Hello, and welcome to the Deutsche Bank Depositary Receipts Virtual Investor Conference, dbVIC. My name is Zafar Aziz from the Deutsche Bank team. I'm pleased to announce that our next presentation will be conducted by HUGO BOSS from Germany. Before I introduce our speaker, a few points to note. Please submit your questions in the questions box below the slides. Once the Q&A session has ended, don't log out. You'll automatically be transferred to the HUGO BOSS booth, where you can find further information on the company. On a final note, all of today's presentations will be recorded and can be accessed via the Deutsche Bank website, adr.db.com. At this point, I'm very pleased to welcome Lena Bibracher, Investor Relations Manager of HUGO BOSS, which trades on the Xetra market under the symbol BOSS, and in the US on the OTC markets as BOSSY. Over to you, Lena.
Thank you, Zafar, and welcome everyone to today's virtual investor conference. I'm very happy to be here and to present and represent HUGO BOSS to you today. So, in the next couple of minutes, firstly, I wanna show you our CLAIM 5 strategy. So that means I'll give you a short overview of what we are currently executing. Secondly, we will take a closer look at our Q3 results, which we just released last week, Thursday. Now, I'm very happy to be here because currently we're a very specific and special and exciting time for us here at HUGO BOSS. Because, as you might recall, in 2021, Daniel Grieder joined HUGO BOSS as new CEO, and he introduced a new strategy, which is called CLAIM 5, and this strategy is built on five strategic pillars.
The ultimate aim of these pillars is to rejuvenate the brands, BOSS and HUGO, to really put customer at core of everything we do, and to ultimately gain market shares. Now, if we take a look back, we're in execution mode of this strategy for two years. Yeah, looking back, we can say, we can proudly say that we are back on a growth trajectory. As you see, we will achieve the EUR 4 billion mark for the first time in the history of HUGO BOSS already by end of this year. If you might recall, we initially guided EUR 4 billion sales by 2025 with the introduction of the CLAIM 5 strategy. That means that we raised our targets this June to EUR 5 billion.
Before speaking more about our new guidance for 2025, let me give you two examples proving that this CLAIM 5, we're really working on the right initiatives. Firstly, in 2022, we clearly outperformed our key competitors, and I can tell you that also in 2023, we continued this outperformance. Consequently, we gained significant market shares as both brands, BOSS and HUGO, are resonating particularly well with consumers. Thus, we are taking market share from both global but also local premium brands. Also, as mentioned already, this ultimately enabled us to upgrade our guidance. In June this year, we said, and we raised our guidance that from prior year, guiding EUR 4 billion in sales, we are now targeting EUR 5 billion. We're gonna target EUR 600 million as EBIT and an EBIT margin of 12%.
So taking a closer look at our increased revenue target. Based on superior brand momentum, we increased the target by 25%, from EUR 4 billion-EUR 5 billion. This represents a CAGR of 10% versus 2019, four percentage points above our initial forecast. So if you take a look at the incremental EUR 1 billion sales, they will be balanced between space, volume, and price. If you take a look at our CLAIM 5 strategy, what is the beauty about? And I can tell you, it's clearly that we are working on broad-based growth. What does that mean? It means that it's not a strategy focusing only at one brand, focusing only on one region or one channel. No, we see that we have opportunities, business potential in every brand, in every region, and in every channel.
So by 2025, around 70% will be, will consist of BOSS menswear, 10% BOSS womenswear, and 20% HUGO. Taking a look at the channels, we aim for EUR 2.5 billion in brick-and-mortar retail, which means 50%. We target in brick-and-mortar wholesale, around EUR 1.3 billion, thereby around 25% and 20%, the remaining 20%, they are our digital share. Also, when it comes to regions, around or more than 55% gonna be EMEA, around 20 gonna be the Americas, and around 20 Asia Pacific. So now let's dive deeper into our strategy, and I want to highlight 3 of our 5 pillars because they are consumer-facing, and they enabled us, in particular, to drive this growth trajectory in the last 2 years. First of all, both brands.
Let me remind you that we really have a clear two-brand strategy. That means we have BOSS and we have HUGO. We revitalized our brand portfolio strategy, meaning that currently, we only have those two brands, but generally speaking, we could add further brands if the time allows. But for the time being, very happy with these two brands, and they are clearly distinguished, meaning, be it from a marketing perspective, be it from the targeted consumer we are looking at, being from the product assortment. These are really two separate brands. Taking a look at BOSS. BOSS addresses a customer in the premium segment, and we really wanna offer the perfect outfit for every occasion, from business to leisure, with casual wear and comfort being key attributes.
