Good day everyone. Welcome to today's SEB 2022 sales. Today's call is recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Stanislas de Gramont. Please go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to this presentation of 2022 professional sales results. I will be taking you through this presentation with our Chief Financial Officer and Directeur Général Adjoint, Nathalie Lomon. Without further ado, I'll start. We are on slide. You're going too fast. We'll cover 2022 at a glance. What happened, the highlights, the review by geography, and then some conclusions for the year. Starting with 2022, our full year sales come up at EUR 7.960 billion. That is 1.2% negative versus year ago in reported and - 4.7% like-for-like. To be noted that this performance is 8.2% above 2019.
You will reckon that we see 2019 as the last, let's call it, regular year, and we keep tracking our activities on that. Our fourth quarter sales performed at -3.6% reported and -5.6% like-for-like, which is again 7.9% against 2019. When we look at the way sales went throughout the year, I've put a reminder of full year 2021, which you will remember was 15.5% against full year 2020. Full year 2022 is -4.7%. This is like-for-like sales change. We started the year with a Q1 at almost flat, 0.4%. Sales went down 5.1% in Q2.
We hit -8.1% in Q3, and Q4 is slightly better towards -5.6%, leading to this -4.7% like-for-like. If I move to the next slide, this growth is composed of, or this line is made of, EUR -378 million, 4.7% in organic growth. We have a very, very important currency effect that weighs for 3.3 percentage points, EUR 269 million, and a tiny scope effect. This is the integration of Zummo, juice maker company that we acquired last summer for EUR 10 million.
When we look at the currencies, the big three contributors to a currency impact on sales is the Chinese yuan, the U.S. dollar, and the Russian ruble, with the Brazilian real and Mexican peso also contributing. If you look on the top right of the chart, out of these EUR 269 million, we have a Q4 that weighs for EUR 40 billion, when Q2 and Q3 were respectively at EUR 81 billion and EUR 92 billion contribution. That reflects, as you all know, some reevaluation of the euro in the last quarter of the year against, in particular, Chinese yuan and U.S. dollar, but also other currencies. We look at the way our sales have performed in the various business segments.
You may remember that when we presented the third quarter year-to-date results, we did already use that format that basically says out of sales, which are essentially flat in reporting, -1.2%, we have 2 blocks really. We have France and Germany and Russia/Ukraine, which are significantly down versus last year. France and Germany alone weighs for 3.8% decline in the total group sales, whilst Russia/Ukraine weighs for 1% negative. We have a very strong positive contribution from our Chinese business of EUR 240 million, 3 percentage points in growth. Professional business also has confirmed a very strong dynamic this year, weighing for close to EUR 100 million growth, 1.2% total group sales.
The other countries or business segments, a mixed bag that all in all is almost flat at -0.6% in reporting. As you can see, a very varied performance, depending on the segments and the geographies. If we go a bit deeper, starting with this very complex or complicated slide that in the lines shows the various business segments and on the columns 2021, 2022 reported and like-for-like and the Q4. What we can say is that while Q4 is in, and I'm on the bottom right number, Q4 is at -5.6%, full year is 4.7%, so it's pretty similar.
That hides a consumer business that is at -7.3 versus -5.9, when professional is at +17.6% in the fourth quarter, when the full year shows a +9%. Slight deceleration of consumer and a very strong acceleration of professional in Q4. When we look at it by region, we see that EMEA is pretty consistent between the full year and the fourth quarter, 11.1%, 12.1%. We see that Americas are slightly better in Q4 versus the full year, driven by South America. We'll come back to that. In Asia, we see a very strong resilience of our Chinese activities.
China is 5% like-for-like growth full year. The Q4, despite all the events that happened in Q4 in China, is still posting 3.8% growth, whilst the other Asian countries had a more difficult Q4. Going into the professional business, this is really one of the strong satisfactions of the year for us. A reminder of the numbers, +15.6% sales, 9.2% like-for-like growth at EUR 725 billion, with a Q4 at 28.4% overall growth, 17.6% like-for-like. All the business segments have been contributing to 2022 sales growth. Professional Coffee Machines, of course, which is at 90% of the business, also the hotel equipment and Krampouz, our crepe and planchas and waffle makers equipment in France.
