Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome, thank you for joining the adidas AG Q2 2021 conference call. Throughout today's recorded presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. The presentation will be followed by a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, you may press star followed by one on your touch-tone telephone. Please press the star key followed by zero for operator assistance. I would now like to turn the conference over to Sebastian Steffen, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Good evening, good afternoon, good morning, wherever you are joining us virtually today, and welcome to our Q2 2021 results conference call. Our presenters today are our CEO, Kasper Rorsted, and our CFO, Harm Ohlmeyer. As always, we will kick it off in a second with the prepared remarks from Kasper and Harm, which will then be followed by the Q&A session. As always, during the Q&A session, I would like to ask you to limit your questions to two. I know you can count to three and even beyond, but please limit your questions to two to allow as many people as possible to ask a question. Now, without any further ado, over to you, Kasper.
Thank you very much, and welcome to our call. I will first share a high-level view on where we stand, and afterwards I'll provide you an update on our business progress made in the second quarter. Subsequent, Harm will take you through our Q2 numbers in further detail. Finally, I'll discuss the outlook. While several challenges persist, our innovation pipeline is filled with exciting new products that will drive a successful first year of our strategic cycle. We have a very clear strategic direction until 2025, and we are already in execution mode. The strong second quarter results are positive proof of that. Own the Game is a growth investment strategy that's rooted in sport, and that's one of the reasons why it was so fantastic to see that sport is starting to take center stage again.
We really see sport is back on the center stage. I think many of you and all of us have really been longing for this, and we can see also the enormous interest there is for sport, whether it's the Copa América or the Tennis Grand Slam or the Olympics. I personally had the opportunity to go to a number of Euro games, and it was a relief and a joy to be in the stadium again and also see the excitement coming back. No matter if football is coming home or coming to Rome, it's back for everyone who loves this game at that stage, and we can see the sheer excitement that is across the globe. Of course, we're using this stage to showcase our brand when it comes to major events, but also smaller events.
While our strategy and our brand is rooted in sports, it's our people that bring them to life. I'm excited that we continue to make a lot of progress in our diversity, equity, and inclusion areas. We are making good progress on hiring targets for our Black and Latinx employees in the U.S., and most recently, we had our former Olympic champion, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, who was with us in Herzog this week, join our supervisory board. We celebrated Pride Month internally and externally with our consumers who are dedicated at this Pride collection. We're not stopping there. We continue our D&I journey, whether it's having a D&I activation week in September or the D&I managers that we have employed in our various countries to make certain that we have the right focus.
I'm very confident that with the release of our people strategy of Own the Game, which we have communicated internally today to our employees globally, we're making the right progress on our D&I journey beyond 2021. You know, the consumer is the heart of Own the Game. That's why I would like to start the business update with some consumer highlights. The Euro, which was a fantastic tournament. 35% of all players were wearing our equipment. We also had player of the tournament, like Donnarumma and the young player of the tournament, Pedri from Spain. Great to see the progress that we're making in football. On the outdoor side, we saw Timothy Olson run the fastest time on the Pacific Crest Trail, running 52 marathons in less than 52 days.
Huge impact on the media that we're seeing here and also really credibility proof for our outdoor business. We saw on training Stay in Play campaign and the TechFit Period Proof offering with strong consumer engagement with more than 40 million views, increasing our credibility with women. The e-com launch of the jersey, which was a Parley jersey, drove 4 x the sales on day one compared to 2019. On the experience side, on the Members Week, we added more than four million members during that week.
On sustainability, we continue to make a lot of progress in innovation, whether it's the Allbirds collaboration, where we created the running shoe with the lowest carbon footprint, the Ultraboost Made to Be Remade, the Stan Smith Mylo, an industry first with a leather substitute made from mushrooms, or Run For The Oceans, where we had more than five million people participate. Let me give you a bit more detail on some of these elements. When it comes to credibility, that means we deliver groundbreaking innovation in sport. In running, winning is the most tangible currency for innovation. We create industry-leading footwear innovations like our new cushion platform, Lightstrike Pro, that empower our athletes to win and break records. The Adizero Adios Pro enabled our athletes to secure three world records in a few months and reclaim credibility in the running community.
The second generation of the shoe was just launched at the Olympics. We're now bringing these innovations and performance benefits to more runners globally by broadening the franchise with Prime X, Boston 10, Adios 6, and Ambition. Even beyond the Adizero franchise, we continue to make running accessible by diversifying our offer for every runner. More to come when I discuss our product pipeline later. When it comes to experience, our Members Week in May provided a number of experience and delivered exceptional results. The week offered different experiences and reward, including opportunity to win match ball used in the Euro or one of only 100 pairs of the adidas Allbirds sneaker. Not only did we acquire four million new members during the week alone, we also generate revenue of more than EUR 100 million during that period. In total, we have significantly more than 200 million members today.
Compared to the prior year, the number of buying members access our digital ecosystem grew by 80%. If this wasn't enough, just last week, our Creators Club program had been recognized by U.S. consumers as the best loyalty program in the industry according to The Loyalty Report 2021. When it comes to stores, we just opened our first Halo store in Joburg with 58 digital touch points and the largest retail area globally dedicated to sustainability. Talking about sustainability, as you know, we gave a strong commitment that nine out of 10 articles offered will be sustainable by 2025. We'll be achieving this target by scaling our Three Loop offering while also working with strategic partners, and we have now invested in two of them.
Together with Finnish Spinnova will push boundaries in the use of renewable raw materials such as wood fiber, in partnering with Infinited Fiber Company, we are driving the mainstream of circular process to convert worn apparel into new fabrics that looks and feel like cotton. We'll continue to raise the bar when it comes to sustainability because it's the right thing to do, and it's in mind of our consumers. 70% of our consumers claim it as being important as a purchase driver. Moving on to the store opening trend, let me briefly provide you with an update on our current retail economics. As a reminder, 89% of our global store fleet were open at the end of March, 44% were open in Europe. The opening rate increased above 90% during the month of May as COVID-related lockdowns in Europe got lifted.
When lockdown materialized in APAC, the positive opening trend was somewhat halted at a high level. At the end of June, 97% of our global store fleet was open. Our efforts to revitalize retail has led to a continuous improvement of traffic in the stores that reopened. However, traffic across our retail fleet continues to be significantly below pre-pandemic levels due to the reduced opening hours, social distancing guidelines, and changed shopping behavior. We continue to experience strong increases in conversion rate in reopened stores as consumers that visit stores tend to have a clearer buying intent. This has helped us largely to compensate for the lower footfall. On the strength and weaknesses side, let me start with the weaknesses side. The external factors like the geopolitical situation, industry-wide supply chain issues, and the APAC lockdown remain a significant drag on our top-line development.
