Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Samsonite Group 2024 annual results conference call. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Please note that this event is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. William Yu, Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you very much, Operator, and thank you everyone for taking the time to join the call. Today we have our CEO, Mr. Kyle Gendreau, and our CFO, Mr. Reza Taleghani, with us to present our 2024 final results. To begin, our CEO, Mr. Gendreau, will have a few opening remarks. Thank you very much.
Okay. Thanks, William. Thanks everyone for joining us. I'm on page five. I'm sure William will turn the pages for us. We delivered top-line growth in Q4, with improving sequential sales trend improvements across all of our regions. Our net sales for Q4 were $942 million, increase of 1% in constant currency compared to a Q4 last year that was up 21% versus 2019. Our top-line sales growth was in line with our outlook, and again improved across all regions. I'll show you that in a second.
Our gross margin was very strong, and remains robust, 60.2%, up 30 basis points to Q4 of the prior year, really driven off of discipline on promotion and discount that continues, off the back of real SKU transformation during the pandemic, successful investments in brand elevation across all of our brands, and increased share, particularly in Q4, increased share of our total sales coming from the DTC channel. I will cover that as well. We continue to maintain really good discipline on our expenses, our combined Q4 distribution and G&A expenses were actually $2 million down from the prior quarter of 2023, and despite adding 67 new stores in the past year. It really speaks to and shows the discipline on the expense management. Reza will cover that in more detail in his section.
We achieved Q4 adjusted EBITDA of $195 million, a record EBITDA margin of 20.7%, up 160 basis points to Q4 of 2023, driven by a bit of lower advertising as we were managing the business, and the higher gross margin that I covered really feeding to a really great EBITDA position for the business. We continue to generate great cash, for the full year and for the quarter, $135 million of cash, free cash flow generation, up $3 million from Q4 2023. On the next page, I'll give you a sense for by region what we're seeing. Okay. We'll start with Asia. Clearly an improving trend, still negative. We were minus 11.5% in Q3, we're minus 6% in Q4. India is a big piece of that story. India, as you know, we saw some challenges during the year.
If I adjust for India, we're only down 1.6% versus Q4 last year. India was down 27%. Importantly, we're seeing an improving trend in India as we move into 2025. We're seeing a positive Q1, just to give you a scale, sense for what India's journey and transformation is. And within the Asia numbers, China was plus 1% in Q4 versus minus 15% in Q3. You can see within Asia, sequential improvement. As we think about Q1 of next year, we're seeing, you know, some continued improvement in the Asia trend as well. North America went from down 8% Q3 of this year to positive, close to 4%, 3.9% growth.
There's some timing issues or shifts from customers that pulled in orders from Q1, and generally an improving trend that we're seeing in North America on the back of sentiment that's really starting to show itself in North America. We'll cover that when I talk about outlook for the year. Our Europe business is really in a really steady position. We were down 1.7% in Q3. That was our best kind of Q3 performer from a region and delivered 5.6% growth in Q4. I would tell you our Q1 number looks very consistent to that. Steady Europe and Latin America continuing a steady story, delivering 14% growth, very similar to what we did in Q3 of this year. All core brands showed really sequential improvement as well, particularly Samsonite and Tumi.
If you look at Samsonite, this is a brand that was up 4.6% in the quarter, off of a growth from Q4 of last year that was tremendous. You know, really, that improvement and that recovery from pandemic that we saw in 2022 carrying into 2023. Despite being up that kind of strong trend, Q4 is up 4.6%. That, from a trend perspective, was down around 2% in Q3 and up 4.6% in Q4. For the full year, Samsonite brand was up 3.3%. As a core brand in the kind of middle part of the market, really delivering excellent results. Tumi in Q4 was up 4.4%, again, off a tremendous story from Q4 last year, as the business was really recovering off the back of pandemic.
Importantly, the trend from Q3 to Q4 this year, Q3 was down 8.9% and a plus 4% this year. For the full year, Tumi was almost flat. That's my lens. It was down around 0.8%, off the back of what we've talked about in earlier quarters this year. I think that's a great ending spot for Tumi for the full year. We're excited about Tumi on a go-forward basis as well. American Tourister is a bit more choppy, largely driven by India. If you look at American Tourister, we're down 6.9%. If I take India out of Q4, American Tourister was up 1.3% for the quarter. I think that's a really good story for a brand that's really feeling some of the consumer sentiment and the way wholesale customers are buying in at this entry-level brand is a little bit different.
I think that outcome's very good. American Tourister in India was minus 31% for the quarter, just to give you a scale for the impact within India. The brand itself for the full year was down around 6% for the reasons I just said. Again, if I take India out, it's down around 1-1.9%. You know, feeling some of the impacts on consumer sentiment in that entry-level brand. If I go into a little more detail on brand Samsonite, here for North America, top left of the page, and I'm on page eight, you can see we had a really strong Q4, up almost 10%, off of really strong holiday season. Actually, leading into holiday, consumers were removing, even though sentiment was under some pressure.
This is brand Samsonite performing very well and wholesale customers, as I said, pulling orders in. We had a very strong Samsonite Q4 in North America. Asia was a bit softer, down around 3.6%. You can look at the last year number. This is this kind of slower recovery in Asia that we really felt the boom in Q4 of 2023, up almost 41% to the prior year. If I peeled into Asia just a bit, it's really driven off a few things. One, again, last year was up 41%. There's a bit of noise in Korea. If, as you remember, Korea had some political issues that they were navigating. There was a plane crash in Korea that really impacted sentiment within Korea. Now, Korea business was down 6%. Hong Kong's still under pressure, down 18%.