In PCM, we have a buy in Q4, all geographies and a strong delivery flow has helped to deliver that performance. We have a larger and well-diversified customer base. This is one of the things we undertook during the COVID years to expand and enlarge our customer base, that pays off right now. We have service revenue, which is up double digit, which again, was one of the areas we were developing as a potential great ways to develop strong and recurrent profitable growth. Key highlights for 2022 is first, the acceleration of the business in Germany. Germany is one of our top three markets, and the business is doing great. We have accelerated the synergies and the collaboration between Schaerer and Wilbur Curtis in the U.S.
Wilbur Curtis, remember, was acquired at the back end of 2018, had a difficult COVID period, and we see in 2022 a very strong recovery of that business. Last but not least, we have a dynamic machine rollout in the Luckin Coffee in China. Again, you remember that 2 years ago, Luckin was a question mark, and they are back full speed, opening hundreds of stores, and that's obviously benefiting us. We don't advertise it much, but we have a solid recovery of our hotel equipment business in Q4 under the brands Vernet and Hettich. Last, Zummo went first consolidated in Q4. That impacts for EUR 10 million in sales, as I said. Moving into consumers, we would qualify that year and that quarter as overall resilience, and we have some specific issues that we've already highlighted in Q3.
Starting with sales trend in Q4, which is slightly better than Q3, with full year sales down 5.9% like-for-like. Again, we should always remember that 2021 was a record 16% growth. The consequence of that, or the element of that growth is that we oversold some kitchen categories, and it was during the COVID periods. Obviously, the year after, we suffer from those high comps. We have a full year sales, as I said in introduction, 10% above 2019 levels, which confirms that our markets are positive and our markets are resilient. 100% of our like-for-like decline stems from France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine. Those weigh around a third of our total consumer sales and represent 100% of the loss year-on-year.
That includes, you'll remember, around EUR 80 million of loyalty programs that happened in 2021 that were not reviewed in 2022. As I said, Nathalie will elaborate later on. Strong sales, 5% up like-for-like in China, beating the odds and doing better than the market. As I said, stable sales in other geographies with a mixed picture. If I go into product categories, we have our core businesses, cooker and electrical cooking, slightly negative at the average of the group, driven by this overconsumption in the COVID years, and that is the comps number that is reflected. We have two categories that are particularly impacted. One, positive, the linen care business, which really suffered during COVID days, that is growing double digit in 2022.
Conversely, the food preparation, which was particularly in demand during COVID, is going through a tough year. We see that Home Care and Home Comfort are categories that perform well and continue to perform well. If we look at our geographies and our top 20 countries, while that confirms that France, Germany, Russia are amongst the big offenders, as I said, those three with Ukraine represent 100% of the loss. We see a negative U.S.A., and that's driven with a staggering double-digit growth, starting with a 2 or even with 3 in some instances a year ago. With a strong performance of Colombia, Mexico and Brazil. China was in the positive territory last year. China is in the positive territory this year.
China confirms, quarter after quarter, year after year, that it is a very strong and high-performing business segment for us. Japan, on the contrary, suffered some contractual effects that threw it in the negative. I'm done with that introduction. I will now hand over to Nathalie Lomon, who will take you in more details through the various geographies. Nathalie?
Thank you, Stanislas. Good afternoon, good night, everybody. Starting with Western Europe, a contracted picture in this part of the world, where the group has shown resilience outside France and Germany. As we have already commented in Q3 and again in Q4, we're suffering from an underperformance in those two countries. First, from a lower level of loyalty programs. As Stanislas said, it's EUR -80 million when compared to 2021 that we have delivered through those programs. We have faced high comps in kitchen categories, these are categories where we are not only over-sold during the COVID period, but where we have a very strong weight in terms of product when compared to the total turnover we deliver in France and Germany.
Last but not least, the market trends were not in the right direction, with demand that has been rebalanced towards other sectors than electrical appliances and home equipment at large. We have suffered from a significant de-stocking in retail and consequently also market share gains from B-brands or private labels, mainly in France. On the other hand, the other Western Europe countries have shown a better resilience with recovery in linen care, and a mixed picture with positive trend in the U.K., in Italy, in Portugal, in the Netherlands. Fast-growing categories, we're thinking of oilless fryers and versatile vacuum cleaners.