Lower growth in footwear also due to major footwear events driving revenues in apparel and hardware. On the positive side is that we experienced a better-than-expected top-line recovery with sales well above the 2019 level, driven by stronger-than-expected demand for our products. Our momentum is strong across all markets that are operating without disruption. Revenues in strategic markets in EMEA are 99% up and America 87% up, so almost doubled, driven by exceptional growth in our own retail stores and wholesale. Our business in Latin America was up triple digits. Very strong growth in a number of regions where we have a somewhat normalized economic environment. On a P&L at a glance, the revenue we recorded was exceptionally strong, and so were the profitability improvements. The revenue increased 55% in the second quarter, achieved against the background of the geopolitical situation and extended lockdown in the Asia-Pacific region.
Excluding these external factors, our growth would have been in the mid-60%s. Both gross and operating margin almost fully recovered to pre-pandemic levels. Harm will comment more in detail on our major P&L development side. We're also seeing the top line acceleration. The brand strength and better-than-expected product demand drove the top line acceleration in the second quarter. Let me remind you that the revenue increase of 27% in Q1 was achieved despite a high single-digit drag from external factors, the prolonged EU lockdowns with industry-wide supply chain challenges. In Q2, the revenue increased 55%, despite a low double-digit drag from external factors, geopolitical extensions, lockdowns in the Asia-Pacific region. As a result, revenue were above the pre-pandemic levels in both quarters and accelerated from 1% versus 2019 in Q1 to 5% in 2019 versus Q2.
In fact, our Q2 was the highest in June, and we would have double digit in the quarter versus 2019, excluding the headwinds we've been facing. This clearly shows the strong underlying demand for our product. The strong momentum is particularly visible in North America and EMEA, where revenue almost doubled in the second quarter and were up 15% compared to the second quarter of 2019. In North America, we saw exceptionally strong growth in D2C with 35% year-over-year and 27% versus 2019. We more than doubled the sale with our key partners. Let me quickly also update you on a very recent leadership change. Our current MD of adidas America, Zion Armstrong, has decided to leave the company at the end of this year to return to his home country, New Zealand, where his young children live since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
We have activated our internal succession plans, have appointed Rupert Campbell as his successor, effectively January 1, 2022. Rupert, a British national, has a long and successful track record within adidas. He's currently our MD in Russia, and under his leadership, adidas increased its market leadership in the region and recorded double-digit sales growth. Rupert will be on the ground in Portland in Q4. Zion and he will work closely on a smooth transition. Zion and the team have built a strong foundation for us in North America by making adidas a strong number two in the market. We're certain that Rupert and the team will further expand this position. In Europe or EMEA, we're seeing a similar position in the U.S. We're seeing exceptionally strong growth in D2C and overall an increase by triple-digit growth in football and in running.
As I said, we're seeing triple-digit growth in Latin America. China was down 16%, Before I speak about the situation in more detail, please allow me to remind you, everyone, that this development also reflects a strong recovery in last Q2 when sales in Greater China had grown at strong double-digit rates in May and June. Overall, we recorded a slow but steady business recovery during the quarter with sequential improvement in sell-out trends, as you can see from the development of our e-commerce revenue. E-commerce sales growth versus 2019 was still positive in March before hitting a low point in April. The trend improved sequentially as we successfully started to launch products and campaigns in the second half of April. As a result, e-com revenue already returned back to growth in June.
Overall sales were also improving throughout the quarter, resulting in a flattish exit rate versus 2019. At the same time, we remain very disciplined when it comes to sales in, as this is not about short-term optimization. Greater China is one of our strategic markets, and we remain confident about the long-term opportunity, especially after the State Council announced yesterday they will further promote sport and exercise among its people. Our approach is to show consumers our appreciation and respect and to earn their loyalty. Key to this will be complementing our global brand strength with a strong local angle and understanding. Our local creation center in Shanghai plays a key role here. The trend in China is clearly positive, and we remain excited about the long-term growth of us in China as outlined in our strategy.
While it's too early to tell how the business in China will look in detail in 2021, we continue to expect strong growth in China this year as well. From a channel perspective, top-line development was characterized by the strong recovery from the material declines in physical distribution last year. As you remember, more than 70% of our stores were closed. We saw wholesale business and sales in our own store grow at high double-digit rate. At the same time, e-com was down 14%, reflecting exceptionally high growth last year when digital revenues had almost doubled during the store closure. Over a two-year period, e-com sales, excluding China, increased 86% versus the 2019 level. Looking behind the headline figures, our digital business is developing extremely well with our mobile and members approach paying off.
We've been able to add more than 15 million new members to our program during Q2. Mobile and apps already reflect more than two-thirds of our business. The full price share is up strong double digits, and the month of June was the biggest month this year so far. We continue to significantly invest in digital tech and data analytics capabilities and will create almost 2,000 new positions in 2021 and 2022. This year alone, we have hired close to 1,000 digital experts already. From a category perspective, growth was led by our key performance categories, running, outdoor, and football. We achieved overproportional growth in running as we diversified our franchise and technology portfolio with D2C exclusive launches of new products such as the Ultraboost Made to Be Remade or the Adizero Adios Pro.
Outdoor sales more than doubled as we are leveraging the trend towards more outdoor activities through a strong product offering and successful activations. Football grew more than 150% as excitement returns to the pitch in both professional and amateur levels. I will talk about our product pipeline in these and also other categories a bit later. Now, over to Harm.
Thank you, Kasper. As always, we start with revenue growth by market segment. Our top-line expansion in Q2 was driven by increases in all markets except Greater China, where, as you heard from Kasper already, revenues declined despite a steady business recovery and sequential sellout improvements throughout the quarter. Sales in both EMEA and North America almost doubled over the prior year's period. Revenues in Latin America grew by more than 200%. This reflects strong double-digit growth for the 2019 level and shows that our momentum is strong across all markets that are operating without disruption. Sales in Asia- Pacific increased 66% but remained below the 2019 level due to the negative impact from extended lockdowns and lower tourism in the region.