Singapore is down 3%, really due to currency effects and how travelers are spending when they're in Singapore. The rest of Asia is actually performing quite well, against the backdrop of Q4 of last year. Europe, as I said, very strong. It was up 4.6% versus Q4 last year. Really a steady performance, and really excited about as we step into 2025 in Europe. In Latin America, just continued trend. This is brand Samsonite, up around 26%, very similar to what we saw in Q4 of last year as well. If I go to brand Tumi, here you can see, and this is Q4, you can see a really improving trend across all regions here. You can see North America up 5% to last year. Asia is a roughly flat, down 0.2%.
Here is where Korea had a big impact 'cause we have a meaningful business within, our Tumi business in Korea, and that was down 16% off of, what I just talked about. Our China business was up 2.5% in Q4 for Tumi as well. Really strong result in Europe, up 12% for Tumi, on the back of, really great product positioning and store expansion, e-commerce expansion, and, you know, further penetrating, Tumi in Europe, which we know is a big growth driver for us. You can see it in the numbers. In Latin America, the numbers are small, but the percentages are really strong. The brand's doing very well there, up 17%. Overall, Tumi Q4, up 4.4% is a great result for us. American Tourister, just a bit more detail here. You can see, what we're talking about. I'll start with Asia, down 11%.
It was up tremendously last year, versus the year before, up 35%. A lot of that was actually happening within India. That has kind of softened off in India, for the reasons we've talked about in prior quarters around competitive pressures. If I take India out, the overall Asia American Tourister would be up around 2%. North America is a function of weaker consumer sentiment, particularly at the entry-level price point. We can see and feel some of that. American Tourister is a smaller piece of our North America business. You can see in the numbers, but there is an impact there. Also, wholesale customers, because of that sentiment, are buying in American Tourister a bit more cautiously as well. You can see that in the numbers.
It looks like a 10% drop, but in dollars, not a tremendous drop, a couple million dollars, but we can see the impacts there. Europe was very strong, up 6.4%, really great result in Europe as we really continue to penetrate American Tourister. Latin America, up 13%, really a strong, strong result. Latin America showed the recovery of COVID in the last year numbers as well. It was quite a strong number last year, and in constant currency, still delivering, peans growth. On page 11, just a dive into travel, non-travel. Reza will have a slide in the back just showing the mix, but our non-travel continues to grow. This is a pillar of growth for us. We have the ability to outsize our growth in non-travel.
This gives you a good sense across brands, what this means and looks like for us. Across Samsonite, this Move 5.0 backpack, a driver, you can see real, continued investments in the Voyager collection within Tumi, really moving the needle. In American Tourister, products like Urban Groove backpack have been tremendously successful in Asia, doing well in Europe as well. Then some of our complementary brands, Gregory's really continuing on the mission to penetrate more lifestyle bags and day bags. This Rhune 22 has been a very successful bag. Lipault, as you know, we're pushing and investing in this Boston Berlin collection, particularly in the backpack collection, is doing really tremendous stuff. There are real opportunities for us to continue to outpace our growth in the non-travel category. This is some examples of that in the prior year.
Shifting to full year, on page 12, you know, we delivered very strong profitability and cash flow in 2024. Our business ended up about approximately flat. This is where we had anticipated as we were kind of stepping into Q3. And so roughly flat to 2023. 2023, as we know, marked a really record year for this business as far as travel and revenge travel off the back of pandemic and consumer spending. Consumers were still leaning in and really traveling and prioritizing travel. Larger wholesale customers were rebuilding their inventory levels from the pandemic. We saw that at the start of 2023, and it carried right through even to the start of 2024. We were still feeling some of that, and that started to level off as wholesale customers were back in inventory position.
Factoring all that in, a flat 2024, though not what we originally anticipated, is a very good result considering, gross margins tremendously strong ahead of our expectations, up 70 basis points to the prior year. Again, for the same reasons, real clear vision on promotion and discount strategy with a really organized product assortment. We continue to invest in brand elevation across all brands. I think you can see and feel that, wherever you are in the world and looking at what we're doing with our brands. Then again, our DTC mix for the full year is up just a bit, which has some upside margin, gross margin benefits as well. Our adjusted EBITDA margin is $683 million for the year, and, or dollars, a margin of 19%, slightly lower than the prior year, off of slightly lower sales than the prior year.
and really the ongoing investments in the business. We're managing the business very carefully on expenses. You know, the teams are laser-focused on that. You can see that on all of our results as you look across the business, the ability to deliver leverage in this business as we drive longer-term growth in the business. We generate strong cash flow. You guys know this if you've been looking at us for a while, and we continue to do that. We really leverage this asset light model. We generated $311 million of free cash flow. That's up $26 million from the prior year. We saw, as I said, a very strong Q4 on the cash flow side. We had great progress on our working capital. Our working capital is below our targets, so we came in better than our targets of 14%.
We reduced inventory by $44 million to 2023. As you know, we had stepped inventory up in 2022 and 2023 to capture sales. We now have our inventory coming into its more normalized territory without having any impact on sales, and helping deliver cash flow as well. Just a picture from 2019. You can obviously see the pandemic years. I'm not so focused there, but you can see we're up 22.8% to 2019 on a currency basis. I'll show you a slide, the next slide, to show you what that really means, if adjusted. You can see this revenge travel in these numbers, and you've seen these before, but revenge travel starting in 2021, continuing very strongly in 2022 to 2023, which drove a really strong result for 2023. We were up to 30% to the prior year, off of this.
We were flat, roughly flat for this year off the back of that surge. I'd also say we had a few challenging markets, India, as we know. If I adjust for just India, our numbers for 2024 would be a positive 1.2%, just to give you a scale for India. We're seeing really good progress from the initiatives with the team in India, where Q1's looking like it'll be positive for us. That's a real transformation and story there. In China, which was largely flat for the year, in many ways, that's a good result for China when you consider the year. Flat for us, you know, means, you know, it doesn't deliver to the growth story. We think China will get back to a growth story for us as we go through the rest of this year.
