Hey everyone, welcome to PUMA's Q4 and Financial Year 2024 Earnings Call. As last time, today I'm joined by our CEO, Arne Freundt, and our CFO, Markus Neubrand. Arne and Markus will take you through some slides before we open up for a Q&A. Without further ado, over to you, Arne.
Thank you, Gottfried. Also a warm welcome from my side. Good afternoon to everybody. Before I guide you through the agenda of today's earnings call, I would like to start with some opening remarks about 2024 as well as 2025. In 2024, we recorded our highest sales ever with EUR 8.8 billion. I'm pleased that we showed a solid sales improvement by 4.4 percentage points in the 4.5% in constant currencies and also showed a solid improvement in our gross profit margin. However, I'm not satisfied that we could not translate our growth into additional profitability. We're very clear on the root causes and will address our cost increases with our Next Level Program. Yesterday, we announced our 2025 outlook. We announced that we would expect sales to increase by low single digits and currency adjusted and an adjusted EBIT after special one-offs between EUR 520 million and EUR 600 million.
We clearly acknowledge that this outlook is below our initial expectations, which we have shared with you during our Capital Market Days. Also here, we are very clear on the root causes and how we'll address them and make it the priority in 2025 that we lay the foundation to return back to profitable growth in the future. We will attack them with our brand elevation strategy, with which we want to close the gap in our brand strength between us and the competition. That is why in 2025, we'll continue to invest in our brand campaign, invest in innovative products, and also to invest into modern infrastructure to make sure we can service our consumers and our customers in a faster and a better way. With our next level program, we address our cost base to increase our profitability.
We see that we have grown very fast and have also grown a certain complexity in cost and also redundancy, which we will address with our Next Level Program and free up spendings, which we can then reinvest into our strategic priorities to make sure we invest into topics which are making value for our consumers, brand, and product. Finally, we want to become a more reliable partner in our expectation setting for the capital markets and investors. With Markus as our new CFO, we will ensure that our future financial scenario planning reflects better the market volatility in a more accurate way from now on. Now, let me turn the pages to give you an update on our Brand Elevation Strategy. From day one, when I took charge of the office, I said my number one priority is that we need to elevate the brand.
This is, for me, the only way we can build a foundation for sustainable and accelerated growth. This is what I stand for: the long-term success of the company. Why am I so convinced that we need to elevate the brand? Because we know that stronger brands have stronger market shares, and we know that stronger brands have also a higher full price realization. That is a very important point I would like to stress again. It is not about making our brand more premium. It is about strengthening it to improve the full price realization. We have different price points. We have tiered price points architecture from low price points, mid price points, and high price points. We are currently selling relatively more of the lower price points, and the brand elevation strategy will help us to sell also more of the mid and higher price points.
It is not about increasing prices, but increasing full price realization that will be a meaningful contribution to growth and profitability. Now, let me guide you again through our pillars of our brand elevation strategy. We said we want to do three things. We want to establish a distinctive brand DNA with the consumers to make sure we have a deep emotional connection of our brand with the consumer. Number two, we said we need to strengthen our performance credibility. PUMA is at the core a sports brand, and we need a strong foundation to be a credible sports brand. We said we want to attack the biggest opportunity in the market. We want to become more relevant in sports supply. This is commercially, from a sales and gross profit margin, the most attractive segment. Here we have been underperforming for years.
Now, let's talk about the brand DNA part. What have we done in 2024? 2024 was the first year of our brand elevation strategy, and we started to build the foundation. The work always starts with putting in place the right team. We have established a new consumer-centric brand and marketing organization here in Herzogenaurach. Previously, the team was fragmented between Boston and Herzog, and we pulled together all the resources here in Herzog, put into place a new leadership, and brought our new talents with new practices to become a more consumer-centric brand. As an initial step, we also launched our first brand campaign in 10 years and had meaningful progress in our brand KPIs with this. Lastly, we also worked on sharpening our brand DNA to build a deeper connection with our consumers.
Here you can see some of the KPIs I would like to share with you on the progress which we did on improving our brand health. What do you see on the left side? It shows our unaided awareness. It's a good proxy for the mental availability our brand has with the consumers. What do we see on this graph? We do see that we have a different level of mental availability in different regions. In our countries where we've been very strong, Mexico and India, we have a very high market, a very high unaided awareness. This correlates also very deeply with our strong market shares we have. In India, we have a number one brand. In Mexico, we are only a few percentage points shy of number one and number two.
Here you also see that our unaided awareness in key markets like the U.S., France, and the U.K. is still below the levels, but we are progressing. We are making meaningful progress as a result of our media campaign. Brand elevation is not a journey. It's not a sprint. It's a marathon. It will take multiple years, but we are making meaningful progress to do so. Another key point in 2024 was the work which we did on sharpening our brand DNA. It's again a new practice which we have adopted, working consumer-centric, and we gathered the insights from more than 10,000 consumers in some of our key countries to make sure we are identifying PUMA's homeland and can clearly differentiate our brand position versus the competition.
PUMA has always been the brand of the free spirits. Think about Usain Bolt, Neymar, LaMelo Ball, Rickie Fowler, the icons, the ones who dare to be themselves, go out their own way, achieve their greatness. We believe our brand positioning to say that the greatness begins with the courage to be yourself is very meaningful, not only for our elite athletes, but also for the everyday athletes. We're very excited to bring that new brand DNA life in our brand campaign, which starts next week on March 20th in all the derivative media. We're extremely encouraged about the results which we have achieved with our brand campaign and tested it against hundreds of thousands of different campaigns.
Here you do see that our campaign performs extremely well in the key markets in Europe, in the U.S., in China, on all the relevant KPIs, be it long-term KPIs indicating market share growth and short-term KPIs indicating sales potential, but also in terms of fluency, which makes sure that we are advertising for ourselves and not a different brand. Because the numbers are so strong, we further increased our media spend in 2025 versus 2024. Brand elevation is not only about the media investment. It's making sure that the brand shows consistently strong at every single touchpoint of the consumer. I also said that during the capital market days, our flagship stores have an important role to play because on these large stores, we can really show the full width and the strength of our beautiful brand.
We opened Las Vegas in November last year and will open our latest flagship store in London in October on Oxford Street this year. Of course, we also focus on POS excellence with our wholesale partners because this is the biggest commercial focus of us. Now, let's turn the pages to talk about how we strengthen our performance credibility. In 2024, we had good progress in performance overall. We grew our business overall, but also we gained market share in all the relevant key categories. In Europe, it was another strong year where we are now at 19% market share in the home of football. Also in road running, our latest venture, in 2021, we started to come back into performance running. In 2023, we were a top 10 brand. In 2024, we are now a number nine brand.
We show a good growth trajectory, which puts us into a position to further gain market share and positions in the years to come. Overall, with our performance business growing faster than our overall business, I clearly can also see that the quality of our sales improved. Again, this is very important for PUMA to have that foundation of a strong performance business. How did we win in performance? We win with strong innovation. That's what performance is all about for me: innovation, innovation, innovation. I'm particularly proud about the innovation which we brought to life with our Deviate NITRO 3, as it was also awarded by the Runners World Award. That our innovations work very well can also be seen about the personal bests of our world-class athletes, be it Julien Alfred, also the 100-meter Olympic gold medalist.
All of this innovation, we also bring to life with our wholesale partners, showing up strong to make sure our latest innovations are also available for our consumers. Now, let's turn the pages into 2025. How will we continue to strengthen our performance credibility in this year? Again, we will focus on innovation. We want to continue our success story in football by our new innovations around the Future, which will be visible at the world stages of football during the Women's Euros, as well as the World Club Cup in the U.S.. In running, we will continue to build on what I believe is the best foam in the industry: our NITRO Foam. As you can see from the graph, we have done a very good job of building up consumer interest and recognition with our NITRO Foam in the last years.
