Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to today's Full Year 2021 Results Presentation. In the next 50 minutes, Daniel Grieder, CEO of Hugo Boss, and Yves Müller, CFO, will guide you through today's event. Daniel will start by providing an update on our CLAIM 5 growth strategy, which we presented to you in August last year, and the progress we have made so far. Yves will then take you through the operational and financial highlights of fiscal year 2021, and provide you with our outlook for the current year. Daniel will be back on stage after that to wrap up today's event before going into the Q&A session. Now, similar to the Investor Day, questions can be submitted any time during the presentation via the chat function. To get things started, let's kick off with a short video.
Change is the only law of life, and those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.
Hello, Future. Thank you, Christian. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm delighted to speak to you again after our Investor Day back in August last year. Since then, a lot of things have happened here at HUGO BOSS , and I'm very optimistic that next time we can meet in person and welcome you at our campus in Metzingen. Before we will take a closer look at our full year 2021 results, let me say a few words on the situation we are currently facing in Europe. At HUGO BOSS , we are deeply touched by the current development in the Ukraine. Our deepest empathy and thoughts are with the millions of people affected. To help the people in need, we will support the German Red Cross and other institutions to support those that are affected by the current crisis, including our staff.
As a result of the ongoing conflict, we have decided to temporarily suspend our own retail business operation in Russia as of March 9. That means yesterday. Our own e-com in the market has already been paused since last week, as have all our marketing activities. As a company, we will continue to monitor the situation very closely and adapt to the measures accordingly. Yves will provide more details around the financial implication during this presentation later on. Let me start, however, by saying that I could not have asked for a better start in HUGO BOSS since I joined in June last year. We look back on a highly successful 2021. Overall revenues have increased by 43% to EUR 2.8 billion.
This means we are basically returned back to pre-pandemic levels, which is incredible, that we have achieved that in this short time. Not only the top line, also the bottom line increased. It was above the full year guidance, which was between EUR 175 million and EUR 228 million. That makes us very confident for the future. We never had in the past a stronger free cash flow than last year. Nearly EUR 560 million. That makes me all the more optimistic that we are well on track to exploit the tremendous potential that we have in HUGO BOSS and claim back the lead.
Not only the numbers are showing positive, it's also the CLAIM 5, our strategy that we implemented, but actually I should say that is in full swing and we are about to execute. Because our vision is to become the premium tech-driven fashion platform worldwide, and our ambition is to become one of the top 100 global brands. To do that, as you know, we have implemented the CLAIM 5 strategy, where clearly we defined why we do things, what we do where, and how we implement it. All overall, the place in the middle is the consumer. We are thinking every day consumer-centric. Our latest brand campaign for HUGO BOSS and BOSS and HUGO are prime examples of how we will turn consumers, not just into consumers, but turn them into fans.
The five claims, the five pillars of the strategy is the first is to boost the brand, how we showed over the past few weeks. I just wanna repeat again, HUGO BOSS is not just a brand anymore, it's a platform. On that platform, you see two brands, BOSS and HUGO. Both brands have a complete different DNA. They have a different consumer. They have a different way of talking. They have a different campaign. It's not anymore together and linked together, it's a complete distinguished DNA. Let me talk to BOSS. We define the name BOSS as something new. It's not just a leader of a company, it's somebody that stands for something. Somebody that does something good. Somebody that has to say something and stands behind it. That is be your own boss. That's what it is.
Everybody can come a boss, no matter if man or woman. Let me show a quick film on the reveal of the campaign.
Like a boss.
Yes, also we dream like a boss. We also had an all-star cast, and we actually have put all these celebrities in one campaign. In my past, I used to do one or two, but no, we started only in BOSS with eight of them. Look at this. No matter if Kendall Jenner, Hailey Bieber, Imaan Hammam, Future, AJ, Khaby Lame, Alica Schmidt, and Matteo Berrettini, they're all in our campaign. We have selected them smartly and carefully because we want to make sure that they fit to our new way of how we define HUGO BOSS , and also that they stand for our values and be included in our values.
Therefore, Khaby Lame, Alica Schmidt and Matteo, they were not on the horizon of anybody in the industry, but we have picked them, and actually we have a long-term partnership with them because they're fantastic. If you see the numbers that we got for them, I will speak to that a bit later, but we had an all-star cast, which we were very, very excited to get. Not only stars, we actually added another 200 bosses of this world. We had people that wanted to stand, that already stand behind something. It doesn't matter if it is from sport or film or model or whatever. We had 200 people that showed on social media what they stand for and why they want to be their own boss.
Actually with that campaign only in social media, we actually gained on Instagram, seven basis points. Incredible result. Everybody again shows on the picture, become a boss. The excitement is not only on social media. We went also out of home initiatives. No matter if from Shanghai to Paris, we showed in 37 cities, we put the screens up and we showed the campaign of being your own boss, or dream like a boss, or work like a boss, or stand like a boss. Not finished here, we also, February, actually did the event in Dubai, where we did a see-now buy-now show. See now, buy now means that what they have seen on stage, they actually could buy immediately online and also in our flagship stores.
Only that event created additional 30 million views on YouTube. By the way, we do not do these events just to do events. Actually, we use these events to create content and that content we use then on social media. For example, this event in Dubai was created overnight and immediately next day we could use all the content. That's what we do with these events. That was BOSS as a quick overview. But also in HUGO, we actually had a brand refresh. There, complete different. I want to clearly say BOSS is for millennials and HUGO BOSS is the target group, Gen Z. It's complete different language you need to speak to them. It's not the same. If you're-
You see new, fresh, rebellious. That's the Gen Z. That's what they wanna see. That's what they want, that you talk to them through TikTok and so on. We also had incredible celebrities, younger ones, Big Matthew, Maddie Ziegler, SAINt JHN, and other rappers, dancers. This is young stars on the rise, and that's what is the right thing for the Gen Z. We also did a dance challenge on TikTok. You cannot imagine, but 300,000 creators participated in the challenge, and we actually gained 63% more followers on TikTok. That was an amazing campaign exactly for the Gen Z. If you add all together what I just showed you, if you take BOSS and HUGO, if you add those numbers together, we had 15 billion impressions within five weeks. This is record-breaking results.
This has never been before here. Then on top of that, not only views, but also engagement, means 800 million people engaged with our brands. This, no fashion company had these results before, and this only in five weeks. That was the brand refresh. We continued, and actually we did more. We also, as we said in the second pillar, CLAIM 5 has a pillar that is product is king. Also there we invested. Actually we said that we don't wanna be a men's formal brand, we wanna be a 24/7 lifestyle brand. We are not only selling suits, that's our aim, we wanna sell also lifestyle. We wanna also get the part in the casual.
We wanna be able to dress the fan or the end consumer from not only the office, but also in the office, but also for dinner, for the weekend, for travel and for sport. That is our aim, and that's what we actually had to show to the world. With the campaign, I think it happened that we were a bit behind the curtain. Suddenly we are on stage and the brand is back, but not as a formal suit brand. No, as a 24/7 lifestyle brand, no matter for men's or for women's. We actually implemented in BOSS the new logo, the new monogram, and the iconic color palette, which is black, white and camel. That is all integrated in the spring/summer collection, which you see had phenomenal results.
