Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Prada S.p.A. full year 2020 results presentation. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. For your information, this conference is being recorded. Now, I would like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Alessandra Cozzani, the Group CFO. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good afternoon, everybody, and thank you for joining our full year 2020 financial results conference call. I am Alessandra Cozzani, the Group CFO, and with me today there are Mr. Patrizio Bertelli, our CEO and Founder of the company, Mr. Mazzi, our Chairman, and Mr. Lorenzo Bertelli, Head of Marketing and CSR. During the call, Mr. Bertelli will give us an overview of what happened during the year and how we have navigated during this unusual period. Then I will go through the numbers. Afterwards, Lorenzo Bertelli will update you on our marketing and communication projects, and Mr. Mazzi will share with us some final remarks before the end of the presentation. After the presentation, we will be pleased to take your questions as usual. I am handing over to Mr. Bertelli.
Good afternoon, everyone. First of all, I need to express my personal satisfaction about the way in which our group was able to react to this dramatic moment of pandemic. I'm really pleased about the speed that we were able to put in place to implement a lot of measures, including those that guaranteed the safety at work of our staff and our people, to keep our production factories in the production area, too. Of course, the pandemic had a negative impact on the performance of the group in the first half of the year. Since June, recovery started in terms of revenues, and EBIT went back to positive territory, large enough to fully offset the operating deficit of the first half.
Thanks to the cash generated in the second half of the year, which was about EUR 290 million, we were able to improve the net financial position vis-à-vis 2019 by nearly EUR 100 million. Something which is important and needs highlighting is that this was made possible by the industrial and logistic platform we can count on. It's strongly rooted in Italy. We own our production facilities. This allowed us to improve production cycles, and competitive edge also allowed us to decrease the stock we carry from the beginning of the year. We focused our production on the most successful and necessary products. Our full control of the value chain allowed us to quickly react against all changes on the market, and this has shown to be a decisive factor in this situation. Also because most activities happened via digital systems, of course.
We were able to devote our undivided attention to the most important requests we received from the market. Another relevant and important note that is worth pointing out is that because of this pandemic situation, we actually speeded up the rationalization process we had already started back in 2019 in terms of our distribution through wholesale accounts. In 2020, we decided to give up about EUR 250 million of revenue because we considered that it would be suitable to yield out a very strong sign during this situation, during this particularly difficult and challenging market situation, because we wanted to be on the safe side as far as trade receivables were concerned. In the second half, local customers are starting picking up consumption again quite sharply.
In December in particular, despite the second wave of lockdown, which forced us to keep 100 stores closed throughout the second half, we actually recovered our performance. As we all understand, China was the country that exited from the health crisis quicker than everybody else. In the second half, we actually achieved a 52% growth over 2019 in China. Of course, China was not the only country that contributed to recovery. This also involved Taiwan, Korea, Russia, Turkey, Brazil, that had excellent performances over the full year. Also, there was a good recovery in the Middle East and in America. Crisis has actually sharply sped up some ongoing trends, including, for instance, the impact of digital and the weight of online sales, besides the importance, which is more and more visible, that consumers attach to sustainability when making shopping decisions.
Our e-commerce channel grew by over 200% over the year. A very important performance, which we were able to achieve thanks to the digital transformation that we started a couple of years ago, and thanks to a very efficient logistics platform that allowed us to cater for the strong demand. Of course, online growth is still going on to this date. It's actually going to be stronger and stronger in 2021. In the second half, we worked a lot to enrich retail experience with special initiatives to attract a bigger and more demanding group of customers. In the year, we have created about 80 installations, including pop-ups and special installations, 50 of which in the second half. Another relevant topic is the values of the brand. Our creative leadership is a reference point and a benchmark in the international luxury market.
We see continuous and growing appreciation by consumers towards our brand. Raf Simons' appointment as co-designer confirms this choice, and actually it shows that Raf Simons fully shares in the creative vision of the brand, and so keeping his personal design contribution and creative contribution. The two fashion shows that Raf Simons co-designed with Miuccia Prada were highly appreciated. The new collections are responding very well in stores. The investments in digital, besides marketing and communication to create an authentic and direct dialogue with our audiences, are helping to strengthen the visibility of our brands. There are very interesting experiences, such as the public chat that Raf Simons and Miuccia Prada co-held at the end of each fashion show. These were highly appreciated, both by the press and by the public.