We believe that sets the stage for future success. We will further fuel the momentum with great innovation led by our new super shoe, the Fast-R 3, which we launched in Q2, which shows superior running efficiency compared to leading super shoes in the market. NITRO will also be at the core of our opportunity to tackle in training together with HYROX. HYROX is a global fitness running phenomenon, gaining hype in every single country they start. Meanwhile, we have more than 500,000 participants in more than 70 races worldwide. We focus on proposing our NITRO propositions on the footwear side and adopting our latest apparel innovation to fuel our apparel business. Talking about hype, that is also how we would like to continue to win in basketball.
We're excited that our first signature shoe for Tyrese Haliburton, our latest signing, will come to the market in the second half of the year, and also the first products from Salehe Bembury will be hitting the market. I told you how we will progress building the emotional connection with our consumers and how we are also continuing to strengthen our performance credibility. Now, let's turn the pages to how we are addressing to win in the biggest commercial opportunity. Let me first take you through the segmentation of the sports style market, at least how I see it. You have three tiers. You have the highest tier, which we call internally select. This is where the hype and the heat is being created. This is where the trendsetters are buying, the key opinion leaders. Then you have the second highest tier, which we call prime. This is where a trend-savvy consumer shops at an elevated price point.
Then you have the third tier, which we call core. This is the takedown of trend silhouettes at a more affordable price point. We have indicated to the right and to the left how each of the segments is contributing to the market, both from a commercial perspective, but also from a heat perspective. While select is a smaller commercial play, from a brand heat perspective, it is a very, very important play. How have we progressed in 2024? As I have always said, PUMA has a very strong offer in the core business, which is we are always winning with strong price value opportunities. This is what I also said in terms of full price realization. We are very dependent on the lower price points, and we need to elevate our higher price points.
We attacked it with select, and we were able to have some material shelf space gains in the course of 2024. I believe that puts us in a good position that we can finalize our transition prime in the course of 2025 and return back to growth because this is how I see that trends are trickling down from the select space into the prime space. Now, more particular, how is our sports style strategy based on which kind of pillars? It is on three pillars which we have newly introduced. Number one, on the product side. We said every single product which we launch needs to be authentic, needs to have a distinctive PUMA DNA, needs to be ownable for PUMA. We implemented a new go-to-market strategy, being patient, making sure we are creating demand before commercialization to educate the consumer on the new style.
Thirdly, we adopted a new marketing strategy, focusing on seeding and influencer strategies. We are gathering the talkability and the conversation on social media where also our consumers shop and seek inspiration. Ticket has been the first shoe where we really applied the three new pillars of our strategy: a new product strategy, a new marketing strategy, and a new go-to-market strategy. As I said in the last call, also in December, we have opened up for broader distribution, and we showed up very strong in the relevant prime accounts. What we see is that the demand is continuing to build up on this important silhouette, but even more important on the low-profile category overall.
We continue to see that the demand is building up month over month, but it's clearly also fair to say that the trend curve differs by region and even by country in the cities themselves where the global key cities are leading. That everything is pointing towards more low profile is not only confirmed by competition, but also by our latest launch in the Speedcat family, by the Speedcat Ballerina. This shoe clearly overexceeded our expectation, and we believe it's a fantastic shoe going into spring as well as into summer. Of course, we will not only rely on the Speedcat and on low profile. We have important silhouettes for every single trend. In 2025, we continue to maximize the ongoing demand in terrace and skate with Palermo and Suede XL.
We're continuing to focus now to scale up our Speedcat as well as the Mostro, but we are already today thinking about tomorrow, but how we want to create the trend, what kind of newness we are introducing with H- Street in the low-profile segment, what kind of newness which we are introducing in select and the running space as well as in the football space. Because we obviously don't have a crystal ball how the trend is moving, but we have different lanes in which we swim to make sure we are capturing the trend going forward. Finally, I would like to quickly give you an update on how we have progressed in our key focus markets, the U.S. and China.
In the U.S., we were able to return back to growth as we have outlined in the second half of the year, and we were able to also make some meaningful contribution in progressing with our brand awareness. In China, we also improved. Of course, we still have a very long way to go, but we are making progress and improved our market position by one position. Also, what was encouraging for me to see is that we are continuing to build up consumer relevance on the leading social media platforms where we see increased awareness and engagement with the consumers paving the way to continue that success. These are the three key pillars of our brand elevation strategy, but we always have three foundational layers without which the progress would not be possible. Number one, our people. Number two, our infrastructure enabling that, and also, as we are a good corporate citizen, our progress in the field of sustainability.
I'm also happy to report that we made meaningful progress in 2024 on our ambitious agenda 10 for 2025. 2022 out of our 2028 targets have already been achieved. I'm particularly proud that we were able to further reduce our CO2 emissions in our own sites as well as with our manufacturing partners, as well as that meanwhile 90% of our products are now made with certified or recycled materials. The fact that we are progressing well is also recognized by the different stakeholders in the industry. You see it's a very complex field with a lot of different awards, but it's also recognizing the fact that PUMA is doing a very good job in the whole width of the field of sustainability.
With the strong progress which we have done in 2024, we also introduced our Vision 2030, more ambitious targets which we would like to achieve in the field of human rights, circularity, and climate. We have validated the ambition and the realistic of our targets also with external stakeholders, NGOs, supply partners, and relevant regulatory stakeholders to make sure the whole strategy is vetted. To wrap up, what are the key messages to take away from the update on the brand elevation side? Number one, we are progressing. We're progressing to make sure that we are strengthening the brand. Again, this is for me the biggest unlock for the PUMA brand to make sure we are growing in the future, accelerated, and sustainable. It's the biggest unlock from a sales perspective as well as from a profitability perspective.
have improved our sales quality, growing stronger in our performance category, creating that foundation for a credible sports brand. We also made meaningful progress to transition our offer in sports style prime, putting us into the position to return back to growth in sports style prime in 2024. All of that achievement would not be possible without the great engagement and commitment of our unique PUMA family. Now, let me guide you through the financial results. As usual, I will tackle the top line and then hand over to Markus to guide you through our full operational performance. In Q4, we saw an acceleration of our growth to 9.8%, showing growth across all the channels, with wholesale coming at around 7% and DTC being more or less in line with the full year-to-date trend of 16%, with a particularly strong growth of e-commerce at around 22%.
We saw a good contribution from all divisions: footwear, apparel, basically at the same growth rate, and accessory growing 14.5%. We also saw that all regions contributed to the growth, with EMEA leading the growth with 14.6%. This puts us into the position that year-to-date we closed the year with 4.4% constant currencies across all the channels, all the divisions, and all the regions being up, contributing to our growth trajectory. As usual, we also provide you with a breakdown of the regional performance on a more granular level. Here you see that Europe was able to clock in 10% of growth. EMEA grew 26%, North America 2.4%, and Latin America 13%, and Greater China and APAC clocking in 7% and 10% respectively.
With that, I would like to hand over to Markus to guide you through our operating performance.
