Hello, you. This is Sander van der Laan from Douglas, speaking, and I'm sitting here with my esteemed colleague Mark Langer, our CFO, and also some other colleagues from the finance team. It's a pleasure to give you an update on our, let's say, results, although today it's not a completely surprise. Since you've already seen two releases of Douglas before, one is basically our sales release, and the second one was our result release, which we already communicated last week. Today we want to give you an update, and as you can see on the agenda, I wanted to say something about the key business highlights of our peak season, Q1.
Then I will hand over to Mark, which will walk you through the financials, and then I will basically come back with a brief strategy update, a wrap-up, and the opportunity to do questions and answers. So regarding the business highlights, what you can see on the slide Q1 success is that we were very happy that we basically saw a continuation of the strong Douglas performance in the first quarter of the year versus basically the year prior. So a top-line growth of 10.7% for the e-com channel, which is basically online sales, sorry, like-for-like sales growth because we did not open any new online stores. And also a store sales growth number of 6.7%. I would say both numbers very strong, and adding up to 8% growth for the total company on an omnichannel basis.
You can see that we translated the top-line into, basically, more EBITDA growth with 12.6%. So our EBITDA has grown ahead of our top-line. And we have a very strong EBITDA margin development in this specific quarter, but this is our peak quarter, so please do not extrapolate 22.4%. I think on an LTM basis we delivered 18.2%, but Mark will come back on that more extensively. And thirdly, these numbers are being delivered by business results and business initiatives. So as you know, we've launched last year our Let It Bloom strategy, and we are now in the process of deploying and implementing our Let It Bloom strategy. And we have a lot of initiatives which are up and running, and a number of those initiatives really start to contribute. So we've made significant progress in each of our four strategic pillars.
Later on I will give you an update on three key initiatives which we deem to be relevant for today. Q1, so the quarter which starts on the 1st of October and it ends on the 31st of December, is for a beauty retailer clearly the key quarter. This is the quarter with three big customer events: single days, Singles Day, Beauty Friday. All the retailers call it Black Friday. At Douglas we talk about Beauty Friday and clearly Christmas. And those three events are building up to, yeah, to the most important quarter of the year. Very happy to see very, very healthy, I would say, business results with strong traffic numbers, let's say, both online and offline. But especially we want to make the point that in the offline domain we have seen very good traffic.
That is not a given because there are also other retailers out there who had to deal with negative traffic, certainly not the case for Douglas. E-com clearly did very well. At Black Friday we had some peak moments where we had more than 20,000 delivery orders per hour across Europe. And in the period between Singles Day and Christmas we have delivered more than 500,000 product units per day to customers and stores. So these are just some, I would say, key commercial highlights of this key quarter. On the next page, page seven, you see basically the total top-line development of Douglas. So we delivered 8% top-line growth omnichannel, which was driven by 7.5% like-for-like. And like I already said, on the online side, the top-line equals the like-for-like.
On the store side, it's a bit different because on the store side our like-for-like was 6%. So 1.5% of our store sales was driven by, basically, network, network development. Strong omnichannel sales growth, and especially in Christmas we saw significant upticks in, in traffic numbers, in our brick-and-mortar stores. Basically, we reported growth in all segments, but we especially want to emphasize our biggest segment, DACHNL. Our geographic growth segment, Central and Eastern Europe, and our basically pure-play segment, parfum dreams, and Niche Beauty, because these three segments were the top performers, let's say, across the company. And we will show the specific numbers a bit later. On the right-hand side of the sheet you can see that we delivered an EBITDA of EUR 348 million, which is EUR 39 million ahead of the year prior.
And you can also see that the EBITDA margin went up with 90 basis points, a total EBITDA growth of 12.6%. This 12.6% was first and foremost driven by 8% top-line on the left, by a gross profit increase, as a result of cost of goods sold growing at a slower pace versus net sales. The supplier bonus, which is a significant amount, clearly in our P&L, was in line with the supplier sales growth. And we continue to be very disciplined on the cost side, where we saw an improved personnel cost ratio, almost stable marketing costs, and logistical costs. We had one special, let's say one-off element in the cost line, and but Mark will come back on that later, because that optically deteriorates a little bit the OPEX percentage, but underlying, the performance was, was really strong. With that, I wanted to hand over to Mark.