We're seeing good early green shoots as we go into 2021 for China as well. Again, our net sales in 2024 are up almost 23% to 2019. The next slide, I think I've shown this before somewhere along the way, but I think it's important. What does that mean in dollars when we look at the journey? Much of the management team has been here for a while. You can really see the impacts of currency from 2019 to where we are today. If I adjusted just for currency, our sales would have gone from $3.5 billion to $4.2 billion. A really tremendous story adjusting for currency. We're a US dollar reporter, as you know, but much of our business is outside of the US. It really shows itself well here on this chart.
From a brand perspective, on the full year basis, I've covered a lot of this already, but you can see Samsonite up 3.3%, really strong results across, largely all regions. Tumi, again, roughly flat, you know, slightly down in dollars. The dollars aren't so tremendous. Off a year that was up 36% the year before, really around us coming back in in inventory and, and that consumer really stepping into travel, in 2022 and particularly in 2023. We definitely saw softness in consumer demand and traffic too in this premium luxury sector. We're not alone in this. And Tumi sits really nicely in this premium luxury space. That, that's, softness in traffic. We could feel some of that within Tumi as well. Importantly, you saw our Q4 plus 4%, 4.4%. For the full year, flat.
I think that's a good outcome, for a slice of the market that was feeling some traffic pressure. We covered American Tourister quite well. You can see the numbers. If I adjust India out, it's down around 1.9%. Again, this is customers and wholesale customers that are impacting some of that as wholesale customers, particularly markets like the US, are being more cautious in buying into this space. That consumer's feeling a little bit more of the pressures from inflation, particularly. Overall, a good, good result considering those factors. You've seen this slide. I'm on slide, I can't see the page number, 16. I just wanted to show two things here. One, we've historically been correlated to travel very well. You can see the blue line, which is our numbers compared to the red line, which is global passengers.
You can definitely see our correlation. I think importantly, when I look at the last 12 years, historically, we outperformed this. We have the ability to outperform this by a few points, and we've historically done that. You can see, the 2022 and 2023 period with the revenge travel. It's maybe not so easy to see on the page, but if you look closely, our numbers were really outpacing travel as consumers were stepping back in and buying. Our 2024 number flat, but still very correlated to the travel trend. The forward look, and I think this is an important part of the slide, the forward look for global travel is still 6%.
If you think about our history and ability to outperform that and think about our forward direction in the industry we're in, which is still very positive, I think that speaks very well for kind of our long-term prospects. Just a few slides to point out, you know, what we're seeing in trends. First off, world travelers, this is 2019 to 2024, are up 12%. Our business, as I said, up 123% in constant currency. You look at airline revenues in that same time period, up 15%. Leisure hotels up 16%. Airline seats still not fully occupied. There's still capacity. This is a global number. There's still recovery to go in markets like China, which is holding that global airline seat number down. A U.S. lens, up 18% on passports issued 2024 versus 2019.
All the indicators really speak to travel, from a strength perspective. Again, we've been able to outperform that, with the portfolio of brands in our leadership position in the market. Just another lens on travel. I think this, we feel it and we see it, and I think it's a big driver of the forward indicators as well. Consumer preferences are really driving a greater frequency on travel. People are really prioritizing experiences in, in, and travel versus hard goods. We continue to see that every next generation has an aspiration to travel different than the previous generation. The way they're traveling is different. We're clearly seeing luggage growth, but we're seeing unstructured luggage, non-travel in our space, you know, continuing to grow in a meaningful way.
Importantly, when we look at data, and this is data we recently looked at, travelers replace their luggage, 52% replace their luggage every two years. Bags, and we've known this, bags, replace every two years, 73% of those consumers were replaced. You can see a replacement cycle that's better for non-travel as well. The travel replacement cycle, I think, is still very, very strong for us. I think it's elevating as consumers prioritize travel. In particular, what they're traveling with matters. It speaks something to who they are. We can continue to see that in the way luggage has been elevated and the ability to personalize with colors or personalization on the product has been a big driver in growth. There's clearly a growing and shifting preference towards brands that are sustainable.
I think that will continue, you know, over the next several years. As you know, and I'll cover just a bit at the end, we have this amazing sustainability story. Our responsible journey really continues to deliver amazing product innovation for us. From 0% in 2017 to 23% in 2022, where 40% of our products incorporate some meaningful level of sustainability, and more to come as we continue to push the needle on that. On DTC, I'm on page 19, just to give you some color. Our overall DTC growth for the year was 2.7%. If I jump to the bottom of the page, that speaks to then wholesale was down just a bit. For the reasons I just said, wholesale, our overall wholesale business was down 2% versus last year. In 2023, wholesale customers were rebuilding.
A lot of that is around the rebuild in inventories from the previous year that we're up against from a comp perspective. When you peel it back, direct-to-consumer growth, 2.7%, it's a very good result for the year. Our e-commerce was up close to 6% versus the prior year, growth in all regions. Our full-year retail growth was up 1.5%. Our comp growth was a little lower, down 2.7%. That speaks to traffic that we've talked about, the revenge travel that we talked about. When I say traffic and where this premium luxury space and the revenge travel we saw last year, that's impacting some of the comp as well. This, more macroeconomic uncertainties that I think is impacting consumers, which you tend to see in comp. We opened 67 stores last year, net stores.
We opened 67 the year before. That's feeding a story here that's, I think, helping drive a good story in our overall direct-to-consumer as well. You can see the mix has shifted slightly. We went up almost 100 basis points from 38.9% to 39.8% in the mix of DTC. If I look at the mix for e-commerce, which is the next slide, we can see again, we've been investing here. We're investing across all of our regions. Our e-commerce is 11.4% of our sales, up from 10.8% last year. If I include the e-wholesalers that we can measure, you know, pure e-wholesalers, I'll use Amazon as the example. Our mix there is 19.4% of our sales, up from 18.2%. Clearly, consumers continuing to move and shop there. We're investing. We're investing in content.