Let me call out that top-line increase across all markets except Greater China were also complemented by exceptional profitability and margin improvements, especially when you call out the 19.3% in North America after very profitable quarters already in 2020. I've always said that North America over time will get close to a mature market like Europe. You're seeing that development, and similar development results in Latin America with 18% profitability. Turning over to the P&L, our strong product momentum drove an impressive top-line recovery with sales well above the 2019 level. Currency-neutral revenues increased 55%, despite the geopolitical situation and APAC lockdowns, reducing top-line growth at a low double-digit rate. Our gross margin improved 50 basis points year-over-year.
Given there's a lot of puts and takes in this development, I will provide more details on a separate slide in a minute. Operating expenses were up 5% compared to the second quarter 2020. The increase reflects higher marketing and point-of-sale expenses, which increased 17% or almost EUR 100 million compared to the prior year. Kasper mentioned it, the return of sports marked an important moment for people around the world. We are making sure that we are leveraging these moments and have been connecting with our consumers in a meaningful and emotional way through our digital channels, but also physical platforms and events. Operating overheads were flat at a level of around EUR 1.5 billion, excluding the temporary stranded costs in the amount of around EUR 60 million related to the Reebok divestment. Overhead costs would've been down at a mid-single-digit rate year-over-year.
This also reflects the efficiency improvements that we gained last year and that we will continue to benefit from going forward. Our operating profit was up to EUR 543 million while the operating margin almost fully reached the pre-pandemic level and recovered to 10.7%. Let's now take a closer look at the gross margin development in the second quarter 2021. I am also providing Q2 2020 impacts to put things into perspective. In terms of pricing impact, the drag from higher discounting in the prior year almost fully recovered this year, as we were able to increase our share of full-price sales significantly year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter. The positive mix impact in Q2 2020 related to the exceptional growth in e-com and last year's recovery in China was fully offset in Q2 2021 amid a normalization of our channel mix as well as an unfavorable regional mix.
Sourcing costs on the other hand increased in the second quarter 2021, a direct result of the supply chain challenges we are currently faced with and which have led to higher freight and logistics cost. Kasper will talk about these challenges in more detail in the outlook section. The non-recurrence of last year's inventory allowance balanced out the negative effect experienced in the second quarter 2020. Looking at FX, which was slightly positive in the second quarter 2021, as we slowly start to see our hedges improving. Nevertheless, we still experience a very significant negative currency effect of more than 200 basis points versus the 2019 level. Excluding this unfavorable FX impact, our gross margin is already back at the 2019 level, which just like the top-line development, clearly speaks to the speed and quality of our recovery.
During the second half, we expect currencies to remain a drag on our gross margin versus both the 2019 and the 2020 level. This is mainly due to unhedged currencies and will only turn into a tailwind in 2022. While lower discounting and a better channel mix will support our gross margin development in the second half, higher freight and logistics cost will act as additional headwinds, especially as we will work on mitigating the supply chain challenges in order to ensure we can meet as much of the strong demand for our products as possible. Kasper will speak about this in more detail. Let's also look at our net borrowings and our equity position. Let's have a more detailed look at the balance sheet. Adjusted net borrowings amounted to EUR 3.1 billion at quarter end.
This represents an improvement of EUR 1.8 billion compared to the position one year ago and underlines the increased financial strength we have gained over the past 12 months. Our equity ratio remains very solid at 32.5%. If you look at the operating working capital, first, both inventories and operating working capital decreased year-on-year. Inventories were down 22% currency neutral. This development was of course supported by the exclusion of Reebok inventories as a prior year restatement of the balance sheet is not permitted under IFRS. Let me emphasize that on a like-for-like basis, including Reebok, our inventories were also down at a double-digit rate year-over-year with 14%. We are happy with the progress made over the last 12 months reducing our inventory to this healthy level.
If anything, we wish we had more stock, given the strong demand for our product on the one hand and industry-wide supply chain challenges on the other hand. Again, Kasper will give you some more details how we are dealing with the situation in a few minutes, but I'm definitely happy for every T-shirt and pair of shoes that we have on stock right now. Demand is definitely not our issue at the moment. It's the supply side of things, but we have been making great progress over the past few weeks, in mitigating these impacts. Just finishing up on the balance sheet, receivables were up 26% currency neutral year-over-year, reflecting the broad-based top-line increases, especially on the wholesale side. Payables were down 16% currency neutral year-on-year as our payment terms with vendors continue to normalize compared to prior year.
Let's look at our cash returns to shareholders. You have heard Kasper and myself talk about increasing our investment into our brand, our direct-to-consumer channel, as well as the digital transformation of the company. We talked about the EUR 100 million increase in marketing spend in Q2 alone and the hiring of almost 1,000 digital experts in 2021 so far. Own the Game is not only a growth but clearly also an investment strategy. At the same time, we are becoming a more free cash flow generative business than ever before. As a result, we plan to return between EUR 8 billion and EUR 9 billion to shareholders through either dividends or buybacks during the five-year strategic cycle of Own the Game. We hit the road running in 2021.
Given our strong financial profile, our positive outlook for the year, and successful start of our new strategy, we have made the decision to resume our share buyback activities. As a result, the dividend payout of EUR 585 million in May is complemented by a share buyback program with a volume of up to EUR 550 million until the end of the year. Since the beginning of July, we have already bought back shares worth more than EUR 130 million as of today. This means that in total, we will return around EUR 1.1 billion through a combination of dividends and share buyback to our shareholders in 2021. Rest assured, this is just the beginning. Just a couple of words on Reebok. Currency-neutral sales grew strong double digits compared to both the 2020 and 2019 level, so 94% over 2020 and 13% over 2019. The profitability improved significantly.
The divesture process is well on track, and we expect a signing until the end of the summer, as I mentioned also on previous calls. We will, of course, make an official announcement once we have come to a final decision. With that, over to you again, Kasper.
Thank you very much, Harm. I'm going straight into the outlook. Our number one priority remains driving brand heat with exciting new products and global campaigns and celebrating major sport events. We'll also continue to invest in digital capabilities to engage and win members, our most loyal and profitable consumers, as you know. The next Member Week will take place later this month. A dedicated action plan will drive the mitigation of industry-wide supply chain challenges as our products remain high in demand. We're executing Own the Game as one team and continue to accelerate top-line momentum fueled by our innovative product pipeline. Our broad portfolio of product innovations continue to drive brand heat. We fuel brand credibility by executing overarching brand campaigns and showcasing our brand on both major and smaller stages through our athletes and teams.