Thanks, Sander, and also a warm welcome from my side, ladies and gentlemen. As usual, let's start with a review of our performance by segments and start with our largest segments, DACHNL, including Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Belgium on slide nine. Within the segments we saw high single-digit net sales growth, both on reported level and like-for-like. The growth was driven by both channels. In our stores we saw a strong increase in footfall and customer numbers. Please bear in mind that the catch-up effect from the COVID-affected years is no longer the explanation for that, but rather demonstrated a strong appetite for an inspiring shopping experience and appealing offer. Our DACHNL customers increased both the basket size and the net sales per item, although they bought slightly less items.
For the e-com part of the segment, both the numbers of orders and the average order values increased significantly. This resulted in the 11.6% net sales increase. Due to that good development, the e-com share in the segment remains the highest at 41% above the 33% on group level. When it comes to Adjusted EBITDA, we had some effects which weighed on the margin. COGS increased at a slower pace than sales, but the Supplier Bonus did so too. In an environment where especially German consumer sentiment continued to be subdued, we spent slightly more on marketing, while the brands decreased their contribution. Staff costs increased on an absolute level but remained stable in relation to net sales. Logistics costs increased in absolute terms and relative to net sales as e-com net sales increased faster than store net sales.
Furthermore, the prior year still contained an intercompany fee as well as an intercompany supplier bonus charge to parfume dreams. This was a pure recalibration of intercompany charges and did not change the group view. Still, the comparison base was higher. In total, these effects resulted in the slightly higher Adjusted EBITDA but lower Adjusted EBITDA margin for this segment. In France, both sales channels contributed nearly equally to the net sales growth. Please go to slide 10. The footfall in our French stores increased also slightly. Less visitors actually made a purchase, so that the conversion rate slightly decreased. Higher basket sizes and a higher value per item did not completely make up for that, as customers bought slightly less items. All in all, these effects resulted in a modest sales increase.
As e-com net sales in France grew slightly stronger than the stores, the sales share remained virtually stable at 23.6%. We had a higher number of orders and also higher average order values. While COGS increased at a slower pace than net sales, we received a lower Supplier Bonus, which led to a lower gross margin. Still, a higher marketing income with lower marketing spend, a stable personal cost ratio despite higher investments in education training for our employees, and significantly lower logistic costs completely made up for that. This ongoing cost discipline resulted in the slight increase in Adjusted EBITDA and a slight decrease in Adjusted EBITDA margin. Moving on to our segment, Southern Europe, on slide 11. With regard to the sales channel, we saw a divergent development this quarter.
The sales growth in the segment was fully driven by the stores, while our e-com net sales decreased. In our store business, a much higher number of visitors were attracted by our offering, and many of them turned into customers. Still, customers were more hesitant when it came to the number of items per basket and put less items into their baskets, which reduced basket sizes. As we welcomed significantly more customers who bought significantly more higher-priced items, our store net sales increased by 7.7%. The picture in e-com was different. Here we focused on profitable sales in the segment. While we had an increased number of orders, customers in Southern Europe were more hesitant with regard to average order values. Therefore, the online share of our e-com business decreased to 13.4%. The Adjusted EBITDA was affected by several factors.
The cost of goods sold increased slower than net sales and we received a significantly higher Supplier Bonus, resulting in an improved gross margin. Although marketing and logistic costs increased, we improved the marketing and logistic cost ratios. The strong increase in Adjusted EBITDA and margin was also affected positively by a one-time reversal of inventory valuation of the amount of EUR 3.5 million. In total, these effects led to the significantly higher Adjusted EBITDA and the extraordinarily high Adjusted EBITDA margin. Coming to Central and Eastern Europe, on slide 12. Like in the previous quarter, the segment again achieved one of the highest levels within the group with regard to growth and profitability. In the store business, we recognized a significantly higher footfall in a larger number of stores as we opened 10 new stores in the quarter.