In HUGO, which is the first touchpoint for consumers, we also had the branding refresh. I wanna emphasize also there, a new logo, new iconic colors, which is black, white, and red, but also a new monogram also integrated in the spring 2022 collection. With HUGO, we have a new strong opportunity. We actually, as I said, it's also from a product point of view, it is different than BOSS. It's more denim, it's more streetwear, it's more contemporary. That's what you see also in the collections. It doesn't stop there. We also, it's getting more important to have collaboration, to have something new to show to the end consumer online and offline. Therefore, we did collaboration, for example, here with Future for BOSS x Future.
Porsche x BOSS. We have done that with him together, and look how cool it looks, how he was driving this Porsche. Actually, Porsche was very surprised how cool the campaign also looked for them, which they also used. On the other side, we wanted to talk about the BOSSes, the new BOSSes, and we also talked about legends. When you see the Muhammad Ali was a legend, and he was a real BOSS. If you go now to our stores, you see the capsule collection laying there. In HUGO, for example, we did a collaboration with Replay, and because we wanted to get market shares also in denim, and therefore we wanted to get their know-how and then collaborate together that our denims would become the best denims. We wanted to lead, and that's the third pillar in digital.
We talked about that. The future is all about the digital. Therefore, we built this digital campus in Porto because there is the place together with the team in Metzingen. That's where we gather information, that's where we gather data, that's where we analyze data to be able to implement it in the different parts of the business to elevate customer experience, to strengthen the digital know-how, and leverage data and analytics no matter in which part of the business. So far, we only started to implement it in e-com, and the results are phenomenal, what you see here.
Also at the end of January, we actually relaunched our new hugoboss.com, actually with a new look and feel, and also with an improved usability of customer interaction, more personalization, more localization, more performance marketing to get the customers on sta... On the site. I show you a preview how this looked like.
That gave us more traffic, more average order value, and we could reduce the markdowns on e-com. This KPIs actually, or the new page helped us to get better KPIs all over the board. Talking about digital, we also implemented our digital showroom 2.0. It is new interactive, new innovative, and more impulsive for our customers, our partners that come to our showrooms. What we can show there in a much better way is talk about the brand, show them what the brand stands for and where the brand goes for. We can also show them seasonal highlights. We can give them inspiration about our collections. We can go through the product groups.
We can help them to get a much better buy, a buy that is more based also on data, and a buy that goes faster than when you have to go through all the samples. On top of that, it helps us to reduce our sample collections by 80%. That's what we have implemented, tested in Metzingen and in London, and we're gonna roll out through the whole world. On top of the best message on that is it also helps to get more sustainable because you don't have to create all these samples, which also saves millions, by the way. How that looks, we show you in a film. It looks nearly like a store, but it's our showroom in Metzingen that you just have seen, and when you are next time here, we can show you that all.
In our CLAIM 5 strategy, we said also one pillar we have to rebalance omni-channel, very important. Not only retail is important or online is important, no, all together, online, retail, wholesale, everything is important to become an omni-channel distribution. In the future, Metaverse goes also into there. This is what we actually looked at, and we increased, and we optimized wherever possible. You see, for example, in digital, since 2019, we doubled the part of the digital sales. Today, we are in 20% of our sales is digital. This is the incredible result and the highest in the history, 20% digital. Also in the stores, the ones that we're gonna roll out, we have a complete new look and feel. We're bringing the brand refresh also across there.
We have different new touchpoints for our customers. We have a new customer journey. We integrate digital also in our stores. It's not only the digital, it's not only the screens that we add there, it's also we want to become more inspirational. We wanna actually get the customers into the stores and keep him there. It's experience that we wanna give him in the stores. It's more cozy. It makes you spend more time in the stores. That's what we invest. Already in the current ones that we have improved our productivity, and we will improve the productivity further in our stores. The rollout, as I said, is gonna happen all over the world. Doesn't matter if it is BOSS or HUGO, we are expanding also in the retail business.
On top of that, we are not only expanding, we're also refreshing our stores. More than 100 stores in the year gonna be refreshed with the new concept, and therefore, the productivity that we just said, this 3%, will be come to life in every of the stores, in all of the stores. We gained back the wholesale business. We strengthened our relationship with our partners. We get more space in the shops. We actually introduced the refresh of the brand, the new look and feel, which was very well received. Look the results that we got.
It's the order intake with the new branding, sub-branding that we integrated with BOSS Orange, with BOSS Green, and the new brand refresh and the new product. We actually gained only in fall/winter 40% more forward orders. This is incredible results in that short period that is beyond what we have expected. It resonates strongly to our wholesale partners. They like the collection. They like what they have seen. They like the strategy where we are going. We also have to organize for growth, so the last pillar. I have to admit that the supply chain that was a challenge in the past few months. With all the challenges that we had in front of us, we focused on three points, be more resilient, be more flexible, and add speed.
That was not so easy because we had to work to get the sales that we gained. We also had to make sure that the product is available. There we have big advantage actually, because nearly 50% of the sourcing, of the global sourcing is happening in Europe. The share of Europe sourcing is very high, and that's an advantage. On top, there's another advantage that 17%, roughly 17%, comes out of our own facility in Izmir. That share is very important, and it's actually giving us an advantage in the future, and we actually gonna add capacity, more than 10 million pieces a year and another 1,000 people into Izmir. Also what helps us is the strong partnerships that we have with our vendors. Vendors we work more than 10 years.
We actually all together is that package we made sure we focus that our product is available. Yes, it's a challenge also with transportation and all that, but so far we managed well through this difficult times in terms of supply chain. Sustainability continues to play a big role because the end consumer wants to know what they buy. It is to be relevant to the younger consumer you need to be able to show them what you have and what you do. I think we have shown because the fifth time in a row, we are the second-best brand in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index worldwide. It doesn't stop here. We continue to be more responsible. We're trying to be more circular. We have to work on that, and we will.
We're gonna get climate neutral in 2023 in our own responsibility, but we also in 2025 we wanna be climate neutral in the entire value chains. That is what we need to work, and that's what we work every day. We cannot make that overnight, but we try to get every day a bit better. On top of that, something that is really in my heart that the industry has to work on, and that is we create too much waste. Everywhere, we create too much waste, and polyester is a problem. We attack those problems in reducing the waste in actually doing this digital campus. Because with more data, with more planning, with more analytics and implementing on the business, we have a much better planning.
We can create, buy, produce, develop much with much more data and create less waste. The second that is really important is polyester. 60% of global consumption is polyester, and we have to replace polyester. Because what is polyester? Polyester is plastic, and when you wash it goes into the water. If we continue with that, in 2050, it's more polyester, it's more plastic in the water than fish. That's not what we want, and that's what we have to find. Therefore, we invested already in HeiQ AeoniQ, which is actually bringing a cellulosic yarn that is hopefully soon coming up with replacing polyester. That is what we do for sustainable.
