Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Q1 2025 Results Call. I am Yusuf, the course call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in listen-only mode and that this conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing Star and one on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press Star and zero. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Christian Stöhr, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our First Quarter 2025 Results Presentation. Before we begin, I want to inform you that Yves Müller, CFO and COO of HUGO BOSS, is unfortunately unable to join us today due to a personal matter. In his absence, our CEO, Daniel Grieder, who is currently on a business trip in the US, will be leading today's presentation. We are also joined by Ivica Maric, Executive Vice President, Business Operations, who oversees both our global controlling function and our operations activities. He will participate in the Q&A session, which will be managed out of Metzingen. Please be reminded that during our presentation, all growth rates related to revenue will be discussed on a currency adjusted basis unless stated otherwise. During the Q&A session, we kindly ask you to limit your questions to two per participant to ensure a smooth and efficient discussion.
Now let's get started and over to you, Daniel.
Thank you, Christian, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our call today. First of all, I would like to send Yves and his family a lot of strength and heartfelt support during this difficult time. Our thoughts are with you. Let me start now with the update. Against the backdrop of an increasingly volatile macroeconomic environment, I'm pleased to report that we have delivered solid first quarter results. We exceeded market expectations on both revenues and earnings, demonstrating the strength and resilience of our business model. Following a strong finish to 2024, the start to the new year proved more difficult. As we already pointed out in March, in view of the mounting external challenges affecting global consumer sentiment and industry development, we focused even more on rigorous strategic execution and consistent financial discipline.
Consequently, we limited the revenue discipline to 2%, with group sales reaching nearly EUR 1 billion. EBIT totaled EUR 61 million, supported by a stable gross margin and flat operating expenses, two key drivers we will discuss in more detail shortly. First, let's take a step back and examine the broader macro context that shaped the operating environment in the first quarter. As we have all witnessed, Q1 was marked by significant macroeconomic uncertainty. Geopolitical tensions, rising trade frictions, and weak consumer confidence all contributed to softer consumer spending worldwide. Especially in China, demand remained subdued, and in the U.S., this lining sentiment impacted discretionary spending. In light of these external headwinds at HUGO BOSS, we stayed focused on what we can control, executing our strategic initiatives with strong focus on consumer centricity and driving further cost efficiency. Our robust organizational and operational platforms form a decisive basis of this.
They enable us to navigate the current challenges and position our business for long-term success. A great example of how we keep fueling consumer excitement is our strategic partnership with David Beckham. We kicked off the year with the successful launch of the BOSS ONE Bodywear campaign and activation that generated strong media reach and further strengthened brand appeal. Two weeks ago, we took another major step with the launch of the first co-designed Beckham x BOSS collection, a defining moment for our brand, reinforcing our leadership in modern menswear. While it is still early days, initial feedback points to a strong reception with above-average sales through rates. Building on the strong visibility generated by our partnership with David, our Spring/Summer 2025 collections added further momentum and supported our brands across varying occasions.
That said, in light of the challenging external backdrop, sales for both our brands came in slightly below the prior year level. BOSS menswear declined 2%, BOSS womenswear 1%, and HUGO also 2%. Let's now take a look at our performance across the regions. We started with EMEA, where sales remained broadly stable, declining by just 1% year over year. Sales in Germany came in at the prior year level, while the U.K. and France recorded slight declines. Meanwhile, our important Middle East retail business continued to grow trajectory, further underscoring our potential in the region. In the Americas, revenues were also down 1%. Double-digit growth in Latin America was more than offset by moderate decline in the U.S. market. Over there, economic concerns, including recession, tariffs, and immigration policies, increasingly weighed on local and tourist demand.
This led to softer retail trends due to reduced foot traffic, while brick and mortar wholesale recorded further growth. Moving over to Asia-Pacific, revenues declined by 8% as subdued consumer confidence continued to dampen demand in China. In contrast, Southeast Asia and Pacific saw further growth, led by another robust performance in Japan. This underlines the broad-based appeal of our brands across the regions. With this, let's move on to our channels. Brick and mortar retail declined by 4%, mainly due to the reduced mall and store traffic, as well as some minor adverse calendar effects. This includes one less trading day compared to the prior year and the shift of Easter into Q2. While we achieved an increase in sales per transaction, this was not enough to offset the overall lower footfall, particularly in the U.S. and China.