Thank you, Arne, and good afternoon, everyone. We ended the year 2024 with a solid currency-adjusted growth of 4.4%, as Arne just elaborated, and achieved sales of EUR 8.8 billion. Our gross margin improved by 100 basis points, and our operating result came in on last year's level, and net income was below the prior year. However, we are not satisfied with our profitability development. Earlier this year, we initiated the Next Level program, complementing the Brand Elevation Strategy to achieve sustainable, profitable growth. Let me take you through our fourth quarter results in more detail. Our fourth quarter 2024 sales improved by 9.8% on a currency-adjusted basis. As Arne mentioned, sales growth came from all regions, product divisions, and distribution channels. Sales increased by 15.5% in euro terms. As anticipated, foreign currencies turned into a tailwind, mainly driven by the Argentine peso. The gross profit margin improved by 30 basis points to 47.3%.
Taking a closer look at our gross profit margin, currency effects turned positive, mainly driven by the Argentine peso, U.S. dollar, and Turkish lira. Sourcing prices were a tailwind in the quarter, although this was partially offset by higher promotions as we remained agile and reactive in a more promotional environment. As wholesale sales growth accelerated in the fourth quarter, the general mix effect was less positive than in the previous quarters. Operating expenses increased by 15.8%. The increase was primarily driven by a lower base resulting from the Argentine peso devaluation in the previous year's quarter and increased DTC share and investments in our infrastructure. In addition, FX decreased our OpEx ratio by 80 basis points. Overall, OpEx ratio increased by 10 basis points year over year.
Taking a closer look at the OpEx ratio, marketing was broadly flat despite higher investments in Speedcat activations offset by lower lifestyle sponsoring. The increased DTC share weighed on the OpEx ratio. Other OpEx were driven by investments in digital infrastructure and our warehouses. Operating results increased by 15.3%, driven by our sales growth and gross profit margin improvement. Our EBIT margin remained flat to last year at 4.8%. EBITDA increased by 14.4%. The financial result improved year over year, mainly driven by a lower base in the fourth quarter last year, which was impacted by negative conversion effects from valuation losses related to the devaluation of the Argentine peso. The tax rate in the fourth quarter was at 31.7%, mainly due to a different regional profit mix and adjustments in tax rates. Consequently, net income came in at EUR 24.5 million. Let's review the full year 2024 operating performance.
On a full year basis, sales grew by 4.4% currency-adjusted and 2.5% reported to EUR 8.8 billion. All regions, product divisions, and distribution channels contributed to the improvement compared to last year. Except for Q4, FX remained a headwind to our sales and accounted on a full year basis to approximately EUR 150 million. The gross profit margin increased by 100 basis points to 47.4%. Let's take a closer look at the gross margin drivers. We see that headwinds from currencies such as the U.S. dollar, Japanese yen, Turkish lira, and Mexican peso, and promotional activities were more than offset by favorable product distribution channel mix, as well as tailwinds from sourcing and trade. Also, considering our increasing share in the DTC channel, we made overall progress on the gross profit margin side. Operating expenses increased by 5.2% on a full year basis.
Let's take a look at the OpEx ratio drivers. The overall increase is mainly due to growth in our DTC business and investments in warehouse and digital infrastructure. Marketing spend and other OpEx was broadly in line with last year's share of sales. In addition, FX increased our OpEx ratio by 20 basis points. The OpEx ratio increased by 100 basis points to 40.6%. Our operating result came in at EUR 622 million, which is at last year's level. This resulted in an EBIT margin of 7.1%, 10 basis points below last year, as gross profit margin improvements were offset by increased OpEx. Currency effects weighed on the EBIT margin, which were mostly offset by underlying improvements in our business. The EBITDA slightly increased to EUR 971 million, while net income was 7.6% below last year, mainly due to a lower financial result.
Let's go a little bit deeper into the financial results. Overall, it decreased by 11.4% to EUR 160 million, mainly due to an increase in net interest expenses. Key drivers for the increase in net interest expenses are lower interest income in different countries due to improved cash concentration. Increased retail lease commitments led to higher interest on financial lease liabilities. Interest expenses increased due to higher rates and utilization. In addition, we had an impact from an impairment of an investment property. We anticipate our 2025 financial result to be similar to or lower than 2024 before Next Level measures take effect. The group tax rate increased to 25.9%, mainly due to a changed regional mix and a global minimum tax. In 2025, we expect to be about one point higher due to the regional mix and unused withholding tax.
Net income attributable to non-controlling interest increased by EUR 5 million in 2024 as a result of improved profits in the socks and bodywear business in the U.S.. Our inventories increased by approximately 12%, both in euro and currency-adjusted, driven by a strong increase in goods in transit to serve the new product cycle in 2025. The group's total inventory remains at adequate levels. In the fourth quarter, we accelerated inbound deliveries for the U.S. market ahead of the introduction of additional tariffs for China imports. In 2025, we expect to source approximately 10% for the U.S. market from China. Trade receivables increased by 11.5%, largely as a result of the sales growth in the fourth quarter. Trade payables increased by 26% due to an increase in purchasing volume and a lower comparison base than the prior year. Overall, our operating working capital decreased by 4% versus last year.
Working capital increased by 8.6%, driven by an increase in other short-term assets that was mainly related to the value of hatching contracts as per the end of December 2024. In 2024, we invested EUR 263 million, EUR 37 million lower than last year. The investments focused on owned and operated retail stores, warehouse, and digital infrastructure to enable PUMA's future growth. We increased our focus to optimize the return on capital employed. Let me give you some more background on the free cash flow development and net borrowings. The free cash flow increased by EUR 95 million to EUR 464 million in 2024. The Next Level Program, next to gross profit margin and OpEx, focuses on increasing financial flexibility by improving cash conversion cycles, review of alternative financing opportunities, balancing capital allocations, and direct towards high-impact growth opportunities.
We will share more details on the Next Level Program later in this presentation. Our net borrowings at the end of December 2024 were EUR 120 million, up EUR 101 million year over year. This increase is mainly driven by the share buyback and higher payments of interest and lease liabilities. This was partially offset by the improved free cash flow. We ended, extended, and amended our revolving credit facility in December of 2024. The revolving credit facility was extended until December 2029 and includes annual interest rate adjustments based on the achievement of specific sustainability goals. This is the main driver for the increase of EUR 290 million of unutilized credit lines. In 2024, we returned capital to our shareholders and repurchased shares for EUR 50 million. These 1.1 million shares were canceled and hence reduced the total shares outstanding.
In total, under the current program, PUMA plans to buy back owned shares for up to EUR 100 million between March 2024 and May of 2025. EUR 50 million of share buyback is remaining for 2025. The positive net income in the financial year 2024 and the execution of EUR 50 million from the share buyback program enables the Management Board and the Supervisory Board of PUMA SE to propose to the Annual General Meeting on May 21st, 2025, the distribution of a dividend of EUR 0.61 per share for the financial year 2024. Earlier this year, in January, we initiated the efficiency program, Next Level. Next Level complements our Brand Elevation Strategy to translate growth into increased profitability in the future. Our aim is to achieve an EBIT margin of 8.5% by 2027.
The Next Level Program focuses on three areas to strengthen our competitiveness: improve gross profit margin by decreasing product complexity and improving sourcing efficiencies. This also includes improvements in pricing and promotions that are supported by our Brand Elevation Strategy. Increasing our OpEx ratio by further reviewing effectiveness and efficiency across all function areas. This includes, for example, leveraging indirect procurement in logistics and IT and improving our OpEx ratio. We decided to reduce the number of global corporate positions by approximately 500. This includes positions in our corporate headquarters and regional offices. In addition, Next Level also includes selective closures of unprofitable retail stores. The third focus area is improved free cash flow by focusing on capital employed and cash conversion cycle.