Now I yield the floor back to our CFO, Ms. Alessandra Cozzani, who's going to continue with the presentation of the 2020 financials.
Thank you, Mr. Bertelli. As Mr. Bertelli mentioned, the Prada Group showed a very good resilience in this adverse environment. Net revenues for the year reached EUR 2.4 billion, down 24% year-on-year at cost and exchange rate. This reflected a -40% in the first half, but a decline limited to just 8% in the second half. The exchange rate fluctuation was negative for the year, about 1%, with a bigger impact on the second half trend, about three percentage points. In terms of operating expenses, effective cost containment measures were taken promptly since the outbreak of the pandemic, with a significant cost saving in all areas. As a result, the total operating expenses were EUR 1.7 billion, down 14% compared to the same period of last year. EBIT turned positive for the full year.
The economic and financial performance in second half were back to pre-pandemic level, as I will better show you in a moment. Same as in the first half, in order to better understand the impact of the store closures on our P&L, we have identified all the selling costs pertaining to the store that have been closed during the lockdowns around the world, this impact was around EUR 116 million.
All these costs generated zero revenue because of the various closures. Thus, EBIT net of this amount was positive at EUR 136 million, including the above costs, EBIT was positive at EUR 20 million. Net financial expenses were stable in the year include about EUR 43 million related to financial right of use. Very limited amount of taxation for the period due to the tax charge, almost fully offset by the tax asset. Net loss for the year was EUR 54 million.
Turning to our balance sheet. The balance sheet structure remains very strong. Net current assets decreased for the combined effect of yearly depreciation and the limited level of investment during the year. Net operating working capital improved and was down five year-on-year. Net financial position improved from EUR -406 million in 2019- EUR -311 million in 2020, and cash generation was strong in the second half of the year. Now let's turn to look at our sales by channel. Retail channel was down 18% at cost and exchange rate, impacted by the store closures around the world. The first half accounted for the bulk of the decline, down 32%, while a strong improvement was posted in the second half of the year to a limited decline of 6%.
Our direct e-commerce showed an extremely strong performance, as Mr. Bertelli mentioned before, in all regions during the year, growing sales by triple digits. Lorenzo will give you more insights on how we have achieved these impressive results. Wholesale was down 49% at cost and exchange rate, and down 20% in the second half of the year. This trend is in line with our strategic decision to downsize this business in order to focus on retail and e-commerce development and to protect the brand equity. As you already know, there is a strict correlation between sales trend and store closures, not to mention the complete absence of tourism everywhere. Store network was significantly affected by lockdowns worldwide, with 115 direct operator stores closed on average in the total year, which means 18% of the total doors, 27% in H1, and 9% in H2.
As you can see from the slide, the retail sales trend significantly improved in the second semester. Despite a new wave of lockdowns since November, which has impacted mainly Europe, Q4 saw a better trend compared to Q3, with October and December back to positive territory. We are pleased to say that this encouraging trend is continuing in the first part of the year. Looking at retail sales by geography, we were seeing a sequential improvement across all markets, driven by strong local consumption that in the second half, almost entirely offset the lack of tourism. In Europe, retail sales were significantly impacted by lack of tourism and prolonged lockdowns, with around 30% of the stores closed during the year.
We were seeing a very good response from local customers in every country, which was up double digits with an outstanding trend in Russia, which registered +46% sales growth during the year. Asia Pacific was the first market to recover since April, with a marked rebound, mainly driven by mainland China and Taiwan, which in the second half of the year registered +52% and +61% sales growth respectively. Korea also showed consecutive strong double-digit growth trends throughout the year. It's worth noting that sales performance in Asia Pacific market had already reached back to pre-pandemic level, and this is a remarkable result. In America, retail sales trend turned positive in the second half of the year with a solid 4% growth. Brazil recorded a remarkable performance, delivering positive sales growth during the whole year.
In Japan, retail sales were heavily impacted by lack of tourists and prolonged store closures in Hawaii, Guam, and Saipan. We were very pleased to see that local consumption resumed growth in the second half of the year. In the Middle East region, we also saw a strong rebound of sales in the second half across all countries, achieving a total +26%. The improvement we achieved in the second half was seen across all product categories. Sales trend of leather goods improved thanks to new launches and the ongoing interpretation of iconic products. Re-Edition, Cleo, Matinée, Spectrum, just to mention some very successful examples. It's worth mentioning that leather goods category saw double-digit growth in the second half of the year in Asia, U.S., and Middle East. Ready-to-wear performance was very strong for both Prada and Miu Miu, resuming growth in the second half of the year.