Enhancing customer engagement and the in-store experience remains crucial for long-term success in this channel. The recent opening of our BOSS halo store in Shanghai, timed with the Formula One Grand Prix, is a prime example. We generated strong social media buzz and boosted the appeal of BOSS among Chinese consumers. Turning to the brick and mortar wholesale, the revenue declined 3%. This largely reflects broader retail pressures and slight delivery shifts, which should normalize in the coming quarters. Notably, total wholesale, including both physical and digital wholesale, recorded solid growth in Q1. This reflects our robust pre-order business and the strong reception of our latest collection. To conclude on the channels, digital sales were up 4%, driven by revenues generated with partners. At the same time, hugoboss.com experienced somewhat softer trends, mainly reflecting the subdued consumer environment.
With this, let's now shift our focus to profit and loss, starting with the gross margin. In the first quarter, our gross margin remained stable at 61.4%. Efficiency gains in sourcing, lower product costs, and reduced air freight share supported our margin development. In particular, we continued to benefit from structural improvements and higher economies of scale realized through our operational platform. This allowed us to offset adverse impacts from channel and regional mix, currencies, and a more promotional market environment. Turning to our cost base, in the first quarter, we continued to make progress in driving cost efficiency across key business areas, including marketing, sales, administration, resulting in flat operational expenses year over year. Selling and marketing expenses remained stable despite a slight increase in brick and mortar retail expenses, as well as the 3% increase in marketing investments, which amounted to 7.9% of sales.
This was driven by the major brand initiatives, such as our campaign with David Beckham and the Shanghai opening event. We anticipate the relative marketing spend to be slightly lower in the coming quarters, while maintaining our focus on driving brand awareness and consumer engagement. Finally, administration expenses declined 1%, underscoring the success of our continued effort to enhance operational efficiency. Overall, this resulted in an EBIT decline of 12% to EUR 61 million. Consequently, EBIT margin was down 70 basis points to 6.1%. Importantly, this development primarily reflects prior strategic investment aimed at supporting long-term growth. In contrast, our EBITDA margin remained stable at 15.2%, highlighting the underlying strength of our operating model. Last but not least, earnings per share amounted to EUR 0.51, down 8% versus the prior year period.
Now, round of our Q1 review, let's take a brief look at the remaining balance sheet and cash flow items. Trade net working capital increased by 2% currency adjusted, largely reflecting a 5% rise in inventories year over year. This development was driven by higher goods in transit, along with a planned increase in inventory coverage. The latter relates to the U.S. market in response to ongoing tariff uncertainty. As a percentage of sales, inventory stood at 25.1%, broadly in line with the level at the end of last year. As a result, trade net working capital relative to sales amounted to 19.7%, thus largely stable compared to last quarter. Moving over to free cash flow, which came in at EUR 66 million in Q1. This development mainly reflects the lower EBIT, the higher inventory position, and the anticipated normalization in trade payables.
We expect free cash flow generation to accelerate over the course of the year, supported by improved earnings momentum and the more balanced working capital development. Looking ahead to the remainder of the year, we remain committed to implementing our Claim 5 strategy while also driving improvements in profitability. Building on the strong foundation built in recent years, we will continue to execute 2025 with discipline, agility, and impact. Importantly, we will continue to invest in key initiatives that strengthen brand momentum and deepen consumer engagement for both BOSS and HUGO. These efforts will be supported by further improvements in sourcing and our ongoing focus on operational efficiency. However, our plans are unfolding within a broader context shaped by continued macroeconomic uncertainty, a reality we cannot ignore as we plan and execute in 2025.
In addition, the ongoing economic challenges, the potential impact of involving trade restrictions is a significant source of uncertainty. Global trade dynamics and ongoing tariff discussions are creating an uncertain environment affecting both supply chains and consumer sentiment, especially in the U.S. Therefore, we continue to closely monitor the volatile environment as we move forward. Our globally diversified sourcing structure continues to be a resilient backbone of our operation. For several years, we have significantly reduced our dependency on China and lowered the share of global sourcing from around 20% to a mid-single-digit percentage. In addition, around 20% of our total sourcing is done in-house, mainly in Turkey, providing greater flexibility and control. Aside from Turkey, no other country accounts for a significant sourcing share. This underscores the balanced nature of our supply chain.