Although a part of the visitors continued to explore and to seek advice on our product offering without buying in stores, which resulted in a lower conversion rate, we increased the number of customers. Unlike in Q4 2022-2023, the reference previous year period, the number of our items per basket increased slightly, with significantly higher basket sizes, especially due to higher sales per item. Our customers picked more higher-priced products from our offering. Also, our online offering attracted more customers. We saw a strongly increased number of orders and a slightly higher average order value. This combination drove the net sales increase in e-com. As the strength strong performance was even above the strong performance of the stores, the e-com sales contribution increased to 23%. In CEE, the cost of goods sold increased slightly faster than net sales due to the sustained inflationary development there.
The increase in supplier bonus from higher sales and improved bonus conditions allowed for a further gross margin expansion. All developments combined resulted in the strong uplift in Adjusted EBITDA and another Adjusted EBITDA margin expansion. Coming to our fifth segment, our segment parfumdreams, Niche Beauty, I'm now on page 13. Within our group, the segment has the best net sales development in Q1 with an increase of 26%. This sales growth was driven by the successful activation and retention of existing customers. These customers bought significantly more and had larger baskets. The segment saw cost of goods increasing faster than net sales in a fact that could not be offset by higher supplier bonus. Therefore, the gross margin decreased. A strict cost discipline made up for that as all major cost ratios, so personal cost, marketing cost, and logistic cost ratios, were improved.
The development of the Adjusted EBITDA should be put into context. In the prior years, Q1, DACHNL still charged parfumdreams with an intercompany fee as well as an intercompany supplier bonus at the same time from Germany. As we stopped these intercompany charges, the comparison base for the last year is lower due to these charges. Excluding these effects, the Adjusted EBITDA increase would have been lower. With the sales numbers by sales channel on group level, we will conclude the segment review. Please go to slide 14. Our stores welcomed a significantly higher number of visitors, also helped by the net opening of 17 stores, turned the largest part of them into customers with, on average, lower basket sizes. The basket size for the group was lower, although for most segments it decreased.
This was due to the strong decrease in basket size in Southern Europe, which I mentioned. This means that our customers bought less items per basket at slightly higher prices. E-com grew for the sixth consecutive quarter. The channel benefited from a significantly higher order intake as well as, on average, moderately higher average order values. In total, visits and conversion rate were stable. Furthermore, we managed to spend less on performance marketing. E-com had a net sales contribution of 33%, higher than last year's 32.2% due to the strong development of the channel. Let us now move on to slide 15 and look at the major developments in our P&L. As said, the development of cost of goods sold was different in the segments. On group level, the effect added up to an increase below the net sales increase.
Together with an increase of supplier bonus above the growth in COGS, as well as thorough margin management following our Let it Bloom strategy, this enabled an expansion of gross profit and gross profit margin. Group-wide, we spent more on marketing. Despite the store expansion of net 17 stores, the strong sales development, and therefore higher employee bonus accruals, as well as wage increases for employees, we decreased the personnel cost ratio. We kept a close eye on our cost side, and we were able to limit the increases in other operating expenses. Main influencing factors in OPEX were the higher marketing cost and a normal recurring effect, which I'll explain to you now in more detail.
As some of you might have read in our annual reports, the DOUGLAS Group is exposed to some ongoing litigation, of which the litigation in the context of the squeeze-out of minority shareholders in 2013 after Douglas Holding AG was taken private is the largest. The company has built provisions for the potential outcome of the litigation since 2013 and has reassessed the expected amount on a regular basis. Two weeks ago, we have been informed by the competent court that the appointed valuation expert has concluded on the share price valuation for the squeeze-out above the prior assessment of the appraiser at the time of the squeeze-out and a later court proposal. We are still assessing this expert opinion but have decided with our auditors to reflect this new potential maximum amount for the revised provision in line with IFRS requirements.