So with this, I want to clearly highlight that we are more than just the suit-only company that maybe some people thought of when they heard BOSS. No, we're really a 24/7 lifestyle company, and everyone can be a BOSS. With BOSS, as I already said, EUR 3.5 billion for BOSS menswear is our target for 2025, and EUR 500 million for womenswear. Now, switching to HUGO. HUGO targets a customer who is considering their way of dressing really as an expression of their personality. So this is really more fashionable pieces. This is really trendy. This is more loud. So this is really about this unconventional style. And with HUGO, we are targeting the EUR 1 billion mark in 2025.
Just lately, I want to give you two examples that we published our new campaigns both for BOSS and for HUGO, and they really resonated extremely well. We excited fans around the world, and we really drove brand awareness and desirability with those two campaigns. Also, just in September, we hosted our Milan fashion show for BOSS, and also there, we received stunning results on social media, really outperforming competitors when it comes to views on the live stream, for example. So taking all this together, we scored fourth place in the brand heat ranking, which we conduct regularly with an external agency. And this makes us extremely proud because this is a clear proof positive that both brands, BOSS and HUGO, they are really on top of consumers' minds. Now taking a look at the second pillar. Product is key.
I'm highlighting this because BOSS and HUGO, they always stand for a superior price-value proposition, and we clearly invested in our products because we want to stick to that promise also going forward. If you now take a deeper look into those two brands, they have different brand lines, but they're under the roof of the brand, so there's no risk of brand dilution or that we might confuse the consumer as there are too many brands outside. These are just brand lines, and they are reflecting different varying occasions. For example, if you take a closer look at BOSS, we have BOSS Camel on the one side, really offering you the pinnacle. This is the pinnacle of our product pyramid. Really offering you high-end tailoring.
Then this is blended into BOSS Black, which offers you maybe the suit if you go to the office in the morning. But we also offer you pieces, denim pieces, casual pieces within BOSS Orange, which enables you to have the perfect outfit if you I don't know, make a trip to the mountains on the weekends. And we also have BOSS Green, which means we give you the perfect outfit for your active lifestyle on the way to the gym. Now, when we look at HUGO, we only have two brand lines, but they are really distinctive, because on the one side, we have HUGO Red, with a strong focus on street tailoring and fashion-forward pieces. On the other side, we recently introduced HUGO Blue, which means that we really want to commercialize styles with our denim expertise.
Now, moving over to the third pillar. This is Drive Omnichannel. As I already mentioned in the beginning, we have a strategy in place that is not just focusing on one channel. Rather, we say we follow an omnichannel approach. Why is this important for us as a premium brand? We really need to move where the consumer expect us to be. So today, consumers are not just shopping within our retail shops or just online or just within the wholesale segment. No, we really need to combine and also blend those channels because ultimately, consumers are shopping, for example, they go to the retail store to get the best experience, but maybe then they don't want to carry the product, and so they order products online after they stepped by the store...
So, we really wanna have the right presence, and we wanna offer and make it easier to consumers to really shop our products across all different channels. Just to remind you, we have the ambition that by 2025, our retail business will be at around 50% of group sales. The wholesale is gonna be 25%, and digital will be around more than 20%. Now, taking a closer look at our brick-and-mortar retail store network. We initiated and introduced a new store concept, really putting the consumer at core. And that also means that, for example, in-store, you have different digital opportunities to also see our marketing initiatives, to also see the latest campaigns, to see what is going on on social media that is inspiring you.
So as a customer, you really should have a good time when you're entering our store. So to make our point of sales to true point of experience, we said we're gonna roll out our new store concept. We have set out the target that by 2025, around 80% of our store network should be refreshed. We currently stand, or by the year end, we're gonna stand at around 40%. Also, we're gonna slightly increase the number of full-price stores from around 470 to around 500. Now, as we already laid out or rolled out the latest store concept, it is a positive sign that we also are able to increase store productivity. While we set the ambition of EUR 13,000 per sq m, we're currently at EUR 11,900.
So that means we're targeting a 3% increase per annum. Now, with this, I wanna switch our perspective and take a closer look at our Q3 results, which we just published last week, and which are another proof positive of our relentless strategy, execution, and also our success. So in the third quarter, HUGO BOSS recorded strong top- and bottom-line improvements, thus building on the robust brand momentum and also gaining further market share globally. As in previous quarters, growth was fueled by several brand, product, and omnichannel initiatives as part of the ongoing rigorous execution of our CLAIM 5 strategy. Consequently, growth was once more broad-based, with both brands, all regions, and all consumer touchpoints contributing to the strong top-line performance. Overall, we increased our group sales by 15% and 10% in reported terms to more than EUR 1 billion in sales.
This results in a strong double-digit improvement compared to pre-pandemic levels. Now, if you take a closer look at where the growth is coming from, we see here that top-line growth is again broad-based, as I mentioned, across brands, regions, and consumer touchpoints. Supported by the latest campaigns, including the fashion events, we continued to record double-digit sales growth for both menswear, with 12%, both womenswear with 24, and HUGO with 25%. Also, all channels contributed to the strong top-line performance. Starting with brick-and-mortar retail, which grew 8%. This was supported by further store productivity improvements. Now, brick-and-mortar wholesale grew 21%, reflecting both robust order intake, but also an increase in the replenishment business during the season. Lastly, our digital business recorded strong growth of 25%, with all digital touchpoints being up double digits. This includes our own hugoboss.com website.
Lastly, taking a look at the regions. We recorded double-digit revenue improvements, and in particular, the Americas, with +22%, momentum further accelerated. This was driven by the important US market, which was up 20%. Also in EMEA, which was up 12%, momentum remained robust, with all key markets contributing to growth. Lastly, in Asia Pacific, the performance was driven by double-digit sales improvements in China and Southeast Asia and Pacific. Also, Japan, for example, has been particularly strong, being up almost 60%. Now, if we move on to the bottom line, in Q3, we recorded significant bottom-line improvements, as the strong top-line performance enabled us to generate further operating leverage despite ongoing investments into the business as part of the execution of our CLAIM 5 strategy. And altogether, EBIT increased by 12% to EUR 103 million.
driven by the strong top-line performance, and this translate into an EBIT margin of 10.0%, being up 20 basis points year-over-year. Now, with the third quarter already reported, we can proudly say that we're gonna reach our 2023 guidance, and we're herewith confirming our outlook for the full year 2023. Also mentioning that despite an increasingly challenging market environment with macro and geopolitical tensions, we confirm our top and bottom line outlook for the full year. And also note, we already revised this guidance upwards twice this year. Our confidence is underpinned by the robust financial performance in the third quarter, our ongoing brand momentum, as well as several brand, product, and omni-channel initiatives planned for the remainder of the year.
Consequently, we forecast group sales in fiscal year 2023 to increase 12%-15% in group currency to a level between EUR 4.1 billion and EUR 4.2 billion. EBIT is expected to increase 20%-25% to a level between EUR 400 million and EUR 420 million. So with this, 2023 will not only be a record year for HUGO BOSS, but also mark another important milestone towards achieving our 2025 ambition, with revenues of EUR 5 billion and an EBIT of at least EUR 600 million. This represents an EBIT margin of at least 12%, and this will ultimately enable us to become one of the top 100 global brands. And with this, ladies and gentlemen, I'm very happy here to take your questions.
So if we take the first question, what do you attribute from the CLAIM 5 strategy that is overperforming? As I said, our strategy in general is broad-based, so we're really seeing business opportunities in different markets, in channels, but also our brands. Just keeping in mind that, for example, today, womenswear, the BOSS womenswear business, just makes 10% of our overall sales. So clearly here we see potential, but also when it comes to the U.S. Currently, the U.S. is only as big as the U.K. So you see here that we have tremendous business opportunities, and as we were rigorously executing our strategy, we made strong progress along all of the different claims. So it's hard to really call out one thing that is outperforming the others.
For me, it's rather the mix of all, but at the end, it all comes down that really our brands are resonating well, that brands are more desirable, and also that people are, have a better awareness of the brands. So, taking the next questions. Can you speak to regional growth differences? Are you seeing a slowing of retail spending in any of your geographies? That is a very good question, because at the very end of my presentation, I mentioned that the environment is getting increasingly challenging. And that means that, in particular, other competitors, they flagged that consumer spending is maybe decreasing and consumer sentiment is not where we all would wish it would be. So this makes it harder for all brands.
