Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the webcast of Fiskars Q2 quarter 2021 results. My name is Kristian Tammela. I'm the Director of Investor Relations here at Fiskars. As usual, we start off with a presentation by our CEO, Nathalie Ahlström, followed by the one by our CFO, Sari Pohjonen. After that, we'll be able to take some questions, but we add a chat, so you can start typing those in early in advance if you have any. Without further ado, I think we'll get started. Nathalie.
Thank you, Kristian. Good morning, everybody. It's really a pleasure and a privilege to be here today and talking about our strong Q2. Also, as we can say, it's an exceptionally strong first half for Fiskars Group. This is actually the strongest first half we've ever had in the company. Also looking at the Q2 , we now have five consecutive quarters where we've hit the all-time high in that quarter. Fantastic start to the year, fantastic first half. When we look at where does this continued success come, it really is Vita has made a step change. Vita is delivering not only on the top line but also the bottom line, and Sari will later talk about the programs that are now really delivering. Also, we can be happy saying that Terra and Crea, compared to last year, are really holding up.
They are really holding up and performing well. Finally, as you know, in June, we upgraded our guidance, to reflect this strong development. When we look at the net sales, as said, Vita really has a step up, and we have Terra and Crea holding up well. Also, when we look at Terra and Crea, we need to look at the first half in totality, and the growth figures that they are showing are significant when you look at the whole first half, because especially in Terra, we have a strong load in Q1. Let's look at the first half in totality and Sari will also mention that more in detail. In addition on the net sales development, we see that the US dollar headwinds had an impact on our business. To summarize the growth, 14% comparable net sales growth in Q2, that's amazing.
Really when we look at what's behind it, we have a strong portfolio. We have a strong portfolio that's delivering. The brands are delivering. Our top brands are really delivering, all of them, all categories, and also all countries. Earlier in these sessions, I've spoken about the weakness in UK and Ireland due to the lockdowns. We see that UK and Ireland start to be flat. Really strong portfolio with the brands, the categories, and the countries delivering. Overall, a strong performance. Looking at our profitability, as said, it's the good top-line growth, but also showing the power of the brands to increase the gross margins over the period, and also the programs delivering. You can also see here on the right side that the rolling 12 months profit is really going in the right direction.
Also with this, I want to say that we are going to have a capital markets day later in the year, where we also then will comment on the targets going forward. To the outlook. We upgraded the outlook in late June to a bandwidth of EUR 140 to 160 million of EBITA. That still serves us well in this situation because the visibility continues to be low. I know I say that a lot, but that's the situation we are in. We have more than 10% of our own stores closed in Asia at the moment, especially in Australia. The seasonality and the consumer behaviors are not what we are used to see, and we can't just assume it's going to be like in the past. Availability and the global supply chains that are a global phenomenon, of course, we are not immune to that.
The availability situation is something that we are working on every day. It doesn't impact our business per se at the moment, as otherwise we wouldn't have been able to do that good growth figures. It's a thing that we are really working on with every day. Finally, the inflation. The global increase in raw materials and logistics is, of course, impacting us. Thanks to our strong brands, as you see in the first half, the gross margins have developed well. As we go forward, we want to sustain, we want to future-proof the company, and therefore we are now even further investing in growth, where upfront investments in digital, especially in data and analytics, in direct-to-consumer capabilities online, the whole omni-channel experience, the consumer experiences that we have in the digital world.
We want to now sustain the growth, invest in the growth for the future, and therefore we are doing these step-ups in investment in digital for the second half. As a final note, Jussi Siitonen, our newly appointed CFO, will start in mid-August. Looking at the consumer every day and what are the latest we have been doing for the love of the brands, for the love of what the consumers are feeling. We were awarded the Red Dot Design Award for the best design for the garden pruners that you see here on the picture. We also had a good pilot here in Finland where we made the everlasting frying pans. This was based on an innovation challenge we had internally. This is a pilot where the consumers get their frying pans recoated to sustain the life of the product.
The Waterford range that has a new range there. The strong growth in Asia, in China continued, and we opened the first Royal Copenhagen flagship store in China, in Shanghai. Sari will later show also the significant growth figures that we are showing in the Asia region. Sustainability is also a very important growth lever for us. In the against throwaway culture, we did some leaps forward. We've now launched the vintage service in all stores in Sweden. We already have it previously in Finland, and also working on a pilot in Denmark to introduce a vintage service. As an example, we had the frying pan pilot in Finland. A core of our sustainability strategy is for carbon neutral future, and here also, we've done good leaps forward. Already 40% reduction compared to the base of the Scope 1 and 2 targets.