That's what we owe to the industry, and that's where we are on the forefront because we love fashion and we wanna change fashion. The other part that is crucial is you can have the best strategy. If you don't have the people that execute the strategy, you are nowhere. I was very pleased that over the past seven months I'm here, I have seen in Metzingen and through all the world, wherever I went to the showrooms, to the stores, we have people that are engaged, people that are well-trained, people that were well-educated, and people that are hungry, people that help us, that believe in that strategy and the CLAIM 5 and help us to execute. If you don't have the team in place, you will never be able to execute.
Because we have such a strong team and people wherever we are in the world, we are basically ahead of the execution of CLAIM 5. That was my first part of my presentation, but now I hand over to Yves because he gives you much more insight on the numbers. Thank you very much, and please, Yves.
Thank you, Daniel, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Also from my side, a warm welcome to our full year 2021 results presentation. During the next 25 minutes, I will primarily focus on two overarching topics. Firstly, and following our pre-announcement from mid-January, I will guide you through our full year 2021 operational and financial performance. Secondly, I will elaborate in detail on our top and bottom line expectations for the full year 2022. In doing so, I will also address current macroeconomic uncertainties in the context of the terrible situation in Ukraine and its possible implications on our business. Before I get started, I would like to point out that all revenue-related growth rates will be discussed on a currency adjusted basis. With this, let's have a look at our full year 2021 results.
As you have seen from our pre-release, we significantly accelerated our top and bottom line performance throughout the year and finished 2021 on a high with the strongest quarterly sales in HUGO BOSS history. Consequently, we exceeded our full year 2021 sales and earnings targets, which we had revised upwards back in October. Sales grew 43% to EUR 2.8 billion above our guidance of an increase of around 40%. This means that we effectively returned to pre-pandemic levels only one year after the severe implications from COVID-19 hit our business. In 2021, a global store opening rate of around 90% paired with a pickup in consumer sentiment, particularly across Europe and the Americas, strongly contributed to growth.
In addition to this, and as Daniel highlighted in detail, our fast and relentless execution of CLAIM 5 provided additional tailwind and drove brand momentum across the globe. In light of our strong top-line performance, our operating result also recorded a significant increase. Overall, EBIT amounted to EUR 228 million, above our increased guidance of between EUR 175 million and EUR 200 million. I will elaborate on the different moving parts that contributed to this stellar performance in just a few minutes. First, let's take a closer look at our top line. Starting with a look at our quarterly sales trajectory, which impressively demonstrates the strong sequential improvements that we recorded over the course of the year. As compared to 2019 levels, revenue growth picked up noticeably from the second quarter onwards.
Thanks to the strong business acceleration recorded in the second half of the year, we quickly returned to growth and finally achieved double-digit sales increases versus 2019 in the fourth quarter. Equally, if not more important, growth in 2021 was broad-based in nature, as reflected by strong revenue improvements for both brands BOSS and HUGO, as well as across all regions and distribution channels. This illustrates the diversity of our business model and the many growth opportunities we can explore in the future. Let's dive a little bit deeper into our top line, starting with our brands. Both brands recorded significant double-digit improvements in 2021. The sales increase for BOSS menswear and BOSS womenswear was driven by growth across all varying occasions, fully in line with our ambition to establish BOSS as a true 24/7 lifestyle brand.
Momentum was particularly strong in casual wear, with sales up high single-digit as compared to 2019, while formal wear also recovered noticeably. While sales for both BOSS menswear and BOSS womenswear returned to growth in the second half of 2021, for the full-year sales remained 2% and 6% below 2019 levels. HUGO, on the other hand, successfully returned to growth already in the second quarter of 2021, with full-year revenues up 6% on a two-year stack basis. Strong double-digit sales improvement in casual wear more than compensated for softer formal wear business, reflecting Hugo's new strategic focus on modern and commercial styles to establish itself as the first touch point for younger consumers, such as Gen Z.
Let's move over to our regions, and first of all, to the Americas, which recorded a particularly strong, robust performance in 2021, as reflected by revenue growth of 78% against the prior year. While this translate into growth of 4% on a two-year stack, including strong growth of 22% in the final quarter, I'm particularly pleased that we made great strides around our self-managed turnaround in the important U.S. market. Of particular note is our strong progress when it comes to strengthening our product offering at the point of sale. That includes, above all, leveraging the casual wear opportunity by boosting the casual wear share in our stores to more than 60%. In doing so, we propelled our U.S. brick-and-mortar retail business above pre-pandemic levels. Overall, including our wholesale business, revenues in the U.S. effectively returned to pre-pandemic levels already in 2021.
To conclude on the Americas, Canada and Latin America also recorded significant growth compared to the prior year. While business in Canada remained slightly below pandemic levels, our business in Latin America finished the year well above pre-pandemic levels, as reflected by mid-double-digit growth versus 2019. Moving over to Europe, where we managed to grow sales by 41% as compared to the prior year. While the impact of COVID-19 still weighed on our business performance at the beginning of the year, consumer sentiment improved significantly as the year progressed. In the fourth quarter, sales in Europe were even up double-digit as compared to 2019, posting strong growth of 11%. Consequently, for the full year, sales remained only 2% below 2019 levels, although on average, 20% of our retail points of sale were affected by temporary closures.
While all of the regions, all of the major markets, including the U.K., Germany, and France, contributed to growth, we also recorded a recovery across important markets in Southern Europe, as well as high double-digit sales increases in growth markets such as the UAE, with revenues well above 2019 levels. Finally, also in Asia Pacific, we were able to progress with our business recovery, as reflected by robust sales growth of 22%. The upward trend became particularly evident in the first half of the year. However, with the start of the second half, renewed pandemic-related restrictions weighed on the traffic in various markets. Consequently, for the full year, sales remained 3% below pre-pandemic levels. In Mainland China, fueled by very robust local demand, we recorded growth of 18% in 2021, translating into an increase of 24% on a two-year stack basis.
Other markets in the regions, including Japan, Australia, and Southeast Asia, also recorded double-digit growth but remained below pre-pandemic levels in light of pandemic-related restrictions, as well as the ongoing absence of international tourism. To conclude on our top line, let's take a quick look at our three major distribution channels. Starting with digital, one of the most significant growth drivers for our company in the years to come. In 2021, total digital sales, that includes our own digital flagship, hugoboss.com, as well as revenue generated with our partners, grew 55% as compared to the prior year. This translate into growth of 85% on a two-year stack basis, fueled by strong double-digit increases across all touchpoints in all regions. As Daniel already mentioned, for the first time, total digital sales added up to 20% of group sales, twice as much as compared to pre-pandemic levels.
This marks an important milestone on our way to grow digital penetration to a level of between 25% and 30% of group net sales by 2025. Let's now move over to our brick-and-mortar retail business, which recovered noticeably in 2021, recording strong improvements of 43%. While sales in the first half of 2021 still remained below pre-pandemic levels, revenues returned to double-digit growth starting in the third quarter. This development was driven by a robust local demand, as well as the successful execution of first important strategic initiatives as part of CLAIM 5. Consequently, for the full year, we were able to limit the revenue decline in physical retail to -9% as compared to 2019.