Sales performance for footwear was also good, with successful reception of new lifestyle collection, which drove the sales recovery in the second half. Strong recovery sales trends were seen for both Prada and Miu Miu. Sales performance for Church's were impacted by the geographical exposure, with the vast majority of stores located in Europe and thus more exposed to tourism. Gross margin proved to be very resilient, standing at 72% for the full year of 2020, improving by 100 basis points in the second semester, reaching 73% versus the same period of last year, supported by favorable channel and geographic mix, with more than compensated the under absorption of the fixed industrial cost experienced in the first half. Total operating expenses stood at EUR 1.7 billion, down 14%, a decrease of EUR 290 million during the period.
As you can see from the slide, extensive cost containment measures were taken promptly since the outbreak of the pandemic, with significant cost saving in all areas. This was particularly the case in selling expenses, which were down EUR 210 million, with an important contribution from successful negotiation of lease agreement. Advertising expenses went down EUR 24 million, with some marketing initiatives canceled or postponed while prioritizing digital initiative, amplifying the visibility of the brand as Lorenzo will show you. G&A costs were down EUR 30 million during the year, including the positive extraordinary income from the sale of Milano real estate. This slide and the next one will show you clearly that we experienced two very different halves. Here we have the EBIT evolution.
In the first semester of the year, EBIT had been significantly impacted by the decline in sale and gross margin caused by store closures, partially mitigated by the effective cost containment measure taken promptly in all areas. During the second semester, sales recovery and an equal effective cost containment turned EBIT to positive, reaching EUR 216 million, which more than offset the deficit of the first half of the year.
Moreover, you can evaluate how, in the second half, the economic and financial parameters came back to pre-pandemic levels, with EBIT margins and operating cash flow generation even higher than those of second half of 2019. EBIT margin, excluding real estate extraordinary gain, reached 12% on revenue, and operating cash flow rose to EUR 289 million, 27% higher than 2019. Capital expenditure was significantly lower compared to previous year, ended at EUR 122 million, as we focus only on essential projects.
With reference to the retail network, during the year, we had eight net closures, consisting of 12 openings and 20 closures. I have already mentioned the net operating working capital remained well under control during the year. Thanks to our direct control over the supply chain and the strength of our logistic platform, we have effectively managed the level of our stock, which saw a decrease of about 6%. The lower figure of trade receivable is in line with our decision to downsize the wholesale business. Thanks to a strong cash flow generation, the limited level of CapEx, and the withdrawal of dividends, net financial position improved compared to last year, ended negative at EUR 311 million, versus EUR 406 million at the end of previous year. This is a very good result in this adverse environment. Now I would like to hand over to Lorenzo Bertelli.
Thank you, Alessandra. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. 2020 was a year of huge disruption to our business in all the markets in which we operate. The investments we had made in the digital transformation of the Prada Group over the past few years mean that we were well-placed to pivot our activities, especially in online sales, marketing, and communications towards our digital assets. Because of the progress we have already made in our digital journey, we had the flexibility to adapt very quickly to the new circumstance of 2020. In practice, that meant an acceleration in the omnichannel e-commerce, a process that was already underway, but which we have expanded exponentially over the past year. I want to underline we are just at the beginning of our growth trajectory, that there is still a huge potential to unlock.
We have leveraged more ways of staying connected with clients through our social media platform, both in the West and especially in China, and our brand heat has grown successfully. We have used our fashion show innovative ways to drive engagement and brand excitement, and adopted a more accessible style of communication that has brought new forms of interaction with the brand and made it available to new audiences. As well as global initiatives, we have also used local events to make the brands more relevant to local audiences. Finally, we continued to prioritize ESG activities and took our sustainability agenda to a new level with product innovation. Let me go through each of those topics. As we have all witnessed, COVID-19 led to online spending trend acceleration worldwide.
As mentioned, thanks to our global logistics platform, we were able to react quickly to the disruption brought by the pandemic and capabilities on the online trends. We did so through a series of initiatives. We placed a strong focus on our brands' .com websites. We launched Prada e-commerce in additional key markets in 2020. We revamped Prada website across all major market, and we rolled out the new website version at Miu Miu for 2021. We also launched new strategic concession and marketplace. We built a dedicated e-commerce Chinese team to strengthen our local presence and relationship with selected third-party distributors. We optimized our distribution channel by revising the fulfillment process, including also general warehouse in addition to shops. This resulted in optimized e-commerce experiences for more customer worldwide and outstanding e-commerce growth. Talking about client engagement and omnichannel.