This includes further working on improvements in receivables, inventory management, as well as optimizing our payment terms, especially for indirect procurement, and improving our capital allocation towards strategic investments that drive growth and return on capital. The Next Level cost efficiency program is expected to incur one-time costs of up to EUR 75 million in 2025, which are related to the closure of unprofitable owned and operated retail stores, restructuring expenses, and other one-time non-operating costs. In return, the company expects to generate additional EBIT of up to EUR 100 million in 2025. The reliability of our guidance was not what it should have been. I reviewed the root causes and identified that the planning processes are not living up to our expectations. I have a clear agenda to improve our talent as well as improve our planning processes.
In addition, I'm a big believer of business partnering that supports the improvement of our overall planning process. In a volatile environment, we need to improve the agility of our scenario planning. We are committed to providing reliable guidance going forward. In 2025, we anticipate that geopolitical tensions and macroeconomic challenges will continue, especially trade disputes and currency volatility, which is expected to weigh on consumer sentiment and demand in key markets. Against this backdrop, we expect currency-adjusted sales to grow in the low to mid-single-digit percentage range in the financial year 2025. Our assumptions are that the DTC channel will grow at a low double-digit growth rate, whereas the wholesale channel will be flat to up low single digit on a currency-adjusted basis. Currency translation headwinds on our sales are expected at roughly one and a half percentage points based on a EUR/USD of 1.08.
An adjusted EBIT between EUR 520 million and EUR 600 million before one-time costs. As already mentioned, one-time costs of up to EUR 75 million related to the Next Level Program. Turning to our first quarter of 2025. For Q1, we anticipate currency-adjusted sales to be low single digit below last year's level, primarily due to a soft performance in the U.S. and China. Due to inventory valuation facts in the previous year, a different phasing of marketing expenses and a high OpEx run rate, adjusted EBIT is projected to be around EUR 70 million. Including one-time costs, Q1 EBIT is expected to be significantly below previous year's level. Let me shed a little bit more light on how we see the gross profit margin evolving and improving in the full year of 2025.
We anticipate FX headwinds on the gross profit margin coming mainly from the U.S. dollar, Mexican peso, and Japanese yen. We continue working closely with our partners and development teams and anticipate improving our sourcing efficiencies. This includes contributions from the Next Level Program. On the promotion side, we are expecting improvements throughout 2025. The stronger growth of footwear is expected to benefit the product mix. Trade and regional mix is expected to have a flat contribution to the gross profit margin. Lastly, we expect an improvement on the gross profit margin side from general mix, which is basically a swap between the OpEx and the gross profit margin side on DTC versus wholesale. Now, let me elaborate on the OpEx drivers. As I said, the general mix has a swap effect between gross profit margin, where we see improvement and a deterioration then on the OpEx side.
Warehouse and digital infrastructure investments into additional capacity increase the run rate. Other effects also include continued marketing investments at around 10% of sales and cost inflation. Lastly, FX is expected to be a headwind on our OpEx ratio. The Next Level Program will allow us to address the cost basis as elaborated earlier. We expect an adjusted EBIT excluding one-time costs in the range of EUR 520 million-EUR 600 million for the financial year 2025. Improvements in our gross profit margin and the contributions of the Next Level Program are offset by the OpEx development and FX headwinds.
With that, I hand over to Arne before starting with our Q&A session.
Thank you, Markus. Just to wrap up again, what is the priority for 2024? We said we need to lay the foundation to return back to profitable growth. The profitability we will address with our next level cost efficiency program. As Markus had laid out, we are taking decisive actions to address our cost base. On the growth side, we have a clear brand elevation strategy in place. We know we need to become a stronger brand, and we will do so by continuing to invest into the brand. We are very excited about the next chapter of our brand campaign going into life into 2025. We continue to launch innovative products because that will not only create excitement, but also fuel our further growth in the field of performance as well as sports style. Finally, we also continue to invest into the infrastructure for growth, which will provide the better service to our consumers and customers.
With that, we would like to open up for the questions and answers.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star followed by one on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star followed by two. If you're using speaker equipment today, please lift the handset before making your selections. Anyone who has a question may press star followed by one at this time. In the interest of time, please limit yourself to two questions only. One moment for the first question, please. The first question comes from the line of Erwan Rambourg from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi, good afternoon, gentlemen, and thanks for taking my two questions. Firstly, on the 2025 outlook, so relatively muted growth in terms of top line. I think you ended the year last year with an acceleration in the U.S.. Obviously, there seems to be a bit of a macro uncertainty there. Can you talk maybe about how you view 2025 in terms of regional mix, i.e., where do you expect the most headwinds or pain or hurdles? Then maybe secondly, it seems that 2025 is going to be another year where you grow very nicely in terms of direct-to-consumer and with wholesale going sideways. How long do you think this will last? Is this the sort of new normal, or do you envisage in 2026, 2027, or beyond an outlook where you have as much growth in the wholesale channel as you do in retail? Thank you.
Thank you, Erwan , for your two questions. When we look at the geographical mix, we believe that the growth will be predominantly driven by our markets in Latin America as well as in EMEA, while our mature markets should be positive and contribute to the growth, but to a lesser degree. When you talk about DTC growth and wholesale, of course, our ambition is that wholesale is also a meaningful contribution to growth. I anticipate with a strong trajectory, which we see on e-commerce, that DTC is also continuing to grow faster in the future than our wholesale business. Of course, we aspire that our wholesale business has a more meaningful contribution to our growth in the future as well.
Thank you. Best of luck.
The next question is from Edouard Aubin from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good afternoon, Arne and Markus. Just in terms of kind of what's changed versus when you gave your guidance, you updated the market in November and more recently in January. If you could just come back on the two markets you highlighted in terms of the U.S. and China, that would be helpful in terms of was the deterioration very sudden and so on and so forth. That would be my first question. Arne, you reiterated several times that you think the guidance is relatively conservative. You don't disappoint the market. If I look at your guidance for the year, I guess it implies that you're going to re-accelerate to a kind of mid to high single-digit type of growth from Q2 onwards. Kind of what makes you confident that you're going to be in a position post this level of growth after sales contraction in Q1? That would be very helpful. Thank you so much.
Sure. I think you basically already touched what has changed since January. I think what we did not anticipate is the softness in February in the U.S. I think you also read from certain retailers and the relevant press that the traffic has been quite soft in the U.S. in the course of February after the inauguration and new regulations coming into place. Especially our consumer base, we do have a higher trajectory with our Hispanic consumers. That was a consumer which had a more muted sentiment, especially in February. That is something when you say 1/3 of your revenues, which we have in the U.S., had such a soft February, obviously you look more conservative than into 2025 than what we had planned in January.
In China, we see still two different dynamics. I see that the consumer continues to shop, especially online as well as in the outlet. This is, let's say, something which I do see. The traffic continues to be soft in our bricks and mortar, especially in the wholesale partner stores, which are more full-price basis. When you talk about the guidance for the full year for the next three quarters, indeed, we will see an acceleration of growth again. Again, Q1, we did see, let's say, that there was a certain softness, especially in the U.S., which we did not anticipate prior and came quite sudden. We feel, let's say, with the ongoing trajectory which we see in the direct-to-consumer and also the order book which we have at hand, we can accelerate back to mid-single digit then for the remainder of the quarters to overall land within the whole bandwidth of low to mid-single digit.
Okay, thank you.
The next question comes from Monique Pollard from Citi. Please go ahead.
Hi, afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. The first question I just had was whether you could give an update on how the early feedback and the scaling is going on the Speedcat and whether it's still safe to assume a mid-single digit million pairs of those shoes this year being sold.