We're requesting, investing in all the platforms. We're investing in how we support our e-commerce customers in a meaningful way. So when a consumer shows up in that channel versus our channel, we show up elevated across all of our brands. It's delivering really tremendous results. If I look at our overall e-commerce growth, again, up just shy of 6% for the year, driven by Asia, up almost 4%, North America up 1.3%, Europe up 13%, 12.6%. Latin America, where we're really pushing forward in Latin America, up almost 55%, off of business that's up, you know, close to 20%. You can see e-commerce is a big piece of the growth driver as well. On the next slide, we are opening stores. We're very strategically selecting store openings across the globe. We have a little more emphasis in Asia and Europe, as you know.
We have a little bit more emphasis in Tumi generally, particularly in Europe and Asia. You can see, across the globe, we have nine stores in North America, five were Tumi, 20 stores in Europe, seven of which were Tumi, 10 stores for Tumi in Asia, and 26 stores in total for Asia. Asia continues opportunities, all open stores across the brands. In Latin America, 12 stores with, with again, Tumi opening stores six and other Samsonite and other stores in Latin America, six. All driving a good story for us, all elevating brand, imaging and, and really elevating the consumer experience and a big piece of our story. A few slides on stores. We've opened some stores around the world, as you know.
I think some callouts here just to give you a sense of what we're doing and the elevation that we're achieving when we open stores. This is, I'm on page 22. This is the Dubai Mall store. We had a store there. We took a new space and renovated and elevated. We were all there for the opening. It's really quite a tremendous store with high volumes. If I go to, in Bangkok, Thailand, we opened a store for Samsonite that really blends really nicely local culture, sustainability, and innovation all into the store. You feel it in the store. What makes us powerful is we can create a really consistent brand elevated experience across the globe. Because we execute this strategy locally, we can be relevant to that market.
I think this store captures a lot of that essence within our Asia business, but particularly within Thailand, performing very well. Quite excited about this store. This is a Tumi Ginza store in Japan. This was a renovation that we did. This used to be a kind of combined, branded store. This is transformational on elevation for Tumi in Japan. Really a terrific store, recently opened, and I think it will do tremendous things. If you know the street and you've been by this store, I think you immediately can see the difference in this store footprint and what we can offer and display on the product perspective. We'll continue to drive a great Tumi Japan story, which has been very successful for many years. Within Europe, we opened a new Samsonite store in one of the real prime locations within Cologne.
This is a great story. I haven't been to visit it yet, but it's off to a really good start, and really a terrific location. Then we opened our first Tumi store in Switzerland on one of the most exclusive shopping streets within Switzerland. This is one we've been pursuing for a while. The discipline we have in opening stores is we're opening only stores that get the right location. It took us a while to get the right location, but this is clearly it. We're quite excited about this store and looking forward to great success there. Just on Tumi, and you'll hear it. You've probably seen it already in some of our campaigns and messaging. Tumi's celebrating its golden anniversary, 50-year anniversary for Tumi.
I had lost track that it was 50 years and we're quite excited about it. You're going to see some great stuff from us. One, you'll see some campaign work. Made for you since 1975 is the theme. This is a great campaign, really talking about the heritage of Tumi and what we've done to continuously reinvent and drive this brand, you know, which is, I'll call it just shy of a $1 billion business today. We have amazing, exciting products tied to the 50th anniversary, but we always have amazing new products. We're using 50th anniversary to really highlight some amazing stories. You know, you'll see iconic brand collections like Alfa and Voyager. You'll see 19 Degree with really, elevation, some gold offerings as well.
Importantly, if I go to the next page, and this is starting to hit the streets today, or not today, but in this quarter, we've launched our lightest luggage. We've talked about this as one of the initiatives we needed to do with Tumi. We've launched 19 Degree Light, really as part of this 50th year, 50 years of innovation. This is a tremendous product. I've started to travel with this product now. You will see the difference and feel the difference. It's really the attention to design and detail that we have, incorporating materials that really deliver a story of lightweight and durability. You'll look and feel this product will be all day Tumi. When you pick it up, you won't believe the transformation. This will do well everywhere. It'll do well in North America.
Importantly, you've heard us say this, this really matters within Europe, and it definitely matters within Asia. As we embark on the journey of adding lightweight into Tumi's fleet, I think it'll do a really amazing thing. More to come is what I would say, more to come, as we get into next year. I would highly recommend you take a look at this product, and you will see the difference, the Tumi difference. On sustainability, just really quickly, we've made tremendous progress on our responsible journey. As I said earlier, 40% of our products incorporating some level of recycled materials, up from 34% last year, 17% from 2021, zero in 2017. We've fully, we're really further advanced our product sustainability framework to understand what we're able to achieve, understand how we push the envelope for products.
We have set some real clear targets for ourselves, through 2030. That is important because that feeds into our ability to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. The real progress that we make there is off of what we do on product development. Much of that comes from the materials that we use. We are laser clear and focused on what we need to do to achieve that. Within our own facilities, we are using 100% renewable electricity. We finalized, and you would have seen this press release, but we launched a science-based target. Last week that was validated for us. This will really be a driver to our impact on the environment. We are laser focused on what we are doing there. We continue to be focused on the people front, professional development within our own organization.
We're ahead of our own schedule, our own targets there. We really continue to push our approach to human rights and social compliance and really pushing the envelope on what we do there and really starting to develop clear frameworks for how we move forward. That's within our own teams, but within our supplier base. As you know, we have a really strong relationship with our supplier base and elevating the game within their shops as well. In the background, we're doing a lot of work on the governance and the metrics and the accounting that continues to build with regulations on this front so that we're getting the measurements right as well. Again, I'm really excited there. Glad to see from me, and then I'll come back. We're getting recognized. We were, in time.
