Thank you very much, Katie. Hi, everyone, and welcome to the conference call on PUMA's Financial Results for the Q2 , 2022. As usual, I'm here with our CEO, Björn Gulden , and our CFO, Hubert Hinterseher. Björn will take us through a short presentation, and after that, we'll be ready for your questions. Over to you, Björn .
Thanks, Gottfried. Yeah, short and short, I think it's about 20 to 25 minutes. I know you guys rather ask questions, but we also think we need to at least inform you a little bit about how we see things, and that's sometimes better done in a presentation. First of all, I would like again to repeat that we feel that we have had a momentum over, I would say, a longer period of time. We have grown every year, except for 2020, when it was the beginning of COVID. We've taken that growth and put some of it on the bottom line, and the rest we have invested in marketing, infrastructure and making the company better.
We have said to you that we think this business is a 10% EBIT midterm. Of course, since we said that, there has been a lot of negativity around us, which we will get back to. I'm still convinced that this is a double-digit EBIT business, and that's also where we will lead it in the future. It's also important that we feel that we have a people first, I would say, culture. That means that regardless, what is happening in the world, it's our responsibility to take care of our people, both internally, externally, as a family. I'm extremely proud of what we have done in the crisis in Ukraine. We have had many teams going in and out of Ukraine with supplies to our people.
We have a safe house that could, you know, hold more than 300 people. We have delivered food, water, and other supplies in there. We have taken out, I would say, around 160 to 170 people out of Ukraine, women and children, and we're currently hosting more than 110 people here at the headquarter, women and children, where 26 of the women are working in our office. I think almost all of the 70 children are in German schools or kindergarten. We also do the same thing in Poland, as I said, we do everything we can to safeguard the people that are run into these problems in Ukraine.
Also very proud to see that sports is supporting our teams here in Germany, especially Borussia Mönchengladbach and Dortmund, have played games against Ukrainian teams to collect money. I think so far, we have collected more than EUR 1.5 million, this way, which again, shows that sports is not only about winning, but also about sharing. The PUMA family, and the fact that we are convinced that people makes the difference, has been important, especially during the crisis in COVID, and knowing that all the issues we have around us and ahead of us, I think that this is one of the strengths of our company. Same is our attitude. We wanna be really the best partner for our consumers, for our retailers, for our suppliers.
Very, very important, but also, of course, also for our athletes, ambassadors, and influencers. This means to be fair, and also in a crisis, share both upsides and downsides, I think has been a very good philosophy during the volatility of COVID. You remember we had four strong quarters last year, where we grew 30%, and not only 30% to 2020, but also 30% to 2019, which, unfortunately, is the last kind of normal year. We started the Q1 or 2022, Q1, by growing another 20%. Very happy with that. Today, we released the numbers showing that we also grew 19%, currency adjusted in Q2, or even 26% reported.
That means that we now, on organic growth, are at 90% year to date. I think that's a pretty strong number, given the circumstances. If you break that down, the strategy of prioritizing our retail partners, which is here, wholesale, continues. Growth of almost 23%, D2C growing only 6%, brick and mortar recovering, of course. I can also tell you that, with all the stores having been closed in Russia in Q2, plus half of the stores in Ukraine, still being closed and some stores closed in China, we had about 11% of our store count not being operational during Q2. E-com growing, or not growing, down 4%. A, of course, that is going against very high numbers last year, it's also impacted by the negativity in China.
If you take China out, we would have grown 3% or 4%. We see more potential on e-com, but again, with all the operational issues, we are actually pretty happy with that number. We continue to open stores. We opened net 11 new stores during Q2. Here, the biggest one, which is a flagship, 650 sq m in Singapore. Those of you who know our stores, you can clearly see the elements from New York, and the store opening has been very, very good. In a market that used to be very good as long as the Chinese could travel, has been tougher lately, but is actually recovering as we speak. E-com, we continue to try to be a global e-com company.
All the black areas here are where we're already present before 22. We added green, which is Philippines and Saudi Arabia, at the beginning of the year. We hope to add all the blue areas during the rest of the year, and that includes my home country, Norway. I'm very proud of that, and also Thailand. We have also been criticized by some of you of not having an app. I have tried to defend ourselves that an app doesn't make sense if the e-com doesn't work smooth. You know, the e-com is for normal people, and the app is for your loyal fans. We felt that we needed to fix certain things in e-com before we went to an app.
Over the last nine months, we have then worked on an app, and we've taken the most digital-affined market that we have, India, and launched it there, you know, a couple of weeks ago. We used Virat Kohli, which is the most known person, in India, to launch it. We also took over, of course, the e-com site, and we connected it to our retail stores. I'm happy to report that the feedback has been excellent. If you go in and look at the ratings, you will see that we are almost at five stars on the major rating players, and feedback, has been very good.
That means that we feel we're now ready to launch also in the U.S., later Japan, and at the end of the year, I think we can also be in some of the European countries. I hope you will then download the app and check it out and report back. A lot of talk about the Metaverse or the Web 3.0, a new area for us, I'm sure also a new area for you. I explained that the Metaverse has two tasks. It's a digital transactional platform where you can sell digital product, like NFTs, and other future products. It's a experience platform where you can engage the consumer, and that's more of a marketing thing. We have started our first steps.
You know, we have bought some NFTs, we have the Cat Blox. We have the Gutter Cat, which we also have used as a, what should I say? Symbol on the LaMelo Ball shoes. We have also done other, I would say, Metaverse activities when launching products and now, you know, lately, the Slipstream. We are on Roblox. Those of you who have children knows what that is. We have our own game, and already mid-May, we had one million visitors, and that's growing pretty quickly. You will see us doing quite some activities here, like, for example, using it for launch of jerseys. The next one is the third jersey of Manchester City, which we will then actually launch on Roblox.
The real test, if we have gained enough experience, will be the New York Fashion Week. We will go back there for the first time, I think, since five years, where we were there with the FENTY and Rihanna. We will have a fashion show live that we call FUTROGRADE. We will then also mirror that in the Metaverse with a digital show, so it will be a hybrid experience, and there will also be PUMA NFTs that will be released that week during the Fashion Week. That will be a cool experience, which I'm sure we will learn a lot, and I hope you guys will take a look and be excited. If you look at the divisions, very healthy split between footwear, apparel.
Accessory is growing a little bit slower, you remember they had a huge growth in Q1, almost a healthy split. We do continue to push our lifestyle business through I would say collabs. We have chosen to work with upcoming young labels, I would call them very young. Huge success with AMI, Liberty, Butter. We have huge expectations on Noah, Kitsuné, and Rhuigi. As you can see, these are all young street labels that very much fits to our target consumer. We continue to invest in the classics. As you know, about 70% of the sports product that goes on the street are what we would call classics, shoes that originate from the 70s, 80s, and the 90s.
We have probably the biggest archive, together with the people across the street. We have to admit that Nike has done the best job here. If you take Jordan and Air Force 1 out of their thing, you will see that that's a big part of their business. We have started doing a better job here, we'll continue to do a better job. One of the steps was the launch of the Slipstream a couple of weeks ago, a Slipstream, a basketball shoe from the eighties, that we then relaunched in different versions, together with all our assets, first in Europe, and are now continuing to roll that out across the world.
First sell-through has been very good, and needless to say, the best color is the triple white that you see on the screen. Dua Lipa, the hottest, I would say, lady in the music scene, our partner launched her second collection last week in London. A lot of digital content, very, very good reaction, and another step of strengthening our women's business. In that area, also, we need to mention the Euro that is now going on in England, where England qualified for the final yesterday. The highest attendance, the highest television ratings, and finally, I think, a women's championship that gets the credibility that it needs. We had four teams at the start, you know, with, originally, designed the jerseys. Austria came to the quarterfinal. Unfortunately, we have no team in the finals.