Also, when looking at the U.S. market, which represents around 15% of group sales, our exposure remains well contained. Goods sourced from China account for only 4% of our U.S. sourcing volume. Meanwhile, roughly one-third of inbound sourcing stems from Turkey and Peru, both unaffected by the current tariff discussions. To actively mitigate the impact of tariffs already in place and absorb potential cost effects, we are pursuing several strategic measures. Beside increasing U.S. inventory coverage, we are taking the following steps to minimize our risk. Firstly, we redirect products coming from China to the U.S. and replace them with items from other markets. This change aims to minimize the amount of merchandising flowing from China to the U.S. in the short term. Secondly, we continue to optimize our global sourcing footprint and leverage our flexible supply chain.
This enables us to adapt sourcing decisions with relatively short lead times so we can adjust if new trade-related challenges arise. Thirdly, we are carefully evaluating potential price adjustments. In any case, we would adopt a demand-sensitive pricing strategy to maintain our strong brand perception and our superior price value proposition. Given the ongoing uncertainty around tariffs, it's still too early to draw final conclusions. This said, thanks to our strategic measures, our solid Q1 performance, and our resilient business model, we are confident in confirming our outlook for 2025. In doing so, we are taking the current tariff regime into consideration. Consequently, we continue to expect group sales to remain broadly in line with the prior year. This remains a realistic and prudent view given the current economic landscape. At the same time, we continue to anticipate improvements on the bottom line.
On the bottom line, we expect EBIT to increase to a level between EUR 380 million and EUR 440 million, leading to an EBIT margin of 9%-10%. This development will be driven by ongoing sourcing efficiencies supporting our gross margin, as well as our continued focus on cost efficiency. In conclusion, while the road ahead may have its challenges, we remain committed to execute our strategy and improve profitability in 2025. With our powerful brands, resilient supply chain, and strong organizational platform, we are well equipped to address market shifts and tariff-related challenges effectively. As we look forward, we will continue to navigate with steady hands, sharp execution, and a clear focus on delivering against our priorities for the remainder of the year. With this, we are now very happy to take your questions.
Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session.
Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press Star and One on their telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press Star and Two. Questioners on the phone are requested to disable the loudspeaker mode and eventually turn off the volume from the webcast while asking a question. Anyone who has a question may press Star One at this time. The first question comes from Manjari Dhar from Royal Bank of Canada. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning team. Thank you for taking my questions. I had two, if I may. My first question, I just wondered if you could give any color on what you've seen in terms of top-line trends in April.
Maybe within that, could you sort of quantify the impact on wholesale of the timing shipments due to the later timing of Easter? Secondly, I just had a question on OpEx, clearly showing some good cost control there. I just wondered if you could give any color on how you expect the moving parts within OpEx to trend for the full year. I appreciate you're lacking some good cost control for the second half. Thank you.
Perfect, Manjari. Thank you for your question. The first one, but also the second one, I think I would hand over to Ivica. The first one, again, on top-line trends in April and to what extent the wholesale timing shift did or might impact our Q, our April performance. The second one related to the OpEx expectations for full year 2025.
Thank you, Manjari, for your question.
Let's start with the current trading trends. Just like in the past, we will not comment in detail on the performance by month. As you know, we already indicated during the full year 2024 results released in March that we have seen some trends deteriorating, in particular in the month of February. At the same time, March somehow showed improvement across all channels, in particular supported by increased deliveries to our customers, both offline and online. The key point here is that we are operating in a highly volatile environment, but overall, we are fully in line with our guidance across Q1 trends. I think the same continues to be true in recent weeks. You can just take those two comments. It is also our, let's say, comment on April. It is still volatile, but we are trading in line with our guidance overall.
Second question on cost control. We remain strongly focused on driving sustainable cost efficiencies across all areas of the business. This includes marketing, sales, administration. This will definitely support our profitability targets for 2025. The flat OpEx development in Q1 reflects really structural discipline rather than one-offs or short-term delays. Efficiency gains are embedded in how we operate and allocate resources. We are not afraid of a more difficult comparison base in H2, especially because when we started to really focus on this cost efficiency, we were implementing some short-term measures that were unfolding immediate impact on our cost line. Just to give you an example, when we said we want to be more focused with our travels, that definitely had an immediate impact on our cost base.