Major sporting events, including the Olympics and the Paralympics in Japan, the start of the club football season in Europe, and the NFL kickoff in the U.S., as well as grassroots activities around the world, provide ideal platform to bring our brand and product stories to life. Against this backdrop of significant brand awareness, we'll have an array of innovative product releases that will cut through and continue to drive growth momentum. I'll take you through some of our brand initiatives and product launches in more detail. There is probably no other sport events that reflect our brand attitude, Impossible is Nothing, better than the Olympics. Everyone could feel over the last weeks how important it was for the athletes to be able to compete. So far, more than 20 adidas athletes have already taken home gold medals, and there are four more days to go.
Our top two Olympics teams, Great Britain and Germany, are performing very well, showcasing Adidas latest performance products to a worldwide audience, and so are all the 650 participating athletes that we equip. The Olympics are not just a great platform to showcase our brand. They're also the perfect stage to introduce our latest innovation to the global stage. British triathlete Jonathan Brownlee not only wore the Adidas Adizero Pro during the triathlon race but together with his teammates, also accepted their medals wearing our brand-new 4DFWD. As you can see, the Olympics provide the ideal platform to start scaling our 4DFWD franchise. After two very successful limited quantity drops, which sold out quickly, we're actually launching the 4DFWD today with seven days early access for D2C.
Next week, we'll expand the launch to our sport wholesale partners in all our locations around the world. 4DFWD will continue to retail at EUR 200 with a strong increase in volume. At the same time, we'll be making running accessible by diversifying and commercializing our offer for every runner. As part of this, we'll introduce the 4DFWD Pulse at a price point at EUR 160 and open this up to a wider selection of retail partners, including the leisure of our distribution. As you can see, we're driving impact in the biggest sporting category, running, through strong franchises and innovative technology platforms that address different consumer needs. In football or soccer, if you will, both professional and amateur teams are excited to return to the pitches around the world.
We're fueling this excitement with the launch of meta jerseys, today we're launching the Real Madrid away jersey. I can't wait to see the stadiums across Europe being filled with spectators again, cheering for their team and being united in their passion for the game. The passion for the game is uniting fans across continents, this will be evident during the MLS All-Star Game in Los Angeles. at the end of this month. In anticipation, we created a jersey that sparked exceptional consumer attention in the U.S. While football apparel increases triple digit during Q2, we remain equally excited about the opportunity in footwear and key franchises, X, Copa, and Predator. The latest metallic pack is made up of these franchises with a jewel in the crown being the new X Speedflow.
Endorsed by Lionel Messi, we bring a new proposition to the important speed segment of the football footwear market. Speed is also relevant in other key categories. Let's take a closer look. With the Agravic Ultra, we're taking performance and speed to the outdoors, co-created by the best trail runners, and it will debut on the upcoming Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc race. For us, performance does not mean cutting down on sustainability. The shoe is made in part with recycled material and no virgin polyester used. One of the most exciting new launches comes from the lifestyle category. We will be reintroducing the NMD, one of adidas' most successful and iconic franchises in recent history, with a completely new look and feel. The new NMD S1 has a broad appeal with iterations for sneakerheads and the broader lifestyle community, and we have seen exceptional engagement on social media.
We're seeing the product a few weeks ago and look forward to the member exclusive drop on our Confirmed app next week. On top of that, our ZX franchise will be further diversified through the addition of new styles led by the ZX 5K Boost. The ZX 5K will provide this franchise a new premium identity that elevates the ZX to a new audience and higher price points. This is part of the premiumization strategy Originals, which we told you about before. Our Forum has developed into a summer favorite for many consumers. After the successful incubation throughout the first two quarters, we'll now quadruple the franchise in size during the second half of the year, driven by several iterations, dedicated marketing, and exciting partnerships. As always, we'll offer members early access to campaigns, product drops, and personalized D2C experience. Our innovation in lifestyle does not stop with footwear.
We expanded our successful apparel portfolio, combining the DNA of adidas Originals with a luxury fashion lens. Blue Version represents a collection of our most iconic apparel pieces recorded for today. We are expanding our successful collaboration with Beyoncé and released our latest Ivy Park drop, Flex Park. The swimwear capsule includes beach-ready styles like swimsuits for both men and women, as well as athletic tops and shorts, many of which sold out quickly. We're also taking collaborations with Prada to the next level and launched the LUNA ROSSA 21 in two colorways. The gray colorway is a lifestyle version of the sneaker won by legendary Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli Team as they won the Prada Cup. Hype releases like that continues to drive brand heat and offers, in many cases, member exclusive via our Confirmed app or adidas.com.
We continue to diversify our collaboration and bring newness to well-established franchises such as Ultraboost to stay highly relevant for the consumer. The latest version of our Lego collaboration uses Ultraboost DNA platform with a brick-inspired texture and is available in several new colorways. While it's still early days, we've been experiencing very strong sell-through, particularly in North America. As you know, we're looking into having an innovation day. I just covered our Q3 product releases and stories. There is much more to come, of course. We remain very confident about the brand and product momentum. We will host a dedicated day in mid-December to do our high-quality innovation pipeline justice. This will be a purely physical event to provide you an exclusive and comprehensive preview of unreleased future platforms and products. We're going to share more details with you soon.
Our unique world of sport experience awaits you, and we can't wait to have you here on December 13 and 14. Let me speak about some of the global supply chain challenges that the world is experiencing. While our product pipeline provides us some strong tailwinds going into the second half, we're also faced with some industry-wide headwinds. There are four aspects of supply chain challenges due to the long-lasting pandemic that the global economy is currently confronted with. The drop in demand in the first half of 2020 has led to significant capacity reduction in both vessels and containers and led to a hike in freight rates. A significant production reduction at the ports due to the health and safety measures has led to congestion in key markets such as U.S. West Coast and U.K. and Europe, causing additional delays.
These challenges have been leading significant delays and additional logistics costs, particularly as we've been making more use of air freight. Since July, we're now experiencing an additional challenge within our sourcing network due to a surge in COVID-19 infections in Southeast Asia. Most impacted country is Vietnam, where the government mandated large-scale factory lockdowns, and as a result, the vast majority of supplier factory capacity in the country has been unavailable since the middle of July, with current restrictions lasting until August 15. While other countries have been impacted as well, we're currently not seeing any major interruption outside Vietnam. While we're, of course, supporting all measures taken by the authorities, as health and safety remain a top priority, we have identified five key actions to mitigate the impact from the shutdowns in Vietnam.
Number one, we're making use of the proven sourcing flexibility and are reallocating production to other regions. Number two, we're making use of our excellent relationship with our suppliers and are securing additional production capacity. So far, we've already been able to secure additional capacity for 30 million pieces. Particularly for high-priced products, we will use air freight. Number four, we are prioritizing key campaigns and product launches as they're essential to continue driving top line and brand momentum. Number five, and not least, we are redeploying existing marketing inventory, creating new sales packages, utilizing existing stock, which will allow us to reduce cancellation rates and discounting.
We remain optimistic that the disruption will only be temporary, and our mitigation efforts will help us to reduce the overall impact. We expect the current situation to start improving later this month, leading to a largely operational sourcing network at the end of the third quarter. While the current interruptions will have a negative impact on our business in the second half, as we'll not be able to fully cater to the strong demand for our product, the expected impact is already built into our full-year guidance.
In total, external factors did weigh on our top line in the magnitude of more than EUR 500 million the first half of the year. Our current guidance already fully accounts for a similar negative impact on our top line in the second half due to the supply chain challenges, the lockdowns in certain countries, as well as the impact from the geopolitical situation. Despite these challenges, we are confident that the strength of our brand, the strong momentum we're experiencing across all markets that are operating without disruption, and our innovative product pipeline will drive sales acceleration in the second half of the year. As a result, we now expect currency-neutral sales growth of up to 20% year-over-year for the full year 2021. This increased outlook implies a 7% growth year-over-year during the second half.
Compared to 2019, this translates into a growth of up to 6% in the second half, which reflected an acceleration compared to the 3% increase we recorded in the first half. Given the acceleration of the top-line momentum, we are also increasing our bottom-line outlook for this year. While the gross margin guidance remains unchanged, given the unexpected increase in sourcing costs, we now expect an operating margin increase to 9.5%-10%. We're expecting net income to increase to between EUR 1.4 billion and EUR 1.5 billion. This outlook is based on a number of assumptions. A largely operational store fleet reflected in our store opening rate at least 95% throughout the second half of the year. Let me remind you, we're running at 797 stores in the second quarter.
Improving factory capacity starting the second half of August, leading to a largely operational sourcing network at the end of the third quarter, and a continuation of the steady recovery in China. Being able to increase our outlook despite various sources of uncertainty and another potential EUR 500 million drag on sales clearly underlines the underlying momentum we are currently enjoying. We delivered a successful Q2 despite being restrained by external factors. Driven by the strength of our brand and better-than-expected demand for our products, we saw top-line acceleration and will continue to do so in the second half. Sales in our strategic growth areas, EMEA and North America, almost doubled. Revenue in our key franchises, categories, football and also even grew at rates. The share of full price sales increased strongly, fueling exceptional
This momentum gives us the confidence to increase our full-year outlook despite the external challenges that our industry continues to face. Own the Game is in full execution mode across the entire company, and I'm absolutely convinced that 2021 will be a successful start of our new strategic cycle. With this, Harm and I now look forward to take any questions you may have.
Kelly, we're happy to take questions now.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question and answer session. One moment for the first question, please. The first question is Graham Renwick of Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Hello. Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. Just firstly on the exit momentum from the quarter, just a clarification from the presentation, really. Is it correct that you said the sales for the whole China business in June were flat versus 2019? Are you also able to provide the same June growth or exit rate for total group sales, versus 2019, and how has that developed into July, if possible, at least directionally? Secondly, on wholesale, a key part of your strategy was streamlining wholesale distribution and exiting undifferentiated wholesale doors, particularly in the U.S. and Europe, something I assume has accelerated faster through the pandemic.
When we think about the sales growth in 2021 versus the 2019 base, has exiting wholesale doors been a headwind towards your revenue growth, at least a temporary one, before you recapture those sales through D2C or better quality wholesale partners? Thank you.
I will try to answer the second question, and Harm will do the first one. We did see exceptionally strong growth in wholesale in the second quarter, but you have to take it on the back of what we're comparing to, because of course, wholesale shut down overnight and we stopped shipping to them. You have an abnormal comparison. As you know, for 2025, we expect the vast majority of our growth, approximately 80%, if I remember correctly, to come from our D2C channel over that period. You are going to see a normalization of the growth rate as we move forward. We're also seeing a continued consolidation within our wholesale partners. The likes of Dick's, JD, et cetera, and Kohl's, will get an increasingly larger importance within our portfolio also due to the digital capability.
There is no doubt that there has been an acceleration of the, I would say, going away from smaller wholesale partners that have either no digital capability or have a very generic character. We're seeing acceleration of that, but we're also seeing a consolidation around the big ones. As I said, you should assume that the growth rate we saw in wholesale in the second quarter is not the real run rate. It is simply a comparison to what we saw due to the lockdown in the second quarter last year.
Yeah, in your first question, Graham, you're absolutely rightly stating your assumption on China. Revenues, as you saw in the presentation in e-commerce, we're already returning back to growth. We also had a kind of flattish exit rate versus 2019 overall in China in June. When it comes to the total company, as you've seen in the presentation, the first quarter was 1% over 2019. The second quarter was 5% over 2019, growth in the second quarter was the highest in June and actually would have been double digit in the quarter versus 2019, excluding the headwinds we are facing. Also there, a good, strong exit in June for the quarter.
Great. Thank you.
You're welcome.
The next question is the line of Zuzanna Pusz of UBS. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. I have two. The first question would be, on your retail channel, could you please comment on the performance in the retail channel on a two-year stack in Q2 versus Q1? Just to check if I'm right to estimate that there was some acceleration sequentially. The second question is on the footwear category. It looked a little bit weaker relative to the rest of the business at +38% FX neutral. Would you be able to discuss maybe specifically reasons for that? I guess, there's been strength in football happening, maybe jerseys or some shipments around that. Any color on that would be very helpful. Thank you.
Can you repeat the second part of the question? I simply did not understand it.
The second question is on footwear. Footwear was +38% versus obviously, higher growth at the group level. Is there any specific reasons for the weakness in footwear?
No, there's no specific reason for it. What we have mentioned on the presentation, given the events, apparel growth was faster overall, given the events and the returning football on the pitch, and that's what we saw on apparel. As a consequence, of course, then the footwear is below the average growth of the company. That's the main reason for it, the mathematical calculation.
Zuzanna, keep in mind that a lot of the franchises that Kasper has talked about that we've started to introduce in the first half of the year will be scaled in the second half of the year. We talked about the Adizero Adios Pro, which we've only had in very low quantities in the first half of the year, and we're adding, not only quantities to that product family, but also adding additional franchises to our running category. The same applies to the 4D, which we've only launched in very low quantities, and as we've said, we're actually launching in higher quantities today. That's definitely also something that is adding to the growth rate that you've seen.
Perfect. Thank you.
Yeah. On your first question on retail, of course, it's difficult. We definitely don't talk about comps, given so many closures and not easily comparing quarter versus quarter or even versus prior year. Rest assured, in the second quarter, we had strong double-digit growth in the key markets like EMEA, also North America, and that gives us confidence going into the second half as well that consumers are returning. Of course, not with the same traffic that we had in the past, but with a higher conversion. Again, comparison quarter by quarter is really difficult. It's not something we are focusing on. We want to make sure that the product is there and we are there when the consumers are returning. That's all we are seeing.
Makes sense. Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
The next question is the line of Piral Dadhania of RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thank you, everybody. Thank you for taking my questions. Two as well. Firstly, on OpEx, you touched on cost savings you found through COVID and operating efficiencies. When I try and look at your OpEx split between your segmental costs and then your central costs, your central costs are down 17% versus 2019. I just wanted to understand how sustainable that cost structure is going forward. Is that the type of cost base that you can operate with on a kind of run rate basis into 2022 and beyond? Or should we expect some rebuild of cost at the center, going forward? Secondly, on CapEx, actually. Your run rate CapEx for the first half of the year is well below historical trend. There's obviously good reasons for that, caution given COVID, et cetera.
Looking backwards, I appreciate you had some big projects in terms of expanding your HQ and your logistics footprint. Going forward, could you just help us understand what a sensible CapEx number would be? I think in the past, you used to guide to CapEx, but we don't seem to see that guidance anymore. Thank you.
Yeah, thanks, Piral. First, on the OpEx, well analyzed. I've been on record for many years as we build a more professionalized non-trade procurement function, as we are rolling out our global business services, and as we are looking to maintain the cost base, as we are driving the top line and rather be opportunistic on the brand investment. You're absolutely right that we have reduced in the central function, and we believe that is largely sustainable. Of course, we are a little bit behind on hiring given COVID situation as well. We would have loved to hire even more people. Even so, we hired more than 1,000 people on the digital side. Also that will make us a more efficient company.
Yes, largely, you should keep that in mind that we retain that level going forward, and it just shows also in the second quarter, the discipline that we put into the company to keep growing while we maintain the cost at that level. On the CapEx, it's indeed, we wish we would've spent more, but we have been more cautious, especially in APAC, also in some other markets, given COVID. Of course, also in today's environment, it's not as easy to accelerate some of the retail openings that we had planned. Of course, given historical rates, we are not investing into significant corporate buildings anymore. We're done with that one. Going forward, it's still true to think about 3%-4% over net sales as CapEx. We had a guidance of around EUR 700 million this year.
I doubt we are going to spend it all this year. Also going forward, this is nothing we constrain. We want to keep investing into this company, as we said, Own the Game is not just a growth, but it is also an investment strategy. 3%-4% is still the right guidance for the future over that.
That's great. Thank you, Harm.
The next question is from the line of James Grzinic of Jefferies International. Please go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon. I just had a quick one, actually. Perhaps if you can nuance your guidance for an acceleration into your stack sales in the second half. When we look at where you're coming from in the first half, in the Q2 specifically, do you think there's perhaps some macro context that needs to be taken into account when we look into the second half? I'm particularly thinking the U.S. stimulus.
If you look upon, we believe that the current guidance for the second half is appropriate, because even if there is U.S. stimulus, I think the uncertainty that we are seeing and that you should be seeing is that COVID is by no means over. Supply chain constraints are by no means over. This week, there was 11 million people being tested in Wuhan. I think that you're operating in an environment that, of course, you might have an upside in one region, but I think there is so much volatility. I also see a lot of companies that don't even giving guidance. We operate in a super, I would say, volatile environment. We think that the current guidance is appropriate under these circumstances, simply because of the lack of transparency we have into what's going to happen in the future.
Even if you have stimulus in the U.S., you might have an upside there, but we've seen pretty much almost every month in the last six months or 12 months, there's been a downside somewhere else, and that is, of course, what's reflected also in the guidance that we have, that we're running in a very volatile environment.
Kasper, can I perhaps ask a follow-up? Just my second one, I guess. That physical back to school in the U.S. actually happening this year. Is that more of a help in Q2 or Q3? How does that fall within the business in terms of selling, I'm wondering?
In both Q2 and Q3.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Warwick Okines of Exane BNP Paribas . Please go ahead.
Yeah, good afternoon. Thanks very much for taking my questions. I've got two on the supply chain, please. The first is thanks for giving us the sort of roughly EUR 500 million top line impact in the second half of the year from all the external factors. Could you just give us a rough sense of how much of that comes from the manufacturing lockdowns? Is it a quarter? Is it three quarters? Just some sort of sense on that, please. The second question is what sorts of products are the most disrupted by the supply chain, particularly lockdowns in Vietnam? Sort of how confident are you about introducing newness in that environment?
If you look upon it, from the lockdowns, we're probably 50/50. You're getting 50% from the current lockdowns that you predominantly would be an impact in the fourth quarter more than anything else. What you're seeing is predominantly footwear. It will have very little impact in us introducing new products. It will have impact or can have impact on the volume. The introduction of new products, those that are coming up to this stage will not be impacted on that. It's more volume, the introduction of new. Of course, this is one where we're looking into a "fog". We assume that there's going to be opening in August 15 because that's the government, that's what they're telling us. We're giving you the best estimate that we have. As I said, 50/50 and predominantly footwear related.
Of course, what we are doing is due to our large network, we are of course, taking fairly precautious measures and saying, if this should continue, what are some appropriate measures that we should be taking now so it doesn't have a big impact on next year? Of course, it depends upon how long COVID will exist in one country, because if you move things from country A to country B, and you have COVID in country B, then it really helps a lot. We're trying to spread it as much as we can.
Understood. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Warwick.
The next question is from the line of Erinn Murphy of Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.
Great. Thank you. Good afternoon. Two questions for me as well. First, on women's category, it was very important call out at your Capital Markets Day. Could you just talk about how the women's business fared during the second quarter? Any proof points that you're getting excited about there? Secondly, on China, could you talk a little bit more about the current consumer demand environment between global brands versus local or national brands? Thank you.