We did a very big and important launch together with Liberty before the tournament, using players, making special collections. We are investing in women's soccer because we really believe in that for the future. Next year, the tournament in the World Cup will be in Australia and New Zealand, and I think that will be a fantastic event, knowing the interest of sport in both those two markets. The Men's World Cup, as you know, will be in Qatar in November and December. No one really knows how that's going to be, but I'm actually convinced it's going to be, at least for television, a great tournament. We have six teams qualified, and we'll probably have a 7th team coming up very soon.
As I said again, although Italy did not qualify, we will be very visible, especially with our, you know, South American and African teams. On footwear, we feel for a while now, we are competitive. We're taking market share in all the major markets, when you look at this, I think you agree, it's fast-looking, well-performing products. As I said, we're very confident that soccer or football, we will continue to take market share. Running, as you know, we've been in track and field for a long time, especially through Usain Bolt. We have not been enrolled in marathon running for a long time with performance shoes, we have not been in trail and outdoor running.
Given the introduction of NITRO and the new collections, almost two years ago, we have really made an in-ground and are very, very happy with the performance, both in competitions, but also the way the product is performing in the trade. We're just coming out of the World Championship in athletics, or track and field, in Eugene, you know, the hometown of Phil Knight and Nike. We had a fantastic event on and off the stadium. A lot of successful athletes setting both world national records, taking gold medals, and the visibility of PUMA has never been as big. I think the best indication of that is this picture.
This is the four by 100 meter for the women, the fastest women in the world. If you watch closely, you see that six out of the 12 runners are wearing orange PUMA shoes on the podium, which means they were also wearing orange spikes when they were competing, and 50% share among the fastest women in the world, I don't think I've ever happened from any brand before. More important, as I said, the translation then of track and field success into commercial goals, into real running shoes that people run in, again, the introduction of NITRO, without carbon plates, have been a huge success for us, and you see here some of the models that are doing well.
We told you last time that we will not be an outdoor brand. We will use the first successes in running to go in and out in the nature through trail running and versatile outdoor. We will have both footwear and apparel meant for people that are doing outdoor activities, not at the top of the mountain, but into the mountain. As we know, there is an outdoor boom. People are doing more activities outdoor. We wanna be part of it. Again, I'm stressing, we don't wanna be an outdoor brand. We wanna be a sports brand that also does product for the outdoor. You will see more of that in the next coming quarters.
The biggest success for our comeback as a brand, I think, is through basketball and also through this gentleman, JC, here with his son, and the famous PUMA airplane. The success has also been linked to LaMelo Ball, you know, our biggest player and maybe the hottest kid now in the NBA. We have with the MB.0 1 launched six course. They all sold out within 24 hours. We are then rolling out soon also the MB.0 2, which you see here in the middle, and next year, we will then have the MB.0 3, which I have happened to see, and it's the coolest basketball shoe that I have actually ever seen being made. It's not only men, it's also women.
At the Women's All-Star game, we had three players among the starters playing PUMA shoes. Breanna Stewart on the left side, you know, maybe the best female player currently in the world, is getting her own signature shoe. I think it's the first female signature shoe in more than 10 years, the Stewie 1. We will roll out, as you can see here, four colors over the next six months. The shoe is called the Stewie 1, and has already gotten very good reviews, and it's also something that she deserves as an enormously good player. Motorsport, I think I've told you before, since Netflix went into Formula 1 with the series, it's been a huge increase in interest. We see that through the sales of all our licensed products.
We also see that both Formula 1 and the W Series, especially through new races like Miami Grand Prix, is gaining huge interest in the U.S. You know, next year there will also be a Formula 1 race in Las Vegas, up and down the strip on a Saturday night. In addition to that, the sport itself is getting attractiveness. A lot of celebrities are being pulled in the direction of Formula 1, which is then, also then again, has a fashion influence. We see that motorsport is gaining acceptance, as a design influence in a lot of luxury brands, and of course, also in the center of the PUMA product.
The more activities we can do with partners like Porsche, where we have launched a limited edition, like you see here, is gaining attractiveness, and are doing both PUMA and Porsche and other brands very good. We are proud that we're the only brand that actually have a 360 approach with Cobra doing clubs, and PUMA and PUMA doing apparel and footwear. We had a fantastic year last year, you know, after coming into COVID, golf took off.
We have continued to grow the business, so we grow it currently more than 20%, and we are convinced that golf will be a major part of our performance business, and we're very happy with the development, both from a footwear apparel and also from a Cobra point of view. We have talked a lot about being a good citizen. That continues. FOREVER. BETTER. is our platform for sustainability and reform for, you know, how we deal with issues like diversity. Extremely proud that we were named the most sustainable sports and fashion brand. That is, you know, a recognition of the work that we do.
The two projects that is currently very interesting is, of course, the RE:SUEDE and the RE:JERSEY, that are kind of, I would say, indications of how we can do product in the future that will be less or maybe not harmful at all for our planet. You put all that together, you look at the regional split, very healthy split between EMEA and Americas, growing at 21% and 26%. APAC here being down, that's because of China. You take China out, you have a double-digit growth. You translate that into P&L, Q2, for the first time in the history, at EUR 2 billion. We never had EUR 2 billion in any quarter. That's a growth of 26% reported, 18 currency adjusted.
We lost 100 basis points in margin, mainly because of geographical channel mix, then you add the increased freight, then you have the 100 basis points. Nice leverage on the OpEx side, 150 basis points improvement, that gives you an EBIT of 146, which is almost EUR 40 million better than last year. EBITDA and net income in the same direction, numbers that we are very proud of. If you look at H1, putting the two quarters together, similar numbers, wholesale growing quicker than D2C. Very, very balanced split between all divisions, the same thing, EMEA and Americas with good numbers, APAC with China being down, you take China out, you have a double-digit growth.
We give you this also internal view, where you look at the five regions, when you look at it, the way we do it internally. I think the only interesting thing here that you should look upon is that Greater China, since Q2 last year, since the so-called BCI situation, down. Also these two quarters, all other regions, since then, up. I think you see a very strong PUMA brand globally, over the last, I would say, eight quarters, except for the situation that we all have, in China. You put the Q1 and Q2 together, you get almost EUR 4 billion in sales, which is 24.7% growth. We have lost 120 basis points in margin, I told you already why.
OpEx, constant, I would say, leverage through the two quarters, gives you an EBIT of EUR 342, which is up EUR 80 million. An EBIT of 8.7% after two quarter, which in my opinion, given the circumstances, is very good. EUR 0.5 billion in EBITDA and a net income being up EUR 50 million, I think we delivered everything that we promised. Balance sheet inventory, yes, up 42%. I will tell you about more about that in a second. The rest of the working capital issues in line with the growth, and basically a very healthy asset side, and a very healthy, I would say, managed balance sheet. Inventories, you see here that on hand, what we have in the warehouse is up 36% or about EUR 400 million.
That is, you know, just a couple of weeks of supply. On transit, still at EUR 750 million, and remember, in transit is about eight weeks, and this is where the major growth lies. We have had the policy during COVID, and especially with the lockdown situation we had in China over the last two months, ship everything you can, not hold anything, because if there should be a worse lockdown, we would then not have the inventory. Inventory is a little bit inflated by that, but it is in line with the strategy and what we wanted to achieve. A little bit about the future. Remember, we're 75 years old next year, one year older than the guys across the street. We have the longest history.