We were number 40 out of 500 on a recent survey of world's best companies in sustainable growth in 2025. Number 40, number two in the retail, wholesale, and consumer goods space. This is real progress. This is from a company that six years ago were just starting, and we're already number 40 out of 500. We've got a double A rating for within MSCI, really speaks to leadership. We're in a different position. We're in a really transformative position as a leader, on what we're doing on sustainability. Our update, our responsible journey report will come out in April. I always say this, but I highly recommend you reading it. It gives you a different lens into our company and what we're really doing to make a difference.
Importantly, all of that we're doing while we're moving gross margins up, while we're delivering operating lineage, because of our scale, we can execute this responsible journey strategy without having any impact on the performance of our business on the profit side. With that, I'll turn it to Reza, and I'll come back with an outlook at the end.
Thank you, Kyle. We're on page 33. Just a brief recap. Kyle's covered a lot of this, so I'll go relatively quickly through this. The Q4 results, constant currency growth of 1% off of a very strong Q3, Q4 number in 2023. Year-over-year net sales improved across all of the regions compared to Q3 of 2024. We're seeing improvements across the board. Gross margin, 30 basis point improvement over that amazing number that we had in Q4 of last year. We're very proud of the discipline that we've had, both on promotions, the brand elevation, and the shift that we continue to focus on in terms of our DTC channels. That resulted in an adjusted EBITDA margin of 20.7, up 160 basis points year over year. There was a decrease in advertising in the quarter, so that did contribute somewhat to it.
but overall, we're very, very happy about the fact that we've been able to maintain the efficient cost structure that we worked so hard to achieve during the pandemic. that and adjusted net income up $20 million year over year. I think overall, very good result for the quarter. going to page 34, combined Q4 distribution and G&A expenses of $332 million. That was a $2 million decrease compared to last year. that's despite adding 67 net new stores. as you can tell, we're very focused on the cost side of the equation, managing the things that we can manage. advertising spend of $54 million in the quarter, that's 5.7% of net sales. overall advertising spend for the full year was $227 million, 6.3% of net sales. still a meaningful investment in terms of behind all of the brands. strong adjusted free cash flow, $135 million.
That was a $3 million improvement compared to Q4 of 2023. Net debt position of $1.1 billion as of the end of the year. That's after returning $308 million to shareholders, via the dividend, the cash distribution that we had of $150 million and the $158 million of share repurchase. We continue to generate cash. We continue to delever, and we continue to be able to invest in the business and to return a sizable amount to shareholders. We've repurchased approximately 63 million shares out of the 200 million that we've announced. Obviously, liquidity in Hong Kong being an issue. That's about $158 million of the 200. We have about $42 million left. Calculated net leverage ticked down to 1.58 times as well, despite having it. Again, just a testament to the strong free cash flow generation of the business.
Overall, still a very, very strong liquidity position, you know, over $1.4 billion of liquidity as of the end of the year. On slide 35, the gross margin improvement, again, behind the brand elevation that we've been doing and also maintaining promotional activity, you know, 60.2% for Q4 2024. That was an improvement from Q4 2023, which was also a very strong number. We're continuing to be focused on this. You know, as we get into guidance, we'll basically say that we're trying to maintain gross margin levels, but this is a very high level that exceeded our expectations, I would say, for the course of the year as well. On slide 36, very tight management of our distribution and G&A expenses. As you can see, if I'm looking at Q4 versus Q4 of last year, we're actually lower by $1.7 million.
That takes a lot of work when you're opening stores to be able to do that and to manage basically all of the levers that we have on the cost side of the equation. Overall, on slide 37, the overall results for the year, we were roughly flat on sales, gross margin of 60%, exceeding our own internal estimates, and better than last year, which was an amazing number as well. So 60% versus 59.3% gross margin. Overall EBITDA, a slight decrease compared to last year. It's $709 million last year versus $683 million for this year. That's obviously the flow through that happens from the slight amount of sales.
And, overall, if you're looking at it on a constant currency basis as well, I think we feel pretty good about how that margin has been able to maintain despite some of the cost pressures that we've been seeing overall. Adjusted net income, $370 million for the year compared to $392 million for the prior year. You know, on a percentage basis, it's pretty similar to what we delivered last year as well. On slide 38, just if you're looking at it across the regions, and again, we've covered a lot of this, so I'll go through it relatively quickly.
You know, Asia, a bit of a laggard compared to the other regions, primarily driven off of India, which has had that competitive dynamic that we've been talking about all year, with the discounting that's been happening with VIP and Safari. In North America, there has been some shift in terms of what's been happening with the wholesale customers and Tumi in terms of the full price traffic to our retail stores. That resulted in 1.2% down in North America. Europe continuing to perform solid, over the course of the year, and we're continuing to see that trend into Q1 of this year. Up 3.1%, off of a very strong year last year as well. Latin America performing very strong as well, obviously off of a lower base, but up 17% on a constant currency basis for the year.
Next slide, just if we do a bit of a double click into some of the individual pockets that we just talked about. You know, China overall, relatively flat over the course of the year, which I think if you compare us to other consumer products companies, we feel very good about that result. You know, when we were doing our initial budgeting for the year, I would say that we were hoping that we could push China a little bit harder than this, but I think given the macroeconomic environment, this is a very good result. India had a decline. We've been talking about it over all four quarters of this year, and it was down 18.3%. That also impacted the overall American Tourister numbers for us. The good news on India is that we are starting to see some stabilization in this quarter.