This year has been characterized on the women's side of introduction of a number of new products, and that's why we're still scaling up business on the women's side. We're not getting growth in this quarter from the women's that, of course, we expect to get, and that is going to be due to product announcement and releases, and you'll continue to see new product releases coming in, particularly around the bras and tight side, where we have a very big set of launches. We're still in the scaling of it. That is the reason why we're not seeing a substantial growth coming for women's as we speak. That is but very much along the product pipeline that we've created. We had some very exciting launches, we believe, in the second quarter with a lot of consumer excitement. We need to scale those now.
As I said, we have a number of launches coming up in the third and the fourth quarter. The second question was related to China. There's no doubt that the overall demand in China is still very intact. I think that's the starting point. You have GDP growth of 6%. You saw that the Chinese political setup announced its renewed focus on sport coming out yesterday. We continue to see a strong demand for products in China. We believe right now that demand has been, what you call, skewed towards local brands more than global brands. However, we're also confident that there'll be a rebalancing of that. We have absolutely no reason to believe that should not be the case. The underlying demand in China is still very strong.
Great. Thank you so much.
You're welcome, Erinn.
The next question is the line of Adam Cochrane of Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon. I was wondering, a question on sort of inventory. Is it possible for you to beat the 7% sales growth in the second half given the potential inventory that you've got or could get hold of? Or is that a maximum number that would be achievable assuming the conditions that you outlined earlier? Secondly, if inventory is running short, can you just describe how you allocate it between D2C wholesale by region? If you can give any idea on that'd be great. Thanks.
Yeah. First, of course, it's a good situation to have. You don't have too much inventory to begin with, but it's definitely not the inventory that we have, and what's coming in from a product point of view will be sufficient to deliver the 7% as we have guided. Of course, the situation could also improve in Asia, and maybe we ramp up the production faster as the demand is there. I would not worry about the inventory, which is also leading to the second question. We got to be smart about how we use the inventory. We need to make sure that we use less clearance.
What we normally do, of course, we have a lot of factory outlets, of course, we could do things smarter and say, "It's not 30% off, it's 25% off or 20% off." We can be smarter on some of the commercial events that are happening in the fourth quarter. We definitely want to make sure that we are prioritizing our D2C channels as well as we are supporting our key alliance partners on the wholesale side as well towards the holiday season.
Overall, I'm not worried about inventory, but we need to make sure we take it as an opportunity being smarter how we sell the inventory that we have and how we prioritize the inventory that is coming in and utilizing that to a faster sell-through as the inventory comes in, that it doesn't get stuck in the warehouse for too long or do direct shipments to our key accounts already.
With inventory being short across the industry, is it possible to take pricing at all?
Absolutely. That is part of the smart measures where we can, of course, do that easily in our D2C business, where we have easily done it with exclusive products, but also in the interest of our partners as well to use it as an opportunity and say, for the one or the other launch or the key franchise that we have in the market, there is an opportunity to optimize the prices either upwards or optimizing the clearance or the markdowns that we have on the products. That is what I mean with smart inventory management. It is definitely opportunity on pricing, not just in Q4, but also going into 2022.
Thank you.
The next question is the line of Cedric Lecasble of Stifel. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you for taking my questions. I have two also. The first one, a follow-up on the previous one. With the normalization of the situation at the end of Q3, do you expect potentially a stronger Q4 than Q3? Are you capped in Q3 by the level of inventory and the production issues? That's number one. Number two, I'd like if you could give some color on your 4D technology, what is needed to have capacity, price points to become mass market in that technology? What's the possibility of this technology today, and how can you expand it in the future? Thank you very much.
I'll do the second. First of all, I think the best answer to give you is to get you come to Herzo in December. The 4D technology was introduced about five years ago, four and a half years ago. We have significantly worked on the manufacturing cost to make them much more competitive. What you're seeing is we're now starting to bring a number of different variations of 4D out. We're coming from lifestyle into a very good running shoe, the 4DFWD, which was voted the best running shoe, which is running at a EUR 200 price point. We're taking it "down" to EUR 160 price point. We're not going to take this down to a full volume product. We have no intention of taking a 4D shoe down to EUR 100 because we don't believe that that is where this shoe is really segment.
I think that the much bigger opportunity is the capability we have to create different, what you call, platforms that we run on. Instead of having one or two, maybe having three, four, or five different 4D platforms that look different. One is for running, one is for walking, one is for training. You're going to see probably a proliferation of that moving forward. It's for us a very exciting platform, and that's what you could see when I spoke through the products. The 4DFWD, I was using it over the last two weeks and tried to run. It's a fantastic running shoe. A couple years ago, it was a great leisure shoe. It has really evolved. It's the proliferation of different uses for the shoe, and probably taking down, as we said, to the EUR 160.
We do not want to have a mass market shoe with this shoe. We believe that actually the production cost, but also where the shoe is positioned is at a high-end running/training shoe, not a low-end volume shoe.
Yeah. On the first question, first we need to understand that last year we moved the order book, or part of the order book, from Q2 into Q3, and we had a strong recovery in Q3 then. Always sold into wholesale. Of course, what we are seeing this year, we have a different comp in Q3 relative to Q4, this year compared to last year. Clearly, we will not be capped from an inventory point of view in Q3, so it is not capped from that point of view. Maybe it has slight impact more in Asia, where the lead times are shorter to the production that we have in Vietnam.
Again, overall, we are not capped in Q3 from an inventory point of view, other than maybe a little bit in Asia. Again, Q4, we will have easier comps again, compared to last year relative to Q3.
Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Thomas Chauvet of Citi. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. I have two questions, please. The first one on pricing. In the media interview this morning, you mentioned potential price increases to offset the supply chain pressures. What type of magnitude are you thinking about? Which categories, which regions? Do you think you can pass on this price increase with limited price resistance from the consumer in terms of volume impact? Secondly, a question on the adidas Prada collaboration and the new collection launched a few weeks ago. That collaboration has been going on for 18 months now. I think collaboration with luxury brands is, I am not new to adidas, but given it seems to be a commercial necessity for many brands, I was wondering what you've learned from the Prada experience. How does it make you think about collaboration opportunities with other strong brands, perhaps in other categories than sneakers?
Particularly, I'm thinking about equipment and gear. Thank you.