To conclude on the channels, our brick-and-mortar wholesale business recorded sales improvements of 37% in 2021, reflecting strong demand from partners for our BOSS and HUGO collection. With our brands' refreshed collections, the introduction of brand lines such as BOSS Camel, BOSS Black, BOSS Orange, and BOSS Green, as well as our firm commitment to improve product and price value, we are enjoying tremendous momentum with key strategic partners in physical wholesale. Our very strong order books for 2022 impressively demonstrate our success in this regard. With this, let's now move to the main P&L items. Starting with our gross margin, which totaled 61.8% in 2021, representing an increase of 80 basis points year-over-year.
The non-recurrence of inventory devaluation effects recorded in 2020, as well as a slight positive impact from currency, more than compensated for an increase in sourcing and freight costs in fiscal year 2021. The latter accounted for around 200 basis points and is primarily attributable to pandemic-related bottlenecks in global production and logistics capacities, as well as the associated increase in material production and freight costs. Moving over to operating expenses. Fully in line with our strategic CLAIM 5, Boost Brands, we strongly increased our marketing investment in 2021, up almost 30%, reflecting key initiatives to drive brand relevance. As a percentage of sales, marketing investments grew to 7.3% and came in at the lower end of our target range of between 7% and 8% as set out in CLAIM 5.
We also continued to invest further in the further digitization of our business model, another key lever of our successful journey towards 2025. Overall, total digital investments were up 33% year- over- year with our newly established digital campus being a prime example for a step up in digital investments. Overall, operating expenses increased by 5% in fiscal year 2021. As a percentage of sales, operating expenses decreased strongly to a level of 53.6%. Besides efficiency gains realized in own retail, which also include relocations, rightsizing, and rent negotiations, it was our strong top-line performance that drove significant operating leverage. As a result, we were able to more than compensate for gradual normalization in rental and payroll costs, as well as the important investments in our business to spur long-term growth.
Now, in light of the strong top-line development, the improvement in gross margin, as well as the operating leverage generated during the year, both EBIT and net income recovered noticeably. While EBIT totaled EUR 228 million, net income came in at EUR 144 million. Let's now turn to the balance sheet. Starting with trade net working capital, which was as a percentage of sales, reached a 10-year low of 17.2%. In absolute terms, trade net working capital decreased 31% currency adjustment. This development was supported by a 7% decrease in inventories and attributable to acceleration and sales momentum in 2021.
On the other hand, we recorded a strong increase in trade payables, mainly reflecting a higher utilization of the supplier financing program that we successfully established in 2020 to support our suppliers during the pandemic. Moving over to CapEx, which totaled EUR 104 million in 2021. The 30% increase year-over-year mainly reflects the suspension of non-business critical investments in the prior year period that we had implemented to secure free cash flow during the pandemic. As a percentage of sales, however, CapEx amounted to 3.7% only, below our targeted range as part of CLAIM 5. As we deliberately put the brakes on our store renovation initiatives for large parts of 2021 ahead of the rollout of our new store concept.
Now, as Daniel already mentioned, the global rollout of our new store concept fully embody the the branding refresh, will be one of our key priorities for the current year and lead to a significant increase in CapEx, both in absolute terms as well as in percentage of sales. Overall, we expect CapEx to total between EUR 200 million and EUR 230 million in 2022, thus in line with our target range of between 6% and 7% of group sales. This brings me to our free cash flow, which developed exceptionally well in 2021. At EUR 559 million, we achieved the strongest free cash flow in our company's history.
Free cash flow more than tripled compared to last year, driven by our strong top line and bottom line growth, our smart and efficient use of capital expenditure, as well as the improvements in net working capital. As a result, also our net financial position reached new record highs. By the end of 2021 and excluding lease liabilities in the context of IFRS 16, our net financial position totaled +EUR 167 million. Hence, for the first time ever, we were not only debt-free but effectively cash-rich at year-end. Besides our strong free cash flow development, this also reflects a significantly lower credit utilization of a revolving credit facility that we successfully concluded in the fourth quarter has not been utilized at the end of 2021.
These outstanding achievements emphasize that the business model of HUGO BOSS is highly cash generating, and I have every confidence that based on the relentless execution of our CLAIM 5 strategy, we will generate strong cumulative free cash flow of around EUR 2 billion until 2025. This said, let me also be clear that for 2022, we expect free cash flow generation to normalize somewhat given our planned step up in CapEx, as well as our expectation of a moderate increase of net working capital as a percentage of sales. For the latter, we expect a gradual normalization for fiscal year 2022, as reflected by our forecast of a moderate increase to a level of between 18% and 19%.
In view of our strong operational and financial performance in 2021, our extremely solid financial position and our confidence in the success of CLAIM 5, we will resume dividend payments and propose a dividend of EUR 0.70 per share for fiscal year 2021. This represents a payout ratio of 35% in line with our CLAIM 5 strategy, which also contains a strong commitment towards future dividend payments. At the same time, our dividend proposal will ensure we have all the flexibility needed to further invest into our business, build and leverage our platform, and thus drive long-term growth for HUGO BOSS . This concludes my remarks on our full year 2021 operational and financial performance. Let's now move over to our expectation for the current fiscal year.
2022 represents an important milestone towards our 2025 financial ambition, and our main focus will be on further driving the relevance and perception of our brands, BOSS and HUGO. As a result, all our initiatives in the current year, be it from a brand, product or operational perspective, are aimed at fostering the strong top-line momentum gained in 2021. At the same time, we must not ignore heightened levels of uncertainties with regard to the overall volatile macroeconomics and geopolitical environment. On the one hand, the COVID-19 pandemic is far from over and the risk of potential new virus variants and renewed restrictions on public life cannot be ruled out. On the other hand, the ongoing conflict in the Ukraine adds additional uncertainty with regards to overall economic and sector growth in 2022.
Let me therefore share with you some facts and figures about our exposure to Russia and Ukraine, as well as what we are currently witnessing from a business perspective. Before I do so, however, let me echo what Daniel already highlighted at the very beginning. Our deepest empathy goes out to each and everyone affected by the current situation. Although it's far from easy to go straight back to day-to-day business with the current situation in mind, as a global company, we have to take responsibility, show attitude, and navigate through this crisis in the best possible manner. As you have heard from Daniel, as a result of the invasion in Ukraine, we have decided to temporarily close our stores and suspend all own retail business activities in Russia as of March 9.
This decision followed measures we have already taken last week, such as the suspension of our e-commerce activity. We remain committed to providing all impacted employees with comprehensive financial and operational support. We also remain in close contact with our business partner in Russia and Ukraine and adapt our measures and ongoing support as the situation evolves. Our sales exposure to Russia and Ukraine at this stage is rather limited. In total, both markets make up around 3% of group sales. In Ukraine, we do not have any own business operations as this market is being handled via franchise partners. In Russia, however, we operate an own retail business with around 200 employees we are taking care of. Our priority is the safety of our local teams and their families.