The second question is just, as we think about the order books into the rest of the year, I'm just conscious that in January you talked about the reorders being flat year on year and softer than you had expected in the fourth quarter. What gives you confidence that that does not continue and then you get some order book weakness as we go into the second half of 2025, please?
Sure. Thank you for your questions. On the Speedcat, the mid-single digit units for the Speedcat family, which also includes the Speedcat Ballerina, which I just introduced in the presentation, is still a very reasonable way to think about our expectation for the Speedcat for the full year. We have seen, as I said, the demand continues to build month over month. Again, there's not a linear function how you can really project, let's say, how a trend has its tipping point and really, let's say, see the scale-up of the momentum. We still feel, let's say, all the indicators are pointing to the direction that low profile is becoming a more popular trend, especially now going into spring as well as into summer.
On your second question in regards to the order book and in terms of reorders, what we do see in terms of our order book is that we have a good quality of our order book, both in terms of the quality as well as, let's say, from an account perspective. We feel that we have a solid order book in its hands, which makes us confident that we can achieve our overall guidance. Again, with the volatility in the marketplace, we felt it's prudent to give a broader guidance on the sales from low to mid-single digit, which is broader than what we have normally done. Back to Markus's point, we want to become a more reliable and trustworthy partner in terms of outlook. We adjusted our outlook in terms of width for 2025.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Andreas Riemann from ODDO BHF. Please go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon. My questions would be linked to the Next Level Program. With those measures you announced, are you also able to make the cost base more variable, or is it rather one-time cost savings in the year 2025? Also on the savings, you mentioned EUR 100 million cost savings. Is that something that is building over the four quarters? Any insight here would be appreciated. Linked to that, I know it's a third one, but it's one topic. Is it fair to assume that until 2027 to get to your 8.5% margin target, knowing that there's cost savings, yes, but isn't it necessary to grow at least high single digit to in the end get to 8.5%? This would be my questions.
Thank you very much for your questions. In terms of the Next Level Program, let me start first. I outlined the three focus areas. Now let me talk about especially the improvement of the gross profit margin as well as the OpEx ratio. Overall, we have a very balanced approach between short and mid-term initiatives. Let me give you an example. I talked about complexity optimization.
Complexity optimization is an initiative that will have an impact more on 2026 and after, whereas I think we also have immediate initiatives also on the FOB reductions where we expect improvements in 2025 already. On the OpEx side, we took decisive actions. I just announced and shared with you also that we are reducing the corporate positions globally by 500. We made this announcement earlier this week and informed our teams globally. Just from these examples, you can see that there is, yes, there will be an impact on 2025 as we outlined on the EBIT contribution of EUR 100 million. Here, just also to clarify, it impacts, yes, OpEx, but also there are some gross profit benefits also included.
Then also going into 2026 and also 2027, we will have the balanced benefit of both the short term as well as also the mid-term initiatives. In terms of 2027 and the way you can think about the levers and the Next Level Program, gross profit margin and also on the OpEx side, we expect that both, I think, work streams and focus areas will equally contribute to the improvements to our overall EBIT margin. Yes, you're right in terms of, of course, getting to the EBIT margin of 8.5%. This also means an acceleration of our growth in 2026 and 2027 to mid to high single digit.
Okay, that's clear. Thanks.
The next question comes from the line of Warwick Okines from BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good afternoon. Thanks. Firstly, could I just come back on the Q1 sales performance? I appreciate that you've seen consumer softness in February, but you are a largely wholesale-driven business. So what actually happened to the order book? Have you seen cancellations? Good, because that clearly looks like it's negative in the quarter. And then the second one is actually just on the next level again. Could you say what's embedded in your Q1 guidance? Are there cost benefits coming through in Q1 already in your EBIT guidance? Thank you.
Thank you, Warwick. Let me take the first one, and then Markus will take the second one. I mean, number one, you're completely right. The majority of our business is wholesale-focused, but of course, let's say when the whole industry has a very soft traffic, our wholesale partners are equally affected by the soft traffic as we are in our own direct-to-consumer channels. That obviously then leads to a softer trade.
When you have a softer trade, there is a certain rephasing of orders because the call-off, let's say, can then be pushed back because of that soft trade. Please bear in mind that March last year had Easter holidays. This year, it will happen in April. There is, for me, one clear read that there is always a concentrated demand around the shopping holidays, and all of the wholesale partners always want the inventories to be ready and available for these important shopping holidays. If you take these two effects together, a softer February overall in the whole industry in the U.S., and then a shift of also Easter holiday, I think it clearly shows that there is a phasing of the orders between Q1 and Q2. Markus, I hand over to the second question.
Thank you, Arne. Regarding next level and the first quarter, we launched next level mid of January. We are, of course, taking swift and decided action, as we explained, but also as elaborated earlier. The impact, and I think then also will, I think then also be skewed more towards, I think, the remaining three quarters of the year as we, of course, started to work on it. Of course, we make immediate decisions, but more benefits are expected to start from the second quarter onwards.
Thank you.
The next question is from Piral Dadhania from RBC. Please go ahead.
Okay, thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. My first question just relates to the EBIT guidance for 2025, excluding the net EUR 25 million benefit, which the way we read it suggests that there's still a EUR 90 million GAAP. Could you just help us explain why there's a EUR 90 million GAAP in the EBIT number for 2025 before the Next Level Program costs and benefits come in? Does that relate to expected operating deleverage, which I wouldn't really expect on a low to mid-single digit revenue growth number, and based on what you said around the gross margin evolution? That would be my first question. My second question just relates to a clarification on the U.S. and tariffs. Could you just clarify that the guidance includes any potential increase in tariffs for product coming from China into the U.S., which I think you said was only going to be 10%? Thank you.
Okay, let me start, I think, with the second question and I think firstly. Yes, I stated earlier 10% of the imports to the U.S. are coming from China. Yes, we have baked this into our guidance for 2025. Regarding your first question regarding the operating deleverage, in the presentation and prepared remarks, I showed you one slide also showing the EBIT bridge and what the contribution of Next Level is. We have made investments also in the infrastructure as well as also I talked about in general about cost inflation. I think that is weighing, of course, on our overall profitability development. That is also where Arne addressed earlier. We initiated Next Level and are taking decisive actions to address our cost basis. That is clearly, I think, the rationale behind and I think to improve overall our underlying profitability and take decisive action with Next Level, I think both benefiting the gross profit margin as well as the OpEx.
The connection with the questionnaire has been lost. We now take the next question from Jürgen Kolb from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Two questions indeed. First of all, allow me, and sorry, but when I listen to your comments, I also read the press release. It all sounds extremely positive, bullish. When I go back to the 29th of January, your special call, you said good order book, huge progress in sports style prime in North America. We're confident that the distribution has improved and whatsoever. Now we get this guidance, which was certainly a disappointment. Please, can you tell us what categories and what products did not sell? Because you certainly concentrated on the ones that are selling well, but there must have been something which has not been selling well. Is it a category? Is it in a certain price point? Is it with certain retailers? Maybe some words on that one would clarify a little bit where you need to really work on and what has not really worked. Probably also this premium strategy, at least it's not yet visible. That's the first one.
The second one is maybe coming back to the guidance, and correct me if I'm wrong, so that I understand that. The EUR 520 million-EUR 600 million is the adjusted guidance, and that already includes EUR 100 million benefit from the Next Level initiative. Excluding this Next Level, it would have been EUR 420 million-EUR 500 million coming from EUR 622 million in 2024. I have not yet really understood the GAAP, first of all. Secondly, what really makes you so confident that Next Level in 2025 will already have such a significant impact? When you could again be a little bit more precise what the impact will be on gross margin and OpEx. Thanks very much.