Last but not least, in those countries, we have seen our D2C approach continuing developing continuously, both online and offline. If we move to the other European countries, they're up 6% when compared to 2021, excluding Russia and Ukraine. We start with those two countries, where sales are down more than 30% on a like-for-like basis. It's a significant impact. Apart from those two countries, our states are up with a few examples that are showing a mixed picture. A good performance, in Turkey, in Egypt, and in India.
Despite volatile economy, despite inflation, despite FX, we have been in a situation where we have put significant price hikes during the year. This has helped us to grow out the climb sharply up. We also had a very good performance in Poland and in other countries. In Central Europe, we have suffered from market slowdown and distribution de-stocking as in France and in Germany. In the same, well, D2C performed well in this area. We saw growth both online and offline. Same kind of flagship products have been successfully rolled out as in Western Europe, oilless fryers. Cookeo Cook4Me was also a success. We are starting to grow our sales in kitchen knives.
Despite a volatile year, what we see in this part of the world, our sales are up 16% when compared to 2019. I'm moving now to North America. North America was a challenging year because we had to face very high comps from 2021. Our sales are up 1.1%. They're helped by the FX, as Stanislas mentioned. It's a -10% organic decline when compared to 2021, again, with very high comps. Altogether, our sales are up 18% when compared to 2019. In the U.S., the situation is the following. We had to face some de-stocking in the trade throughout the year.
A challenging situation in Kitchen Electrics because of high comps in 2021, and a good resilience in Cooker sales, despite the market was declining. We have confirmed our leadership with our two brands on the market, T-fal and Aubagne. Last but not least, in Linen care, we have benefited from a nice recovery with Rowenta, and we have a very strong leadership in steam irons and premium steam generators. In Mexico, situation is completely different. We are benefiting from a ongoing, very strong momentum. The market is well-oriented, and we have a strategy of expanding our product range, which is a winning strategy.
We have grown our sales in coffee machines, in fans, oil fryers, linen care, blenders, cookware, so almost all the product categories that we're selling in this country. This has helped us gain significant market share across all those categories. In South America, the performance was mainly driven by Colombia. Our sales are up close to 6% like for like. Q4 is up 17.6%, benefiting from a low comps in Q4 last year. We have in our reported sale a strong benefit from the FX, especially from the Brazilian reais. When excluding the FX impact, we see that we had a very nice growth in Colombia, a double-digit organic growth, with very good market dynamics.
Again, in this country, we have extended our product offerings, selling more fans, in food prep with blenders, in cookware. We are helped in Colombia because we have local facilities, so it's helping us in terms of competitiveness versus competition. Last but not least, we also have a nice network of stores that we're operating out as proprietary, with close to 30 stores in Colombia, and it's giving us a high visibility in the market. We have gained market share in all categories with the leadership of IMUSA, which is a well-known brand in Colombia in cookware. In terms of ADA, we're getting closer to competition in terms of market share. Not yet number one, but we're getting closer. Brazil is a different story.
Throughout the year, retailers have been very cautious on the level of their inventory. However, we're delivering stable sales on like-for-like basis with a strong Q4, which is coming from successful Dolce Gusto rollout and a good performance on fans and on oilless fryers. Now moving to China. China is posting a new landmark record in sales. Sales in China, domestic China are now above EUR 2 billion, and it's a 5% growth on a like-for-like basis when compared to 2021. Supor has gained market share across all categories. We are for sure the undisputed number 1 in cookware, both online and offline. We are number 1 online in Kitchen Electrics, and we are narrowing the gap with the number 2 in the offline segment.
We're capitalizing on strong levers. First, a very fast pace of renewal of products. We continue to thread up through innovation, both in our flagship and mature categories, rice cookers, electrical pressure cookers, woks. We have developed new categories, NKA, oilless fryers. We're strong in e-commerce. We're delivering 70% of our sales online, including new platforms such as TikTok and Pinduoduo. We have strengthened our approach in terms of B2C, in terms of customer relationship management. We haven't seen any significant impact in December on the production capabilities and on the supply chain, despite the COVID outbreak that China faced.