My history is since end of 2013. I feel that we have done a lot of good stuff for the brand in these 10 years when we get to next year. Most importantly, the attitude, I want it to be the fastest. I think that's been something that has been very, very anchored in this company, you know, of making fast decision and being fast to solve problems and fast to react. That is an attitude that we will continue with. What is new is that we will bring the two messages, FOREVER and FASTER, together as a slogan. FOREVER talks about the history, it talks about the classics in our business, which is a huge factor.
It also talks about, you know, FOREVER. going forward, so sustainability, and also the fact that we would like to build classics for the future, to build the future history. That is the left side, the FOREVER. FASTER. has to do with everything we wanna achieve in performance, in innovation, in design, in performance in general. I think it's pretty obvious that these two words in sports means a lot. We will only use that slogan going forward, we think it's very, very important that during a pretty cloudy sky going into 23, we need to have focus, using FOREVER. FASTER. in all the categories, having a very, very consumer-focused marketing, trying really to have fewer, bigger, better stores is going to be crucial for the success.
If you visualize what it means from a product, then on the non-performance side, sports style, the classics, is of course, the forever side. The progressive side, is where you have new designs, new silhouettes, where you're trying to bring newness to the market. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. And this is also something that all retailers are now asking for, and they actually segment their stores in classics and progressives, so it actually fits the way we think. On the performance side, it's all about faster, because you need fast products, to actually be successful. And if you visualize it with product, the classics on the left side, you know, that's forever. The faster is the progressive lifestyle product in the middle, and then in sports, you're trying in each sports to have the fastest and best product.
I think when you look at it this way, you see that we are confident that we're competitive in all of the different segments. Unfortunately, for the rest of the year, all the risks that we talked about at the beginning of the year, this is a slide from January. There will be some negative impacts still on COVID. There are still supply chain issues, and even if they're not there as issues, the freight rates are still high. The China situation has not gone away. We hope that after the election, that some of it will go away. We hope that the new COVID, what should I say? Policy will help, but we don't know. The geopolitical tensions are there, probably worse than in the last decade or the last decades.
The result of all of this is cost pressure and inflation. We know that from a COGS point of view, raw materials, the production itself, freight and energy, is putting a high pressure on it. That's why margin is under pressure. Of course, that forces us, in order to think about price increases. We have said all the time, we don't want to be the leader. If you ask me now, the price increases year to date, they will be in the middle single-digit. They will be a little bit higher in the H2 . When you go into 2023, you are looking at double-digit price increases in almost all markets. We'll again stress that price increases are something local, because the inflation are not the same in all the markets.
That might be that you have much higher price increases in certain markets than others. Our policy, of course, to have a global, I would say, structure in our ranges when it gets to, you know, the different levels of product. The individual price setting from a market is the responsibility of a market, and I think that's the only way of dealing with inflationary economies. Doing averages and random centrally doesn't work. We have very good experience with this, because we're very successful in South and Latin America, which are probably the world that has seen the highest inflation over the last decade. If you take all that together and you look at the outlook, here are the numbers for the last three years.
We told you that we will grow at least 10% currency adjusted, with some upside potential. We said that will bring you EUR 600 million to EUR 700 million. Today, we're saying that we raise our outlook on revenue to meet the team's growth, currency adjusted. We continue not to specify the difference with gross margin and OpEx, because there's so many moving parts that are external. We still promise you a profit between EUR 600 million and EUR 700 million. Needless to tell you, with the pressure on margin, we need always now a higher top line to achieve the same EBIT, and that's what we're going to do. With all of that, I think FOREVER. FASTER. is needed more than ever. We think we have delivered good results the first six months.
We have a positive outlook for the rest of the year, and although 23 going forward will be at least short term, more difficult, we feel that PUMA and our sector in general, will be one of the sectors that will do well, and we should be taking market share also in the future. With that, I think I stop and leave, Gottfried to drive you through whatever he wants you to do.
That sounds great, Björn . Thank you very much. We can now move on to the Q&A session, please.
Thank you. If you have a question for our speakers, please press star one on your telephone keypad now to enter the queue. Once your name has been announced, you can ask your question. If you find your question has been answered before it's your turn to speak, you can press star two to cancel your question. If you're using a speaker equipment today, please lift your handset before making your selection. One moment, please, for your first question. We'll go first to Edouard Aubin with Morgan Stanley.
Yeah. Good afternoon, guys. Three questions for me. The first one is on industry dynamics, then a question on distribution, and then a question on guidance. Björn , on industry dynamics, if you look at general apparel retailers, as you've seen in the U.S. and around the world, we had a number of warnings. I guess the problem has been that you had the negative scissor effect with, you know, pressure on demand, with inflation impacting, you know, consumer demand. On the other side, you had, you know, massive, you know, surge in imports in general apparel. Are you seeing any type of similar trends? Because we have less data, for example, on imports in the U.S. when it comes to sportswear specifically.
If you could comment on what you're seeing from, you know, the competition in terms of what's in inventory, in transit, and so on. Is there a risk that, you know, full price sales could be under pressure? That's question one. Question two on distribution, and we've talked about it in previous calls, but you have, I guess, a unique opportunity these days, is that the market leader is retrenching from wholesale. Your fans are saying that, you know, PUMA is being very opportunistic and nimble and taking a share from this. The cynics, the skeptics are saying that you're compromising on the quality of your distribution. If you could just reassure us that your, you know, PUMA products are being sold at the right doors, that would be helpful.
Lastly, sorry, on guidance. If we look at H1, as you reminded us, you know, so you had an EBIT margin expansion of about 40 basis points year-over-year. Your guidance, if we take the midpoint, implies an EBIT margin compression of around 70 basis points in the H2 year-over-year. I know you have, as you said, tons of, you know, different moving parts, and you're gonna have lower sales leverage, right, in theory, in H2 than in H1. At the same time, you could also argue that you have less headwind on China than you had in H1, and that's quite a profitable market for, you know, for you guys.
I guess the question is, are you know, being overly cautious given what you're reading, you know, in terms of all the macro headwinds to come? Are you seeing already the first sign when you talk with the, you know, the retailers, when you monitor full price sales at competitors, and so on and so forth, are you seeing the first sign that, you know, industry dynamics are getting more difficult? Thank you.
I think I'll start with the last part, which, of course, has many moving parts. I think it's fair to say that gross margin, going forward, at least for the time we can look upon, which is the next 12 months, will be under pressure because the Cost of Goods Sold are going up as we speak. The good thing is it's not going up suddenly all at once, but gradually it's going up because of the raw materials and everything we talked about. The freight rates are actually hitting across the peak right now. You're not able to increase prices at the level at your cost. That's why you see that in addition to a channel mix and a geographical mix, you have organic margin deterioration on the gross margin.
That's one thing. That's why you need, you know, more top line to achieve the same margin as you did before. When it gets to, I would say, the top line, I mean, no one knows what will happen, but it's pretty obvious that many retailers are nervous, especially on the apparel side, because, let's face it, a lot of the apparel that we're selling in the sports industry are, you know, apparel that also other vertical and apparel companies are doing. I think it's fair to say that the inventory situation that at least I think I'm seeing, is higher on apparel than it is on footwear. The alternatives to buy apparel are much bigger than it is on the footwear side.