We hope that India will come back again over the course of this year and contribute positively to the overall results of the company. Tumi, North America did catch in that premium luxury space, did get caught up in terms of what was happening with the overall consumer, especially in North America specifically. We saw it in our retail. Obviously, Tumi is primarily DTC. In our stores, we saw full price traffic definitely drop over the course of the year. Q4, there were some positive trends as it related to Q3. There was a bit of a recovery in Q4, but we're continuing to monitor that segment of the market in 2025. On slide 40, we continue to diversify the product category mix. Kyle mentioned this a little bit earlier. We are very focused on the non-travel segment. Non-travel grew 2% overall.
You know, and that, that's across all of the brands. So, you know, you have an environment where Tumi overall has declined a bit over the course of the year, but the other brands have helped contribute to this as we continue to invest in that non, non-travel segment. On slide 41, structurally improved our EBITDA margin. We've been talking about this for, for, over the course of the past few years, and I think we're very happy with what we've been able to achieve. And at this stage now, it's really around trying to maintain the margins. You know, obviously you're four, five years on now and compared to 2019.
To be able to have continued investment in stores, in people, in regions, and yet be able to still maintain this cost advantage, I think is something that we're very focused on. We're going to continue to be focused on that in 2025 as well. Just to shift gears onto the balance sheet, obviously we've been talking about paying down debt. Net debt was down $5 million over the year due to strong cash flow generation. Liquidity of very strong position, $1.4 billion. Again, this net leverage point, you can see it on the bottom of this slide here. This is something that we're very proud of. We have been very focused on delevering coming out of the pandemic.
Obviously, over the course of the last couple of years, we wanted to strike the balance between continuing to pay down debt, continuing to delever, but also not only invest in the business, but also returning cash to shareholders. To be able to get back to the same 1.5 turns of leverage at the end of this year after doing the distribution to shareholders that we've done of $150 million, also doing share purchase and still being able to deliver this, I think shows the commitment to financial prudence that we have overall. On slide 43, just on the working capital, we've also managed to get our working capital into the ranges and the targets that we have been looking at. We've managed inventories.
You can see specifically inventory levels, if we're looking year over year, down $44.5 million. We had an increase in inventory levels at the beginning of the year because we wanted to make sure that we have ample stock not to miss sales. Over the course of the year, the teams have been very good in terms of managing those levels down so that we can hit our, kind of historical working capital efficiency target. I am sure there's going to be a question on tariffs. On slide 44, I thought I would just proactively address it. Again, as you know, one of the core competencies of Samsonite is our supply teams. We saw it during the pandemic. We saw it during the first round of tariffs that we had to the US.
This slide is focused in terms of what is, what we have in terms of production that is coming to the US from China specifically. You can see we ended the year with 85% of our production outside of China. We have about 15% of exposure. It's relatively nominal. It's not something that we're overly concerned about. Importantly, if you look at the consolidated gross margin, we have been able to basically shift production and increase the gross margin as we did that. Again, a real testament to one of the core competencies and our scale advantage that we have. That also includes re-engineering product to reduce costs. Again, we're going to monitor the situation, but I don't think it's something that we worry about too much.
In terms of just investing behind the business, on slide 45, CapEx, roughly in line with what we did last year. I think this is a number that you can think of. This is a normal course CapEx number for us. We do anywhere between $100 million-$125 million of CapEx a year. We came in similar to last year. Really, the line item that I'll draw your attention to is that $58 million of CapEx that went into our retail fleet. That is real investment behind the business, both in terms of refreshing stores, but also making sure that we continue to basically put retail footprint in those areas that we think will offer long-term sustainable growth, such as Tumi in Europe, such as Asia, and selectively in North America as well.
And with that, let me turn it over to Kyle, who will give some commentary on 2025.
Okay. Thanks, Reza. Okay. I mean, 47 outlook. Starting with travel trends, I think travel trends are really continuing to and expected to remain robust over the next several years. We showed you a slide on that. We can see that and feel that. We know that will help us deliver our long-term growth in our business. It's a fundamental driver of our business. As I showed you earlier and said earlier, we have the ability to outperform travel. As travel continues to move because of the reach around the globe, the opportunities in non-travel, and the opportunities to continue to draw consumers into our brands, with our scale advantages, is a big driver of ours.
We're still, for this year, importantly for this year, the outlook for summer travel continues to look very good. In recent days, we've seen some airlines in the U.S. lowering expectations, still positive, but lowering expectations. I think it all feeds into an outlook, even in the short term, but definitely in the medium term that I think will still be very positive for us. Our year-over-year constant currency sales performance, as I said earlier, improved sequentially in Q4 relative to Q3 of this year. However, as we know, we're seeing the macroeconomic environment remain uncertain, which is impacting consumer sentiment. We can start to see some of that when we think about where we are. As a result, our Q1 numbers, from where I sit today, I think will be down low to mid-single digits on a constant currency basis.
Some of that's timing. That's really timing in North America. You can see that. Some of it's consumer sentiment, where we're seeing in North America. I would tell you our Q1 outlook for Europe is very steady. It'll be a similar story to Q4 from where we're sitting today. We've seen some improving trends in Asia continue. Importantly, we're seeing in India, as I indicated, look to be positive for Q4, which is a big shift from where we ended in India last year. A lot of the initiatives that we're pushing there will continue to drive a good story. Latin America is steady as well.
I think importantly, we anticipate sequential net sales improvement over the rest of 2025 off of a comp that will be easier, as you saw this year, Q2 and Q3, really off the back of revenge travel and what we had saw in our business from the previous year. That will allow us to have some confidence in that statement. I would say, and I think we all know this, the macroeconomic uncertainties, particularly over the last several weeks, make it harder to predict. From where we're sitting and what we can see from a comp perspective, I feel very good on our prospects improving as we continue to move through 2025. We're very confident in the investments we're making in the business on products, new and refreshed brand elevation, which continues.
