Thank you for joining us in Marimekko's full year 2021 results webcast. My name is Anna Tuominen. I'm the [DIR] of Marimekko. With me today are President and CEO Tiina Alahuhta-Kasko and our CFO Elina Anckar. We will shortly hear the presentation, and after that we'll have time for Q&A. You can already ask your questions using the chat function of the webcast platform, and we'll go through the questions after the presentation. Tiina, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Anna, and good afternoon also on my behalf. It's my huge pleasure to be here today to introduce to you our financial statements for the year 2021. Let's get started. The year 2021 was a very special one for Marimekko, as we were celebrating our 70th anniversary during the course of the year. It was also special from the results point of view, namely with a strong profitable performance in the fourth quarter, we were able to conclude the year with the all-time highest net sales and comparable operating profit of our entire history. It is really the entire Marimekko organization, the entire personnel to thank for this amazing outcome.
I'm really impressed by the way that our personnel has, in these difficult pandemic circumstances, continuously solved challenges relating to the pandemic and at the same time, worked on determinedly to build the long-term future and accelerate our long-term profitable growth. Overall, some of the key factors behind the strong performance include the determined steps that during the course of the past years we've taken together to modernize our brand and lifestyle collections, to develop our digital business, as well as omnichannel customer experience, as well as increase our brand awareness year after year. This determined long-term work is now starting to bear fruit, which is visible in the results. In 2021, our net sales grew by 23% and exceeded the EUR 150 million milestone, landing at EUR 152.2 million.
With especially the increased net sales, but also improved relative sales margin, our comparable operating profit improved by 59% and landed to EUR 31.2 million. As mentioned, also the fourth quarter of the year went very well, so did also our holiday sales that are important in our business. Our net sales in the fourth quarter grew by 29% and again this strong development in net sales contributed to the strengthening of our comparable operating profit margin by 35%, landing to EUR 7.6 million. Our board of directors also decided today to pay a dividend of EUR 1 per share for the year of 2021.
They used their authorization by the AGM, and they are also proposing to the annual general meeting that a regular dividend of EUR 1.6 per share and an extraordinary dividend of EUR 2 per share will be paid for 2021. Overall, I have to say, looking at the year 2022, we are in a great position to continue accelerating our long-term international growth. This year is also going to be the final year of our current strategy term, and during the course of the year we will be also determining our direction for the next strategy period, as well as reviewing our long-term financial targets. We're also planning to organize the first ever Marimekko Capital Markets Day in the fall of 2022.
What we can see is that the positive development of Marimekko in the past years, our brand that we've developed to speak to an increasingly wider global audience, as well as the mega trends that we can see supporting our growth story, such as accelerated digitalization, the changes in consumers' values, the growing importance of sustainability. We see all of these factors creating an excellent basis for us to continue in our long-term profitable growth acceleration path. Let's have then a closer look at the performance in the past year and starting from the fourth quarter, the last quarter of the year. Overall, as mentioned, the net sales performed very strongly, showing growth of 29%, landing to EUR 48.1 million.
The net sales growth was especially driven by a favorable trend in the wholesale and retail sales in Finland. In addition, also the wholesale sales in Asia Pacific region and Scandinavia, as well as the retail sales in North America grew strongly. Our actions to control gray exports decreased, on the other hand, wholesale sales in EMEA, which had then a negative impact on our group's net sales. As in the comparison period in the fourth quarter of 2020, also in this 2021 fourth quarter, nearly all the Marimekko owned stores were open. Christmas sales, as mentioned in the beginning, which are very important to Marimekko and in overall in our industry, went very well, both in the brick and mortar as well as the online stores.
Hence our retail sales grew by a strong 26%, while wholesale sales continued strong growth by growing by 33% in the fourth quarter. Sales in our domestic market, Finland, grew by 32%, and international sales by 23%. Just maybe a word about our second-largest markets, the Asia Pacific performance. In the Asia Pacific, we saw a growth of 36%, when especially the wholesale sales grew. The wholesale sales in Asia Pacific represent also the sales for our Asian loose franchise partners operating the Marimekko stores. There in the Asia Pacific wholesale, we saw a growth of 48%, and in Japan in particular, a growth of 42%.