Thank you very much, Jürgen. I fully acknowledge that the outlook which we have provided was a big disappointment, especially after our calls which we had earlier this year and also as a follow-up of November. That point is fully taken. For us, when we looked into the order book in January, we see it is still the same order book which we have at the hands today, but the softness of the U.S. market, and that is 1/3 of our business, was a surprise for us, and it's something which we have not anticipated. This obviously shows a certain dynamic in the market environment which we cannot control and do not have an oversight for the next nine months.
This is also where we said we really need to make sure that when we provide an outlook, we are considering the whole volatility which is currently available in that side. When I read the newspapers, yeah, I do get concerned currently on the consumer sentiment in the U.S. That is something which we have factored in. I think on what has not worked well or what has worked well on the product side, again, we have a huge product offering, so I cannot call out, let's say, one single product, which also would not be meaningful because, again, we try to stand on multiple feets. We are, let's say, in the process of transitioning our prime business back to growth. It is also always what I said in course of 2025, we will return back to growth in the prime business.
This does not happen overnight, but I'm still very confident that we end 2025 with a growth trajectory for the second half at least.
Jürgen, regarding your question on Next Level, first, in terms of the composition of the EUR 100 million impact EBIT contribution we expect in 2025. On the gross profit margin side, I talked earlier about the FOB reductions, and this will be the main contributor that we expect also to benefit our margin in 2025. On the OpEx side, we announced earlier, so we decided to make changes, I think, with our organizational structure, with the reduction of the corporate positions. In addition, also, I mentioned earlier indirect procurement, gave an example. We have now worked on, we have full transparency. We are a very decentralized organization. We've now, and I have created the transparency around our indirect spend.
Let me give you an example about logistics outbound freight. We have now transparency about our vendor partners. We see opportunities to consolidate and to renegotiate, and those are the processes, I think, that we have currently initiated, which will benefit, I think, then also 2025 already. Those are examples that give you an idea about what are we addressing, and I think then also with next level on the OpEx side across the personal expenses and non-personal. Sorry, one follow-up real quick. Next level, that is 2025, nothing to expect in 2026. In terms of one-time cost?
Yes, sorry. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay. No. In terms of one-time costs, next level, the one-time costs will be concentrated on 2025.
Got it. Thanks very much.
The next question is from Adam Cochrane from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. First question is, you mentioned a couple of times in the presentation that you're very well aware of the root causes for what has happened. Would you be able to summarize quickly for our ease what you see as the root causes of what's happened here? Is it really that the OpEx base is too high? The sales have been too low? You mentioned a few times about infrastructure, higher DTC impacting OpEx. Those are both things that should really generate sales as well. I really just want a bit of a clarification on where you see when you sit around the table and say, "Right, here's the three things that were the root causes of what's happened here." That would be useful. Secondly, in terms of the sports style prime retailers, are you having any pushback with them in terms of your discussions?
Are they all supportive of the strategy and where you're taking the products and things? Just a bit of a discussion about how discussions with those guys are going. Thanks.
Thanks, Adam. In terms of the root causes, let me take you through, let's say, first on the top line and then on the bottom line. I think if we go back to our initial assumptions, which we also shared during the capital market days, we had assumed that there's a market which is growing amid single digits, and we said we will outgrow that market. It's already an assumption which was not true for 2024. Based on our data, the market has grown low single digits, and the best data I have available for 2025 suggests something similar. That is, clearly, just from an industry dynamic, something which has changed.
When we look at terms in terms of the brand strength again, and going back to what I said earlier in the presentation, we also know from a fact that we are currently transitioning our brand strength. We still have a gap towards some of the competitors which have a stronger brand equity. As we are transitioning a volatile market environment, we do have a higher vulnerability than others. This is also why I do need to strengthen the brand, continue to invest into this one, that we build up that resilience because stronger brands can weather volatile environments better than brands with a lesser brand equity. This is why we continue to be very focused on building the mid to long-term success of the company by really making sure we are strengthening the brand.
Talking about on the cost side, I mean, Markus has already laid it out what has changed when you look into the bridges. We did see currencies is something where we continue to have a high exposure. Just, let's say, one fact, we have 1/4 of our inflows in USD, but more than 50% of our outflows in the USD. This is just something which has structurally grown over the time. We said the best way to attack this is, of course, to ensure a higher natural hedging. This is also why we said we want to win in the U.S.. We also win in China because both markets do provide a natural hedge. Currently, with the footprint which we have grown over years, we do have a higher exposure to FX than maybe other competitors. This is something which we are addressing by, let's say, the right market strategies, but also by diligently trying to limit our exposure to the other markets.
Secondly, when you refer to infrastructure, I would like to talk more about warehouses. What we are doing is we are investing into fully automated warehouses which are mitigating labor shortage and future wage increases. Short term, this might lead to a pressure on the profitability, but mid to long term, it is absolutely the right thing to increase further cost efficiencies. Just last year, two major automated warehouses went live, both in Europe as well as in the U.S.. This is, let's say, what we do see also on the depreciation and hitting our profitability. Obviously, with a lower sales projection or outlook than we have initially thought, it is obviously also a drag on the profitability.
Again, this is why it is important that we are doing the right things, which is important for the mid to long-term success of the brand. These automated warehouses are, of course, more efficient, but in the short term, they are more expensive in terms of depreciation than outgrown warehouses which are fully depreciated. Lastly, but this, I think Markus has addressed, we have seen with a strong growth which we had in the past, our cost also grew, and we focused more on growth than on efficiency of the cost. Certain complexities, certain redundancy of cost have existed, and this is what we are addressing with our Next Level Program to take these out.
These would be the three drivers I would like to call out in terms of the analysis of the root causes which we are addressing as we speak.
That's great. On the sports style premium discussions?
Sorry, my answer was so long that I forgot about this one. Adam, would you be so kind to repeat your question again?
Yeah, it was that you talked about the hoping for sports style premium to get back into growth in 2025. It's just how are the discussions going? What's the state of play?
Look, the discussion which we are having with the retailers is that they are very confident about the strategy which we have applied because basically, we implemented the strategy based also on their feedback that we need, let's say, to win in the upper channels to make sure we are winning with the key opinion leaders, with the trendsetters, and then it's only a matter of time when it trickles down into their accounts. They see the work which we have done in Select. They are seeing, let's say, what we are doing on the marketing front. There is a good confidence in our approach and that we are moving towards a low profile trend.
Thank you.
The next question--
I think also the good news is, I mean, the doors are wide open. Every prime account also sees, let's say, that we have the potential to be far bigger than we are today, but we needed to change a few things to make sure we can already succeed with this important account. Again, it's an aspirational account selling higher elevated price points, and I do also need a stronger brand to be able to succeed in that channel. These are the things which we are focusing on, elevating the brand, changing our product strategy, and our go-to-market strategy to succeed in that channel.
The next question comes from Robert Krankowski from UBS. Please go ahead.
Thank you for my question. I've got like two. First one, I just wanted to come back to your gross margin bridge. I think in Q4, promotional activity was a drag on your margins, but looking for the outlook for FY 2025, you're expecting it to be a tailwind. I just wanted to understand what will change after Q4 because one of your peers, I guess, is still planning to be pretty promotional from what we are hearing. I think the consumer environment is getting weaker. What makes you confident that promotional activity should be better this year? The second one is just, again, on the kind of cost savings, cost efficiencies program, we heard that there will be some benefits to gross margin in 2025. Should we think that this benefit to gross margins will be increased slightly higher in 2025 and 2026? How should we think about the phasing of this benefit for gross margin? Thanks.