In addition to that, we were also working on some cost measures that need time to really unfold their impact, talking about our payroll efficiency and also CapEx efficiency, which naturally needs some time to really unfold its impact. This will give us support, especially for the second half of this year. We remain confident to achieve at least the same development we have seen also in Q1 and are not afraid of the, let's say, tougher comp base for our cost development throughout the remainder of the year.
That's all very clear. Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Jürgen Kolb from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Thanks very much. Two questions indeed. First one, or both of them on the US market.
First of all, you stated, Daniel, that you are planning to assess the situation and potentially price increases would be one step and one alternative to react on the tariffs. I was wondering if you could elaborate if you would also consider to be a leading brand in the marketplace, or would you rather say we want to wait until, let's say, the typical American brands take the first step and then we'll follow suit? That's the first one. The second one, again, also on the U.S. market, as you are over there, what are your experiences? Is BOSS right now in this a little bit more difficult environment, maybe performing better than some other brands, which might give you the chance to take some market share in an agreed, very volatile and difficult to forecast market?
But again, is that a chance to maybe do better and take this weakness as an opportunity? Thank you very much.
Thank you, Jürgen, for your question. So, Daniel, these are two questions I would actually like to hand over to you since you are in the States at the moment. The first question, a little bit on pricing with regards to the U.S. market, the second one when it comes to the current market sentiment and our positioning. Thank you, Daniel.
Okay. Thank you. Yeah, the situation here in the States is very pressured, I would say, let alone that everybody talks, of course, about the current political way that Trump is taking. The fact is, when you look in shopping malls, when you go into outlet centers, what is really a big concern is that the traffic went down something like 20%-30%.
That has, of course, an impact to everybody. You see that also the tourists, when I just came to the U.S. last week, when you come into the airport, it is just less traffic from tourists. I would say the country is quite affected. Coming back to the price increases, in response to the potential impact of tariffs, we are evaluating price increases as one of several strategies to offset additional costs. Of course, we look into it. Our approach will be guided by a commitment to maintain the price value proposition of our brands, what we all stand for, while ensuring that any adjustments are aligned with broader economic factors and general market conditions, I would say. By taking a measured and strategic approach, that is important. We aim to balance the need to mitigate cost impacts with the importance of sustaining consumer loyalty and satisfaction.
We are not just going in and just put a price increase on the table. I think we have to do it in a smart way. We want to wait a little bit longer and see how it is developing. I would want to underline the fact that we, as a brand, the U.S. market became in 2023 our most successful and biggest market. Our brand is at the moment, and during the last few years, we were gaining market shares continuously. This is for both brands, for BOSS and HUGO. If you look at the macroeconomic environment in the U.S., it has really softened since the start of the year. It really started all by the start of this year. It is a concern, including recession fears, tariffs uncertainty, as we know, and immigration policies have increasingly damped both local tourists, as I said, the demand.
This is reflecting in a dislike in mall, as I mentioned, and also waiting on our brick-and-mortar performance. We are monitoring. We are trying to be open-minded and flexible to act in any directions. One thing we have in our hands is really the momentum of our brand as we fuel it, as I mentioned before, for example, with the Beckham campaign, which is also very strongly received here in the U.S.. I think I answered with that, those questions.
Yep. Thanks very much. Good. Safe travels.
Jürgen, thank you, Daniel. Jürgen, just for clarification purposes, the traffic decline that Daniel mentioned was not a HUGO BOSS traffic number that we were sharing, but basically traffic numbers that we were observing in department stores and in basically malls. These are not numbers exclusive to us, but market observations that we're currently seeing.
The same is true also to what Daniel was sharing in terms of the overall sentiment in the market since the beginning of the year. Not necessarily a comment on just today's trading to avoid any confusion here.
Very good.
Absolutely.
Thanks.
The next question comes from Grace Morley from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Two questions from me, please. The first one would just be if you could provide an update on your wholesale order books. In particular, given Daniel's commentary there, just if you're seeing any change in terms of customer behavior from your wholesale partners and how they're approaching for winter 2025. My second question would just be on gross margin.
If you could just update us within your guidance that you reiterated for 2025, how you're expecting gross margin to evolve, and in particular on promotions, just given they were still a headwind in Q1. I think previously you had expected that you'd expect promotions, at least on a full-year basis, to have a neutral impact. Just how you're evolving that assumption. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Grace. Thank you for your questions. I will take the first one on the wholesale order book, and then I hand over to Ivica for the second question on your gross margin question related to the 2025 guidance. No update really that I can share with you on the wholesale side. As we have already told you, mid-March, when we had our full-year results release, we are looking at a solid order intake for pretty much all 2025.