Really strong solid growth in the fourth quarter in our key international market. When we look at the full year performance, our net sales grew by 23%, and as mentioned, exceeded EUR 150 million, and landing at EUR 152.2 million. The growth came in particular from the good development from the wholesale retail sales in the domestic market, but also in addition, again, wholesale sales in Asia Pacific region, in Scandinavia, as well as retail sales in North America, grew strongly. Similarly as in the fourth quarter, a negative impact to our net sales came from the decrease in wholesale sales in EMEA resulting from our actions to control gray exports. In addition also, the licensing income in the Asia Pacific region was smaller.
In 2021, nearly all the Marimekko's own stores were opened through the course of the year. However, the situation was very different in the comparison year, namely especially in the first and second quarters of 2020, a large number of Marimekko stores around the world were temporarily closed due to the pandemic. However, it's also good to keep in mind that in the first quarter of 2021, the customer numbers in the physical stores were clearly lower than in the comparison year due to the pandemic, as in the comparison year, the pandemic started to cast a bigger impact towards the end of the first quarter. Retail sales developed well by 15% during the course of the year, wholesale sales by 33%.
The wholesale sales development was very strong in the domestic market, Finland, where they were also supported by these sort of non-recurring promotional deliveries, the value of which was significantly higher than the year before. International sales grew by 14%, sales in Finland by 30% altogether. Maybe just again, a word about Asia Pacific, that representing our key international market, being the second-largest market after our domestic market, Finland. There on an annual level, the wholesale sales grew by 29% and in Japan specifically by 21%. These numbers reflect especially then the wholesale or the sales to our Asian partners operating the Marimekko stores in the region.
Moving forward, when we look at the net sales split according to market areas and product lines, during the course of the year, we saw the largest growth for the home products with 40% growth to the previous year, but also fashion and bags and accessories developed positively. This is quite logically explained because of course, due to the pandemic and the different kinds of circumstances, special circumstances during the course of the year, people spent more time in their homes, which also ignited a more global trend and interest toward interior decoration. Here, the Marimekko lifestyle brand really showed its strength as we were able to serve our customers then during these times, especially with the home offering.
However, we do not see that the homing trend is just a sign of the pandemic or a symptom of the pandemic. We do see that this is a wider global trend and interest towards home decoration. What I would also like to lift here is that in the fourth quarter, we already saw our fashion line igniting growth, and the fashion line in the fourth quarter grew by 31%. When it comes to the split by products or market areas, we don't see any major differences. Finland is a strong home market for us, and Asia-Pacific region is our second-biggest market. When we look at our global retail footprint, today we have around 152 stores in total. Part of them Marimekko's company-owned, part of them partner-owned.
The Marimekko online store serves customers in already 35 countries. When we look at our brand sales development, brand sales obviously are calculated by adding together the company's own retail net sales and the estimated retail value of Marimekko products sold by other retailers, including licensing partners. This is a good figure to look at when measuring or estimating the reach of the Marimekko brand through different distribution channels. In the year of 2021, we saw our brand sales growing by 31% to EUR 375.6 million.
On an annual level, already 66% of the brand sales came outside of our home market. When we look into our profitability, in the fourth quarter, our comparable operating profit grew by a strong 35%, to EUR 7.6 million, and these earnings were boosted especially by the increased net sales. On the other hand, an increase in fixed costs as well as lower relative sales margin had a weakening impact on the result. What are the factors behind here? The increased fixed costs are attributable, in particular, to higher marketing and employee benefit expenses, and the lower relative sales margin is due to the higher logistics costs.
The growth in the logistics costs resulted from disturbances in the supply chain, due to the pandemic, as well as the global container shortage. When we look at our profitability on an annual level, obviously, this now represents the best ever result in the Marimekko 70-year history, and our comparable operating profit increased by 59% to EUR 31.2 million. The earnings were boosted again by the strength in net sales but also improved relative sales margins. What are the factors behind the improved relative sales margin, in particular, improved margins per product as well as relatively lower logistics costs?