The increase in the provision that we also report as an adjustable amount is EUR 50 million, and the key underlying reason for the increase in the other operating expenses and the adjustments for the period. Let me reiterate that the increased squeeze-out litigation provision reflects the maximum settlement amount and is completely unrelated to our current day-to-day business. D&A as a percentage of net sales remained virtually stable. As said before, this also included amortization of right-of-use assets according to IFRS 16, which make up for roughly two-thirds of D&A. In total, all described effects led to the higher reported EBIT. Although we have established an interest cap with a strike of 3.5% for the floating parts of our debt, our financial expenses increased.
This was due to an interest effect on the higher provision for the squeeze-out of the minority shareholders and slightly higher valuation effects of our embedded options. Higher finance income due to the increased interest rates did not make up for that. We made use of tax losses carried forward so that we reduced our income tax in the quarter. In the first quarter of fiscal year 2023-2024, we recognized tax expenses of EUR 25.5 million compared to EUR 34.3 million in the first quarter of fiscal year 2022-2023. This development was primarily due to a provision for tax audit risk in France as of 31st December 2022, which resulted in lower income tax despite increased EBIT. Finally, this led to a reported net income of EUR 125.5 million, an increase of more than 10%. Let's now move on to net working capital and CapEx on slide 16.
Our average net working capital was EUR 230 million. In order to avoid out-of-stocks during the important peak season, we increased our inventory. Receivables in the strong quarter were higher, especially from payment service providers, while our payables increased at a slower pace. As a percentage of LTM sales, the working capital amounted to 5.5% and was only slightly above the 5.2% we had at Q4 fiscal year 2022-2023. After a continuous decrease post the rollout of the AI-based inventory management software RELEX, which we used in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, and Poland, the DIO remained virtually stable. As announced, our CapEx was higher with a strong focus on store openings, mainly in Central and Eastern Europe. Main investments related especially to the 19th gross store openings as well as to store refurbishments.
Furthermore, we continue to invest in the establishment of a group-wide uniform e-com platform as part of our Let it Bloom strategy. On the last two slides of my presentation, we will review our cash flow and liquidity situation. Let's start with the free cash flow bridge on slide 17. Since we have already discussed most of the positions, I will only explain the position "others" as we did not touch upon this yet. The cash inflow from the position "others" resulted especially from value-added taxes. Furthermore, we contributed more to provision for the severance payments and accrued more liabilities to employees, which built up over the year. Thanks to the positive development in Adjusted EBITDA combined with a stable cash contribution from working capital and "others," our free cash flow after EBITDA adjustments amounted to EUR 459 million, an increase of 14%.
Let me add one remark on the prior year free cash flow, as the number shown here differs by EUR 210 million from the number you probably found in last year's bond report. As of 22nd December , we had invested this amount into a money market fund, which we regarded as cash equivalent, as this is economically the case for such a fungible instrument. However, we had to reclassify this fund to current other financial assets, which resulted in a reduction of cash as of 31st December 2022, in the interim consolidated financial statement of financial positions by this amount.
Accordingly, the interim consolidated statement of cash flows, the net cash flow from investing activities for the comparative period from 1st October 2022, until 31st December 2022, was reduced by this amount, as the payments for the purchase of the money market instruments were presented as payments for investments in other current financial assets, which resulted in a reduction of cash in the same amount of EUR 210 million as of December 2022. Economically, we added this back to the cash flow as presented on the slide here. This year, we did not have any comparable effects. On slide 18, we show our liquidity and leverage. The change in cash balance versus last year results first and foremost from the better operational performance and fully offsets the increase in interest paid due to the higher market interest rates.
In total, we had EUR 553 million cash on hand at the end of Q1 2024. The RCF is fully undrawn, with only EUR 9 million used for reserved or rental guarantees. This gives us a significant liquidity headroom of around EUR 740 million. We feel comfortably funded with cash for at least the next 12 months. Our net debt amounted to EUR 3.1 billion carrying amounts and reduced slightly compared to prior year. Please bear in mind that this number also includes the IFRS 16 lease liabilities. Thanks to the strong business development and the good cash balance, our leverage ratio decreased to 4.0x and thus stood significantly below last year's level and also below the level of Q4. We strive to continue our deleveraging path by focusing on strict cost discipline and cash management and by capitalizing on our strengths.