Our initiatives were supported by ongoing investment in our digital infrastructure, including improvement to the front end and the back end, enhancing the shopping experience and making the customer relationship more interactive using the latest technology. We leveraged analytics to develop a personalized customer strategy, which was supported by digital tools to help our staff making more efficient and engaged sales as stores remain closed. We have implemented a storytelling project to engage clients more deeply with brands and company's values. Finally, we have rolled out Net Promoter Score system globally that will allow us to continuously monitor customer experience across all our distribution channel to enable us to promptly react to any change in customer experience. Talking about the Prada brand heat, strong, and acceleration.
As a result, we noticed an acceleration of our presence in all main digital channels, which was confirmed by data analytics, with statistics showing strong results throughout the year. As you can see from these slides, particularly the Prada brand experienced an increase in heat and momentum on Instagram as well as on Weibo. Prada and Miu Miu Spring/Summer 2021 was a key moment. All fashion show and communication activities had to be digital in almost all markets, and this year was particularly important to us because of the first collection with Raf Simons. Despite having to host the first co-collection line, the Prada SS21 show drew a huge amount of online buzz during Milan Fashion Week, with views and growing at triple-digit growth on Instagram compared to the live streaming of the previous year.
On Weibo, the hashtag #PradaSS21 hit 170 million views in one day, and the show was viewed 32 million times and 35 million times on Douyin. Similarly, the Miu Miu SS21 show was the third most mentioned during the Paris Fashion Week, with the show also experiencing triple-digit growth on Instagram compared to the previous year. That is a remarkable result if you consider the dimension compared to other brands. Innovative way of connecting with our audiences. It was really important to us to remain engaged and find new ways of communicating with our audiences, ensuring our ways of connecting were appreciable, and continue to promote dialogue and cultural engagement. Some of this year's highlights are the Prada Dialogues, an innovative concept within the Prada marketing strategy.
Starting from the debut collection by co-creative directors Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons, Prada inaugurated an open dialogue between the brand and its audiences. Other examples include the Prada Tools of Memory for Winter 2020 campaign and the Prada Possible Conversations, a series of digital talks exploring fashion, culture, and life on Instagram. Global and local approach in communication. We continued our global and local approach to communication with activation and events around the world, such as the Prada Mode event, the Miu Miu Women's Tales, local screening, and product-oriented activation involving celebrities and influencers. I'm proud to say that we were able to successfully adapt to the challenging environment, enhance our brand accessibility, and connect with our audiences in innovative and creative ways. Talking about ESG, that for me is a very relevant topic for the present or the future of the company.
We continue to prioritize the deliveries of ESG initiatives. Later on this year, we will unveil our CSR roadmap. In the last year, we have continued to foster an inclusive company culture, progressed our Sea Beyond educational program, and confirmed our leadership in sustainable finance. Sustainability remains a key value we approach our product innovation. The research and development of alternative materials is vital for us, and we confirm this commitment throughout the year with our Adidas partnership and implementing the Fashion Pact guidance. Prada Re-Nylon proves we can do something sustainable for our planet, and that we can make it relevant in terms of revenue. In 2020, we have expanded the collection to ready-to-wear and footwear, and I'm proud to announce that the full conversion to regenerated nylon by the end of 2021 is on track despite the difficult times.
As for the Miu Miu brand, Upcycled and Miu Miu has been really successful, and we're excited to extend initiatives with Levi's collaboration this year. Thank you all, and I will now hand it back over to the Chairman for an outlook. Prego, Carlo.
Good morning to everybody. What can I say about the future? We need some optimistic view, because Prada Group successfully withstood the unprecedented challenges of the pandemic while continuing to drive forward the strategy. Continued investment in brand equity, people, products, and customers delivered resilience and strong recovery in sales. Direct control of the supply chain and distribution channels, combined with a focus on digital communication, are the pillars of positive future prospects. Encouraging start to 2021 in spite of continued restrictions. In conclusion, in an environment that is still uncertain, the fundamentals of the luxury sectors remain strong, and the Prada Group is well-positioned to capture long-term growth. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Mazzi. I think that we can open now the Q&A session.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we now begin the question and answer session.As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one and wait for your name to be announced. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A queue. This will only take a few moments. If you wish to cancel your request, please press the hash key. Once again, star one if you wish to ask a question. Our first question comes from the line of Susy Tibaldi from UBS. Please ask your question.