It's good to remember that in the comparison year, the logistics costs were exceptionally high in the spring of 2020 when we needed to close our physical stores temporarily due to the pandemic and when we moved all of our campaigns to the online store. On the other hand, an increased fixed costs had then a weakening impact on the results, and here, the weakening or the higher fixed costs are especially attributable to higher employee benefit expenses. These grew in particular as the result of new recruitments that we have made during the course of the year to strengthen the building blocks of our international growth, among other things. Let's look at some key events in the fourth quarter.
Naturally, we have been extremely excited to announce and launch our second limited edition collaboration collection with Adidas, which was launched at the end of September. The collaboration was received very well and obviously provided us with very, very valuable visibility around the world. In October, in the past year, we also launched our first limited edition collaboration products specifically targeted for the Chinese market together with the local specialty coffee chain Seesaw. In addition to the top-level global brand partnerships that really enable us to build our global brand awareness, these sort of more targeted local collaborations in our focus main markets are also very important tools for us to introduce more and more new customers to Marimekko.
In addition, these targeted kinds of local collaborations offer us the possibility to further increase the local relevance of the Marimekko brand. Our omnichannel store network in Asia increased further in the fourth quarter when Marimekko stores were opened in Hong Kong as well as in South Korea. In addition to this, in the fourth quarter in Japan, these sort of experiential creative pop-ups introduced Marimekko to customers in five cities. On an annual level, in total, six new Marimekko brick-and-mortar stores and two online stores were opened in Asia in 2021. In addition to these stores, a total number of 32 pop-up stores introduced Marimekko to new and existing audiences in all of our key market areas around the world.
We at Marimekko strongly believe that these sort of new creative kinds of retail concepts will become even more important in the post-pandemic reality. The seventieth anniversary of Marimekko culminated also to a digital print library, Maripedia. Some of you might remember that we revamped our online store experience in May, and then by the end of the year this experience was further enriched with this launch of Maripedia, which is this constantly growing digital library and AI-based search tool, which really enables us to open the fascinating extensive print archive of Marimekko to the wide general public. We are going to be continuing to do our investments to develop our digital business and omnichannel customer experience in 2022.
In accordance to our values, at Marimekko, we want to be at the forefront in promoting sustainability and through the power of our own example, to move the entire industry towards a more sustainable future. We launched, at the end of 2020, a new even more ambitious sustainability strategy. In the past year, our work in this sustainability journey has progressed and has focused, for example, in increasing the proportion of more sustainable materials in our products and prolonging product lifetimes, among other things. For instance. If we turn our look towards our outlook for 2022. It is clear that the coronavirus pandemic will impact our sector also in 2022.
However, of course, we are closely monitoring the development of the pandemic situation in each of our market areas, and we'll adjust our operations and plans according to the situation. Overall, also the development of this pandemic situation in different markets, political tensions, and increased inflation, impact the global economic trend as well as consumers' purchasing behavior, and as a result, can have an impact on our business. It's also good to keep in mind that because of the seasonal nature of our business, the major portion of our company's EUR-denominated net sales and earnings are traditionally generated during the second half of the year. If we look at the outlook for our two main market areas, or two largest market areas, so Finland and Asia-Pacific.
Finland traditionally represents about half of our company's net sales, and we do expect our sales in Finland to grow in 2022 on the previous year. The total value of these sort of non-recurring promotional deliveries in 2022 is estimated to be substantially lower than the year before. In the Asia-Pacific, which represents our second largest market area and really plays an important part in our internationalization and international growth strategy, we expect the net sales in Asia-Pacific region to increase clearly in 2022. Our aim as a company is to open approximately 5-10 new Marimekko stores and shop-in-shops in 2022, and most of the planned openings will be in Asia.
It's good to remember that all the brick-and-mortar stores, the Marimekko brick-and-mortar stores, and most of the online stores in Asia are partner owned. Overall, we estimate both our retail as well as wholesale sales to increase in 2022. Also, licensing income is forecasted to be higher than in the year before. We are going to be continuing our actions to control gray exports, which is this phenomenon, unfortunate but a quite typical phenomenon for internationalizing companies. These actions in 2022 will have a significantly lower weakening impact on our company's sales and earnings than in the year before.
Something good to keep in mind is also that the coronavirus pandemic does cause disruptions in global supply chains and these can result in delivery delays and this way impact our net sales and profitability. In addition, disruptions can also increase logistics costs, which have also grown overall worldwide. Furthermore, the maintaining of operational reliability and efficiency of distribution centers and logistics in the exceptional situation will be key. The overall cost of raw and other materials have increased globally, as we know. Early commitment to product orders, which is very typical of the fashion and design industry, means that any changes in raw and other material prices affect the company with a delay. At Marimekko, we are actively working on mitigating the negative effects of increased costs.
As mentioned earlier on in my presentation, we are intending to continue to accelerate our long-term international growth in 2022, and we will be investing especially in our brand awareness, in our digital and omnichannel business, in developing sustainability, and in a recruitment supporting our growth as well as in IT systems. Therefore, our fixed costs are expected to be up on the previous year, and also marketing expenses are expected to grow. It's good to also keep in mind that in 2021, fixed costs were still reduced by partly temporary cost savings. Our financial guidance for 2021 is the following. We expect the net sales for 2021 to grow from the previous year, and the comparable operating profit margin is estimated to be approximately some 17%-20%.
The global supply chain disruptions and generally increased material logistic costs in particular do cause volatility to the outlook in 2020 for 2022. The Marimekko Board of Directors have proposed to the annual general meeting that a regular dividend of EUR 1.60 per share and an extraordinary dividend of EUR 2 per share to be paid in for 2021. In the Marimekko strategy, we've set a goal to achieve markedly stronger profitable growth than before. As our company's business model and our strategy of profitable growth do not require significant capital and as our financial position is so strong, our board believes that it is warranted to pay an extraordinary dividend to the shareholders.
In addition, our board of directors has also proposed to the AGM that in order to enhance the liquidity of the company's shares, new shares shall be issued to the shareholders without payment in proportion to their holdings so that four new shares are issued for each share. With these words and with these thoughts, I would like to end my summary of Marimekko's 2021 financial performance, and we would like to open for questions.
Thank you, Tiina. There's already some questions, but I would like to remind you that if you would like to ask questions, please type them now in the chat room so that we'll have them soon. Let's start. There are a couple of questions related to gray exports. What kind of actions that you can take to control gray exports? Is it possible to give any kind of indication of what was the impacts on last year's figures?
When it comes to these gray exports or imports, what do they mean? At Marimekko, we have a selective distribution model, which means that when we see gray exports or when we refer to gray exports, it means that we have found our products to be sold at distributors that are not authorized by us. When we talk about controlling gray exports, it means that we're taking measures to actually protect our brand image. Unfortunately, the gray exports, it's quite a typical phenomenon for brands that are internationalizing, especially when the brand is gaining momentum. This has been also the case for us.
For the past years, we've already been working on these measures and especially these were visible in our financial performance in the past two quarters. As mentioned, in the starting year, we're gonna be continuing with these measures, but their impact will be significantly smaller to our net sales and profitability than the year before.
Thank you. Was there any cost inflation effects already happening in the second half of 2021? You mentioned that the early commitments to product orders causes delay in price changes.
In 2021, as I mentioned, in the fourth quarter, comparable operating profit, we saw our sales margin decreasing. The sales margin decrease was attributable to the increased logistics costs. These logistics costs, I mean, there were two drivers behind those. One was the disturbances in the supply chain, which caused the increased logistics costs, but also the global container shortage. Overall, as mentioned, we have seen the logistics costs increase. When it comes to the raw material and other material costs, as mentioned, those impact to our company with the delay as we commit to the upcoming collections and orders very early on, as typical in our industry.
Yeah. Is it possible to estimate when we will see those kind of effects? Or is it, you know?
We haven't elaborated more closely to that. What I can say is that as we are very aware of this, we are actively working to mitigate the negative impacts of the increasing raw material and logistics costs.
Have you taken some kind of pricing actions to mitigate the cost inflation?
When it comes to pricing, I mean, this is our, like, ongoing work that we do regularly overall when we build our collections and introduce new collections. These are part of our normal collection work.