Ladies and gentlemen, with that, I conclude the financial part of today's presentation. Thanks for your attention, and hand it back to you, Sander.
Yes, Mark, thank you very much. In chapter three, we wanted to give you a brief update on the Let it Bloom strategy. What you can see on page 22 is just we are reiterating the fact that with Let it Bloom, we are focusing on four key pillars. It would be the number one beauty destination in all markets, to offer the most relevant and distinctive range of brands, to deliver the most customer-friendly omnichannel experience, and to build a focused and efficient operating model. For each of those pillars, we have identified and defined a number of strategic initiatives, as you can see on page 20 in light blue. Today, I wanted to give you an update on brand communication, ESG, and network development.
Let me start with our network development plan on slide 21. We currently are up and running with a store network expansion program, which includes an extensive opening and an extensive refurbishment plan. We have launched a program internally to develop and expand our store network as a crucial element of the Let it Bloom strategy. We formulated an objective to open net 200 additional stores in basically the next three years, which includes the four months which are now currently behind us. By the end of 2025-2026, we want to add 200 stores to our current network. We have a strong focus on the CEE, where we estimate that roughly 40%, so that equals ±80 out of 200 stores, will be opened. The remaining 120 stores will basically be opened in the existing geographies. At this point in time, we have not planned any new country expansions.
In addition to that, we want to refurbish 400 of our existing stores with a strong focus on our two big markets, Germany and France. In those two markets, we estimate that we will open roughly 200 stores, sorry, refurbish 200 stores, so roughly 100 stores for each of those two markets. By doing this, we are implementing our updated multi-format portfolio. We have defined two core store formats: our premium format and our luxury format. The core range we are focusing on is between 100-800 square meters. We really are trying to bring more consistency, simplicity, and scalability in our store network. We did open 19 store openings in Q1. Mark was referring earlier to a number of 17, but that includes the closures.
For this year, 2024, we are well on track, and we have some very, very exciting new store openings in the pipeline in Hamburg, Paris, and Genk. In Genk, Belgium, we have currently one store open plus our online store, but there is more in the pipeline. I'm happy to announce that we will soon open our store in Genk. Then we also have a very exciting project in Austria, where our largest store is based in Vienna. Internally, we call that the House of Beauty. Currently, we are in a refurbishment process with the objective to reopen the fully refurbished store just before the summer, which is going to be very, very exciting because that will basically be a luxury flagship in the Austrian market. Moving on to the second initiative, which I wanted to talk about today, that is ESG.
Clearly, ESG for a sizable company with ambitions going forward is very, very important. Over the past year, we've updated our strategy internally, and we've also set more specific targets, goals, and deadlines. We've also clearly allocated the responsibility of ESG not only to the top management of Douglas with the three management board members, Sander, Philip, and Mark. For each of us, one of our four bonus KPIs is being determined by our ability to deploy ESG. We've also done the same for all the rest of the management. Every manager at Douglas, let's say above the store management, has ESG as one of their, let's say, key targets for a short-term remuneration element. We have recently launched our second sustainability report for the full year 2022-2023. We did it early February, and in that report, we included an updated and also more ambitious sustainability strategy.
We've defined three, what we call, focus areas: people, planet, and brand. For people, we want to create a workplace championing diversity, equity, and inclusion, driven by setting clear priorities with clear milestones and owners. For planet, we have defined the objective to reduce our carbon footprint by 50% by 2025 in scope one and two compared to the baseline year 2018-2019. This is going to be followed up by further reduction steps in line with our science-based target methodology, which has already led to a reduction of 32%. In products, basically in the products we sell, in the brands we sell, we want to integrate sustainability in discussion with our brand partners. We are doing business with some very, very big companies like Estée Lauder, L'Oréal Luxe, Chanel, and Dior. All of them have formulated their own ESG strategies.