If I look at the demand that I think I'm seeing, then demand for us is much bigger on footwear than on apparel currently, and people are more nervous on apparel than they are on footwear. Again, you can do the math, and you can look at the contraction of an EBIT margin in the H2 , and I think that's realistic, to be honest, because I really don't know if it would be healthy to try to go the other way and create leverage, because you will have to take risk on the top line, and you might price yourself out of the market if you try to kind of work too hard against the margin deterioration. Don't forget, you know, we are consolidating in euros, so we are in trouble also on the FX side very soon.
I think it's a fair assumption that the H2 will see a margin deterioration for the whole industry. Question number one, I think I already answered, because the apparel, what should I say? Demand looks to me to be more under pressure than footwear, of the reasons that I already told you. I think I'm also seeing a lot of cancellations on apparel in factories and piling up, I would say, apparel inventories on the Asian side of, I would say, many apparel companies. When it gets to distribution, the cynics that are saying that we are then, you know, deteriorating the brand because we go with bad partners, I would clearly say that those cynics are wrong. You shouldn't listen to them.
We only sell the Puma product to partners that also sells Nike and Adidas product. It's not like we are, you know, running towards retailers that all the brands are leaving. I think if you look at our distribution, we are pretty structured in the way we look at distribution on the lifestyle side, on the performance side, on the specialty side, and on the core side, which is the value side. We are getting more space because we're performing better, we are investing more. Of course, if Nike is what should I say? Reducing the amount of product that they give to this retailer, we will gain share. There's very few retailers that we sell to that Nike doesn't sell.
There's a little bit, I think, a misunderstanding that Nike is pulling out of retailers. I mean, they're reducing quantities because they sell more D2C. There's not many retailers around the world that we sell product to that does not have Nike on the shelf, or Adidas for that reason. I am a big fan of multi-branded retail. I do not believe that sports is a category where mono brand will work. I think the consumer, if you start running, you would like to get advice on what running shoe fits you, not only within a brand, but across many brands. If you're playing soccer, you would like to see the shoes that Neymar, Ronaldo, and Messi are playing.
Even worse, on the fashion side, I mean, no brand can always own all trends, so you would like to go into a SNIPES or Foot Locker or whatever and see what is trending. That might one year be, I don't know, canvas shoes from Vans or Converse, that might be a classic shoe from Nike, or it might be a motor shoe, a motorsport shoe from PUMA. I don't believe you can own the consumer across performance and sport style for a long period of time as only one brand. I might be the only one who think like that. I do of course see the spreadsheet margin is double as high and that the more D2C, the better you look on the spreadsheet. The question, how sustainable is it over time?
What size do you then need to say that that's the only way? We think that 70/30, you know, wholesale retail is the right mix. If you look at our numbers now, I think we are at 21, 79, we're not even close to utilizing where we think we could go. With the limited amount of merchandise over the last two years, we set the rule that if there is demand higher than supply, we will always give the product to our partners and not to ourselves. Of course, our D2C people are not very happy with that strategy. I can understand that, I think our retail partner has appreciated that attitude. Again, you are right. I mean, why shouldn't we be nimble if other people are not nimble? I mean, it's obvious that that is a strategy.
I hope that answers all your questions.
Great. Yeah, thank you.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from Zuzanna Pusz with UBS.
Good afternoon, thank you for taking my questions. Three questions. First of all, maybe just to follow up on the gross margin. You've mentioned there will be some sort of pressure on the gross margin next 12 months, and you also reminded us of the currency mismatch between your sales and COGS. How should we think of your gross margin next year? I mean, I think the industry is gonna push for some incremental price increases in the H2 of this year. I'm just wondering to what extent you will have the ability to offset the hedging pressure, FX hedging pressure in 2023, when we are just generally seeing inflation everywhere.
I'm just wondering, you know, how are you thinking about the consumer's ability to really absorb even more price increases next year? Secondly, maybe just a question on your sales outlook. The outlook implies still roughly double-digit sales growth in H2, which I think is quite positive coming from you guys, because you tend to be a little bit more cautious usually. You must be clearly seeing a very strong order book and obviously still strong trends continuing. I would be just curious, you know, to hear if you could tell us a bit more about the order book for H2 or just generally what are your thoughts on that?
It seems from your slides, which show sales by month, that in June you had roughly 14% growth. Thirdly, on inventory levels, it seems like they were up a little bit in H1, if I'm not wrong, roughly 26% of sales versus, I think, roughly historically, 2022. I guess, you know, there's hopefully nothing to worry about, given that you're obviously expecting a strong sales growth. Maybe, you know, if you could just reassure us, tell us if maybe that's also driven by the some of the inventory arriving because of the supply chain issues. That would be very helpful. Thanks.
I think on the inventory side, we have had the policy, as I said, to ship everything we can when we are afraid of a breakdown somewhere. You have to remember that three months ago, the lockdown in China started again, and, you know, 30% of our product are still made in China. We at that point in time accelerated shipments again. Some of that merchandise is then coming in earlier than it would have done normally. Some of that is then sitting in goods, in transit, which is more than EUR 750 million of that inventory. We grew 20% inventories up, I think currency adjusted now 36% or something.
That's why it is in line with the inventory levels that we have had before. The stock turn is the same as we had before. You have to remember that last year we had far too low inventory at the same period, so it's a little bit scary when you look at the difference. We don't see an inventory area in total. There are two inventory areas that you should be aware of, not only with us, but with everybody. The Chinese inventory level has been high because no one had expected that China should be so difficult, so long. There is what should I say? Inventory produced for the Chinese market that then has to be reallocated. Then, of course, it's the shutdown in Russia.
Since all of us, I think almost all of us, shut down, our stores in China, in Russia, and we have not imported any more product to Russia. Of course, we have produced for Russia. That inventory is also now currently being allocated to other markets, and that's a surplus inventory. I think that's two things that you should be aware of that is kind of a little bit extraordinary. The rest, I would say that we currently have a very healthy inventory because it's new products that are in demand. I always say, inventory, you can turn into margin, cash sitting on your balance sheet, you can't do anything with because it takes too much time. I'm not worried about the inventory right now.
I do see, though, that there are certain retailers, especially on the apparel side, that has too much inventory. I see that. That's why people are also nervous. You see, you know, people are canceling more, people are, what should I say, delaying more. People are nervous about back to school, I think in all markets, that is visible. We have a strong order book. There's no doubt we have an order book that for this time of the year is very, very strong. We do not expect to convert that whole order book. We are also conservative in our own guesstimates on how much of that we can convert because we do expect a slowdown in demand in certain markets. Everything else would be very strange.
When it gets to your gross margin and price increases, it is, first of all, very big differences from different markets. You know that there are inflationary markets already, that are way above the inflation that we talk about here in Europe. If you go to South and Latin America, we've had, you know, inflation for, I would say, the last decade. And we've done very well because management has learned how to deal with it. I think inflation in Europe and America is new to us. Price increases have started to happen already, Q1, Q2. As I said, we have price increases now on a global level in mid-single digit. That will go to, I would say, between 5% and 10% during the H2 , and then you will see double digit increases next year.
Again, you're of course trying to do that in a smart way, that you're not increasing carryovers that are visible to the consumer. You are introducing new price points, and you're weighting your collections a little bit different. No one knows how this will go. Is there a danger that the quantity and the value of all the products produced in our industry will be too high, and there you will get promotional activities again back to the old days? Yes. Again, we will have to do better than the rest. There's no other way of doing it.
The hedging effect in Europe, if you're looking at the dollar rate between 1.20 currently in a hedging contract and almost parity on the day course, there's no way that you can, you know, adjust for that in addition to the increases in your Cost of Goods Sold . The European side of the business will have deteriorating gross margin. There's no other way. You cannot adjust both those factors and plan for a positive development of gross margin. That's impossible. So we are planning with lower gross margin in Europe next year. America is different because, you know, we buy all our products in dollars, so U.S. is not hurt by the effects.