Thanks very much for your questions. Let me take the one on promotion, and then Markus will take the rest. Again, I think what we are doing and investing into the brand, strengthening the brand, should obviously result into ensuring a higher full price realization. This is the controller bill on which we are working, and this is also why we feel confident that it's a good assumption to reduce our promotions in 2025 versus the prior year.
Rob, you're having a second question. Could you please kindly repeat? It's about a phasing of the gross profit margin improvements. Did I understand it correctly?
Yeah, the benefits. I think you mentioned that there will be some benefits on gross margin in FY 2025 and 2025, 2026, 2027. So I just wanted to understand whether the benefits should be higher in 2026, 2027 on gross margin, or would there be similar?
No, not clear. Clear. Let me take you through, and I think then also we started working on the FOB reduction right away with an impact on 2025. If we then look at 2026 and 2027, I mentioned the product complexity reduction, which will ultimately mean in terms of optimizing our material complexity as well as overall the complexity of our collections, which will lead also to further sourcing efficiencies also by higher quantities also per SKU. If I then look at, and I think Arne touched on it, I mentioned it as well in terms of the pricing promotions. Yes, we expect promotions also to be a tailwind in 2025, but also in terms of the pricing as well as also further full price realization with the further progress we are making, we are expecting for on the brand elevation side.
This will, of course, also benefit the gross profit margin improvements in 2026 and 2027 further. The expectation is that, of course, in terms of next level contributions on the gross profit margin, 2026 and 2027 will show more improvements than what we see in 2025.
The next question is from Thierry Cota from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon. Thank you very much for taking my questions. I have two of them. First, you mentioned a target of mid-single digit to high single digit growth in the next two years after low single digit this year and last year. I was wondering what was your market expectation in that context? I mean, do you expect to outperform the market or to underperform the market? Why makes you think that there would be an acceleration for you and/or for the market in the coming two years?
The second question is, after the EUR 100 million of cost saving this year embedded in your plan to get to the 8.5% EBIT margin in two years or in three years, how much do you expect in 2026 and 2027? Thank you.
Again, I will take the first one, and then Markus will take the second one. Look, I think we are looking at the same reports, and I think the trajectory for the market is that I think all the major trends are healthy on our sector. We do see that the sporting participation in emerging markets is still rising because of the rise of the middle class. The consumers are still looking for more well-being and healthier propositions, and at least it continues to be on trend for also on the streets.
The trends for our industry are all pointing in the right direction, but obviously, there are certain factors, and we have seen it in 2024 and 2025 impacting the consumer sentiment. We believe, let's say, there should be slightly more tailwind in 2026 onwards. Of course, we need to focus on our controller bills, and clearly, our ambition is that we outgrow the market. Again, it comes back to our controller bills. 2026 will then be the third year of our brand elevation strategy, and with every single year, we are progressing. Obviously, we believe we make further progress on strengthening the brand and also gaining more market shares with that one.
Secondly, of course, our product portfolio. We said also in our Capital Market Days, next to sports style prime, we also see opportunities in the training apparel field. We said also that 2026 will be the first year we have fully restructured our portfolio on the apparel side. We also believe that with our strong product newness and innovation, which we have already now in our showroom for spring summer 2026, it will be a meaningful contribution to further accelerate our growth or to accelerate our growth in 2026 versus 2025. Markus, you take the second one, please.
Regarding the phasing of the OpEx improvements, I talked earlier about our levers in terms of the short and midterm levers. Now, as we are making adjustments also to our overall corporate positions, I think they impact 2025, not the full year. Next year, we will have a full impact. W ill also give you an idea about, talked about indirect procurement earlier, that, of course, as we're now initiating the tender process and these improvements, we will have a full impact then in 2026 and after. We also have one of the areas that we are looking at, and now I'm staying on the topic of logistics overall, our warehouse infrastructure in terms of opportunities also to consolidate and to review our overall warehouse footprint. This is an initiative and a lever that will benefit more, I think, than also the later years, 2026 and 2027, then, of course, also what we will realize in the short term.
To answer your question in terms of the phasing, clearly, there will be, in terms of the run rate, in terms of the OpEx contributions, further increases in terms of the benefits we are expecting in 2026 and then in 2027.
Thank you. Just for clarification, your 8.5% EBIT margin in 2027 is based on what level of full run rate of the savings realized on a 12-month basis? I mean, how much would that amount to compared to the EUR 100 million of this year?
What we have outlined in terms of our assumptions are shared in terms of the growth rate, mid-single digit to high single digit in terms of the overall revenue growth rate. In terms of the run rate, in terms of the savings, we expect, and I think we shared with you, the EUR 100 million across gross profit margin and OpEx for this year. In terms of 2026 and 2027, we are working on all of the levers in terms of quantification and in terms of phasing. In terms of I have an idea, I have a number, I would like to make sure nothing also, as we discussed earlier, in terms of the reliability of our guidance, I think that we are not, and I think then also providing the numbers that we then may need otherwise to revise. What I can assure you, and I think we are very confident also that with what we have initiated with the levers, that they will take us to the 8.5% by 2027.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much .
The next question comes from the line of Jörg Philipp Frey from Warburg Research. Please go ahead.
Hello, gentlemen. First of all, I must excuse myself again on your Q1 guidance. I understand softness in the consumer, but the disproportionate decline of EBIT, given that this is already based on an adjusted EBIT number, is still puzzling for me. Is there anything which we can label as one-time regarding this EBIT decline which you guide for Q1? Has there been any hiccup regarding this rapid weakening of the U.S. dollar recently? You mentioned inventory valuation effects in the prior year. I do not recall anything there. Can you just help me a bit what is behind that? Secondly, probably can we go one by one so probably it is easier for you as well?
Thank you very much. Sorry, I was already jumping right on to the answer. In terms of the Q1 guidance we shared in terms of sales development, low single-digit decline compared to last year, and as we talked about the softness we're seeing in the U.S. and also in Greater China. In terms of the prior year effects, right, in terms of inventory valuation effects and prior year, so last year, if we look at the first quarter of last year, we sold then also inventories at higher prices. I think then of course also what the value was, and I think then benefited also from the inventory valuation in last year, and that's where we are not anticipating having a similar effect also in the first quarter of this year.
Coupled with, and I talked about it earlier, if we look at the OpEx run rate, I think if now taken into account, of course, also the low single digit, I think then also overall top-line development, then coupled with, of course, the higher OpEx run rate, this of course then putting pressure on the overall profitability. In terms of the overall marketing, and I think that's also the last topic that I also addressed, Arne shared earlier, and I think in terms of marketing, as we are launching also marketing initiatives in, and I think then also now in the first quarter, there's a higher marketing spend, I think then also in the first quarter compared to last year.
Okay. My second question is a bit more longer term. If you look at your minority position, which is basically, as my understanding, is socks and bodywear in the U.S.. Basically, 10-15 years ago, this was basically a zero profit drag for you. Now this business, obviously, or half of this business generates EUR 65 million in profit. Socks and bodywear is not exactly detached from branding. What can you really learn from the execution in this business, particularly regarding your branding strategy and better execution in a non-elevated atmosphere, so to say?
Jörg , let me take that question because I think socks and bodywear is always a good business where you can realize nice sales and also nice gross profit margin. It is a good profit contributor for all brands, including our brands. The beauty of that product is it does sit in all the different distribution channels from high to low channels. The good thing is that it's not detrimental to the brand health. This is something which clearly can also live in lower distribution channels and be an accessible product to lower-income people. We believe it's a good business. We believe it's a driving good commercial business and good bottom line. I think the only thing which we, of course, always look at is that we are currently in a joint venture partner, and we will always, let's say, evaluate also for the future what is the best way to proceed our business ventures going forward.