This is a business that's performing and delivering, generating, and has tremendous ability to continue to invest behind itself, which we continue to do this past year and we will continue going forward. We have channel and product category expansion opportunities, and all of these will help drive long-term growth in line with that industry outlook, of which I think we can deliver, as we have in the past, some outsized growth to that. Importantly, maintaining really robust profit margins. You can see in the gross margin, and the discipline that we have on the expense management side, I think speaks to our ability to manage this business very well. We continue to leverage our SLA model to really maintain this strong adjusted free cash flow. It's one of the real strengths of this business, the ability to generate cash. With that, we can continue to invest in growth.
We can return cash to shareholders, and we can continue to delever our balance sheet as we move forward. We're sitting in a very good position off a business that historically generates tremendous cash and in many ways continues to grow. As I said earlier, we've made great progress in our responsible journey. We will publish our report on our responsible journey in April, and I highly recommend you read it. That not only is the right thing to do for our industry and our organization, but I do think in the long term, it continues to add opportunities for growth in our business as consumers continue to shift their prioritization on that front. Lastly, we continue to make good progress on our dual listing story.
We believe that this will really add shareholder value when we talk about increasing trading volumes and providing more access to our securities from US and global investors in a more liquid market. Considering the current environment, we continue to make progress and we're monitoring market conditions, really to get the timing right is the way I would describe it. We've done tremendous work to get ourselves very close to a ready position on that front. With that, William, I will turn it over to you and maybe we'll take a few questions.
Great. Thank you very much, Kyle. We will start the Q&A session now. We'd like to limit each speaker to two questions each. With that, why don't we begin?
Oh, and before we start, we do have a hard stop five minutes before nine. Why don't we begin now? Thank you.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. We will take our first question. Your first question comes from the line of Erwin Ramburgh from HSBC. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yeah. Hi, and thanks a lot for taking my two questions. I think you said in the short term you were expecting Q1 to be down low to mid-single digit. I'm wondering if you could give a bit of granularity by region.
I don't know if I heard this correctly, but I seem to have heard that you were mentioning that India, at least in the short term, was maybe doing a bit better. My second question is around the marketing spend ratio. Obviously, better profit than expected in Q4, partly on the back of that ratio coming down. Is that just a timing issue or is it a scale advantage? How do you think about this sort of ratio of advertising to sales for this year on the longer term? Thank you.
Yep. I kind of indicated some of the details within Q1, but I would say Europe looks steady. Europe's growth rate looks very similar to Q4, which was a very good growth rate. That's come from where we're sitting today. Latin America continues to look steady.
There was a little bit softer back to school season in a couple of the markets, but still really strong growth as you'd anticipate for Latin America. Asia is an improving trend is what I would tell you. We did see India, it looks like India will be positive, slightly positive, but positive for Q1, which is a big shift from where we've been with India. They were down around 18% last year, and that speaks to the initiatives. Our China business, it looks good. It's an improving trend. We had a very strong January of 2023 in China, which we comped against. When we get into February and March, and there's a little bit of Chinese New Year timing as well, a trend that's looking similar, if not improving. My anticipation is China will continue to improve during the year.
Subject to macroeconomic uncertainties, we're watching that, but our business and the travel within China, travel, domestic travel in China actually continues to be very strong. And so we ride, we ride that really well. And overall, Asia has a slightly improving trend is what I would say from Q4 to Q1 from a growth rate perspective. And so you blend that together, you get a sense for where we are. You know, I think with all the macro uncertainties, and I guess North America is the piece that's, that everybody's wondering. And, my sense is, one, we had a pretty meaningful timing shift, from Q1 to Q4. So that's a piece of it. But our, our US business is, is seeing a, a negative trend. You know, if I adjust for that, you know, in that same range is what I would say.
That same range, down low to mid-single digits, adjusted for timing is what we're seeing in North America. I'm not so surprised with that just considering what's going on in the US from a trend perspective. You blend that together, it's, you know, we're clearly seeing an improving trend in most of the markets, but the weight of North America is holding that into that low to mid-single digit. I think going forward, I think, Erwan, we're a bit more vague because it's hard to predict, but we know we're comping easier Q2 and Q3, and our indications are that will deliver an improving trend for us as we move right through the year. On the marketing spend side, our target is 6.5%.
I think the real shift was in Q4 last year, we spent 7.2%. We were leaning into Q4 last year. We spent last year. I think this year's number was five, seven, I can't remember the number, 5.7%. But our full year estimates and our few year outlooks have always been around 6.5%. We ended 6.3% last year. We throttled it back just a bit, but on a go-forward basis, and even for this year, you should expect to spend around 6.5%.
Excellent. Thank you so much. Best of luck. Thank you. Thanks.
Thank you. We will take our next question. The question comes from the line of Kai Sheng from Haitong Securities. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thank you for taking my questions and good evening.
My first question is actually about the store extension because we still see continuous store extension last year. So when we know more color about the store extension play in terms of different regions. And my second question is actually about the guidance for the whole year because, we've already seen some color for the first quarter, maybe, if we can know more details about the revenue and also the margin side for the whole year. Thank you.
Let me start with the store expansion point. We did 67 stores last year. That's in the range of what you should expect for us in normal course. If you think about it by region, there is definitely a strategy to expand Tumi globally. I would tell you that Europe is a focus.
When I say that, the number of stores you can really find, because we're very selective around finding the right high street locations, that still ends up being six, seven stores a year, in terms of what you, we are actually able to deploy in those good long-term locations. You'll still see some Tumi growth in terms of absolute numbers in Asia just because the footprint is bigger, and it's easier to secure those locations. In absolute terms, Samsonite's obviously a bigger brand. You’ll see a significant investment in Samsonite as well. Again, in aggregate, it adds up to that anywhere between 60-70 is what you should expect. Usually what we're strategizing, it's not that we're trying to materially shift the DTC mix through store expansion.