Thank you.
Perfect. Thank you.
We'll take our next question from Graham Renwick with Berenberg.
Hello, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. Just have two. Just firstly on China, I know you've always said that you weren't originally planning for any growth this year in the region. You know, China was down 40% in the H1 . Can you talk a little bit about how the recovery there has been so far since the reopening in June? Within that new mid-teen sales guide, what decline are you assuming in China? Secondly, just managing the risks of a potential downturn, you've been delivering pretty strong momentum, and presumably you're still planning and producing inventory for the best case scenario to sustain that momentum.
How flexible do you think you are in terms of costs and inventory flow, should we suddenly see a downside scenario where consumer drops off sharply across the H2 or next year, and perhaps you're left with a little bit too much supply? Thank you.
I think you are correct. I think when we spoke to you at beginning of the year, we told you that we have not planned with any recovery in China in 2023. We still haven't. We saw a little bit of improvement in the business in China in May, to be honest. As soon as you had some improvement in your business, you went into the lockdown situation. You didn't really know what was going on. The current numbers in China is a little bit better than it was before. There's no real change in the business. I can tell you what we are doing is that we are doing 80% of our product in China, local for local, meaning we're producing it in China.
That means that we are able then to shorten the lead times, and therefore we are able then to limit some of the risk when it gets to inventory. We have strengthened our so-called regional creation center. That means that in those 80%, a lot of those products are dedicated to science and development for the Chinese consumer, from a sizing point of view, of course, but also from a design point of view. We are trying everything we can from a go-to-market process when it gets to marketing, to be as local as we can. We still cannot use, I would say, Chinese, national celebrities, but there are signs that you can use, what we call, micro-influencers, more local heroes, in cities or regions.
We are trying to push performance more because it seems like that's easier also from a marketing point of view. As you know, the Chinese want their people to be healthy and fit, so there is a push for performance in general. The space side, we see that, you know, the expansion of retail space that was going on, didn't help the productivity. Right now we're trying to close some doors with our retail partners and have maybe fewer doors, but then bigger doors. Maybe on a square meter base, it's the same, but you will have fewer doors in a city.
It's obvious that given that margin is under pressure, we are trying to open more doors ourselves, and instead of giving a location to a retail partner in China right now, it would make sense to do it yourself. I think that's the short-term things that you're trying to improve. We believe next year that we can have a margin improvement in China under the same sale, because I think we then have cleaned up a lot of stuff that still has been an issue. The top line, I think we will go into the market with the assumption that we will be flat and hope for a turnaround.
In general, when you ask, what will happen if the consumer demand globally, shuts down, well, you know that then our industry will be over-inventoried. That is the history of our industry, and it's unfortunate that even if we would be more flexible than others and shut it off, we're all hurt by over-inventory. I'm worried about the inventory levels should, our industry be heavily hit, by, consumer demand because of inflation. We are trying to be very flexible. I mean, I can tell you, we talk about, you know, buy plan and stopping and delaying and all that, every week.
Of course, there is no way with, for example, eight-week shipment time, and a throughput time in a factory of a month, that you can switch on and off and adjust on a weekly basis. There is a risk. You know us, we always try to be conservative with our planning and then be flexible to gain more. That's how we work. The inventory level that you currently see is high, but that is relative to last year, and it's not relative to sales, and it's not relative to where we wanna be. It's just that it looks like the number is high. I think that when you get to the end of the year, you will see numbers that will make you more calm on the inventory side.
We don't see inventory currently as an issue for us, and I hope I'm right also at the end of the year.
Thank you, Björn.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from Anne-Laure Bismuth with HSBC.
Yes. Hi, good afternoon. I have two question, actually, one on the Asia Pacific ex-China. You have posted a solid double-digit performance in Asia Pacific China. I was wondering what are the best performing count markets, and what are the key factors of such a solid performance there? The second question is on the FX. With the strengthening of the USD versus EUR, and given your cost base is mostly USD denominated, would it be possible to have an idea of what would be the impact of a 5% moving USD versus EURO on the EBIT? Just, can we come back on the hedging rate, especially on the EUR USD, and how much have you hedged for next year? Thank you very much.
The Asia Pacific region, ex-China, is improving in almost all markets, I would say, except for Korea currently. You have to remember that all the other markets in Asia were hurt very badly by the lockdown because the amount of tourists and the amount of movements within the Chinese, within the Asian countries were very slow. Especially the missing of Chinese consumers were hurting badly. You're going against lower numbers, and because you're going against lower numbers, and we are taking market share, I think, without lying, we are actually growing in all the Asian markets, double digits, except for Korea. It's pretty much across all markets.
When it gets to the FX, I think I'm looking at Hubert and let him speak, so I'll go on mute, and he can talk to you.
Yes, hello, from mine. You outlined the question, how much a 5% FX increase would mean to the EBIT. This is very, very difficult to calculate because it's not only depending on the US dollar. Of course, we have cross rates with other countries, the inflation and the ability to forward prices are the most important areas to mitigate FX impact. This is really something which is not possible to answer. If we talk about how much have we hedged for 2023 already, for the H1 year, we're covered, we have covered our exposure almost completely. This is our policy. The FX rates are, of course, not as favorable as we had in H1 2022. For the H2 year 2023, we're at the moment at a 30% to 40% ballpark in hedging.
You can imagine with the current level of the US dollar, it's quite difficult to avoid negative impacts in H2. The difference is I would say more than EUR 0.10, definitely, as we had in H2 2022, a 1.20 hedge rate. I hope that answers your question.
Yes. Thank you very much.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from Grace Smalley with JP Morgan.
Hi, thank you. I'm sorry. I also have a clarification on the comments on gross margin. I think you mentioned that you expect European gross margin to be under pressure next year, given the currency headwinds and the raw material costs. I guess if we look at gross margin more from a global perspective, how should we think about that in 2023? It sounds like on the one hand, you'll have benefits from pricing and hopefully from China improving. On the other hand, you also have a negative mix impact, sorry, a negative impact from currency and cost headwinds. My second question on margin would just be, you started the call on confirming that you still think that this is a double-digit EBIT margin business.
Could you comment over kind of what timeframe now you think it's feasible that PUMA gets to a double-digit EBIT margin? Thank you.
The European gross margin is definitely going to go down because of, I would say, it's not possible to do price increases that cater for both the FX and the inflation in COGS. Of course, also short term, the freight will not go down, although it should. If you look at the P&L of the freight companies, they should be forced to take down the freight rates very quickly. The U.S. does not have the FX side, I think in the U.S. it's going to be a question of demand and how the consumer is going to react, and there's a chance there that you can actually keep and maybe even increase your margin, should the market move in the right direction. The Latin side is going to be tough.
You have the same issues there with both FX and, you know, the inflation. Asia is a big question mark. You know, we think we can do better in China, because we have better control at the lower level of a business. If you put it all together, there's no doubt that the gross margin will depend on how the demand side in the different parts of the world will work, and how good we are at setting prices that, A, are taking, you know, some of the pressure away, at the same time, not price yourself out of the market. There is a big uncertainty on gross margin. If I were you and I model it, I would be very, very careful modeling gross margin to be up.