Some companies like H&M have noted already that they see supply chain issues gradually diminishing. Do you see the same kind of trends? You still mention them in the outlook, for example.
Well, it's difficult to now take a firmer stand. I think that we can all see still quite a lot of volatility in the marketplace. What is clear is that we have seen that both the logistics costs as well as the raw and other material costs have been increasing, and therefore we have taken measures to actively mitigate the negative impacts. Let's see how the situation will evolve.
Is it possible to give details on the one-off costs in operating expenses in Q4? What kind of impact did it, the one-off costs, like the personnel bonus payments or something like that?
Well, we do not disclose more details on individual cost items. When it comes to the Q4 increased employee benefit expenses, those were especially driven by this sort of one-off personnel bonus. This is about us wanting to reward our personnel for extraordinary performance.
Of course, the details related to the change of accounting principle are explained in the release.
Yes, exactly.
There were two new store openings in Q4 in South Korea and Hong Kong. Are you happy with how things are progressing there, how the openings are going?
We are happy. As mentioned, also in the past, the Asia-Pacific really represents a very key market area for our future long-term growth acceleration. While this has been a key market for us for quite a bit of time, still the market, the whole region is so vast that we have definitely room to grow, and both in terms of the physical stores as well as in terms of the online presence. Our target for the past year was to open five to 10 new Marimekko stores and shop-in-shops, and we did deliver on that promise. In addition to that, of course, we expanded also our digital presence.
We are happy with the development, and I think that the very strong growth figures in the Asia-Pacific wholesale, as I mentioned, in the fourth quarter, the Asia-Pacific wholesale grew by 48%. I think that this is also a good sign of Marimekko attracting customers in the region.
You talked about the home decoration trends. Do you think that it's possible that the weakening of the trend maybe would affect your sales in the coming years when the pandemic situation eases up?
I think one of the, you know, strength of the Marimekko lifestyle concept is that we have three very strong product lines, fashion, bags and accessories, and home. It is natural that during the course of the last few years, home has seen kind of a strong growth and strong trend as people have been spending so much time in their homes. This has ignited a wider home decoration trend. As mentioned before, we do not see that this is something that will just pass by. We see that also in markets where home decoration was maybe not as sort of trendy before, it has now become more. It has now gotten more interest from the consumers, and we think that it's more of a longer-lasting phenomenon.
At the same time, it's good to remember that once the pandemic situation starts to ease up, I think that we humans, we just have quite a lot of pent-up need to meet with people, have celebrations, have dinners, and again, also dress nicely. As mentioned in the fourth quarter, we already saw a very strong growth in our fashion line by 31%.
Now would be a good time to pose your questions if you still have one. I have one more question related to international growth. What kind of concrete actions are you taking to support your international growth going forward?
Yes. When it comes to accelerating or strengthening the building blocks of our international growth, we are going to be continuing our investments to the global brand awareness, so marketing. We are going to be investing in our digital as well as omni-channel business. We are going to be investing in sustainability. We have, as mentioned, a very ambitious sustainability strategy which is a reflection also of our values, and we want to be, you know, the forefront of that development. We're going to be investing in IT systems to further support our digital business and overall to new recruitments that also support our international growth. These investments are multifaceted, but as you can see, some of the key strategic themes, digital, sustainability, brand, people, they're there.
There's one more question related to growth in Asia and the extra dividend. Even if balance sheet is in excellent shape, why pay extra dividend, and why not push the extra money for growth in Asia region, for example?
What is good to remember actually is that in Asia we operate through a loose franchise business model, which means that while from the consumer and end-consumer perspective the Marimekko physical and digital stores are exactly like our company-owned ones, they are owned and operated by our partners. This means that the partners also make the investments for these stores. They operate the day-to-day according to our brand, service, product strategies and assortments. This business model doesn't actually require much capital. It allows us to build a globally consistent, coherent brand and accelerate growth with quite low risk levels and asset-light, low capital investments.
Thank you, Tiina. There are no further questions. I would like to thank all the participants, and we hope to see you in our next webcast.
Thank you very much.