That showcases the support that we keep getting from our wholesale partners and the ongoing success that we're seeing when it comes to strengthening our presence, our penetration in that channel. Clearly, something that gives us a level of optimism when it comes to 2025. Importantly, we've also not seen any larger cancellations as of now, which would trigger any concern, or maybe that's also where your question is alluding to. Overall, long story short, solid order intakes for the year. Of course, also the wholesale channel will have to observe the most recent environment and how things keep doing. Generally speaking, everything we have in our hands, everything we have in our books, like I said, makes us somewhat optimistic when it comes to that channel for fiscal year 2025.
Do not forget, when we talk about order intakes, we not just talk about brick-and-mortar wholesale. We also talk about the online part of our business, where we are also working with a number of very successful online players in the market. Ivica, maybe over to you for the second question on the gross margin outlook for 2025. Yeah. Thank you for your questions. Just to give you some light on the gross margin outlook for 2025, we remain to be confident to further increase our gross margin for 2025, especially driven by sourcing efficiencies that we anticipate to continue throughout the entire year and even getting some tailwinds out of, let's say, ship mode improvements. You know that in the last few years, we definitely already have improved our ship mode share, especially getting down on the air shipments.
Even throughout last year, where we have seen multiple supply chain disruptions like the Red Sea conflict and also political tensions in Bangladesh, we were able to decrease that share substantially. Definitely, those disruptions give us some headwinds. Now, assuming that they do not reoccur this year again, it will give us a tailwind throughout the remainder of the year, especially because those effects had started mainly mid of last year. You might ask now, the Red Sea conflict was already starting end of 2023 or beginning 2024. That is definitely true, but we have seen definitely also some commercial vessels still trying to ship through the Suez Canal until end of Q1. The rerouting happened especially in March and thereafter, which extended delay times significantly and at the same time increased the cost for sea as well as air shipments.
We were also forced to absorb that to a certain extent and also to, let's say, get some headwind also on the improvements we were trying to get in 2024. This year, we do not expect that to happen again. We have adjusted our plans and are confident to further decrease, especially on air shipments. Also, the rates for sea shipments have come down in recent months, which will definitely give us some tailwind for the remainder of the year, especially second half of 2025.
Great. Thank you. Just a follow-up on what you're thinking in terms of your assumptions for promotions for the rest of the year, please.
As we said, have been somehow elevated end of last year, and this has not changed significantly in the first quarter of this year.
We assume the situation to remain on that elevated level throughout the year, and this is baked into our guidance. Mainly, the improvement will come from sourcing efficiencies and supported by tailwinds coming from our ship mode optimization throughout the remaining nine months of this year.
Okay. Great. Thank you both.
The next question comes from Thomas Huguet from Citi. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Two questions, please. The first one, coming back to the U.S. tariffs. Could you just come back to the 5% inventory increase? You said it was due to intrinsic inventory. Are these mainly spring-summer products or also early shipments from the autumn collection? If I understand correctly, that has reached the U.S. in early April before the 10% tariff. It means you do not need to worry about price increase, I guess, until you have depleted that inventory. Is that correct?
And secondly, could you talk about the David Beckham partnership? How does it differ from previous collaboration with celebrities beyond the fact that he is involved in the design? You're talking about strong sales through. Do you have any targets in terms of sales contribution in the medium term, or is it all about brand image? And do you have plans to launch a similar collaboration with a female celebrity for women's wear lines? Thank you.
Thank you, Thomas, for your question. I would actually like to hand over the second question related to David Beckham to you, Daniel, and then Ivica will follow up on the U.S. tariff question. Daniel, can you please take Thomas' question on David Beckham?
Yeah. Talking about David Beckham, this is an incredibly strong and successful partnership. As you know, Beckham is not relevant just in Europe.
He is relevant in all the regions, even including Asia. Everybody is admiring, no matter if old, young, male, female. It's really an incredible testimonial and partnership with him. That's number one. Number two, the campaign actually also outperformed any numbers on social media, but most importantly, also sales numbers have increased tremendously. Only I'm talking now about the underwear. We reached in the first two months over 20% increase of just that single underwear. It's not only about the single underwear and the sales. It has also a spillover of the brand of other products, especially the BOSS ONE suit, which we sell along or next to the underwear because we want to have also higher ticket prices because you have to get a lot of traffic into the store when you only sell underwear.