40% when we set the target as 60%. There we are moving forward. Then I'm really happy to tell you that when looking at our operations, we've added two more countries that are now fully renewable, and these countries are Denmark and UK. This means that all our operations in Europe today are using renewable energy electricity, all of them. This is how we do on sustainability. We go step by step and execute and deliver. Thank you. With this, I hand over to Sari.
Thank you, Nathalie. Let's indeed go a little bit in more detail through our Q2 for the year. I will start with an update on the two ongoing transformation programs. First of them is Vita Transformation, which we launched in October 2018. There we have now been able to complete certain initiatives during the Q2 , and thus we are also updating a little bit our view on the final outcome of the program. It will be completed by end of this year. The benefits that we have been talking about earlier, they will materialize, and the majority of them will be visible already 2021. At the same time, we have also now updated our view on the total cost for the program. They are expected to be approximately EUR 5 million less than in the initial announcement in 2018.
In terms of the restructuring program, there we have also updated a little bit now the time span. We now expect the program to be completed by the end of Q1 2022 instead of by end of this year. Other than that, no changes in terms of the restructuring program. If we take a look at Vita for the Q2 2021, obviously an excellent improvement in the net sales and excellent improvement in the result as well. In terms of comparison data, good to remember that Q2 2020 was really a, one could even say, a lousy quarter for Vita due to the major lockdowns we had both in our own retail and also for our customers in their retail stores.
Even if we are comparing with 2019, which was a more normal year, you can see that Vita has been growing a lot, and at the same time, we have also been able to improve the result significantly. What I’m particularly pleased about is that we’ve been able to grow in most of the markets, channels, brands, and categories. There are some pain points still. For instance, we can talk about hospitality channel, obviously as our customers, there are hotels, restaurants, cruise lines, and airlines. Those industries are not yet recovering fully from the pandemic, and that’s been visible in our business as well. Other than that, growing in China, Nathalie already mentioned a couple of initiatives there that we have been doing during this quarter, and that’s in the numbers as well.
In terms of the result development, obviously the volume impact is there, but at the same time, we have also been able to continue implementing or deploying the ongoing programs. They have an impact there, and we have been very strictly looking into our product portfolio during the past couple of years, and that impact is visible, for instance, in the pricing, which then bears a good meaning for the result as well. In terms of the first six months, good to note that the Vita growth has been on a comparable basis, 30%, so it's not only a question about the Q2, but the first half of the year. Looking into Terra, and here on a comparable basis, we saw a small growth of 1.6%, but it's good to bear in mind that year-to-date basis, the comparable growth for Terra has been 14%.
As Nathalie already mentioned, there were big load-ins already during Q1. Sometimes those load-ins take place in Q1, sometimes they do take place in Q2. This year it was predominantly Q1. On the category level, we were able to grow with outdoor and fixing during the quarter. Garden was flattish and watering was decreasing, as said, there were already plenty of load-ins during Q1. In terms of profitability on a year-to-date basis, Terra has been able to improve from the previous year. You all remember that we did benefit from a strong demand in Q2 2020 for the Terra products last year. Despite that, we have been able to grow and despite that we have been able to improve on a year-to-date basis the EBITA as well. In terms of the quarterly EBITA, there's been some pressure on the raw material prices and logistics cost.
This is something which is happening globally, not only for Fiskars. That has to some extent burdened our result. At the same time, also good to mention that on purpose, we have also been investing more in product marketing during the quarter. Looking at Crea. A somewhat similar story as for Terra in the sense that for this quarter, there was a slight decline or one could say flattish development in the net sales. If we take a look at the year-to-date development, we've been able to grow by 7% and compared to 2019, you can also see that this quarter was stronger in terms of net sales. In terms of the result year- to- date, we have been able to improve the EBITA. For this quarter, the EBITA remained slightly lower than in the previous year.
A bit similar implications than for Terra, the higher costs have an impact here. At the same time, the product mix has been more favorable, which has been partly offsetting the impact of the higher costs. In terms of categories, cooking was growing during the quarter, whereas scissors and creating tools were not. However, good to remind here that especially Q2 2020 was a very high quarter for Crea. We do see that in the Americas, especially the mask-making related activities are not at the same level as they were last year, demand has been normalizing there, and that is reflected in our Q2 numbers. In terms of the geographies, there was excellent growth both in Europe as well as in the Asia Pacific region.
Partly, of course, due to the fact that the soft numbers for 2020 due to the lockdowns, but also other than that, we have been able to grow. In the Americas, this quarter was negative due to the development of Terra and Crea, but we were able to grow with Vita there too. If looking at the profit and loss statement or the income statement here, I would like to draw your attention to one line, which is the gross profit. Or rather the gross profit margin. Thinking about the current businesses that we have in the group since 2015, after the latest big acquisition, this is actually the best gross profit margin for Q2 that we have been able to generate. Back on growth track on that one as well.