Basically, what we wanted to do, we want to embrace their strategies and work together with them to make sure that together we can deploy their and our ESG initiatives. In addition to that, we have an additional responsibility for the corporate brands. For Douglas, Susanne von Swedenberg, Jardin de Bohème, 123, because we are the owner of those brands, we are responsible for the supply chain behind those brands. For those corporate brands, we have formulated additional objectives, which is very much the ownership and the responsibility of Douglas. 80% of our corporate brands should be vegan by 2023, and we're working towards packaging, which is 100% recyclable, recycled, or reusable. Last but not least, we already had an obligation to report on our financial performance in an annual report every year, and we give basically an update to you every quarter.
We've now also committed to accelerate the frequency of our yearly sustainability report. The first report was launched two years ago. The second report was launched in February this year, but as of now, we want to do this on an annual basis to show progress and commitment. The third topic I wanted to talk about is about branding. From a customer perspective, DOUGLAS today is operating and owning four beauty retail brands: DOUGLAS, which is our omnichannel brand in 21 markets; NOCIBÉ, which is our omnichannel brand in France and in Monaco, which is formerly a separate country; parfumdreams, which is mostly an online-only brand, which we distribute in many countries as well; and then Niche Beauty, which is our, like it says, niche, very premium, high-in-the-category positioned pure-play brand. These are four customer-facing brands.
We've decided that we want to create a bigger distinction between, let's say, the group and the retail brands because for many reasons, we think it is important to make a certain distinction between that. Therefore, I'm happy to share with you that we've decided on a new corporate brand. This is not the product. This is the corporation, the company. As of today, the DOUGLAS Group is, let's say, speaking to you. You can also see it in the slides. At the bottom of the slide, you see the DOUGLAS Group is the name of the company, and the DOUGLAS Group is the combination of DOUGLAS, NOCIBÉ, parfumdreams, and Niche Beauty. If you would go to our websites today, or yesterday, you could already have seen that, you can see that we also have launched a new website, douglas.group.
That is our URL, and this is the group website. If you are, as a customer, potentially confused and you end up on this website, you can easily see that at the top of the website, there is a link which brings you to the retail part of DOUGLAS. We believe that this is going to help us to basically position the group and to make a distinction between the retail brands and basically the corporation. To wrap up on chapter 4, page 27. The summary: DOUGLAS Group continues with its growth trajectory and has entered the year 2023-2024 with very good results for the first quarter. We are very happy that we delivered a very successful peak season. Let's say we have three key consumer events between October and December.
This was the 10th consecutive quarter with group sales growth and 8% in this quarter, which led to almost EUR 1.6 billion net sales driven by all segments and all channels. A continuation of our omnichannel sales success with store sales up 6.7% and 6% on the like-for-like basis, and e-commerce sales growth double-digit by 10.7%. A further increase of our profitability with an Adjusted EBITDA of 12.6% leading to EUR 348 million and a positive net income development with a growth of almost 11%, clearly impacted by a one-off as a result of this litigation element, which Mark was referring to. The Let it Bloom strategy and its initiatives are driving growth. We've launched our store network expansion and refurbishment program, and it is starting to contribute to our top and bottom line already as we speak. We have demonstrated an additional commitment to sustainability with our updated ESG strategy.
We formulated and communicated ambitious goals for each of the three focus areas, as I just presented to you. With that, our presentation comes to an end. Yeah, okay. That brings us to the end of, let's say, today. Hopefully, it is very clear that Douglas is in good shape today. We have a continuation, I would say, of consistently strong performance both financially, operationally, and commercially. We have our Let it Bloom strategy. It has moved from basically the design table to implementation, and clearly, there is more to come. We are, let's say, positive about the future of Douglas and to deliver against the outlook which we have provided earlier. With that, I wanted to wish you a great day, and we hope to see or speak to you soon again. Thank you very much.