Thank you. All the best for the remainder of the year.
Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Wendy Liu from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for taking my questions back to us as well. One is on your pipeline. I guess a question to Arne. We all know that it's very difficult to project trends, but I wonder what will be your plan B should the low-profile trends do not take off, let's say, for the rest of the year? What are in your pipeline that you will push a bit more? Could it be somewhere between the core category or in the family channel or the sports performance business? This is question number one. Number two, I still wanted to get into the cost bit of your business a bit more. If I look at your guidance for 2025, excluding the cost efficiency program, I'm looking at somewhere around a 26% EBIT decline year over year on top of your guidance of the low single digit to mid-single digit of top-line growth.
Can you help us understand a bit more in terms of what are the costs underlying the it looks like the cost of doing business are a bit higher? What would be the top line required for you to ensure a flattish EBIT margin? That would be the two questions. Thanks.
Thank you, Wendy. Let me take, let's say, again, a bit of a broader perspective how I look at our business. At the end, you can, let's say, segment it into three different sections. We have a performance business. I showed you, let's say, that we are doing very well in all the relevant sports categories in football, running, as well as basketball. We have a strong pipeline, which makes me confident that we will continue our success in performance, continuing to increase our sales quality.
The second pillar is our core, our family footwear business. Here, I also say, as PUMA is probably known very well among the consumers, that we have a very strong price-value relation offer, making sure we have trend silhouettes on an affordable price point for our consumers. Also here, we are in a very good shape, having a strong product offering, a strong pipeline. We talk about the third pillar. We talk about our prime business. This is where your question was in terms of how dependent are we on our low-profile shoes, Speedcat. Here, of course, I mean, Speedcat is our lead model for low profile, but we have also more silhouettes speaking to the low profile trend. Mostro is the second one. H- Street also. We also have the respective takedowns for our core channel.
It's a whole family of products speaking to the low profile trend. We have also different lanes speaking to the prime consumer. We believe that one lane which we can start to build up is our tech runnings inspired on NITRO. We have the first prime accounts. We're very interested to take our NITRO propositions in their stores because they need, let's say, a new brand which can talk to their tech consumers. In the second half of the year, we will also introduce to certain key accounts our NITRO proposition. That is one further lane. A third lane is our court offer. We are working on a comeback of our most iconic shoe, of the Suede, of the Suede OG, which obviously is a good one.
We have worked in the last month of really cleaning the market of our Suede OG, so we have a clean market that we can bring it back. There is a third lane of football inspiration. The terrace shoes, as we know today, is one way to think about the football-inspired trend. We have also two silhouettes which take a more retro and futuristic look at the world of a football inspiration in that segment. We have, again, multiple lanes how we would address the consumer in that segment because, again, we do not have a crystal ball about the future trends, but what we currently believe is that everything points that low profile will be bigger tomorrow than it is today. I hand over to Markus for the cost question.
Thank you. If you look at the EBIT guidance, and we included in the bridge in the presentation, and I talked you through in the prepared remarks, and Arne explained also earlier. If you look at currencies structurally, we have with the exposure that we have nothing to the U.S. dollar, but also with China, we know nothing that's our priority that we are working on growing our business and optimizing our natural hedges, which will alleviate the currency impacts. You can see from the bridge, nothing that the FX is a headwind. I think that is significant that we've also factored into our guidance for 2025. In addition, if you look at the infrastructure, I think then also example.
Arne talked earlier and gave you the example about the warehouses and investments we made, but also in terms of what it means in terms of the run rate of the OpEx, including depreciation and amortization, there's an increasing, I think, which of course also increases our overall OpEx. I think then also in relation to sales, I think that we are expecting to be between low to mid-single digit on a currency-adjusted basis for 2025. This is, of course, if you now look at these effects together, I think that's why we took, and I think then also with Next Level, we initiated Next Level, and where we already took decisive actions and are addressing the cost base to make sure that we are aligning our cost and our OpEx structure.
Besides, of course, the gross profit margin improvements I talked about earlier to improve our EBIT margin towards by 2027 to 8.5%.
Great. Thanks.
The next question comes from the line of Cedric Lecasble from Stifel. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. I have two also. It's more follow-ups on questions that were raised. First one is on your infrastructure investments. Could you maybe help us understand on your automated warehouses and logistic investments, where you stand in this process, how long it will weigh on your cost structure when you believe it will be over, and maybe update us on the latter situation. You had some issues. They must be solved, but maybe you can help us with this. The phasing of your automated warehouses and logistic investments, basically.
The second question would be on a remark you made on the fact that you had higher exposure to FX than some competitors. I'm not sure to understand. I'd like, in about hedging, what is differentiating you from your German cousin, for instance, or from some other companies operating globally? Thank you very much.
Thank you, Cedric . Let me take both questions. First, on where are we on our journey in terms of warehouse automation? First, let's say, what is the scope? The countries are obviously the high-wage countries where we are seeking automation as the way forward. We are talking mainly about the U.S., Europe, as well as Australia in terms of countries being in scope.
In other countries, we are still relying on more manual warehouses because we still see it as a more efficient way, and also the labor forces are available in these countries. We had two go-lives in terms of automated warehouses in 2024, and we will have two go-lives in 2025 in Europe, as well as in Australia in 2025. Going forward, I think then we are completed with the majority of our automation projects. Of course, we will always look into projects how we can further consolidate warehouses and enhance to make sure we are bundling the inventory in the less warehouses. Let's say that would be, let's say, the foreseeable roadmap going for the next three years.
In terms of Latin America, the answer is still the same in terms of the outbound capacities. We are now in the situation that we can deliver the quantity as well as the quality which is required, but we cannot deliver it as efficiently as possible because we are still operating out of multiple warehouses. This is something which we have ramped up very quickly when we saw that our service provider was falling short of the commitments. We ramped up very quickly alternative options to make sure we can deal with the demand. It is a cost-efficiency topic which we are, of course, addressing in 2025, scaling up the volume first in the existing warehouses. It is important that we ship because nothing is more expensive than not shipping.
On the FX exposure, I think there are two markets with a natural hedge in my books. One is China because basically the majority of the business is also local for local. Our market position in China is not great. We are with a low single-digit market share. Also, the share the business has in our overall mix is more in the mid-single digit, while it has more meaningful contributions to competitors. In the U.S., our market share is also—we are only a number eight brand, also with mid-single digit market shares. Here, competition is stronger and has a more meaningful contribution of a natural hedge in the U.S. dollar countries. That is, I think, the main pieces which are dragging. If I also remember right, our exposure, relatively speaking, to Latin America has a higher weight than it has for the competition. These are the three factors to be called out.
Thank you.
Sure. I think what is important is, this is the structure which has grown over multiple years. I cannot change it from one day to the other. I think it is very clear that we are very mindful about reducing our exposure. This is, let's say, we are addressing with priority in these two markets because, A, we believe our opportunity there is big, and obviously, it comes with the effect that it hedges us naturally.
There are no further questions at this time. I'll hand back to Gottfried Hoppe for closing comments.
Thank you very much, Arne and Markus. Ladies and gentlemen, thanks for taking the time to participate in our today's conference call. I know we'll be seeing many of you during our roadshow over the next couple of weeks, and I'm looking forward to the conversations. In the meantime, if you have any further questions, please, of course, feel free to reach out. In the meantime, also have a nice day and talk to you soon.