Also from a sourcing perspective, our exposure to Ukraine is quite limited, with significantly less than 1% of our total sourcing volume coming from that market. For the time being, we will be reallocating most of the planned production to other partners in Europe, as well as to our own production site in Turkey. Now, while it's extremely difficult to predict how things will develop in the coming weeks and months, and how all of this will ultimately impact broader consumer sentiment, let me point out that as of today, our overall global business is hardly affected by the current developments. Instead, we were able to carry on our strong momentum from the fourth quarter of 2021 into the current year. Not to forget, our strong order book for the upcoming fall/winter season, which should provide additional support in the second half of the year.
In 2022, the rigorous execution of CLAIM 5 will take center stage, and we will push ahead with our many initiatives that we are successfully kicked off already in 2021. In the context, we will further step up our well-flagged investments in product, marketing, and digital to drive top-line growth and to spur brand relevance. In the context of the current uncertainties, we target to increase our revenues by between 10% and 15% to a new record level of between EUR 3.1 billion and EUR 3.2 billion in 2022. Importantly, also in 2022, growth will be broad-based, and we expect all brands, all channels, and all regions to contribute to this development.
In the Americas, we are well-placed to successfully continue our strong momentum from the prior year, and as a result, we are confident to grow revenues in the mid-to-high single-digit range in 2022. For Europe, we aim for driving revenue growth in the low-to-mid teens range. While in particular, the first half of 2021 was characterized by long-lasting lockdowns in many important markets, we expect robust demand from both our consumers and wholesale partners throughout 2022. In Asia Pacific, we are committed to fully exploiting all growth opportunities also in 2022. Assuming overall robust regional economic development, we expect to drive revenue improvements into the mid-to-high teens range. This brings me to our bottom line expectations, where in 2022 we want to make further progress towards our 2025 financial target of an EBIT margin of around 12%.
Overall, we forecast EBIT to increase within a range of 10%-25% to an amount of between EUR 250 million and EUR 285 million in fiscal year 2022. This development will be driven by anticipated strong top-line growth and more or less stable gross margin development, as well as ongoing initiatives to realize further efficiency gains, in particular within the brick-and-mortar retail business. The latter will help us to partly compensate for the step-up in investments that will accompany us throughout the year, starting with the first quarter. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes my part of today's presentations. I'm now very happy to hand you back over to Daniel.
Thank you, Yves, to present these strong and robust numbers. Ladies and gentlemen, before we go into the Q&A, let me spend a minute to wrap up and to conclude what was presented to you. We had a strong comeback. There was not a turnaround, this was a comeback in 2021. We had strong top and bottom line improvement, as you just have seen. We are actually in an excellent financial position today. We are on the way to successfully execute CLAIM 5 strategy, which you already have seen that in the results. Everything we started to do, everything we started to execute, is actually improving our financial results. The branding refresh that we have done, I think the brand, as I said, actually gained momentum. We are back on stage. We are back to be relevant again.
The new collections that we have seen with the numbers, with 40% increase for the collection, has resonated well with our partners. We actually gained, as I said, more space in department stores. Also integrating the new sub-brands was well-received. The investments we did to increase relevance, the return on investments is already there. With the numbers that I showed you on social media, it's clearly proven that we are on the right track. Because we wanna become one of the top 100 global brands. We said we're gonna hit the EUR 4 billion in 2025, and we're gonna reach 12% EBIT margin by then. That is a clear ambition we set. Because we wanna become the premium tech-driven fashion platform worldwide. Hello, future.
I think the most important thing is that the world is getting back to peace, and hopefully we are soon back to normal. Therefore, thank you for listening, and we're gonna answer you now all the questions.
Thank you everybody, and welcome back. Let's start with the Q&A session. We have already received quite a few questions from the audience. The first question I would like to start with is actually for Daniel, and it's coming from Andreas Riemann from ODDO BHF. Daniel, with new products, new logos, and new marketing since January, is the positioning of BOSS and HUGO now where you want it to be? Or is there still the need for bigger changes with regards to product or product presentation?
Thank you. Well, actually, I believe that we are beyond where we expected to be. I think we are ahead. First of all, you see that clearly in the results, especially when you talk about product. As described in CLAIM 5, product is king, and that's what we clearly implemented into the product. We said the price value needs to be increased, and that's what we have done. We integrated this, the twist into the product. The trims, they all is upgraded in the product, and that was so well received by a customer so far who bought the collection. They have clearly seen that is in the product actually already invested. The marketing campaign, I have to say, is, as I explained, beyond expectation, and we-
Clearly, it was also our target to get younger consumer for BOSS and for HUGO, and this is clearly happened. Actually, we turned it into not only have consumers, we turned it already to have the consumers as fans. When you listen to the younger consumer, how they already contact us, and if I talk about the hoodie that you are actually wearing, that was the best-selling item in the history of our company. Only with a hoodie like that and, of course, with all the rest that we have as a 24/7 lifestyle brand, we gained a younger consumer. This was sold out, and it was mainly bought by the younger consumer. It made us very proud, and it shows that we are on the right track from a product point of view, from the marketing point of view, and to reach also the younger consumer.
Thank you very much. The next question is coming from Thomas Chauvet from Citi, and I think it's also for, well, Daniel or Yves. Earlier this week, Frasers Group raised their stake in HUGO BOSS , through both shares and options. With Daniel Grieder joining last year, has anything changed in the relationship you have with them in terms of the wholesale opportunity, but also the long-term intention on this strategic investment?
Yes, it changed the relationship. Actually, we got more near. We are better partners, and I clearly want to say here that Frasers Group is one of our biggest customer, and they are one of them who actually raised the order value tremendously for the next season. It's beyond that. We met them, we talked to Michael Murray and to Mike Ashley, and actually, they help us also to boost the brand. They clearly see, and that's what they also mentioned in the statement that their investment is a financial investment because they believe in the strategy, they believe in the brand, and they believe in the management. That's clearly said.
We are very happy with them and we see them on a regular basis, but it's more about business on how we can integrate the brand stronger in their distribution. We are very pleased, and yes, this is a real partnership, but more for as a customer.
Thank you. The next question is coming from Volker Bosse. Maybe a question for Yves. On your sales growth target of 10%-15%, how much is the current situation in Russia reflected in your sales guidance for 2022?
Yes, I can only confirm that this situation in Russia is included in our guidance so far. I really have to say that when you look at our top line expectation for this year, we clearly have the full focus in our CLAIM 5 strategy for 2022 to really drive top line. This is our prime focus. I have this big confidence out of three major reasons. One is, I really want to repeat this. First of all, if I look at the spring/summer campaign, the new products that we generate with the new branding refresh is +30% against our first initial expectations. On top of this, we see, like, 40% more order intake for the fall/winter collection. This is really a tremendous success.
We really go for top line. We have to say BOSS and HUGO, they are both on fire with this branding refresh. I'm very confident that we will achieve our top line guidance.
Thank you. A question that is linked to that is coming from Thierry Cotta from Société Générale. Can you clarify your assumptions on the European customer trends, excluding the direct impact from the Ukraine-Russia situation in your full year 2022 guidance? So trends in European- consumer.