Internally, it's a very important KPI for us and really showing the power of the brands and also the product portfolio work that we've been doing in all the business areas, and be it the offering, be it the pricing or be it cost efficiencies there. If we take a look at the earnings per share, you see the quarterly number here. Just reminding that during Q1, we got a tax ruling related to an old tax case dating back to 2003 that was weighing the EPS during that quarter. Just reminding also that there is no cash impact on that ruling as we already paid the taxes and related items in 2016. Following the very good result development, we also have been seeing, again, a strong cash flow development in the first half of the year.
Our cash flow is always seasonal due to the seasonality of the business, but as you can see from the graph illustrating the development on a rolling basis, it has been improving starting from the latter part of last year, and we have at the same time been able to push down our working capital. It is also a seasonal item for us, depending on the seasonality of the business. As you can notice from the graph on the right-hand side, we have been very rigorous on the working capital management in the last quarters. About the balance sheet, maybe just drawing attention to inventories here. They are now on a more normal level compared to 2020 when we had really low inventories at this time of the year. Other than that, no major items here.
Finally, looking at our net debt development, thinking about the seasonality of the business, the net debt, especially if we exclude the leasing liabilities, is at a very low level, and thus also our equity ratio and net gearing have been improving. More as a reminder here, our long-term financial targets and how we have been recently performing against those targets.
Great. We have some questions. I'll start with one regarding our guidance. Maybe that will go then to Nathalie. If we compare the guidance of EUR 140 - 160 million in comparable EBITA to the 2019 clean EBITA of EUR 91, how much roughly of this is due to the pandemic, and how much is sustainable profit lift?
When we look at the sustainability, we are all here to ensure that we have a sustainable underlying profitability and also sustainable development of the top line. When looking at the second half and related to the question about our guidance, we live in a volatile world with quite poor visibility, also due to the global supply chain situation. As said, we are really now investing in growth, investing in the digital side, investing in talent. We want to take this opportunity as we go forward to a strong second half.
Right. The second question about China. In terms of revenues, how much is of the group and which brands exactly do you sell there?
Asia Pacific, as you know, is already more than 14% of our businesses, and as the figures Sari was showing, Asia Pacific for us grew 30% in the Q2. Strong performance there. Coming to China, of course, we are starting from a smaller base, but it's already starting to be substantial business. The key brands we have in China are Wedgwood and now also Royal Copenhagen. What we're really happy and proud about is that Wedgwood appeals to the young audience in China. Our loved consumers there, they are the young, around 20, 25-year-old Wedgwood fans who really are buying the products a lot there.
Thank you. To Sari, how do you see the cost base in the other segment progressing throughout the year? Does this mean that you could see double the cost in Q3? Will the normalization of the cost base in the other segment look?
As we were mentioning in the report, this is a timing topic. I can say that typically the other segment on a full year basis has been fairly stable. It's a question about timing topic this year.
Okay. Is it possible to comment on the split between short-term savings and the savings from savings programs in the Vita segment now in Q2?
Maybe I continue on that one as well. Not only for Vita, but generally for Fiskars, it's good to know that we did have a lot of temporary savings last year, starting from Q2 onwards as we were quickly reacting at that time to the pandemic and its impact to the business. Yes, there were temporary savings in 2020. However, during 2021, there are hardly any temporary savings. It's related to the overall good development of the business, including the impact of the programs.
Thank you. If you could, Sari, even take this third one. Is it possible to comment on your like-for-like growth in own stores versus 2019?
Versus 2019, I wouldn't draw any one conclusion on the own store development. Thinking about own retail as a whole, including then eCom and the omni-channel as a general, of course, the eCom channel continues to be extremely important for us right now. It's been in the past, it is of that right now, and it will continue to be hugely important for us in the future as well. Like-for-like comparison, there is no one single answer to that. The situation varies quite a bit between the markets, and also just reminding that we have also had lockdowns during this year. Not as much as in 2020, but they do continue in some of the markets where we operate.
Thank you. A question regarding the gross margin level. Have you indicated any normalized gross margin level or midterm target level? Due to the various business and COVID-linked volatility, it's difficult for us to understand what is normal or even semi-normal. Any help on this topic would be much appreciated.
We haven't, unfortunately, disclosed any targets for the gross profit margin as such, but I would repeat what I said earlier that internally for us it's a hugely important KPI, and as said, indicating many of the elements, strength of the brands and the categories that we operate with.
Thank you. We don't have any further questions. I'll just give it a moment to see if there are any other ones coming in. It seems that there are no more other questions. If there are any, you can please contact me after this. Otherwise, I would like to thank you for this. Thank you.
Thank you.