Altogether, very satisfactory performance of our business in China, + 5% like-for-like. Moving now to other countries of Asia. Good resilience but a difficult fourth quarter. On a full year basis, our sales are down 6.4% like-for-like, and Q4 down 12%. We had a very high comp base last year, and we have suffered this year from a heavy destocking in the trade. Japan performance, which is one of the big countries in the area, is in line with the group performance for the consumer business. It's a difficult market where to place price increases. Consumers, customers are very reluctant to accept price hikes in a country which has faced almost no inflation for years. We're very strong in Japan.
With our Cookware business, Ingenio has a strong penetration, and we also have good position in Kettles. As far as our own retail and D2C business is concerned, we're still ramping up. We now have 56 stores, so it's +5 when compared to last year, with a very good traffic, and it's almost 1/3 of what we sell in Japan that we do through our own retail network. Other countries in other Asia, it's a mixed picture. Environment was challenging in South Korea, especially at the beginning of the year. We're delivering a stable performance in Australia, and despite a volatile context, we have delivered stable sales in Southeast Asia. That's it for the view by continent and country status.
Miss Nathalie. I will conclude with maybe two or three concerns. The first one is this performance confirms that the group's balanced strategy and balanced business model works in a volatile environment as the one we've been going through this year. We are a multi-product company, we are a multi-brands company, we are multi-geographies, we are multi-channels, and we see that in this, in a year like that is extremely altered by a lot of outside events, we're able to hold our business in a fairly resilient manner. The second conclusion is there has been a very strong mobilization of all the teams, the group's teams, in a fast-changing environment.
We've moved from a positive Q1 to a -8% Q3, and we've been able to adjust our investments, our spend to the sales level and that will be reflected in the operating profit results we will show at the end of February. Maybe last, not to keep that for too long, we guided back in October a full year Operating Result from Activity between 7% and 7.5% of sales. That is confirmed and expected to be in the high end of the range. Of course, this is a preliminary result.
This is not audited, so we will not expand too much on that in this presentation today, as there will be a full call dedicated to that at the back end of February. This is what we wanted to share with you, and now I think we are ready to answer your questions.
Great. If you would like to ask a question, simply press the star key followed by 1 on your telephone keypad. If you're using a speaker phone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Once again, press star 1. At this time, we'll pause for a moment. We'll first hear from Charles Scotti of Kepler.
Yes. Hello. Good evening. Do you hear me?
Yes.
Yes.
Okay. A couple of questions from my side. The first one, is it possible for you to give us where do your volumes stand compared to pre-pandemic level, i.e. if we strip out the impact of price increases and also the strong destocking impact? Second question, if we look to 2023, can you give us some indication or at least help us quantify what would be the major moving part when it comes to your earnings, i.e. raw materials, freight and foreign exchange? Third question on the consumer mood.
Obviously it's very early in the year, what do you see in the market in terms of the, you know, the consumer behavior in Europe, U.S. and China, especially since the country has lifted their restriction? Sorry for the many questions, and finally on Professional, the performance was great in Q4. Can you tell us if it was due to one-off sizable contract or if you do see a strong recovery of your core business? Thank you.
Well, first, we won't give you a guidance. I mean, this is a sales call and we don't. It's very early in the year. We're on the 13th of January, we don't have a guidance on 2023. Equally, I think on volumes pre-pandemic, I mean, you're asking for a whole average, which is not at all the exercise of today. We will answer these questions precisely on the volume price mix effect back in at the end of February. What I can say that's pretty obvious is that the year, just as it was at the end of Q3, has been marked with increasing pricing, positive mix and negative volumes.
It's very early to give you more details at this stage. I apologize for that. Consumer mood is, well we see that in Europe, there is no marked difference between Q1 and Q4. No more, no less. As far as China is concerned, we, as you know, our Chinese colleagues. Well, China is in Chinese New Year break and has been so for the last 10 days. This is stopping on Wednesday this week. Again, give us a few weeks before we can assess beyond what you read on the good consumption levels during the holiday season.
give us a few week before we can assess or give you some data or feedback on what's going on. On professional, if I may, and maybe Nathalie you will jump in. We told you throughout the summer that Q4 would be positive. Q4 is positive. It's positive driven by not big contracts, recurring business, services, all geographies. There is not one big one-off contract that has driven this very positive performance.