We were the first with open source and really looking into how do we drive innovation into our products, whether it's on the technology side with Boost or we just spoke about 4D, and of course also with fashion brands. I think that it is not a commercial necessity, it is a brand opportunity, and that is what I think is really important. That when we work with a Prada, we are positioning our products at a different level to partially a different consumer. We think that that space is very attractive for us. Also moving our Originals business upmarket, which we spoke about in our Capital Market Day in March.
The combination of having partnerships with either luxury brands, external partners like a Kanye or a Beyoncé or a Stella, where we price at a very different level or moving it up also, is where the sporting goods industry is partially also moving. We want to make sure that we take that space and move upwards and not having somebody else coming upwards and moving downwards. We think that there is plenty of room in our brand to do so. We're very excited about that. You will also, in the future, continue to see an expansion of our presence in this space with more collaborations and more products, and also more available products. Going from a pure brand position also to a mixed brand/business position. The first question was?
Pricing.
Pricing. Pricing, it's not only because of the supply chain shortages, it's simply that globally right now, pretty much all raw materials are going up in price, and you can see that whether it's oil or rubber or whatever. We'll be making use of that opportunity and see where we will do selective pricing. It will be a product by product, region by region, where we'll do it, of course, depending on the product position and the price sensitivity of that product. It's something that we're looking very much into due to the overall global increase in raw materials along with supply chain shortages.
Thank you.
Thanks, Thomas.
The next question is from the line of Anne-Laure Bismuth of HSBC. Please go ahead.
Anne-Laure.
Yes. Hi, thank you for taking my question. Actually, I have one. It's about the marketing expenditure. Should we think about H2? Do you plan to accelerate the investment in marketing expenses in H2? Should we expect the marketing to sales ratio closer to the top end of the 12%-13% range in terms of marketing expenditure for H2? Thank you very much.
Yeah. Actually, it's a good assumption. We will definitely accelerate in the second half. Around the 12%-30% is a good ratio to work with. Rest assured, we keep investing into the brand to make sure that we have a healthy top-line development, not just in the second half, but also going into 2022.
Thank you. In Q2 it was 12% of the group sales, so it should be closer to 13% in H2.
Correct.
Thank you.
You're welcome, Anne-Laure. Kelly, we have time for two more questions.
The next question is from the line of John Kernan of Cowen. Please go ahead.
Excellent. Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to focus on North America. It's a region which seems like, just based on the segment reporting you're giving us, is far above some of the other regions in terms of its recovery and growth off of the pre-pandemic base in fiscal 2019. Just curious how you're thinking about North America in the back half of the year and the overall opportunity in North America. You have been running, I think above your long-term guidance off of your 2019 base this year. Clearly some momentum. Just curious what you're embedding in your guidance for North America for the remainder of the year. Thank you.
Yes. We continue to expect strong double-digit growth in North America this year. As you can see, what we've done over the last five years is build a stronger market share position, while at the same time consistently increasing the margin. Of course, with the exception of the Corona year, because we really wanted to have a more even contribution from the three largest regions in the world when it came to top line growth and profit contribution. Our expectations are that we'll continue to grab market share short and long term in the U.S., while also making use of the scale that we've now built, which we've spoken about for many years, and continue to have a very solid margin contribution. We're very excited about our position in North America, and we continue to see great opportunities for growth.
Also, with people coming back to the offices, we think that will actually be a positive. We opened up our Portland facility starting of July, with approximately 20%-25% of our people coming back, that number will increase over time assuming under the, of course, right health and safety considerations. We're very excited about this opportunity in the U.S.
Maybe Yeezy, I think, has a very large U.S. and North America component. Any update on Yeezy and plans for product launches into the back half of the year?
Yeezy Day, which we just had, was a global event, was exceptionally successful globally and was oversubscribed, and it really shows the high demand we have on a global basis for Yeezy. We continue to be very excited about an ongoing launch of not only Yeezy products, but also collaborations with Beyoncé, Jerry Lorenzo, which is on the basketball side. We have a number of key launches coming, not only with our partners, but of course, also our own product launches. We think we have a variety of very exciting products coming out in the second half, and that's why we continue to be bullish around our position, not only in the U.S., but globally. Particularly in the U.S., where we'll continue to build our share base.
Got it. Thank you.
Thanks, John.
Our final question is from the line of Jonathan Komp of Baird. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, thank you. Just one follow-up on the second half guidance. When you think about the slight two-year growth acceleration you're planning, can you maybe just comment a little more directly on which segments you expect to accelerate and those that you're baking in more conservative assumptions for, relative to the second quarter trend? Then, just a broader question on the order book trends you're seeing. Are you seeing any signs of momentum for some of the new product you mentioned and any early reads as you start to sell in, theoretically, the sportswear product for 2022? Or when would we expect to see that?
Okay. First, on the second half, two years stack versus 2019. It will be, of course, again, coming from outdoor, especially as we go into the winter season. Definitely running will continue with good growth as well. These are the two categories I would mention. Of course, in Q3, we have some returning to football as well. That was more in Q2, but it will continue in Q3 as well. From a product segment point of view, it will be more balanced from a footwear and apparel point of view. When you come to the order book, yes, of course, we have visibility for the second half, but we start to have the first visibility into spring/summer 2022 as well.
As Kasper just mentioned on North America, we are not just excited about the second half and the strong double-digit growth in the second half, but we want to get that momentum into 2022 as well. That's really important. That's what we're working towards, and that's why we keep investing into the brand as well. When it comes to sportswear, that is definitely too early. This is not an order book build for spring/summer 2022. That is more going into the summertime in 2022 then as well when it comes to sportswear. That is definitely something that we'll talk more about on the 13th and 14th of December when we talk about our Innovation Day.
Exactly. Thanks very much, Harm. Thanks very much, Kasper. Jonathan, I can tell you that while the consumer might need to wait a little bit longer in order to see the first sportswear product, as Harm said, in the summer of next year, I can tell you if you jump on a plane and come over in December to Herzo, you're going to have the privilege of seeing the product here. Believe me, we're all very excited about that. That actually concludes our Q2 conference call for today. I want to thank all of you for your participation. I want to thank you for your discipline in asking a maximum of two questions.
If you have any further questions, and that can easily be three or four, I know, please don't hesitate to reach out to any member of the IR team or myself over the next couple of weeks. We definitely look forward to being in touch and talking to you soon. With that, thanks very much again. Have a good remainder of the day. For those of you who didn't have it yet, have a nice summer break. All the best. Bye-bye.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded and you may disconnect your telephone. Thank you for joining and have a pleasant day. Goodbye.