Yeah. For the time being, Thierry, we couldn't see any effect actually coming from the Russia-Ukraine crisis spurring into the European region. On the contrary, I have to say, really and especially in Europe, we enjoy very strong momentum. We could continue the momentum that we had in fourth quarter, and this was actually continuing in the first nine weeks of this year. We are very happy with the current development in Europe.
Great, thank you. The next question is coming from Antoine Belge from BNP Paribas Exane. Marketing was 7.3% in 2021. What could we expect for 2022?
As we already said in marketing, it was already defined in the CLAIM 5. We said we're gonna expand marketing at up to 8%. That is clearly in the plan of CLAIM 5. Now, with current situation, we might also wanna spend the marketing money in a clever way and also place it when it's most effective. Let's put it that way. I think we have demonstrated how we started into the year when we showed the campaign on the 26th of January. Actually, we went full swing, pedal down on the marketing campaign and investments, and the result and the return on investment of marketing did really happen.
There are also some events during the year which we canceled, where we thought, let's maybe move it more to the back, maybe just move it to a later stage. We are looking on the situation as it is in the world and we continue, and we're gonna go full speed and full swing when it makes sense. We are monitoring it clearly. So far we are on track, and we will invest up to 8%, as it is said in the CLAIM 5.
Great, thank you. Maybe another question for you, Daniel. It's about the changes we have made on the creative team. The question is coming from Kathryn Parker from Jefferies. What do you expect from Marco Falcioni, and can you comment on these changes that have happened on the creative side?
Sure. First of all, I wanna say that Ingo actually was his decision to look for something else, and we had a very good collaboration with Ingo. He was a part of the refresh of the brand, very solid. There is nothing in between. It was just time also to give probably other people in our company the opportunity to grow into that role. Marco is a very talented person. He was the one who helped us to casualize our product in the past few months. Russell Athletic, for example, that was built from him and his team. He was the one who had the idea and actually made it in a way that was casualized but still sophisticated.
He is well accepted in all the teams internally. He works very close with all the designers, and we have big hope that he can help us to bring the brand to the next level. Next to that, there's Andrea Cannelloni, who is actually also supervising him in his role, and Andrea was already with the company many years ago. He's the one who built Orange, which is the casual part of the company. Having said that and talking about casualization, it is not our intention to lose anything on formal wear. Actually, we wanna continue with formal wear, and we see that formal wear is still performing. It's occasional dressing, wedding dressing or any event dressing.
On top of that, you wear suits more performance driven that are more comfort driven that you can basically next to go to the office, like the one I'm wearing. You can also go on a bike or you can hike or you can do anything. It's much more performance dressing that we are doing. We wanna keep that, which is about today 25%. But on top, and that's where also the growth, the main growth is coming, is the casualization from BOSS. In HUGO, as we said, we go more into jeans, into streetwear, in contemporary fashion. We are well on track there.
Thank you, Daniel. The next question is coming from Jürgen Kolb from Kepler Cheuvreux. Also for you, Daniel, I guess. In your brand portfolio chart, you have shown a wide gap between BOSS and HUGO. Given the current market trends, is a potential M&A transaction now more likely?
Yeah, you never know what is tomorrow. I can assure you at the moment, on that platform, we have these two brands. We are focusing at the moment to really continue the train is moving fast, and we have to make sure we are keeping the train going. We definitely have the interest and to fill that spot in the middle soon. At the moment, we are focusing. I just wanted to say, it's not only an M&A in terms of buying a brand or integrating a new brand, it could also be in the platform, maybe something more technical. We have all the opportunities, and we're gonna decide what comes in and what the opportunities are without losing the focus on the two brands we have now on the platform.
Thank you. Let's move back to the outlook for 2022. There's a few questions, as you all can imagine. Starting with Thomas Chauvet again from Citi, who is asking about the U.S. market. As we are guiding for mid- to high-single-digit growth, while several U.S. retailers are expecting sales to be down year-over-year, could you please elaborate on the key drivers of our U.S. guidance, and particularly the wholesale order book and space growth in retail and wholesale?
Perhaps maybe I start, and you can add, Yves. First of all, yes, the business is on fire in the U.S., but there's clearly areas where we have improved. What have we done? First of all, we casualized more our assortment in the department stores. We actually took formal wear, we placed, we continued to offer it, but we placed already now a more casual wear. On top of that, because we segmented the BOSS and the HUGO more, and it's less overlapping, we actually gained space in HUGO, new space for HUGO men's and women's. We are also already trying to implement and successfully implementing the sub-lines with BOSS Orange, which is casual, and BOSS Athleisure. Already there we gained space.
Actually it's going, not going back, it's going very well with that new placement and gaining more space. The brand on top of that, and as we said, the brand refresh, the new campaign, also with the collections with Russell Athletic and NBA, all this showed the consumer in the States that we are also not only a formal wear company, that we are 24/7 lifestyle company for men's and women's. That we see in the results in our own stores and has clearly resonated well with our end consumers. We are, and on top, the last point is that we already gained new customers. We actually, they also get us more points of sale, so we are extremely pleased with the business. We have a strong team in place there.
They did a good job in integrating these new assets that we have in the brand, into the market and the result you see. Yves, anything to add?
Perhaps to add and more to the numbers, I think until 2020, we were perceived as a suit company. As Daniel said, we changed a lot of things. Already back in 2021, you could see we were above 2019 numbers. This region was +4%, and the Q4 in the U.S. market was +22%. You can see it's a kind of self-managed turnaround, what we are doing against perhaps certain backdrops in the market. You have to keep one thing in mind as well. I think the big development in 2021 was already coming out of retail, and now wholesale is coming back. If you look at the orders for fall/winter, for example, they are as well on this range, like above 40% above 2019.
Actually now wholesale kicks in with all the things that we changed on the product and on the marketing side. Actually, we are quite confident for the U.S. market.
Thank you. The next question is coming from Carina Schuster from Goldman Sachs, and similar question was also asked by Geoffrey Mendes from Bank of America, so I will combine these two questions in one. In the release this morning, you highlighted positive feedback and good sell-out on the spring/summer 2022 collection. Can you please give more color on trading in Q1, so current trading? Are you seeing similar underlying trends in Q1 versus Q4 2021, similar to recent commentary provided by other peers?
Yes. I mean, look at what I said here in my presentation. If you look back in 2021, you saw this acceleration versus 2019. This was our relevant time period we're looking at because that was the pre-pandemic level. In Q2 2021, we were -4%, in Q3 +7%, in Q4 +12%. With having said this, we were able to continue this positive momentum into the year. Actually, you have to consider all the difficulties that we are having, difficulties because of, especially in Europe, the widespread of Omicron variant, you know, still some restrictions from a public side, especially in the beginning of the year. You have the Ukraine conflict. I think this is a very, very strong number if you consider all the uncertainties, all the risks that are coming. This underlines that actually we are actually really much on a good track.
Thank you. If you stay with current trading for a second, another question being asked from Carina Schuster from Goldman Sachs. How should we think about underlying regional like-for-like trends versus space growth? More broadly, how should we think about space contribution towards your 2025 revenue targets as provided during the Capital Markets Day?