Yes. You're right. We said that we were expecting a double-digit growth in the fourth quarter for the professional business. We knew that the business was resuming. We had good news coming from China. We also had good news coming from the hotel segment. This is what is explaining our performance in the fourth quarter. You may also recall that Q3 was stable. We knew that, you know, we had stayed at the, you know, had moved a bit in the fourth quarter. I think that even if we're not yet at the level of sales we had before COVID, that business is really back on track.
Okay. Thank you very much. Marie-Line Fort of Societe Generale.
Thank you. Good afternoon. I've got some questions concerning the level of inventories at distributors. We have seen some warning on that topic from different players. What is your view? I remember that in October you were expecting that the destocking should end probably Q1 2023. Have you changed your view on that side? Thank you.
Not really. I think we know we had quite a lot of inventory in trade in the half one last year. We've seen those reduce substantially through the second half of the year. We may have still some pockets left in those countries where sales have been pretty slow in the fourth quarter, where as a consequence, there is a pocket of excess inventory. We don't see that excess inventory in trade as being a major topic in 2023 as it was in 2022.
Okay, thank you.
As a reminder, star one to ask a question or make a comment. Alessandro Cini of Equita.
Hello, everybody. Thank you for taking my question. I know, you reported a nice growth in the fourth quarter in Eastern Europe, excluding of course, Russia, Ukraine. Could you elaborate a little bit more on these and on what is your flavor? I don't know that you don't discuss much about 2023, what is your current feeling on the area for this year? I mean, your feeling. Thank you.
I think that, yes, apart from Russia and Ukraine, it was a bit of mixed bag, but altogether a very strong positive trend in those countries. What's interesting to note is that if you look for instance at Turkey and Egypt, which are two large markets for the group. Despite the fact that, you know, we have witnessed some devaluation in their respective currencies, our sales are up. We have not been only able to compensate for the devaluation, but we have placed price increases in those markets. It's showing that we are still in some volatile countries in a position to grow our business.
We also had a very good trend in Poland, and that has been lasting throughout the year. That's also something that we're happy to share. The situation was a bit different in the other countries in Central Europe. That was mainly driven by destocking in the market.
Okay. Thank you.
As a final reminder, star one to ask a question or make a comment. We'll pause for a moment. It appears there are no further questions at this time. I'll turn the call back over to our presenters for any additional or closing comments.
Well, thank you very much, everyone. It's been a demanding year for all the groups team, and we are happy to see that the outcome is in line or on the high range of what we were planning three months ago. We understand the market's eagerness to get some visibility and some news for the year to come. We think it's early to provide guidance or directions. We will undoubtedly follow on that at the back end of February, if we can. In the meantime, I can only thank you for your continuous following and for your attendance, and I give you an appointment for the end of February. Pardon?
One last question.
One last question?
And-
If there's 1 last question.
Yep.
I'll take that.
Yes, Fraser. Great. Fraser Donlon of Berenberg.
Yeah, hi, Stanislas. Hi, Nathalie. Sorry to jump in late. I just on China, I guess that's a market which has done quite nicely with Supor this year but has also faced quite some challenges. I just wondered kind of how pleased you are about that market reopening from a kind of economic perspective, and whether you do see that as, like, a opportunity for Supor in a positive sense, or whether you maybe see it as more of a kind of neutral event for Supor. Just to have your view would be, would be super interesting. Thank you.
Well, we read the press like everyone and we, as I said, China was essentially on holidays in the last 10 days. We know that we have very high costs in Q1. I think we did +11% in Q1 in China last year-over-year, so we know that. I read the same articles as you that promise a booming consumption. At this stage, it's early for us to say whether we see bits of it, parts of it, all of it. Maybe what I can say is that China has consistently delivered strong, positive, profitable growth for the Group.
We are consolidating and improving our positions, quarter after quarter on our main categories, both online and offline. We are ready, ripe and all excited to seize any growth in consumption opportunities that could arise. I think Supor is very well positioned to take any advantage of any positive news that would come on the Chinese consumption and we'll be on it.
Perfect. Thanks very much.
All right.
Okay.
Thank you very much, everyone. I wish you a nice evening, and we'll speak at the end of February.
Thank you. Bye-bye.
That does conclude today's call. Thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect.