take place in France and affect all consumer goods. Hopefully, with the new regulation that could come, there could be some more limitation to the depth and the frequency of the promotion that retailers impose to us. But this is something that we need to monitor in the next few months.
So we have in those two markets is a bit tough at this stage, but we are working hard on the portfolio management, on innovation and then our commercial organizations to be able to improve that going forward.
Very good. Thanks, Jill. All the best for the neuro.
Thank you.
We will now take our next question from Edward Mundy from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hi, Jill. Good morning, everyone. Jill, I've got 2 questions. The first is quite a big picture question. And I guess over the last 30 quarters or so since you've been doing these calls, you've seen at times per node grow as much as 8% at the group level for a year to as low as 0, depending on the cycle.
And at the current point in the cycle and without giving guidance, I was wondering whether you'd be able to share with us where you think Pernod is in the current part of the cycle. Are we at peak growth at around 6%? Do you feel that's sustainable? Or do you feel that because the sources of growth at Perna are more diversified, both regionally and by product than historically, there's still a further potential leg up in growth? It's the first question.
And the second is around the dividend. Should we view this as more of a catch up relative to peers? Or should we read more into it in terms of confidence in growth and the confidence that you've delevered quite a lot? And also a comment on sort of M and A, either the lack of major transformational M and A
moves? Okay. So, thank you for your question. On the first one, I will not quantify at this stage mid term, long term trends that we could see on Pernod Ricard. What I can tell you is that in the past, if you look at the organic top line growth of Panorica, on average since 2000, I think it's close to 5%.
So that's the historical trend that we've had so far. And obviously, it depends a lot on the economic cycles, which can be also different for mature markets, for emerging markets. And we happen to be today at the end of March at 6.3%. So we are not miles away from the historical trend, a bit above. So clearly, we are seeing some inflection this year with some acceleration as compared to the previous year.
But let's say that when we were growing at 1%, 2% or 3%, we were not at the level of growth that we were expecting for sure. And I think that being a leader in countries like China and India is definitely, we believe, a competitive advantage. We have always said that. Apparently, people notice it a bit more this year than in the previous years, and that's just great. So on the dividend, is it to catch up?
Is it because we are confident? I think, well, we have deleveraged a lot of the company in the last years. We have accelerated our growth. The leverage to net EBITDA ratio at the end of December was 2.9%. We believe it was just the right time to start to increase the payout ratio because we are getting very near from our optimized financial structure.
So I think it's a logical financially wise decision. Does it show confidence? Well, I would say that you can absolutely give some confidence because we have accelerated the growth. We have delivered the company, and our intention is to keep delivering strong growth and to keep delivering strong cash flow going forward. There is no read across in terms of our M and A strategy.
I think no change on that. We remain open to value creating M and A opportunities. As it was the case in the past, we'll keep having an active management of the portfolio. We want to see those new opportunities in new occasional consumption, new to world brands to address to recruit new types of consumers. We have, obviously, year after year, a stronger balance sheet that makes us, I would say, more able to do acquisitions.
But there is no change in our policy. So again, increasing of the dividend was a logical step after the very good deleveraging and growth acceleration we've had so far. And no change for our M and A policy, no change either with the fact that we want to remain an investment grade company. Great.
Thanks, Gilles.
We'll now take our next question from Trevor Stirling from Bernstein. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Gilles. Three questions from my side, please Gilles. Gilles, you referenced the pricing on cognac. I wonder can you give us some indication of the scale of the price increases that you've been putting through in this half? The second question, you said that Chivas was actually back in growth.
I was wondering which countries had been the swing factor that put the brand back into growth. And the third thing relating to currencies, you mean, clearly the primary access of currency is the euro dollar rate. But is sterling an important element of that as well There's a strength of sterling putting a squeeze on scotch margins.
Thank you, Trevor. So, on pricing, most price increases take place in the second half of the fiscal year. On average, these are mid single digits increases. They can be different depending on the SKUs, depending on the countries, but we try to make it consistent across all geographies. So most of the impact of that will be next year because those price increases in China, for instance, were implemented after we had done the shipments ahead of the Chinese New Year.
So most of the year is already was already behind us when we made those price increases. As far as Chivas is concerned, yes, it's back to growth and that's a clear inflection as compared to previous years. China has been a key driver for that improvement for sure because the brand had been in significant decline in the previous years. And clearly, the new platform we have there, the strong investment we put behind the brands, the partnership with the NBA is delivering there. And it's the number one market for Chivas, so it has an impact on the Vachanian trend.
I could also highlight the performance of the brand in Russia, travel retail in the Americas and Turkey, where the brand has accelerated its growth. For the rest, it remains strong in Europe. It remains weak in the U. S. In terms of currencies, yes, the priority euro dollar is by far the one we are most exposed to.
There are other important currencies. 1st of all, the emerging market currencies, because we have more than 40% of the net sales of Panorica in emerging markets. And not all the currencies are linked even less pegged to the dollar, even the renminbi is less and less linked to the dollar. So, we also need to deal with those emerging market currencies evolution. Yes, you're right to say that the sterling pound is also an important currency, because the business that come from the UK, Scotch and Gin, represent a bit more than 25% of the group activity.
So we are quite exposed there. The impact this year as compared to last year is very limited on the sterling pound as it has more or less stabilized in the last 12 months. Obviously, going forward, if the pound got weaker, that would be good news for us because as I said, we export 25 percent 25% of the group business is coming from the U. K, whereas the domestic market only represents 2% of the group net sales. So we are a net exporter.
And as a consequence, when the pound is weak, it's good for Panorica, but no major impact this year at this stage.
Thank you very much, Guido. And thank you for all the thoughtful responses over the years.
Thank you, Trevor.
We'll now take our next question from Nico Von Stackelter from Liberum. Please go ahead.
Hi, there. Yes, I just wanted to ask about inventories in China for Martell. How many days of inventories are in the pipe? And I also wanted to ask about shipments versus depletions in China for Martell. If you could give some more color on that please that would be great.
Thanks.
Well, inventories in the trade worldwide overall, I would say, are sounds, so same as in the previous years. Inventories in China are also quite sound. It's true that with a very strong acceleration of Martell, we probably land at the end of June with a number of days of inventory that could be lower than the 60 days that we have been referring to in the last years. But that won't be, I would say, a massive difference. And I think if we have too low inventories in China, then the risk is to have some share disruption, which obviously we want to avoid.
And don't expect a big difference between shipments and depletion. So, we posted the 19% growth in China for the 1st 9 months. It will be lower than that at the end of June, but mainly because of the tight management of the shipments of Martell in Q4 for the reason that I mentioned before. So we'll grow double digits in China this year for sure, but will land at a lower level than the 19%. And the figure you'll see at the end of the year will probably be a good indication of the underlying trend that we see on our business in China.
Thank you, Jamie. We will take our 2 final callers, please.
Thank you.
We will now take our next question from Chris Pitcher from Redburn. Please go ahead.
Thanks very much. A couple of questions. I'll keep them short. In terms of Mufftel in China, can you give us a sense of the growth rates by the different qualities? And then if I look at your China number, you went from 8% growth in the first half to 19% in the 9 months.
Can you confirm the scale of the growth in the Q3, forgive me if I missed it earlier, and explain if there are any sort of one offs within that? I mean, how much of that was the Chinese New Year just to help seasonality next year? Thanks.
Okay. So, the first question is on the growth of Martin by SKU in China. Well, good news is that everything is growing. By the way, not only Martin is growing in China. All brands that we have are growing, Chivas, the premium brands.
And that's good to see that the brand is starting the growth in China is getting more diversified, more channels, more brands. It's far more balanced than what it was 6 years ago before the crisis we had there, which I think is a positive piece of news for the sustainability of the growth going forward. Back to Martel, Cordon Bleu is growing, Ixo is growing, L'ord de Jean Martel is growing, Noblage is growing, the Distinction also is growing. So, everything has gone back to growth. It's in off trade and in off trade.
And clearly, part of the acceleration this year comes with the fact that the on trade is back to good growth. So the whole range has, I would say, benefited from that rebound. And from that, I think, very good work, which has been done on the Martell brand franchise. I won't enter into too many details on Q3 figures by brand or by country. What I can just tell you is that, if you were to restate the Q3 figure by the later Chinese New Year, the growth would be close to 7% in Q3 for the group.
For the group at Pernod Ricard, if that was the difference?
Yes. For the group Pernod Ricard, exactly. And then for the rest, as I said, China is at 19% at the end of March. It will be lower than that at the end of June, but it will be a clear double digit growth in value. And this clear double digit growth in value that we have in China is I think will reflect the underlying trend that we are seeing this year on our business in China.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
So our final caller, please.
We will now take our final question from Hermine de Bengtsson from Raymond James. Please go ahead.
Thank you for taking my question. Most of my questions have been answered, but a very quick one on the price mix and volume split for the strategic brand, please, in Q3? And my other question will be on Europe, considering your launch in France and the easy days of comparison in Q4, can we expect this region to accelerate in the last quarter of the year? Thank you.
Thank you, I mean, on the price and mix, so I will make a more global answer, not specifically on Q3. But year to date, the price and mix on the whole portfolio is close to 2.5%, which
is more
or less the level that it had last fiscal year. It's more driven by mix than price, but price is getting better as compared to last year. And hopefully, it will amplify going forward because of the price increases we've done in particular on Martell in the last few months. In Europe, we expect a Q4 that should be better than Q3. Then for the rest, I think the 2% top line growth that we've seen at the end of March is probably a good indication of the type of growth that we see for the region for the full year.
We shouldn't be miles away from that. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Gilles, for this call and for the past 36 assets.
Thank efforts.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for joining us. Adam and I remain at your disposal should you have any questions.