I think that's a relevant question. If you look, for example, back in 2021, we were growing our space at a low- to mid-single-digit range in terms of space in the retail environment. I think this will continue in the next years to come when we look until 2025 on the retail perspective, because especially in the shop-in-shop area, we see a lot of opportunities in the department store areas to expand our business with our sub lines, BOSS Camel, BOSS Black, BOSS Orange, BOSS Green, and with HUGO as well.
On top of this, which you have to keep in mind because we only report our own selling space, I think there are a lot of opportunities, and Danny talked about this in the wholesale partners, with our brand lines, with the offering that we have changed, with the clear separation between BOSS and HUGO in terms of customer focus. We are really nicely positioned, and I think we will gain additional space as well with a lot of wholesale partners. We have to keep this in mind.
Thank you. The next question is coming from Rogerio Fujimori from Stifel. Could you please talk about recent average selling price trends, and what should we expect for fall/winter 2022?
As we said and mentioned during the presentation, we put already a lot of effort into our product. That means, with the average price value of our product that currently was bought, and we had big success of 40% order intake was higher. You see already that the product has a better quality and still a very good price. Price value is intact. We invested into the product, and we also in CLAIM 5 strategy mentioned that this could have or will have an impact on the gross margin.
So far this year, we managed actually quite well through the gross margin because we also can see some if we combine also the buying power of this new product, we actually see some parts that is really optimizing the price and where we buy the product. That has an impact in a positive way. Even we put more value into the product, which will give us a higher sales through. We already Yves talked about a 30% higher sales through already now with the product that is there.
In combination, we are not worried, but also price increase because it's also the next topic that people talk about is happening from. We actually look at different regions because you cannot just do a global price increase, but we look at the region, we look into the different brands, we look into different product groups. What can we do? Because we don't outprice ourselves to the competition. Actually it's the other way around. We wanna gain market shares, and therefore we have to have the best price value as a brand. That is what we are aimed for. That's what we also clearly described in our strategy, and that's the way we go forward. We actually feel comfortable with the pricing that is in place and we will adjust wherever is needed, wherever it has to be. We monitor that closely during the business.
Thank you, Daniel. That would've been my next question actually. Because Thierry, you asked about pricing action for full year 2022, so I think Daniel just answered it. Linked to that, Yves, for you the question, what sort of gross margin level are we anticipating for full year 2022? What sort of gross margin outlook would you give?
Yes, we are clearly saying that with regard to our gross margin, that we want to be almost on the same level as than last year. That was at 61.8%. If you take our CLAIM 5 guidance, which is like between 60% and 62%, we are at the upper end, and we will actually feel comfortable with this kind of gross margin. There are a lot of different moving parts. Actually because of the branding refresh, because we are driving full price business, there will be clearly in 2022 less discounts that we're gonna grant because of the brand heat that we are generating. This is a clear positive that we will see. On the other side, on the negative side will be increasing freight costs.
We see this as a kind of cost component inflation that comes. Daniel already said, well, we have some possibility because we grow the volume, we can scale our business, we find some sourcing scale because of the increasing volume, find some efficiencies there, including a kind of collection complexity reduction that we're doing. There are a lot of moving parts within our gross margins. Some of them come from a macroeconomic external perspective, like the freight costs, and some are more like done internally. Those things that we can manage, like discounts and these kind of sourcing gains that we might achieve are on the positive side. We have to balance them out. Having all said this, we will be more or less at the upper end of our CLAIM 5 guidance being close to 62%.
I just see that, Elena Mariani from Morgan Stanley. Elena, you also asked exactly that question. I think that's now also been answered. Again on the outlook, moving down the P&L, Yves, the next question comes from Manjari Dhar from RBC. What is the outlook for OpEx, and what flexibility does BOSS have to reduce expenses if necessary?
First of all, I try to make it really clear that we really want to drive the top line. We really want to gain market share. We want to be more relevant to the end consumer. This is our growth strategy. Like we said, if we go besides the product investments that we are doing in order to increase price value proposition, you must have seen our big marketing campaign. You must have seen the branding refresh that we did in terms of marketing spending. We are clearly willing to increase the marketing spendings. On top of this, we will increase the investments in the digital side. This is clear because we want to fuel the growth of BOSS, and we want to be more relevant in the future. This is very important.
On the other side, this is clearly on top of my table. We want to have further efficiency gains when it comes to retail because still there we might have some oversized stores that we're gonna right-size. We're gonna relocate. We're gonna close some stores here and there. We clearly want to get overall the productivity per store up. This is the major KPI that we have in our brick-and-mortar retail landscape in order to increase this. We said during CLAIM 5 that we want to somehow lower the fixed cost exposure in brick-and-mortar business. I think here we are on a very good way to achieve this. That was like, as a reminder, 700 basis points in comparison to 2019 for 2025.
We are taking this route because it's a long way down. On the other side, I really have to say I exchanged, so I will have a lower fixed cost base at the end of the fixed cost business, but I increased the marketing and digital spendings, which are by nature more kind of variable costs. There I feel comfortable, so it's somehow to adjust this and to manage these kind of costs. Of course, if top line comes in, we will see that overall that operating leverage will kick in. In terms of profitability, it's we're not saying it's a top-line game only. We are clearly sticking to what we have said during our CLAIM 5 strategy. We want to get the EBIT margin to 12%.
What we are clearly saying in our guidance, because we achieved 8.2% in terms of EBIT return last year, we're gonna stay at least at this. We are on a route from 8.2% to 12% on our way. 2022 is the first year, and we are committed as a board to improve gradually our EBIT margin over the years to come. This is actually reflected in our own guidance depending on the top line that we're gonna do.
Thank you. The next question is an interesting one, Daniel, for you maybe, coming from Kathryn Parker from Jefferies. HUGO will be joining the Metaverse Fashion Show. Any initial thoughts on the potential here for marketing, speaking about Metaverse in general, and NFTs? Does BOSS already have a Metaverse team?
Yeah. Yes, it's a word that is floating all over the world. It's a buzzword everybody talks, and so do we here in HUGO BOSS . Yes, we already instigated a team that is taking care about Metaverse. I wanna also talk about NFT. If you know in the fashion show in September in Milano, we already did activities with the NFT, but more as a gadget. Now, if you come to the business, if you talk about the potential of Metaverse in the future, there is numbers like 200 billion business that comes into the Metaverse, which of course we would be happy to have a cake of that and just a small cake, but it's too early to see that.
Our team is working to integrate the Metaverse into our business. We talked about digital, we talked about the retail, we talked about wholesale, and the fourth actually part is gonna be in the future Metaverse. Our omni-channel will include Metaverse into it. Yes, it will have definitely an impact on our business, but as I said, we do not wanna just use this as a gadget. We wanna carefully really build a business with Metaverse, and we are working with agency, we are working with experts that have proven that they have the know-how, and we wanna turn that gradually into a business. We wanted to start with HUGO.