The combination of that underwear, plus I do not know if you have seen the film when he basically drives into the garage and he is wearing first the suit, and then he takes the suit out and then goes into the underwear. We highlight not only the underwear, also the suit to get a higher average ticket. From social media, from sales, and from image point of view, we would say this is a big success, the partnership with David Beckham. You ask also if we have a similar partnership or a similar testimonial maybe in womenswear. We are at the moment, and especially this year, focusing on this campaign, the Beckham campaign, also with his collection. We do also include in the campaign females, and we are keeping our eyes and ears open to find such a strong partnership on the female side.
This is not so easy. I think Beckham was one of a kind, and that we still have to look into female. We are positive that sooner or later we will do a similar approach also on the female side.
Thank you, Daniel. And Ivica, over to you. Okay. Thank you.
Let's start with the question on the stock in transit. First of all, I have to highlight that the increased levels of our inventories still being in transit is mostly due to the longer lead time since we have to reroute all the vessels around South Africa. This extended our lead time for shipments, especially to Europe, combined with further reductions in air shipments. Naturally, then we have to wait for our goods on the boat to arrive in our warehouse.
Related to your question on U.S., we're trying definitely to pile up as much as we can on inventories before end of Q1 into the US. This was mainly spring, summer, and partially also fall 2025 merchandise, whereas part of fall and mainly winter are still in transit. As we already highlighted before, we feel confident with the overall situation as it is as of today with the current tariffs in place because we are also able to, let's say, react in a very short time frame and reroute goods if needed to avoid, let's say, unfavorable situations in the U.S.. As you can imagine, with the tariffs currently in place in the US from China, we are trying to get it down as much as we can and reroute to other countries.
At the same time, we will be able to replace those goods, especially winter merchandise, with production from other countries to the U.S..
Thank you.
Thank you, Thomas.
The next question comes from Susy Tibaldi, UBS. Please go ahead.
Thanks for taking my question. The first one, on wholesale, can you help us understand the magnitude of the timing effects at Q1 versus Q2? Because if we assume that H1 is going to be around the mid-single digit, it would imply a double digit in Q2. I just wanted to check the match or if we should consider also that the replenishment business maybe is seeing some different trends. My second, just a follow-up on the gross margin on the promotional environment. Are you seeing a bit more promotions?
Is this a comment globally or more U.S.-specific, given also the risk from your competitors building a lot of inventory? While if we think about the effects impacting the gross margin for the full year, is it fair to say that, I mean, the weaker U.S. dollar should be very much in your favor given your sourcing footprint? Any comment on this would be helpful. Thank you.
Sorry. On your two questions, I'm starting with the second one. As Ivica has already indicated, we're seeing a similar level of promotional activity as we think about Q1, so not too different from what we've seen in Q4. We're seeing it in particular in the multi-brand environment as of now. That, as a consequence, also speaks to the European market and probably also to some extent to the U.S. market.
You know that our wholesale business, obviously, in the Asia-Pacific region is rather limited. You can assume that this phenomenon that we are observing for some time, but again, has not really changed from Q4 into Q1, is something that we are observing in our largest regions, Europe and the Americas in particular, in that multi-brand environment. Speaking about wholesale, on your question in terms of delivery shift effect, that is also something that I think Ivica, you touched on, that in particular in March, we were quite successful when it comes to increased deliveries to our customers, offline and online. Okay? That is really how you have to look at the wholesale order intake for the year. It is covering everything across the touchpoints.
Since we have done quite some shipments or deliveries in March, I think there might still be some positive shift effect into Q2, but rather on a minor note. Okay? Nothing that you should emphasize too much or focus too much on. There is an effect, but like I said, not as much as maybe we thought back in March. Maybe to add on your question on the exchange rate effect, I mean, first of all, it's hard to predict where we're going to be end of that year. Taking today's exchange rates into consideration, you're right that we're going to get some tailwind from the U.S. dollar. At the same time, we also have some negative effects resulting from other currencies, especially on our top line, like the Canadian dollar, the Chinese renminbi, or the Mexican peso.
Overall, we do not expect a substantial positive impact out of currencies for the remainder of the year.
Very clear. Thanks.
The next question comes from Adrien Duverger from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning. Thank you very much for taking my questions. Could you please comment on the performance you have seen for the different clusters by nationality, please? If you could comment on what has changed versus Q4 and what have been the biggest surprises. My second question would be on your wholesale network. I know you have been expanding it lately. Could you please comment a bit more on if the expansion was more the expansion of footprint or just seeing more opportunities to take more shelf space given the strength of the brand lately?
I would imagine with the David Beckham marketing campaign, you would also be able to gain a bit more shelf space. Thank you very much.
Sorry, Adrien, can you repeat your first question, please?
Yeah. The first question would be if you can comment on the performance that you've seen on the different consumer clusters by nationality and what has changed since Q4 and what's been the biggest surprise this year.
I will start taking your second question on the wholesale network, and then we'll see if Ivica or myself, we also continue on the first one. I will start on the wholesale question. Daniel, also feel free to add any comments once I'm done.
To your point, Adrien, I would say over the last three years since we introduced Claim 5, we've really made strong progress in gaining additional visibility, strong penetration, and obviously additional space in the wholesale channel. You might remember that includes basically most of our wholesale partners here in Europe, but also in the U.S. market, where we've been able to strongly bring more brand lines into the various channels. That's a key success of the fact that we are now perceived as a clear 24/7 brand. Now, going forward, we've always said that the impact from space might come down somewhat. As a consequence, the like-for-like contribution in wholesale, if you will, is taking over. The space contribution is not going down to zero. Okay?
We still see opportunities to add some more space, in particular in markets like the U.S., irrespective from the current environment. Yeah, it's a more strategic answer now. On top, do not forget that there's also still a franchise opportunity. So monobrand wholesale model that we are also looking into, that we eventually will keep on expanding, that we think about further expanding in emerging markets because it's a very promising model as we believe. So wholesale, a good business for us. You know the size of it. Yeah, let's not forget about our retail business either, but still saying that there is an opportunity to win more space, but like-for-like is getting also more important.
Now,
maybe I add, Christian, maybe I add to that that indeed, so we gain, first of all, market shares with the brand line, as you mentioned, which was a very successful strategic move to the 24/7 lifestyle brand, as you mentioned. Indeed, we also gained market shares when we got also big store shops in the department stores. This for men and for women and not only for BOSS but also for HUGO, especially in the U.S., when you see it here, it has very successfully enhanced the space in all the department stores. You mentioned also David Beckham. We were also able to open pop-up stores next to the underwear campaign with the underwear and David Beckham. That helped us all over the world with these pop-up stores to gain another space, temporary space, and also a win in more turnover.
The wholesale model is our most profitable business model. We balanced over the past three years between retail and wholesale. Wholesale is becoming more or became more and more became stronger over the past three years and very successfully so with still very disciplined and controlled distribution.
Great. Thank you, Daniel. The last question, Adrien, you had on the performance by consumer cluster. We are still seeing that the Chinese consumer is obviously showing some softness. We have made a comment on the domestic performance of the Chinese market, and you can assume that that also speaks to the Chinese consumer as a whole. That is one way to look at it. In the U.S. market, we are seeing fewer tourists going into the U.S., but we are still seeing tourists from the U.S. coming to Europe, at least when we think about Q1.
I would say no major change in trends from a consumer profile perspective in Q1 compared to what we've seen last year with some weakness on the Chinese consumer. Maybe that's it for now. Thank you. If you can comment on the European cluster as well. Like I said, a little bit less Europeans traveling overseas. Other than that, I think now starts the important or more important traveling season for Europeans, at least within Europe. Yeah, don't forget about southern European markets, western markets as well. I think that's now coming up where maybe Q1 in any case is not the most important quarter.
I mean, thank you very much for answering my questions.
The overall tourist share hasn't changed substantially compared to last year.
I think the only exception is the travel to the U.S., which due to obvious reasons are somehow declining.
Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Christian Stöhr for any closing remarks.
Great. That completes today's conference call. Yeah, I want to thank you for your understanding that today we were hosting that call with different members. Of course, as always, if there are any follow-up questions you may have, please feel free to contact the investor relations team. Thank you very much for your participation and look forward to seeing many of you at the upcoming conferences. Thanks very much and goodbye.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for choosing Coruscal and thank you for participating in the conference. You may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.