Dear ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Hugo Boss first quarter 2022 results conference call. As a reminder, all participants will be on a listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions via the telephone lines. If any participant has difficulties hearing the conference, please press the star key followed by zero on your telephone for operator assistance. May I now hand you over to Christian Stöhr, who will lead you through this conference. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you very much, and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our first quarter 2022 financial results presentation. Today's conference call will be hosted by Yves Müller, CFO of Hugo Boss. Before we get started, allow me to reiterate that all revenue related growth rates will be discussed on a currency adjusted basis unless otherwise specified. Let me also remind you that during the Q&A session, we kindly ask you to limit your questions to a maximum of two. Without any further ado, let's get started, and over to you, Yves.
Thank you very much, Christian, and also from my side, a warm welcome to all of you. Thank you very much for your interest. During the next 25 minutes, I will primarily focus on two overarching topics. Firstly, I will elaborate in detail on our strong operational and financial performance in the first quarter, spurred by our highly successful branding refresh initiated at the end of January. Secondly, I will guide you through our top and bottom line expectations for the remainder of the year, also referencing the current geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainties. First, and before talking about our business performance, allow me to emphasize once again that at Hugo Boss, we remain deeply concerned by the dramatic humanitarian crisis unfolding in our European neighborhood.
The suffering of the people in Ukraine cannot be put into words, and our deepest empathy and thoughts are with all of those affected by the war. To help the people in need, we are supporting the German Red Cross and other organizations with financial aid and in-kind donations. Looking ahead, we will continue to monitor the situation closely and evaluate the developments accordingly. Now, from our press release this morning, you have already noticed that we can look back on a highly successful start to fiscal year 2022. Following a steady acceleration in top line growth last year, I'm particularly pleased to report that this trend has also continued in the first quarter. Compared to pre-pandemic levels, sales were up a strong 17%, representing a further acceleration of five percentage points as compared to the final quarter of 2021.
From a year-on-year perspective, group sales even increased 52% to EUR 772 million, marking the strongest first quarter sales in our company's history. While momentum was broad-based in nature, our two largest regions, Europe and the Americas, have shown particular strength in Q1, recording double-digit sales improvements versus pre-pandemic levels. On top of this, the focused and relentless execution of CLAIM 5 provided an additional tailwind during the first quarter. In particular, our bold branding refresh resonated extremely well with our consumers worldwide, thereby spurring brand momentum around the globe. Now, as part of our full year 2021 results released back in March, Daniel and I already provided you with a comprehensive deep dive on our brand refresh.
Hence, without going into too much detail once again, let me briefly recap on some key highlights around this truly groundbreaking and first iconic move to ultimately becoming a top 100 global brand. Above all, our brand star-studded global campaign, Be Your Own BOSS, and How Do You HUGO, drove brand momentum and attracted new and younger generations worldwide. Thanks to our international all-star cast, including BOSS brand ambassadors Alica Schmidt, Matteo Berrettini, and Khaby Lame, and the activation of more than 200 diverse talents from all over the world, our campaigns created an overwhelming social buzz. In only three months time, our various marketing initiatives has resulted into a record 24 billion impressions and almost 1 billion engagements on social media, something our company has not experienced before.
Most importantly, with our marketing initiatives strongly focused on digital, we have seen momentum on social media picking up strongly. In the first quarter, BOSS has been the fastest growing brand on Instagram in terms of follower development among key premium apparel peers. In the three-month period alone, our brand attracted around 500,000 new followers, growing its fan base by 5% to almost 10 million followers. On top of this, in Q1, engagement rates for BOSS more than doubled to a strong 16%, making BOSS the number one brand in terms of overall engagement among its core peer group. Also on YouTube, we have set new benchmarks in terms of reach. With more than 32 million views, our Dubai fashion event for BOSS created tremendous buzz and quickly achieved record-breaking results on YouTube. This is another proof positive of brand's growing relevance on social media.
For HUGO, our consistent focus on social media, on TikTok in particular, has yielded strong results over the most recent weeks and months. Recently in April, HUGO hosted a series of branded events in Palm Springs, getting the HUGO House, a creative hub for TikTokers and talents on the radar of millions of Coachella Festival goers and followers from all over the world. In less than two weeks, HUGO achieved more than 1.3 billion impressions on social media, a total of 200 million views on TikTok, and a strong organic engagement rate of 26% on Instagram. Fueled by these successes, both our brand recorded significant double-digit sales improvements year-over-year. Revenues grew 53% for BOSS Menswear and 41% for BOSS Womenswear, spurred by growth across all wearing occasions and clearly emphasizing our ambition to establish BOSS as a true 24/7 lifestyle brand.
On a three-year stacked basis, sales for BOSS Menswear exceeded pre-pandemic levels by 17% while remaining on par with 2019 levels for BOSS Womenswear. HUGO also posted very robust growth and continues its strong double-digit growth trajectory, thereby gaining further market share across geographies. Revenues increased 52% year-on-year, translating into strong growth of 26% compared to pre-pandemic levels. Importantly, sales for the brand's casual wear offering more than doubled as compared to 2019, reflecting HUGO's strategic focus on modern and commercial styles to ultimately establish itself as the first touchpoint among younger consumers, in particular Gen Z. This brings me to our regions with both Europe and the Americas having once again recorded particularly strong performances in the first quarter.
In Europe, revenues increased 69% on the prior year level, reflecting ongoing robust local demand as well as the successful execution of important strategic initiatives along CLAIM 5. At the same time, the prior year period was marked by long-lasting temporary store closures, as reflected by an average store closure rate in Europe of around 50% in the first quarter of 2021. On a three-year stacked basis, revenues in Europe consequently increased by 21%, representing a strong acceleration of 10 percentage points as compared to the final quarter of 2021. Great Britain and France performed particularly well with three-year stack growth of 32% and 13% respectively, while sales in Germany came in broadly in line with 2019 levels.
In Eastern Europe, momentum remained robust in Q1 as reflected by high double-digit growth versus 2019 levels despite the war in Ukraine and our decision to suspend our business activities in Russia early March. Allow me to point out that beyond these two markets, we have not seen any negative implications from the war on our European business as of today. Moving over to the Americas, where sales up 56% as compared to the prior year period. As a result, sales grew 17% versus 2019 levels, with all of the region's markets recording strong improvements versus pre-pandemic levels. In the important U.S. market, where both BOSS and HUGO continue to successfully foster their 24/7 brand image, revenues increased 9% versus 2019.
Thus, in turn means that our comprehensive initiatives to substantially improve our overall product assortment at this point of sale have clearly started to pay off. Our brand's casual inspired collections also included the third edition of our BOSS x NBA collection resonate extremely well with the U.S. consumer, thus putting us in a strong position to further push ahead with our self-managed turnaround and accelerate growth in the U.S. market in the years to come. While trends were similar in Canada, with revenues up 10% versus 2019, our best business in Latin America continued its particularly strong momentum in Q1, as reflected by high double-digit sales growth compared to 2019 levels, driven by both Brazil and Mexico.
Finally, on Asia-Pacific, where we also recorded a promising start to the year, as reflected by double-digit sales improvements across key markets, including Mainland China in the run-up to Chinese New Year. Towards the end of the quarter, however, renewed COVID-19 related restrictions started to weigh more meaningfully on consumer sentiment and on store traffic in key provinces, first and foremost in Shanghai. Towards the end of March, around one-third of our store network in Mainland China had been affected by either temporary closures or reduced opening hours, resulting in significantly lower traffic. Consequently, for the quarter as a whole, around 10% of our points of sale in Mainland China were impacted by the lockdown, leading to first quarter sales in Mainland China being 13% below the prior year period. This translate into growth of 12% versus 2019 levels.
To conclude on Asia-Pacific, while business in Hong Kong and Macau continue to be impacted by lower tourism flows, markets such as Japan and Australia made further progress along their overall business recovery, recording high single-digit and low double-digit growth versus 2019 levels. Overall, revenues in Asia-Pacific came in 3% above the prior year level and only 1% below that of 2019. Let's conclude on the top line with a brief review of the performance by channel, with both digital and brick-and-mortar contributing to growth in the first quarter. Starting with our important digital business, which successfully continued its double-digit growth trajectory in Q1. Despite being up against a particularly strong comparison base from the prior year period sales increased 22% with double-digit improvements across all regions and all digital touch points, including both hugoboss.com as well as partner websites.
This development was supported by the relaunch of hugoboss.com, successfully implemented at the end of January, as well as the tremendous digital buzz our two brands created in the wake of the branding refresh, leading to higher traffic, an increase in average order value, as well as a higher share of full price sales. Compared to 2019, our digital business even more than doubled, with revenues up 145%, leading once again to a digital sales share of around 20%. Moving over to our brick-and-mortar retail business, which recorded strong double-digit sales improvements in Q1, with revenues up 76% year-on-year.
While this development was also supported by a fairly easy comparison base from the prior year period, considering that around 25% of our global store network was closed on average during the first quarter of 2021, it was in particular the successful execution of CLAIM 5 as well as robust consumer sentiment that drove overall momentum. On a three-year stack basis, revenues in brick-and-mortar retail were up 5% led by the Americas recording double-digit sales improvements versus 2019 across all major markets, as well as mid-single digit growth in Europe. Finally, sales in brick-and-mortar wholesale grew 44% compared to the prior year period, marking the channel's return to pre-pandemic levels with an increase of 2% as compared to 2019. This development mainly reflects robust demand of wholesale partners for the spring/summer 2022 collections, fully incorporating the branding refresh.
At the same time, delivery shift effects from the first quarter into the second quarter weighed on wholesale revenue growth by around 10 percentage points or EUR 25 million. Now, with this, ladies and gentlemen, let's move on to the main P&L items. Starting with our gross margin, which totaled 61.6% in the first quarter, representing an increase of 120 basis points year-on-year. This development mainly reflects a generally lower markdown activity and thus a higher share of full price sales in both our digital and brick-and-mortar businesses, which more than compensated for the persistently high level of global freight and transportation costs. Besides that, in Q1, we also recorded slight positive effects on both channel mix as well as inventory valuation, largely offset by negative currency effects. Moving over to operating expenses.
Fully in line with our strategic Claim 5 Boost Brands aimed at driving brand relevance, we strongly stepped up our marketing investments in the first quarter. Consequently, as compared to both 2019 and 2021, marketing investments effectively doubled to EUR 80 million. Also, as a percentage of sales, marketing investments grew substantially to a level of 10.4 percentage points, which is somewhat above our target range of 7%-8% as set out in Claim 5. Unsurprisingly, this development is predominantly related to our comprehensive marketing campaign as part of our global branding refresh initiated during the first quarter. At the same time, we also continue to invest in the further digitization of our business model, representing another key lever of our journey towards 2025.
In the first quarter, total digital investments were up 43% or EUR 50 million year-on-year with a relaunch of hugoboss.com and our recently established Digital Campus in Porto being two prime examples of our digital investments in Q1. Overall, operating expenses increased 45%. Besides the significant step up in brand and digital investments, this also reflects a normalization in rental and payroll expenses given long-lasting temporary store closures in the prior year periods. As a percentage of sales, however, operating expenses decreased 380 basis points to a level of 56.5%. While selling and distribution expenses increased 49% in the reporting period, administration expenses came in 34% above the prior year level, driven by higher payroll and digital investments.
Now, in light of the strong top-line performance, the increase in gross margin as well as operating leverage generated in the first quarter, we were able to realize significant bottom-line improvement, as reflected by an EBIT of EUR 40 million in Q1. This is all the more noteworthy considering our ongoing commitment to significantly investing in our business to successfully deliver against our Claim Five targets. To conclude on the P&L, net income attributable to shareholders totaled EUR 24 million in the first quarter. Let's now turn quickly to the balance sheet, starting with trade net working capital, which, as a percentage of sales, saw a significant decline year-over-year. At the level of 15.0%, trade net working capital came in below our target corridor for 2022, which is between 18%-19%.
The overall improvement in trade net working capital was largely driven by a 3% decline in inventories attributable to the accelerated sales growth in the first quarter, as well as a strong increase in trade payables, reflecting a higher utilization of our supplier financing programs. Now in terms of capital expenditure, investments in the first quarter totaled EUR 18 million, up 13% on the prior year. As a percentage of sales, however, CapEx amounted to only 2.4% and was thus well below our targeted range as part of CLAIM 5. As we will push ahead with our store optimization initiatives and the rollout of our new store concepts for BOSS and HUGO, let me point out, however, that we anticipate a more significant step up in CapEx during the remainder of the year.
Overall, we remain fully committed to implementing our new store concepts in at least 100 points of sale globally in fiscal year 2022. As of today, customers can already experience the new look and feel in around 30 of our own stores and shops. In this context, the highly anticipated opening of our new anchor store in London's Oxford Street is just a few weeks away. Will mark a particularly important milestone in further elevating our customer experience in brick-and-mortar retail. This brings me to free cash flow. Driven by the strong bottom-line performance as well as further improvements in trade net working capital, free cash flow turned positive quarter-on-quarter amounting to EUR 1 million and thus effectively on par with 2019 levels.
Finally, the strong free cash flow generation over the last 12 months, as well as the associated lower utilization of credit line, resulted in net financial position totaling plus EUR 120 million when excluding lease liabilities in the context of IFRS 16. Consequently, Hugo Boss continues to be effectively cash rich at the end of Q1. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes my remarks on our first quarter operational and financial performance. Let's now move over to our expectations for the remainder of the year. As highlighted back in March, fiscal year 2022 represents the first full year along our journey towards our 2025 ambition. As a result, all our initiatives in the current year, be they from a brand, product or operational perspective, have one common goal in mind. Fostering the strong top-line momentum gained over previous quarters.
With our successful start into 2022, we have already reached an important milestone and laid the foundation for another successful year. We therefore confirm our top line and bottom line outlook for the current fiscal year as issued on March 10. This being said, we must not forget that the overall market environment remains quite volatile. Our industry is currently facing disruption from several factors which all by themselves pose a risk to consumer sentiment from the terrible war in Ukraine, the ongoing COVID-19 restrictions in China, to persisting macroeconomic headwinds, including heightened levels of global freight costs as well as the overall cost inflation. Regarding the latter, we have decided to increase our prices globally, starting with the upcoming fall/winter 2022 season in the second half of the year.
Overall, we are targeting a mid- to high-single-digit price increase to be implemented over the next two seasons. In light of our accelerated brand momentum and given our superior price value proposition in the marketplace, we have every confidence that these price adjustments will be well accepted by our customers. Consequently, regarding our top line, we continue to expect revenues in 2022 to increase by between 10%-15% to a new record level of between EUR 3.1 billion and EUR 3.2 billion. Importantly, growth will be broad-based in nature with all brands, all channels and key regions set to contribute to our growth target. Our confidence is underpinned by the persisting strong brand momentum generated by BOSS and HUGO in the wake of a successful branding refresh.
In particular, we remain optimistic that the robust momentum in Europe and the Americas will continue, with the month of April having further strengthened our confidence in this regard. Not to forget our strong order book for the upcoming fall/winter 2022 season, which should provide additional tailwinds for the second half of the year. Together, all these developments should enable us to more than offset the ongoing pandemic related implications in mainland China. Based on the anticipated strong top line growth and a more or less stable gross margin development year-on-year, we continue to forecast robust bottom line improvements in fiscal year 2022, with EBIT expected to increase within a range of 10%-25% to an amount of between EUR 250 million and EUR 285 million.
This holds true despite the significant step up in product, brand and digital investments, which are a firm element of our CLAIM 5 strategy and which will continue to lead the way throughout the remainder of 2022. Now, like I already mentioned, and as you are all aware of, the environment continues to be characterized by a high degree of geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainties. By nature of things, it is extremely difficult to predict precisely how these uncertainties will further evolve and ultimately weigh on our business in 2022. We will therefore continue to very closely monitor these developments in the coming weeks and months. We also continue to act decisively and determined when it comes to implementing measures to counteract their impact on our business.
Thanks to our accelerated top-line momentum and our strong position in the market, we have every confidence that we will be able to cope with these macroeconomic uncertainties. At the same time, we will continue to push ahead with our various strategic initiatives to ensure we make further progress along our CLAIM 5 strategy in 2022 and beyond. Now, before opening the floor to your questions, let me briefly recap on our key highlights for the first quarter. First of all, we made a true kick start to fiscal year 2022 with record first quarter sales that exceeded pre-pandemic levels by a strong 17%. This represents a further sequential improvement as compared to the final quarter of 2021, driven by broad-based growth across both our brands, all channels, as well as all key regions.
Secondly, around the globe, growth was spurred by a bold branding refresh that was successfully implemented during the first quarter. From new products to record-breaking marketing campaigns, up to exciting events inspiring fans worldwide for BOSS and HUGO. Our brands are enjoying tremendous momentum while still having so much more in the pipeline for the coming months and quarters. Finally, in light of our successful start to 2022 and underpinned by very robust brand momentum around the globe, we confirm our top and bottom-line outlook for the current fiscal year, notwithstanding the fact that the environment we operate in continues to face some high levels of geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainties. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes my prepared remarks for today, and I'm now happy to take your questions.
Thank you. We will now begin our question-and-answer session. If you have a question for our speakers, please dial zero one on your telephone keypad now to enter the queue. Once your name has been announced, you can ask a question. If you find your question is answered before it's your turn to speak, you can dial zero two to cancel your question. If you're using speaker equipment today, please lift the handset before making your selection. One moment, please, for the first question. The first question comes from Elena Mariani, Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open.
Hi. Good afternoon, Yves and Christian. Congratulations on the results achieved in the first quarter. I'm gonna speak to two questions as requested. My first one is on wholesale. Did I understand correctly that the timing of shipments have negatively affected Q1, so growth in wholesale versus 2019 would have been around 12%, you know, adjusting for this timing? What does that mean for the second quarter? Should we factor in an extra EUR 25 million of sales?
Also still related to this question, given that you have a little bit of, you know, forward-looking information on wholesale and you have a view on your order book, could you help us, perhaps, understand a little bit what to expect for the coming two quarters, in terms of wholesale growth? You know, is your order book, for fall/winter even stronger than spring/summer? Then could you quantify a little bit these expansion in wholesale? Is it about, you know, gaining new customers, selling more with existing accounts and so having gained extra shelf space? Any information on this, given that now the brand refresh has been fully implemented, would be very helpful.
My second question is on your organic top-line guidance for fiscal year 2022. Q1 was stronger than expected for sure, also on the retail front, where maybe a few months ago you didn't really have full visibility, but you're keeping the guidance unchanged. That would imply a slightly more varied outlook for the rest of the year, which is understandable, given the macro picture. Is there something that you are seeing in April, early May trends that make you believe that, versus 2019, sales could slow down meaningfully?
Have you noticed anything in terms of consumer sentiment, excluding China, that has changed over the past few weeks, or should we assume instead that the growth rate versus 2019 into the second quarter is pretty much similar to the high teens that you have seen in Q1? Thank you.
Yes. Thank you very much, Elena. That was, there were a lot of questions but thank you very much for posing them. First of all, I think it's worth mentioning, for wholesale, that in terms of how we disclose the wholesale business, that we actually differentiate between brick-and-mortar wholesale and that other wholesale is included in digital. If you would combine them in the first quarter, the digital piece and brick-and-mortar, they would come up to close to an increase of 20% in terms of growth. I think this is important to notice.
Taking this growth of 20% from both parts, wholesale brick-and-mortar and digital, we said and disclosed today that there is a kind of timing shift of 10 percentage points which is equivalent to 25, that they will occur in the second quarter unless there will be delivery shifts from Q2 to Q3. Theoretically, you are right. To put further color actually on the order book. We disclosed to the capital market that spring/summer was +30% versus the pre-pandemic levels. We clearly disclosed that for the fall/winter it was even +40%. We see as well on the wholesale front, a kind of acceleration in terms of pre-order values, especially for the second half of the year.
This is actually coming with some additional shelf space coming out of two directions. One is fairly good sellout ratios with the wholesale partners that we are seeing. Actually they are increasing their doors on a kind of, I would say, like for like basis. On top of this, we generate actually more points of sale via introducing our sub line, BOSS Orange, BOSS Green and BOSS Camel. These have two effects, and I feel very actually very confident with the wholesale book so far.
Coming back to your questions regarding the top line guidance, I think we really have. I just want to underline this because as you might have noticed, we really heavily invested into our brand and the brand momentum, and I'm really happy to say that the investments that we did in the marketing, that they really translated into a very good top line performance. I'm really very happy how we could, how we invested, and we really got a kind of return on our investment in terms of top line improvement and actually, all the data that we have from a digital perspective, social media, brand momentum, they are all on the green line and very positive, and I'm very happy about this.
Further things to notice if I talk about the April numbers and I conclude here the global development. I'm very much pointing out always the kind of acceleration of the business. I really like to repeat this because we see this kind of acceleration of our business so far. If I compare my numbers versus the 2019 numbers on the pre-pandemic levels, Q3 was +7%, Q4 was +12%, and Q1 was now +17%. You really can see a kind of acceleration of the brand momentum versus pre-pandemic levels. This makes the whole management team very confident. I can confirm that we continued this momentum in April on a global scale, even including China.
Actually I'm very happy about the ongoing strong performance, especially in Europe and especially in the Americas. Both regions, which for us accounts for like 80%-85% of net sales, have a very underlying performance so far. If I confirm the outlook as of today, I mean, you have to bear in mind that after the tenth of March, it's just, you know, it's seven weeks down the road until today. I think we have had a very good, let's call it first quarter or first four months. I'm very happy about the development. On the other hand, as you know, I mean, the uncertainties are there.
You might view this as a conservative outlook, but I want to just underline this, that we stick to our guidance, as discussed today, and you might view this as being conservative. Clearly, you know, I just want to point out there are uncertainties down. It's I mean, so far we don't see it in the numbers, but I'm more on the cautious or more on the conservative side.
Understood. Just to clarify, to make sure I understood correctly. Essentially in Q1, the overall wholesale business was up 20%, including the effect of the timing of shipments, it would have been plus 30%, more or less. Then your order book for spring/summer was up 30% and for fall/winter was up 40%. Is that right?
That's right.
Okay. Versus 2019. Okay. Final clarification on April. You're still up double digits versus 2019 so far?
What should I say? I mean, just to be clear, Elena, Yves, just repeated that the momentum in April continued from, you know, first quarter. As Yves also said.
Yeah.
Q1 was up 70%, so it's only fair to assume that this was double-digit up in April too. Yeah? Thanks very much.
Fair enough. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Jürgen Kolb, Kepler Cheuvreux. Your line is now open.
Very good. Thank you very much. Indeed, impressive growth in Q1. Two questions from my side. First of all, Yves, what have you learned about your customer? Who is nowadays the customer? What have you learned now over obviously some quarters with the new collections and new ideas behind it? What has shifted? I guess you can probably talk in more detail about the digital business because they have more transparency. But in general, some comments would be helpful as to what the shift in collection has. Secondly, a little bit about the gross profit margin, up 120 points.
Now, when you look at the individual drivers of that, and maybe you can give us a little bit of an indication as to how that's gonna develop in the coming quarters, i.e., specifically on the sourcing and the freight cost. Is that something that further rise or even goes up stronger in the coming quarters? Or is that a level that we could, you know, more or less see as a continuous cost level going forward? Thank you.
Yes. Hello, Jürgen. Thank you very much for your questions. Perhaps I start with the second one regarding gross margin. First of all, I think the freight costs, it's a clear headwind for us for the next quarters to come. This is the reason why we are a little bit conservative here as well, that we are saying the gross margin overall will be stable in comparison to 2021. I think we had a high quality sales development in Q1 because we really could reduce the markdowns. We had higher full price sales. The new collection are resonating well with the consumers. This all drives the positive margin. Actually, we have to decide this on a very short-term basis, how we are doing.
So far, we are doing very good with these. I think if the performance remains, but this would be perhaps a kind of positive surprise. We only have, you know, three weeks, three months of the year in our books. We still have to observe this. I think it could be a positive upside if the good full price sales will remain and that we can operate with less discounts in comparison to last year in order to compensate, you know, this ongoing freight cost increase. We don't see this, Jürgen, that, you know, the freight cost will go down for the next quarters to come. They will remain high.
You've seen the pictures of Shanghai, of the harbor and all these things. The Ukraine war is not helping, so the freight cost will remain high. We try to compensate this. You know, overcompensate this with less markdowns. With the customers, what we clearly see, that was your first question, is that the whole customer base gets younger, that we really going towards a 24/7 lifestyle brand. They're buying into sneakers, they're buying into denim, they are buying into jerseys. The product categories, they are really going through the roof. We have even some sold-out situations with some of our collections, even in the United States. We are very happy, and we can see that our customer base creates new cohorts under the younger consumers.
We focus with the BOSS brand clearly towards the millennials and with HUGO towards the Gen Z. We can clearly see that the average age goes down and that we generate new, younger consumers for both brands, BOSS and HUGO. With this, we are very happy. I mean, on the digital space, of course, we try to retarget them once they are buying. We have a certain visibility from our CRM base. You know that two-thirds of our customers are known from the stationary business and digital business. We really try to re-approach them. Actually the results are very strong in turning those first consumers into fans of our brands. Actually, by the way, good luck on your way to Sevilla.
Thanks very much indeed. Trying our very best. Best of luck with you guys, too.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Michael Kuhn, Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open.
Yeah, good afternoon. Hello. Two also from my side. Firstly, on OpEx and especially marketing spending, as expected, quite a big increase in the first quarter, maybe a bit bigger than anticipated. Marketing spending at EUR 80 million. Could you give us some indications on the phasing of OpEx, especially in marketing over the upcoming quarters? Will there be more kinds of other big bang marketing quarter, or will it be more stable over the remainder of the year, both in absolute terms and also in terms of percentage of sales? Secondly, on the gross margin, again, you mentioned that pretty significant improvement driven by lower markdowns.
I think comps will get a bit tougher over the remainder of the year. Do you still expect a similarly big improvement from that factor, or will it come down? In that context, the price increases. I think you mentioned recently that keeping your prices stable also helped you gaining space from competition. You're now also moving up. Do you see similar price increases among your competitors? Will you keep that competitive advantage, or what general situation do you experience pricing-wise in the marketplace right now? Thank you.
Yes, Michael, thank you very much for your questions. Perhaps I start with the first question regarding the marketing investment. I think it's worth mentioning, first of all, that the marketing spendings that we did of EUR 80 million, that was a big push of the branding refresh, remain with the branding campaigns, for both brands, BOSS and HUGO, for BOSS, for both genders, men and women. It was a broad-based, very big marketing campaign, and it was a deliberate spend, discretionary spending. I really want to point out that these are kind of variable costs. There are no long-term commitments behind these costs, discretionary spendings in order to fuel the growth.
I'm like I said in the beginning of the Q&A session, I'm really happy how the investments really translated into top-line growth. This was a big push in the first quarter. We disclosed that in terms of the higher than expected net sales, there was 10.4% marketing spending. We always said in the CLAIM 5 strategy that we want to step up our marketing expenditures going from 6% to 7% to 8%, especially in the first year. We are more like at the end of this, going up to 8%.
Having 10% in Q1, we still want to be in this kind of range between 7%-8% in the first year, perhaps at the end of the year at around 8 percentage points, we will stick to this range. This will mean actually that there will be less spending over the next quarters. Still, you can imagine that we will create a lot of buzz around this, but it will level in of this around 8% of our net sales at the end of the year. Regarding gross margin, and I just want to repeat, it might look conservative that we confirmed somehow our guidance that the gross margin remains stable.
Like I said, we had a very strong gross margin in the first quarter, and let's have a conservative view on this, how it will develop, because we know that there are headwinds coming from freight costs, and to let us manage the next quarters very wisely, I mean, if the brand momentum continues, we can increase our full price sales, perhaps, or we have some positive news there to come, but it's still too early to call from my side. Regarding price increases, yes, I think from our customers is that we have a very good price value proposition, even after our price increases. Like we said, we increased them mid- to high-single-digit %, and our competitors have at least the same price increases.
I can confirm that the price advantage that we might have in the view of the customers is still remain.
Great. Thank you very much.
Next question comes from Thomas Chauvet, Citi. Your line is now open.
Good morning, Yves, Christian. Two questions and a follow-up, please. The first question on the store related OpEx at the capital markets day last August, you gave a bridge to the 12% EBIT margin. This included 700 basis points reduction in store related costs as a percentage of sales, I think towards 20% because of the store closures referred on sizing. Can you elaborate on how this plan is shaping up? You alluded to it a little bit earlier, and whether you're starting to see some of these early benefits. Have you done any closure? Can you provide an update on the closure of unprofitable stores? I think there were 100 targeted. Secondly, on your gross margin again, understand you're confirming flat gross margin.
If later in the year, full price sales, channel mix, we're continuing to more than offset, freight costs and other cost inflation, as you saw in the first quarter, would you consider to basically reinvest all of these gains into OpEx, particularly in marketing as you did in the first quarter? Just to follow up on the April trading question. You said April momentum continues, but with China probably down, I would guess at least 30% now, it's minus 13% in the first quarter, given the store closures. That would suggest US and Europe, or maybe both, have accelerated versus Q1 on a three-year stack basis.
Is this a fair assumption, so U.S., Europe accelerating and China obviously down in greater than double-digit now, compared to Q1?