We had some issues because of the naming that is a bit delayed, but we are on track with the team. Yes, by the way, on the day of Women's Day, we did another NFT for the beauty for that, especially for Women's Day. Yes, we are working on it. We have a team, we will integrate it, and we are especially interested to really turn it not only into a gadget, but into a business.
Thanks, Daniel. The next question, Yves, is for you. A bit of a technical one, but very fair question, obviously from Michael Kuhn from Deutsche Bank. The euro weakness should be favorable for your top line development. What could be the sales and earnings effect?
Yes, that's true. I can say there, as you take the currency as of today, of course, there's high volatility because of the current crisis. If you take the currencies as of today, there will be a slight tailwind for our net sales development.
Mm-hmm. Thank you. Maybe two questions that are related to our strong order book, as Jörg Philipp Frey from Warburg Research is phrasing. Do you think that this strong order book was to some extent influenced by a changing order behavior as some brands have not been able to deliver the desired volumes due to supply chain issues in 2021? Are we benefiting from the fact that some other brands may not have been able to deliver?
Well, that is an interesting thought. But when we talk to our customers or our partners that came in, it was clearly driven by the brand heat. That is clearly driven by the new collections that are there. As I said, smart casual. By the way, look, Yves, how he's dressed. That's smart casual. He could be a model. That's how we can dress in smart casual. But also the casual in BOSS Orange and Green was very well received. Now the biggest growth actually comes from BOSS Orange and also from HUGO. I haven't heard anything you know, because of that they place a bigger order. It's really the brand heat.
It's the product that gave us the momentum and that we can actually gain back space and become again an anchor brand. If you realize that in the past, yes, we were a bit shuffled to the back of the store, and actually now we get back to our partners and we got prime locations, we get additional space, and that, especially in wholesale, the additional space we get, turned into this order book.
Perfect. Jürgen, a call from Kepler Cheuvreux is asking just in that direction, the feedback you've received from your retailers and customers, is there one area where you think you should have adjusted your CLAIM 5 strategy?
That's an interesting question. You always try to optimize, I think, every day, but so far, I must say, I think we are very pleased and we couldn't find a way where we went in the wrong direction. It's actually the opposite. Of course, there's always areas where you can improve and where you should go better because that is our aim. What we do great yesterday, we try to improve tomorrow. We are not just, you know, lean back and saying, "So now we got it." Actually, we question ourselves every day, what can we improve and where can we gain something? You know, it's sometimes you have to adjust the strategy because what's the situation, also the COVID situation.
I think we managed, even with the CLAIM 5, that the COVID was not integrated. Actually, we managed very good through that problem. Now with the Ukraine, I think we, as Yves already said, we are well geared up. It's not that big part of piece of the business which we be able to compensate somewhere else. So far, we are pleased with the CLAIM 5 strategy still.
I think one thing to add to underline what Daniel was saying and giving you an indication is we are growing in all hubs. We have seven different hubs, so seven different regions, and we are growing in all business units. This gives us actually the confidence and shows that this is not the weakness of the others, it's more the strengths of our business of BOSS HUGO. What we did with the products, what we did with the campaigns. You can see because it's really broad-based through all the business units, and I think we are really on the right track. We, for the fall/winter, introduced BOSS Camel for the first time. We really create on the customer side a lot of excitement, and they're really buying into it.
Yeah. It comes from all brands, it comes from all channels, and it comes from all regions.
Exactly.
the growth.
Yeah.
Perfect. Thank you. Shifting gears to China, and that question is coming from Volker Bosse from Baader Bank. What is the current situation in China? It looks as if you're less affected. What differentiates your positioning in China from other Western brands?
Maybe I start. I think that's the same situation like in all the regions we have. It's the momentum of the brand. It's the strong campaign. It's the strong product. We are less affected because we also have changed a new management team with Judith Sun, who joined us recently, and actually already made some great changes. Altogether, it you know gives us a positive outlook into China. Of course, during the COVID, it was really difficult because they just closed down cities where there were some people affected. That didn't help at that. Again, also there we have the clear CLAIM 5 vision that we integrate. So far, the execution is in full swing and happening exactly as we expected.
No, I'm fine.
We're running out of time, I realize that, but we still have a few questions. I promise that after this call, those of you that will not be able to ask their very last questions, I will reach out to each and every one of you to clarify these outstanding ones. Maybe two more questions. One from Antoine Belge from BNP Paribas Exane on online. We haven't spoken much about online today. Prospects for e-concessions versus third-party online partners. Differently put, what's the situation around the digital partner business and the opportunities that you're currently pursuing?
First of all, as you see, we have launched the new e-com site. That was also by the end of January. Already, as I presented, you saw that we gained in traffic and the average order value went up and we could reduce the markdown. Our own dot-com business has tremendously improved also over the last few months. We had a good start. It's a new look and feel. It's a new way of the customer journey that we can do. What we now try to do is this partners program where we actually integrate, as we said, Omnichannel.
We have with certain partners, we do a partnership where we actually show and let them participate on our e-com business, where actually we gain the orders and we deliver the orders. This is really an impact that we are trying to implement our partners more and more also in that digital business. As we already last year have seen, we grew with BOSS together by 55%. We are expanding. We are sometimes testing with partners, but we know that this has to come more together and the digital business has to become also more or less similar. This needs to have the same face as a brand because we wanna be wherever we have a touchpoint with the end consumer, we clearly wanna do it in the BOSS way.
Thank you. Two last questions, now I promise. The first one coming from Elena Mariani, from Morgan Stanley. It's in terms of Russia, again, and the contribution from EBIT of those two markets. What's the contribution of EBIT to group EBIT from Russia, Ukraine? Is it fair to assume that this headwind represents a mid-single digit EBIT cut to your originally planned full year 2022 EBIT guidance?
I think that's fair to assume.
Okay. The last one is coming from Andreas Riemann, who asked about the influencers that we've worked with in January, Daniel. Are these one-time collaborations or are you working with all of them also in the future? Related to that, can we assume that marketing to sales will approach 8% this year?
The influencer is a big topic. We, you know, there's always new influencers coming, so we have to adapt to the new ones. What we try to do is having a partnership, a longer-term partnership with the influencers. You know, therefore, we have actually activated Khaby because I think he's one of the biggest influencer, one of the actually second-biggest influencer on TikTok in the world. We were very lucky with him to have him in the BOSS. That's a long-term partnership. Also influencers, it's difficult to have those influencers on a global scale. I think you need to attract influencers by region, even by city, by area.
To be honest, we try to go always in a mid or long-term relationship with the influencers, but we have to be, we have to go with the time. We have to go with the new, newest trends and activate and search always for new upcoming influencers. Because today we have learned in this world it can go quite fast that suddenly somebody's on stage. We always wanna be in the forefront and make sure we have the latest trend in terms of influencer with us.
Great. Thank you, Daniel. Thank you, Yves.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, that completes and concludes our Q&A session for today and the presentation of our full year 2021 results. As I mentioned before, unfortunately, you know, we weren't able to answer all of your questions, but I'll promise I'll be back in touch with you later this afternoon to go through all of them. Thank you very much. Stay healthy and safe, and speak to you soon.
Thank you.
Thank you.