I think it's very difficult to say where a global gross margin would be, but I would be assumed that with the same geographical and the same channel mix, you are looking at the gross margin that would be down for all the companies. Everything else would be very surprising. I think we look at 2023 as a transitional year when it gets to getting out of a COVID crisis into a momentum, and now we're going in again to a very, I would say, uncertain territory when it gets to both demand and margin. Having said that, I mean, we feel that we're quick on our feet and that we've been good working, you know, in both inflationary markets and in what I would call crisis markets.
Of course, our strategy is to be very, very flexible and react to the things that we see. I think it's fair to say that maximizing gross margin is not the goal. For us, it is to take market share and strengthen the brand and be well positioned for the future. When suddenly, and you know this will happen, freight will go down, inflationary pressure will go down, raw material will go down. It started already. If you look at cotton, polyester, oil prices, it's gone down over the last four or five weeks. There might be some, what should I say? Exaggeration in the expectation of inflation going forward. Again, we can't count on it.
If you take the situation in China out, and you take the Russian-Ukraine crisis out, and you look at that, we are at 8.7% gross margin, EBIT margin already now in H1, we would have been at 10% under normal circumstances. When you ask, "When?" Will I promise you that? Well, you tell me when China and the Russian crisis is over, and you know when it's going to happen. I think margin expansion short term now is a very dangerous strategy, and that's why we think we should continue with the growth strategy, with investment strategy, and then gain the benefit of that leverage, when we get into a little bit more normal territory. That's at least how we look at it today.
I think if we try to optimize, either by cost cutting, or by being too aggressive on pricing and gross margin, I think there's a danger that you can actually reverse things that we built very positively over the last four years.
Thank you.
Welcome.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from John Kernan with Cowen.
With Cowen. Excellent. Congrats on all the momentum in a challenging global market. Wanted to focus just on the Americas. The business has roughly doubled since 2019, which is incredible given the current environment. Just curious how you see the competitive environment in the Americas as we get into the back half of the year. It feels like inventory that we can see here in the United States looks elevated, both in wholesale channels, outlet channels, and even some of the direct channels. How should we be thinking about Americas, the margin environment in the Americas in the back half of the year, and how prepared are you to participate in a more promotional environment?
Yeah, you're sitting in the U.S., and I'm sure you're sitting on information that I don't have, so you probably have a better info than I have. You know, I'm an old shoe dog. I've been in the industry, and I think what we saw over the last 24 months was that, given the supply chain, we were pretty disciplined as a business. You know, there were less promotional activities, ironically, both the brands and the retailers was making more margin, everybody was happy. Now, of course, there is a danger that when supply has catched up, and is catching up, at the same time there is a nervousness on the demand side, then you know that retailers use 1 tool very quickly, and that is discounts.
I think you start to see it already. Therefore, you know, I'm not afraid as you that there might be promotional activities again, and if that happens, you know, we will be part of it. I don't think that we have the power to kind of sneak away when that happens. I think there's a misunderstanding that if you have a bigger D2C share, you don't have to participate, because that is not true. It's obvious that if the retailer in a multi-brand environment starts to discount, you cannot continue with full price on your own D2C and think that you will sell the same amount. I don't think the challenge decides what is happening, it is the total market that decides.
We are monitoring prices as you can think every week, and we are trying for retailers that are nervous about the inventory levels to find solutions other than giving discounts. We are holding back shipments. We are taking back the merchandise. We will, at the point in time, you know, take discount money, but there are many levels that we work with the retailers on. One thing is positive, that is that PUMA as a player in the U.S. market used to be non-interesting for the retailer, because we were such a small part of their business, so they didn't really care.
Because all the major retailers have growth plans, those, and they have seen that we have delivered to them what we have promised, both from a product, from a marketing, from a sales view, and a partnership, of course, it's a totally different conversations going on what to do and not to do. I think we are in better shape than ever having an influence on what is going to happen with our product in the different channels. Again, I don't need to tell you that should Nike go very promotional, it's not like PUMA will sit there and laugh and go full price. I mean, we all go at the same speed as well. We, we need to make sure that we are on our course.
I don't think I can answer it more different than that.
Understood. Definitely from our perspective, there's, you know, Nike and others are starting to get more promotional as we get into back to school.
Sure.
I guess my final-
Sure.
question is just on, you know, Asia Pacific, and specifically China. I think a lot of the Western investors and analysts are struggling to understand how Gen Z and Millennial consumers in China are thinking about Western brands these days, particularly in athletic and sportswear. you know, pre-Better Cotton initiatives and pre-pandemic, certainly there was great demand for Western athletic brands. Has there been a structural change in the way younger Chinese consumers are approaching Western brands in general? Thank you.
I mean, I'm sure you asked this question to all my colleagues, feel free then to correct me if you think I'm out of line. I think the Chinese consumer, in general, would like to buy Western brands and are buying Western brands. you know, even if we are showing negative numbers, we have to remember that most of us are still on 2019 level without doing real marketing. that tells you that there's a big group of consumers that are still buying all the Western brands, although they are kind of being told not to do so.
I think what I say, problem, is that the Chinese market on the digital side, meaning when you're selling on the market platforms or on your own e-com, you need the Chinese most influential people to help you convert. You know, having a LaMelo Ball or Neymar or Supermodel being the international carrier of your brand makes you international, but the conversion of getting the 16-year-old girl to buy your fashionable shoe has been in China, that, you know, the soap opera star or the singer or whatever, is actually converting her, and we have not been able to do that. That's why the e-com business in China has been mostly down.
If you look at the outlet center, you know, the out-of-town location that are selling, you know, the core of our brand, they have been doing okay. That means that the Chinese family that wants to shop a Western brand in an environment where you not buy the latest fashion and, and, what should I say, where you don't need to be influenced, these centers have the best numbers. That's why, you know, I read it like, yes, the Western brands are there to stay.
Yes, the Chinese consumer are still going to buy Western brands, to get her in to buy the fashionable stuff that at any point in time is changing, you need to be, A, digitally, and you need to be there with the right influencers, and that has not been the case since, you know, 18 months. That's what's been hurting us the most. You add COVID restrictions on top of it, and you see the results. I'm willing to make a bet that in five years we have, you know, a normal situation in China, because I cannot believe that 1.3 billion consumers that are doing sports and sports fashion will not buy the Western brands just because politically they should. That, I don't believe.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from Warwick Okines with Exane BNP Paribas.
Hi, thanks very much. I've got a couple of questions about pricing, please. Firstly, I'm just interested to hear about your experience of how consumers have so far responded to price increases, and what you think will happen as you raise prices by more into H2 and then double-digit again in 2023. Secondly, in this sort of price inflation environment, what sort of currency neutral growth do you think that you now need to see operational leverage? Do you think that the bar is lower now, given the price inflation?
The reaction to price increase is a difficult one, because remember, we have not taken existing products and priced them up. What we have done in the, let's say, 5%, 6% price increases that we currently have, is that we have introduced new products at prices that are higher than the previous product. I cannot tell you a reaction on the consumer that is measuring price increase on an existing product, because that hasn't really happened with us in any major market, except for those markets that have high, high inflation, like Argentina and Brazil, and those markets where we've done that constantly for the last, I would say five years.
It looks to me that some brands have overpriced certain franchises, because you see it later that they're taken down again, but I don't have any proof for that. I think the real test on the prices is coming, you know, next year, where you clearly would see that normal price points, if you go to a Foot Locker store and you say that the white sneaker from any brand is costing EUR 90, will now be EUR 100 or EUR 110, then I think you will see it. It's also normal price elasticity in our industry is that the lower price points are the worst one to increase. If you're used to selling in the family channel, a EUR 50 shoe, take that up to EUR 60, has historically made a huge impact.