We're usually going into locations where strategically it makes sense. For instance, Samsonite in Europe, you may have a luggage retailer that's been in a location and the next generation doesn't want to operate the luggage store anymore. It makes sense for us to go in there. We will replace that mom-and-pop luggage store with a Samsonite store. That's how we approach it. You know, if you think about the brands, obviously Samsonite, we're also investing in the existing store fleet in terms of elevation as well. If you walk into a Samsonite store this year versus five, six, seven years ago, I think you'll experience the feel of that brand in a much different way.
I'll also just add in terms of Tumi, if you're thinking strategically, we are also looking at larger footprint stores because Tumi, there, there's the non-travel segment, the travel segment, and typically the stores are around 1,300 sq ft. To be able to really show the full breadth of the product offering, we do want to have a little bit additional square footage as well. That's the other thing I'll just mention with regards to Tumi. In terms of guidance for the year, we specifically are sticking to Q1 for now. Obviously, there's some uncertainty in terms of consumer demand for the remainder of the year. Beyond this quarter, we're not giving any guidance.
Yeah. It's hard to predict given the current environment.
I think if you do your modeling and we're showing, saying that we have, we're seeing, an improving trend for the year off of comps, I think you can get a sense for what we're thinking, but it's really hard to predict at this moment, is the way I would describe full year outlook. An improving trend should give you a good indication of where we're going. Yeah.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank y ou.
We're nearing the end of the hour, Kyle. Would you mind taking one more question from Morgan Stanley and then we'll finish?
Yeah. Let's say I've got a 9:00 A.M. call, but let's do it.
Of course. Please stand by. Your final question comes from the line of Dustin from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thanks for taking my question. You know, given this, you know, macro uncertainty, what's kind of the growth driver that you think you can control and is the biggest, like, focus for the management this year? It's gonna be the store opening or new products. Just want to know more growth driver for Tumi and Samsonite this year. In terms of the capital allocation, like your free cash flow is very strong, which is good. In that context, what's the order of the preference for you for the buyback, dividend, and the debt repayment?
From a growth driver perspective, I would tell you, I think the travel indicators are still strong. You know, one of our, you know, real important pieces of our story is consumers traveling.
Though we've seen a little bit of softening of expectations out right now in the US, all of my indicators for summer travel look very strong. For us, I think we will correlate to that fairly well. We're also in a period where last year was up against really this kind of replenishment that was happening and revenge travel that was happening. We're in a, I might argue, a more normalized period. You start to get into a more normalized growth story for us against the travel industry that's growing. For us, it's always been, and the drivers are the same. Product, you know, it's a business that innovates and delivers amazing product. I give you a little taste of Tumi, for example. Across all of our brands, we continue to invest. There's amazing product launches coming across all of our brands.
We've got an exciting set of collections that have just launched or will be launching for Samsonite, both in the US and globally that I think and know will deliver good results. To me, for sure, there's real meaningful investment. Investments in non-travel, you'll see and feel that this year. You'll hear us with that. That can deliver growth in non-travel. And last year, which was up against, you know, really strong travel and numbers in the previous year, was still positive. I expect that that will continue. The pillars of growth that you're used to seeing from us will continue to deliver growth. E-commerce will continue to deliver growth. Further penetration of Latin America will continue to deliver growth. India getting back into a lane will deliver a good growth story for us.
I do anticipate, and we're sensing some of this in China. China will deliver a story for us. You blend that together, you can do your modeling to say there's a lot more drivers of growth that we're up against versus, you know, the backdrop of consumer sentiment, which the whole world's wondering where the consumer is, or will be, and particularly in North America. We're pushing all of the things that we typically push the business for. We're pushing, and we're not having to prioritize one over the other because we can do those really well. We'll open retail stores again this year. I think the number is in the same zip code as last year when I look at it. That's around strategic penetration and drivers of growth.
It is not around opening stores for the sake of driving growth. This is around, you know, normal course, right location, expanding to me within Europe and Asia, opportunities in North America, and really just penetrating markets that we have opportunities to do so. All that looks and feels the same, Dustin. We are not having to kind of, you know, make decisions or prioritize. Advertising is an important piece of our story. We have got a plan to spend 6.5%. If I see any bits ahead when we can adjust that just a little bit. From where I am sitting today, I do not think we need to do that, but that will be one of the levers if we are feeling a little bit of pressure. We are managing the cost side really well, Dustin. You know, that continues.
It's really one of our strengths. You've seen it now for several years. We're focused there. We're focused in managing our teams with that in mind. Uncertainty means manage even more carefully, which is what we're doing on that front. Your other question was capital allocation. Capital allocation, I think again, we can do all. You'll see a dividend again this year. That's kind of normal course for us. We'll continue the last bits of share buyback here, I think, over the next few quarters, to get to what we had kind of committed to doing. We'll reevaluate that, I think, as the year goes, and we'll delever, you know, and we'll invest in the CapEx that we should invest in normal course.
And the bit, you know, from a financial strength perspective, the business has never been stronger. Balance sheet, liquidity, you know, our ability to, you know, return to shareholders and do the things we're doing. We're in full control over this business. And those numbers were up last year for a business that was flat. Those numbers all over delivered last year. So that's how I'm thinking about it. I, you know, again, there's a lot of noise in the world today, but how we're running the business is very consistent with where we've been running before. You know, we're not in panic mode anywhere other than just watching what the consumers are doing. Again, particularly in North America, but overall, we're in a really good spot.
That's great.
Should we assume that, you know, 2025, you're targeting to see the similar EBITDA margin versus last year? I think we'll be in the lane.
Yeah. Again, advertising market. If I see things improving, we might spend a little more on advertising, but we'll be in a similar zip code as last year. Yes.
Thank you so much. Thank you.
Thanks, everybody. Thank you.
Thanks, everyone. Thanks, William.
Thank you very much, everyone. This concludes the call.
Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.