But if I take a look at our different regions, and if you take a look at our Q3 results, we really had this broad-based growth, and also we really had an outperformance in the U.S. I know that people are sometimes a bit cautious when it comes to the U.S. currently, but for us, we were clearly underpenetrated in the past, so this offers a lot of opportunities to grow without being overexposed to one of the markets. So summing up, I do not see a slowdown, a material slowdown in any of the regions. However, I think we need to keep in mind the overall increasingly challenging environment that we are operating in.
Also, please keep in mind that when it comes to EMEA, our European business, that we anticipate some kind of normalization simply due to the fact that the extremely high growth rates that we reported in the last couple of quarters are not sustainable in the long term. In particular, as we're a quite established brand in this market. Next question is: where are you with sustainability within the company and product? I'm very happy that this question comes up, because sustainability is really an integral part of our corporate strategy. If you take a look at the CLAIM 5 graphic that I showed you, you see that sustainability, and we claim it be sustainable throughout as part of our basis...
That means, for example, that we have different targets, be it in the environmental area, be it in the social area, that will ultimately enable us to drive growth sustainably. But to make this more tangible, for example, we are working on innovative materials to ultimately replace polyester, to fight microplastic, and find a good solution replacement for polyester. For example, we made some kind of investments, and we are currently working together with a company on a yarn called HeiQ AeoniQ. So this yarn is a circular yarn that is able to replace polyester while at the same time, meeting the same characteristics. So this is just a tiny, tiny example how we are also investing in innovative materials to drive change going forward. But clearly, let me highlight, sustainability is an integral part, and this is also rewarded externally.
So for example, we are included for the sixth consecutive time in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, and only a couple of other players in our industry, they managed to be included there. So this makes us really proud that from a holistic point of view, also, we are rewarded externally. And I can tell you that also our managing board is incentivized with sustainability, because the score in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index is part of the compensation scheme. So just to give you the clear idea that also when it comes to our organizational setup and the processes that we have in place, we really take the matter of sustainability serious. Now, the next question is, "Digital continues to grow faster than brick-and-mortar.
How do you envisage the split that's settling on the medium to long term?" So when it comes to our digital business, we need to take one look into our history, because for quite some time, we really focused only on brick-and-mortar retail and maybe wholesale. But we never were very advanced when it comes to the digital business. So we had to really rush. We need to hurry up, and we really caught up to the competitors. Meaning that currently, our digital business is developing nicely, and but you still should see this as some kind of catch-up, right? So over the long term, it's not about one channel outperforming the other. As I highlighted, it is really about this omni-channel approach. So for us, we need the digital, we need brick-and-mortar retail, but we also need brick-and-mortar wholesale.
So, going forward, we are very comfortable that digital will, to some extent, outgrow retail, but simply due to the fact that within retail, we were already at a quite good distribution and presence in the past. While when it comes to digital, we still have a lot of opportunities to also optimize, for example, our online shop, to also foster the use of data, to address customers more precisely. So there are a lot of, yeah, things that we still are able to improve to also drive the digital performance going forward.
Now, the next question is: "What do you attribute your growth in 2023 in light of challenging economic environment?" And I think I already made this quite clear that, yes, we see that the environment is getting more challenging, but for us, we really feel comfortable with the guidance that we were giving. So that means sales growth between 12% and 15% in group currency. Thereby, we're gonna reach the range between EUR 4.1 billion and EUR 4.2 billion in sales. So where does my... What is reassuring me? I can tell you that we have several initiatives from a product perspective, from also a marketing perspective in the pipeline for 2023. So we're gonna be quite active, and we will constantly invest into our business.
We're gonna invest into marketing to really be on top of consumers' minds. So that will help us, if the environment is getting more challenging, to still be the one favorite brand of the consumers. So if people decide to spend less, they still decide to go for BOSS or HUGO. And the last question is: "How can AI be used within the apparel business, if we already have any AI initiatives?" And, just today, I spoke to a colleague who is really pushing AI within HUGO BOSS, and since this summer, we are working on different initiatives. But as you said, there are tremendous opportunities, be it from a marketing side, be it also to be more efficient, but also when it comes to creativity, when it comes to picture and video creation. So this, as a fashion company, will definitely give us new, opportunities.
We are currently assessing how we can really tackle those challenge, not challenges, but chances, that will ultimately help us both on the top and also on the bottom line. With this, there are no further questions, and we are also running out of time. I want to thank you all for your interest, and please reach out to us at any time if you have any follow-up questions. We are very happy to answer them. Thank you very much, and goodbye.