That's why we will always keep a EUR 50 shoe, but instead of having four models, we will now have one, and we will have one at 55 and one at 60 and one at 65. You will, what should I say, gradually let the consumer choose if our price increases will work or not. This is, you know, as I said, local engineering, because it's very different from market to market, and from, you know, retailer to retailer. I don't really have an answer to you how the consumer have reacted. You look at our numbers, and they're fine, both on retail, and on wholesale. As you know, we are talking about mid-single digit price increases so far, so I don't think I'm the best measures for it.
I think you can ask some other brands specifically, because you can ask them about what franchises that they've taken up, and they will have a better answer to you than I have. Thanks very much.
Thank you. We'll go next to Simon Irwin with Credit Suisse.
Hi there. Couple of quick ones for you. Firstly, you talked about the app, and obviously with the launch into the U.S. and Europe later this year, and with the potential that supply will no longer be constrained next year, does that mean that D2C will be growing at least in line with wholesale or even ahead next year? Firstly, that one. Secondly, just a bit of clarification. When you talked about double-digit price increases next year, that is on top of this year's price increases, I assume. Just finally, on China margin in China, you talked about the volumes coming back.
Do you think those margins are coming back that you used to enjoy in 2018 and 2019, or do you think that now it's much, a much more fragmented market, there are more local players, that you probably won't go back to those historic margins in China?
What has happened in China is that if you look at the development of the local brands, they used to be selling similar product as the Western brand, but 30% to 50% off. If you simplify, they were selling copies or inspired product at a lower price. What has happened over the last 18 months, that all these brands have raised their prices and have, from a quality point of view, at least from a perceived one and at least from a lifestyle point of view, hit the price points that the Western brands have. That would indicate that when the consumer comes back again to the Western brands, because we do more relevant marketing, there will not be a fall in prices.
If there's not a fall in prices, and knowing that we're doing, you know, local sourcing and local currency, that should indicate that the margin will stay. Again, that's too early to conclude, because we don't know what happened, but there is no downturn in prices in general in the Chinese market. I would even be surprised, if you look at total and you include the Chinese brands, there might even be a price increase over the last 18 months instead of a price decrease. Again, I don't have any numbers on that, other than what I can see, and hear from the people that I talk to.
Your question on the app, on the D2C growth, yes, should the supply stay up, so that we can supply the demand in both channels, we will of course also give more priority to our own D2C. There's no doubt that the app will have programs that gives priority to D2C. There will be limited editions, there will be exclusive programs only at the app, which will not be either in the wholesale channel or in our older D2C channel. We are currently not planning or having as a target that we need to increase the D2C share, I think it's a fair assumption that one of the results of what will happen next year is that D2C will start to grow quicker again.
That's not an official strategy, because I will be stupid now going to our retail partners and now I give priority myself. That will be more, a result of supply being good enough and that the consumer, because we are doing a better D2C job, will turn to us, and we will then be able to cater for it in a better way that we have done. Not a clear strategy, but within, you know, we have told the retailers that our max D2C share is 30%. We're currently at 21, so we have the leeway of doing that, and it would, of course, also help, our margin. 2 was, what was the question?
The final one on just on pricing.
Yeah.
We're over 20% by end of next year?
Not necessarily, because when I say double digit in spring, it's compared to spring 2022, right? We are now at 5. If you put 10 on 5, you're at 15, you know? I haven't said 20 yet.
Right.
You are looking at mirror prices, season to season, that are going to be double digits.
Great, thank you.
Thank you. We'll go next to Jürgen Kolb with Kepler Cheuvreux.
Yes, thank you very much. Two questions from my side. First of all, can you quantify or give us an indication how much revenues you generate annually with real new products, in terms of share of revenues, or maybe in terms of units? I mean, given that you find it easier to increase prices with new products, would that be maybe an initiative to speed up the number of new product launches for the next years to, you know, go broader here? That's the first one. The second one, in your presentation, you showed one slide where you broke down your products into non-performance, the performance category, classics, progressive sports. On this slide, where do you think PUMA is currently best positioned?
Where do you think you need to push a little bit, in order to get better and to do better business? Maybe a quick word on your perception of, where you've done good and where you should do better.
Do you have half an hour? I think it's fair to say that where we have been lagging for a long time is to have a real breakthrough in performance, and, you know, performance is more dependent on having the right product than anything else. I think it's first now that, given that we cracked the running side, we have introduced basketball, we have, you know, both the golf and the soccer business under control. I would say that we cracked the performance side, we have now all the elements to be successful in performance, earlier we didn't.
Where we have done a poor job compared to the possibilities on the classics side, because, as I said, we have the biggest archive of shoes next to Adidas, much longer history than Nike, but we're selling a fraction of what they're doing on the classics side. I would say that we have cracked from a product development, the most difficult area, which is performance. I can go toe-to-toe with any of the other brands in any category currently, when it gets to the foam, to the plate, to the upper, to the technologies, the look. Where we've had the biggest, let's say, opportunity, but have done the worst job, is on the classics side.
There are, what should I say, different things that we need to do to be successful, but all the elements are there. Your question about how much is new product and old product is a difficult one, because it depends on how you classify it. If you look at apparel, almost all apparel is new, because either you change the color, or you change the cut, or you change some of the design elements, and there's very, very little apparel that is carryover from a business point of view. In footwear, it's different, because a lot of the franchises that are successful carries over forever. The Suede, the Clyde, the CA Pro, and there, when you say new product, what you do is that you upgrade some of them.
You might do a collab, I don't know, let's say you do a Suede with BMW, or you do a, I don't know, a Clyde with LaMelo Ball or whatever, that's where you take higher price points. The franchises themselves, the big part of it, are actually old products on the lifestyle side, because they're carry-overs from a model point of view, but then you actually upgraded them, either by upgrading as a collab with a partner, or upgrading it with a storyline, that you do better materials, or you do sustainable materials or anything.
I can't quantify it, the way you would like it, but I can tell you that in any volume product, even on the lower end, we will introduce a new, what should I say, SKUs, and be very, very careful with the saying that this SKU was 50 and now it's 55 or 60. That will hardly not happen. Price increases where the consumer or the retailer will see that we have increased the shoe by EUR 10, EUR 20, EUR 5, will be very, very limited.
Understood, very good. Thank you.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from Andreas Riemann with ODDO BHF.
Yes, good afternoon. Two topics. A follow-up on Jürgen's question. Running and basketball improved a lot. Maybe any insight here, how big are these two categories? Maybe a percentage of both combined. Any help would be appreciated. On China again, your comments imply that the lifestyle business is the tough part in China. This would lead to the question: Is the performance business also down 40% in China, or is it less? On competition in China, I think you started to touch that topic. My question would be: how are your products priced compared to local products in China? Thanks.
The running and basketball business, to quantify it is a difficult one, and I think I've explained this many times, is that most basketball shoes and running shoes are not being used for the intention. I mean, you know that. Again, I know all the brands will hate when I say this, 90% of running shoes are never being used to run, you know. That's why old people in Florida and Arizona are always buying running shoes, because it's the most comfortable shoe, they never run in them. That's why it's difficult when you say: "Can you quantify the size of the market?" It depends on how you classify it. What we have done is that we always sold millions of pairs of running shoes. We were in the sector of comfort that no one was running in them.