Thomas Chauvet, thank you very much for your questions and for your interest. Regarding your last questions regarding the momentum, Europe and Americas, I can confirm this. The number that I actually said is that the strong momentum continued out of the first quarter into April is for the global number. This includes mainland China, and I can confirm that the development in Europe and Americas was very strong. Regarding gross margin, we haven't decided yet whether we might invest this. We have to see this along the year. It's too early to call it out. What we're gonna do with the potential gains that we might achieve in gross margin.
We will see this because we still have a plan regarding OpEx, and you know that we want to step up the investments that we are doing and the execution of CLAIM 5, I mean, all the investments in the product brands and digital, they are all included in the budget. They are all included in the guidance that we gave to you. We feel overall comfortable. If, you know, if we might achieve gross margin, we haven't decided it yet.
Regarding store-related, the store development, and like I'm always saying, you know, we have these 450 freestanding stores. We turn, we look at them, I'm always saying 80-100 will be optimized every year. So if you just take the first quarter, I mean, we opened 5:00 PM and we closed 8:00 PM. So this continues. Actually, regarding the optimization of our retail portfolio, we are on a good way and we generate efficiencies alongside our execution of CLAIM 5 and this works out nicely.
Store-related cost as a percentage of sales came down year-on-year in the first quarter, I suppose.
Once again, I didn't receive the question.
store-related cost as a percentage of sales
Yes, they went down.
in the first quarter.
Yes.
Okay.
Yes.
Just on your 50 store openings in China that you had planned, obviously, are you now considering postponing these and, you know, is that captured in your CapEx guidance?
Yeah. It's all captured. I mean, we still continue to find new locations because we want to grow 10-15 POS. That's what we are looking for because, as you know, we are in the Chinese market. Our exposure is less than 10% overall in terms of group net sales, so we are much less exposed to the Chinese market. We still think that we can grow in the Chinese market. Yes, there are now COVID-related restrictions, but clearly we follow our strategy to further open more stores and this has nothing to do, I mean, in terms of talking to landlords and finding new good locations for both brands, BOSS and HUGO.
Okay. Thank you very much, Yves. Thank you.
The next question comes from Antoine Belge, BNP Paribas. Your line is now open.
Yeah. Hi, it's Antoine Belge at BNP Paribas. Yves, two questions. First of all, coming back on this communication campaign. I think we surprised the industry with the quality of the people you recruited for your campaign. Can you elaborate a bit in terms of the impact, not so much on the numbers, but more on the type of demographic groups or age and gender that it you know it triggered in terms of consumer?
My second question relates a little bit broadly, but you know, if you could talk a bit about womenswear and HUGO and how, I mean, they are saying here more highlighting the specific dynamics of these two, you know, brand or part of your business. Thank you.
Sorry, Antoine Belge. This is Christian Stöhr speaking. I just jump in very quickly on the first one, because I think that was a question that was very similar to the one asked by Jürgen Kolb before. I guess as Yves Müller has elaborated, we've definitely we are seeing, you know, momentum catching up very strongly on social media across the key channels that we're focusing on. You know that for BOSS we have identified Instagram as our leading channel. You know, by nature, you can assume that we are now really targeting a much younger cohort, you know, the millennials, which is our core target group for the BOSS brand. Here we are seeing a nice balance and a nice mix between male and female consumers who actually become fans of our brands.
I think it's a nice achievement that the BOSS brand has become the fastest growing brand on Instagram in Q1. You know, outperforming our peer group and also recording the strongest engagement rate. In terms of demographics, it's the millennials. It's a nice balance between male and female. I guess this also is a direct consequence of the fact that our cast of brand ambassadors that we've chosen included a number of high-profile female celebrities and influencers. Yves mentioned Alica Schmidt, but also you know Hailey Bieber, just to add one more name on that. When you think about HUGO, I mean, obviously even targeting a younger generation than the millennials, actually it's the Gen Z.
Also here, you know, with the Coachella festival, you know, we kicked off sort of the festival season and the numbers, you know, were really strong, outperforming our own expectations. Engagement rate of 26% was, you know, much better than we had hoped for. Again, this is something that is a truly dual gender brand, you know, and as a consequence also here, we are attracting, you know, Gen Z, but across all genders. Yeah. So just adding or repeating to some extent what Jürgen has already asked, I guess. Antoine, perhaps, regarding womenswear and HUGO, if you look at the growth rates, and I compare this to the growth rates versus 2019, if you take the first quarter.
Once again, by ranking, HUGO was +26%, BOSS Menswear +17%, and Womenswear on par. I think you see here a little bit that especially the direction that we are taking in terms of lifestyle streetwear, HUGO is resonating well with the highest growth rate in terms of 26%, with a lot of, you know, categories really moving forward, especially jersey, especially sneakers with excellent growth rates. It resonates really well.
We are very much advanced, and this will be further fueled the growth by our collaboration that we take on denim with the collaboration with Replay that we're gonna do in the summertime. Much more to come to fuel the growth on the HUGO side. On womenswear, you could argue we are only on par versus 2019, and there is some truth in it because our new Kristina Szasz, S he started in September. The first collection where she had some influence that was sold in the showroom in January, February for the Fall/Winter collection.
We see actually the first positive signs in selling in terms of pre-orders because those orders were up like 24% versus pre-COVID levels in terms of wholesale orders for Fall/Winter. I think the womenswear piece, we are more in an earlier stage of our, let's say, momentum that we generate. I think the first early indicators give me some positive sign, but clearly to argue this on a broad-based basis is really too early to call it out.
Thank you very much.
Thank-
The next question comes from Manjari Dhar, Royal Bank of Canada, your line is now open.
Hi, good afternoon, Yves, Christian. Thank you for taking my questions. Just on the new store concepts, can you give a bit more color on the performance that you're seeing from these versus existing concepts? And secondly, how are you thinking about Asia ex-China? Is this likely to be more of a focus moving forward? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Manjari, for your questions. First of all, the second question, ex-China, the performance is very strong. It is up now almost double-digit versus 2019 levels. If you take countries like Japan, Australia, and even Southeast Asia, they are coming back strongly. On the Asian piece, we see a good development after, let's call it, long-lasting lockdowns. Regarding the new store concept, it is really very early to call it out. We have just, you know, rebranded or opened 25 stores from the freestanding store piece, so too early. I think the feedback of the consumers is very good. It is very positive from this side.
To give you a serious number, it's too early because these are the vast majority not remodeled stores where you don't have a kind of like for like basis. These are more like new locations where you have a kind of qualitative feedback from the customers, and you're not on like for like basis. It's too early. We will highlight this in one of our next sessions.
Okay, great. Thank you.
The next question comes from Volker Bosse, Baader Bank. Please go ahead, your line is now open.
Hello, Volker Bosse, Baader Bank. Congratulations on the great Q4, Q1 results. Two questions. First is on China. I would like to dig a bit deeper here. What is the background of the sales decline? How much is related to the COVID lockdown impact, so to say? And how is the situation with the consumer boycott concrete? Are your influencers able or allowed to promote your products? So, how much comes from COVID? How much from the potential consumer boycott? And the second question is on collaboration. Successfully that boosted your brand fit, especially among younger customer group, as you pointed out. So perhaps here a sneak preview on what to expect in regards to collaborations in the rest of the year, especially in the second half to come. Thanks.
Yes, Volker Bosse. Perhaps thank you very much for your question. Perhaps relating to your first question. I think it's very important to mention that the performance that we currently experience or that we have seen in the first four months, we enjoyed a very good performance before the lockdown. It's nothing at all consumer boycott related. Even on the contrary, we are signing new Chinese influencers as well on our side. This has nothing to do with consumer boycott. The current performance is just related to any COVID restrictions because stores are simply closed or have reduced opening hours, or there are some orders by the local government saying you should not leave your apartment or your houses.
traffic is down in these kind of regions, and that's the only reason for this performance. We know once this is over, net sales might pick up very quickly. For the second question, collaborations, I think we still want to positively surprise you. We have disclosed on the HUGO piece because we very often talk about BOSS. I mean, there you have the very successful commercial collaborations with Porsche, with Anthony Joshua, with Matteo Berrettini that are about to come. Very good collaboration to continue. There's more to come in the second half of the year.
With HUGO, I think the biggest thing that I can announce is with Replay, that we have and much more in the pipeline to come to generate or keep the brand momentum high. Right?
Okay, cool. Christine here. Thank you very much. On that, thank you.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Jörg Philipp Frey, Baader Helvea Equity Research. Your line is now open.
Hi, guys. Well, first question actually on the implementation of the price increase. Regarding particularly your order book, your strong wholesale order book for fall/winter. Are you able to raise pricing for these orders as well? Or, if not, will you increase your own retail prices for these goods which are already in the wholesale ordering process, nevertheless, making your collection actually much more attractive, even for your wholesalers? Just some ideas on that side. Just generally on your inventory position, which is obviously very tight. Are you still happy with the current inventory level?
Actually, are you actually already concerned regarding the replenishment speed and increase of goods entries and things like that?
Yes. Perhaps regarding your first question, I think, it's a very relevant question that you're raising regarding the price increases. What we're doing is we are increasing the prices from a retail perspective. This is what we're gonna do. The wholesale partners, they have based their orders on lower prices. They are free to decide what they will do if they want to increase prices, yes or no. They are free to decide. Due to antitrust law, we cannot influence this. But of course, they are aware of the fact that we are increasing for retail and there might be some deviations, but they are free to decide. Regarding the inventory position, I can clearly say, yes, we have continuously reduced our inventory position.
It has sort of strengthened, even given the size and the growing piece of our business. We try to maintain it, that the inventory position remains stable or it's even decreasing. I can clearly say that the quality of our inventory has clearly improved. Much less aged merchandise, much more fresher merchandise, so we are going in the right direction. If you ask me, I see still further, you know, further ideas to somehow optimize our inventory position in order to maximize our trade net working capital metrics.
Sounds great. Keep on the good momentum.
Yes. Thank you very much, Philipp. Thank you. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, we are looking at the Q&A queue, and we are not seeing any further participant asking a question. Let me take this opportunity to thank you for dialing in today. As always, if you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact any member of the investor relations team. With that, thanks very much for your participation and bye-bye.
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