The new thing for us now is that we have a performance line, where people are really running 5 km, 10 km, marathon, half marathon with them, and we're gaining a new consumer that we haven't touched for a long period of time. Same with basketball. I mean, the number of basketball shoes that are being used to play basketball on the court is very, very small compared to, I would say, the halo effect that basketball has, for example, on your classic business. Both those businesses are much, much bigger than when you define the sports itself, and that's why the leverage on it is so big. If we look at the investment in basketball, I would say that the biggest impact basketball has for us in the U.S., is that we're selling a lot more classic shoes.
The 16-year-old kid that sees LaMelo Ball is playing PUMA, then suddenly understands that he can buy a triple wide Clyde shoes, because Clyde Frazier was also a basketball player, and it's now cool, you know? Earlier, he had no idea what PUMA was all about, because we were not seen in the sport that he cared about. That's why we can afford to do these investments, which in itself, if you measure basketball investment against basketball performance shoes, is not a profitable business. That's, that way. When you look at the China market and price points, as I said, we used to be priced similar to Adidas and Nike and other Western brands, and the Chinese brands used to be, I would say, 30% to 40% lower than us.
Over the last 18 months, I would say that they have lines in their business, either in their main line or even a sub-line price product up to our price point. There are now kind of competitive price points on everything with the lifestyle. When it gets to performance, it's different. You have to remember that China is not a performance country yet. The quantity of products that are being used for performance is very, very small compared to the lifestyle area. That is why the Chinese brands have not even, in my opinion, done a real effort in performance. They're doing it on the lifestyle side, but not on the performance side. If you ask the question, are also our performance down 40%? The clear answer is no.
There are categories in performance in China, in our business, that are even up. The loss that you have is on the non-performance side only. Hello?
We'll take our next question from James Grzinic with Jefferies.
Yes, good afternoon, everybody. Two quick questions, please. The first one is around freight hedging. Can you please help us understand when you renew your freight hedging and when you double lapse? That'd be very helpful in terms of giving us a total picture on the gross margin dynamics. As part of that, I think that's the case, but you did not switch your mix of deliveries in favor of air freighting at any point, in any significant way in recent weeks, have you? Or recent months, rather. I guess one last one, should I take it that the shape of your order book, your, has started changing in the U.S., given some of the comments that you made, Björn ? Could you confirm that, please?
The shape of the order book in the U.S. has changed in the sense that the people are ordering now, both pre-orders on the, what should I say? Normal lead time, and then they're trying to adjust the order book, either by canceling and replacing orders. They're trying to, what should I say? Adjust their order book all the time. If you go one year back, it was, give me product, product. That is correct. The shape and the timing of the order book in the U.S. has changed over the last four months, I would say. The mix of air freight hasn't really changed. We're trying to keep our air freight below, I would say, 1% of our total, and it's pretty stable. And we're only using air freight strategically, if we have to.
I don't need to tell you that shipping, you know, a pair of shoes, currently is $15 to $20, sometimes even $30. It doesn't make sense commercially, so we're trying to avoid it. What you call freight hedging is we are currently doing a long-term contract that are linked to the index. I think it's called the Shanghai Index on the freight. The latest contract we signed, I think took impact in May. It changes prices all the time because due to the what should I say? indexes. Our freight is currently for a 40 ft container going Asia to one of the major European harbors, I would say around EUR 7,000. Then, you know, on top of your normal freight, you have the what do you call it?
The oil price indexes that are changing. I would say that freight for us is currently peaking right now. We had very good short-term or long-term contracts, going into the year. We have a very, very good contract for the U.S., which are stable prices. As a global, I would probably say that the freight we are currently, having between EUR 7,000 and EUR 8,000 is probably the highest that we will get. It should start to go down again in 2023.
Thank you, Björn. Just to understand, so it feels like you've got, what, like nine months cover roughly on that, on shape contracts, and then you would resume to spot.
To be very honest with you, no, it's. I mean, we have a long-term contract commitment both ways. It adjusts prices on the rates every six months, but it adjusts the oil price indexes more often, so the prices could change from quarter to quarter. I do think, again, I don't have a guarantee for this because God knows something can happen, but I think the prices you see now in Q2, Q3 are probably the highest that you will see, I hope.
Understood. Thank you.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from Cédric Lecasble with Stifel.
Yes, good afternoon, team. I have two remaining questions. A follow-up on your comments on running on basketball. You've been an outperforming brand in good times. Now that things become more difficult, and given your new relationships and building relationships with some key strategic retailers, do you think you could continue to likely take market share, even if in a tougher world, because of your dynamics with retailer and with new categories and performance? That's question number one. Question number two, I was interested in your comment on multi-brand and the fact that mono-brand stores are dangerous. If we look at China, we have a distribution system with franchise-exclusive partners in many cases. Do you think there's the whole distribution model in China that should be changed?
You mentioned having more own stores, closing some franchise stores. What's your thoughts on that, and how fast could it go? Thank you.
I mean, to answer your first question, the answer is yes. I mean, we should outperform the market, because if not, we are doing a poor job, right? The target for us is to take market shares at any point in time, good and bad times. It's obvious that market share and growth is for us crucial, since we're smaller than the two big ones. I have to say yes to that, and you will measure me on that. When it gets to my comment on mono-branded and multi-branded, I'm coming from the consumer side, and I don't believe that the sports is the same as the luxury.
I do understand when you're paying 8,000 for a handbag, that you go to Gucci or you go to Hermès or wherever you go, because it's a very special product. Buying a sneaker for EUR 100 which you buy more often, I do really think that the new young generation will like to be in a multi-brand environment. I don't believe that, regardless who you are, that you can own the consumer. Therefore, I believe in multi-branded environment in our sector. When it gets to China, you know that that is a mono-branded environment, because that's traditionally how they've done it. I do actually personally believe that even China, in five years, will be more multi-branded, but I might be the only one who believe that.
You are right that currently one of the processes that we are going through is to rather open owned and operated in China than wholesale stores. That is correct. That, of course, has to do with the higher margin that we can do on that. Secondly, making sure that we take good locations that we can then control, expect in what should I say? Instead of a franchise partner that has many brands and maybe will give us a secondary or a third location instead of the best location. That is part of what we're looking at, correct.
If I may, just to follow up, what's the health today of your, of these partners selling international brands that have been suffering for all this time? Do you think there will be natural, like, rationalization of these partners?
Two big ones are two big Chinese companies, heavily financed, and I'm not worried about them. They, of course, are having a very tough time. Of course, right now, some of them are, of course, trying to take also Chinese brands on board, and what should I say? Not be so dependent on the three Western big brands. There's quite some dynamics on that side, but I'm not worried about the financial health of those two. There might be some regional players, because, as you know, there are quite some franchise partners in China that we never talk about, that are focusing on a province or two, and that might be different.
We are not exposed, in my opinion, to big losses, of people having financial problems. I think for us, it's about, having the, what should I say? The time to do the changes that we should do, at the same time, keeping the relationships. Reducing maybe some of the wholesale space to get the productivity up also in difficult times. Open our doors, ourselves, where that makes sense. Then, of course, continue to try to do performance pushes so that we can establish ourselves also, in, as a performance brand, in a market that will grow in performance.
Then latest, of course, try everything we can on marketing to see how far we can push it before this whole difficult situation is getting solved. I'm pretty optimistic. I don't know where I get it from, but I think after the Chinese elections in October, November, that maybe some of these topics can disappear.
Thank you very much, Björn .
No problem.
There are no further questions. With that, we close the Q&A session and hand back over to Mr. Hoppe.
Thank you very much. Thank you very much for taking the time to participate in our today's earnings call. If you have further questions, you know where to find us, you know how to reach us. Meanwhile, have a nice day. Talk soon. Bye-bye.