Hi. Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for taking my question. I'll ask three things. The first one, you mentioned that the trend that you saw in December, they continued favorably in the first few months of this year. I was just wondering if you are referring to a year-over-year growth, because I can imagine that January last year, you commented it was up almost 20% in retail. February is when COVID impact started. I was just trying to think how should we see the sales year-to-date compared to 2020, but also to 2019. Secondly, I've seen, and you also mentioned that you are working with some of the e-tailers to convert from the normal wholesale model into e-concession model.
I wanted to ask if you can give an update on this point, how it's going, if you are getting any sort of resistance from the e-tailers, and if you're happy with wholesale being about 11% of sales, or if there is more to be reduced. The last question is regarding your very strong recovery in the second half of the year, in terms of operating margins, where you basically exceeded 2019 levels. Can you talk about how sustainable do you think this is going forward? Because for sure you had some one-off cost benefits and costs will come back this year. I was just trying to understand to what extent we can expect this margin improvement to sustain in 2021. Thank you.
Thank you.
Sorry, Susy, for the delay, but you asked a lot of questions. I will take the first one. In terms of current trading, yes, I can confirm that the very good trend that we have seen in the end of the year is continuing, that we are so far positive on 2020, let's say mid-single digit. We have already fully recuperated all the value that we did also in 2019.
This is Patrizio Bertelli speaking. As far as the operating margin is concerned, I can confirm that in 2021, we're going to continue with the same policies we implemented in 2020. The gross margin we expect is 74.5%. As to the wholesale sales, we will continue the policy we have started already. Our revenues may vary anywhere between EUR 250 million and EUR 280 million from wholesale.
Questions?
Thank you. Sorry, if I can just quickly follow up. You commented on the gross margin, which is super helpful. Can you comment anything on the EBIT as well in terms of margin, and if you think you can kind of keep a similar profitability as what we have seen in the second half? If maybe it could be back to 2019 level, or how should we think about profitability, assuming that the top line remains in positive territory? Thank you.
This is Patrizio Bertelli speaking. We will have to see what happens with the evolution of the pandemic, of course. The situation may be similar to 2019, better than 2020. Much will depend on the performance in the next two or three months. I should say that up until June, we're looking at a pretty challenging situation, after that, the situation is likely to become much, much easier. We're going to obtain results, which are going to be in between 2019 and the second half of 2020.
Very clear. Thanks.
Okay. Next question.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Thomas Chauvet from Citi. Please ask your question.
Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. Firstly, just Alessandra, could you come back to the January, February retail trend comments? You said mid-single digits for January, February versus 2020, that would be significantly below 2019 level. I understood you said you recouped the 2019 level in December. Is it any different in January and February? I didn't get the math, sorry. Secondly, on the design transition with Mrs. Prada and Raf Simons collaborating, could you comment on the spring/summer collection currently in store? What is this design transition bringing in terms of certain KPI, unique per transaction, average basket? Are you seeing better retention rates? Are you obviously thinking this is driving also higher full price sales? Maybe a bit early to comment, was interested on that first collection now well in store.
Thirdly, on the store network optimization, you've done 20 gross closures, and that's eight net of openings in 2020, including the VSP store at the end of last year. What's your approach over the next couple of years with regards to the physical network, given the spending shift online and maybe a year or two of travel disruption? Finally, on the portfolio, how committed are you to Car Shoe and Church's? Both brands have suffered in recent years. Are they still core and parts of the Prada Group strategy? We're seeing a lot of consolidation in the industry with interest from big buyers, but also small family office doing transactions. Would there be an opportunity to exit these two brands? Thank you.
Hello, Thomas. Thanks for your question. I will take the first one. Probably I was not clear before. We are flat on 2019 and up mid-single digit on 2020.
Thank you.
I would like also to underline that, of course, we are still operating with 130 stores closed. It's a huge number.
I will take your second and third answer. It's Lorenzo Bertelli. About the collection, what Alessandra just said, the fact that we are still targeting a triple digit growth on e-commerce, and the fact that the sales per square meter and the customer, our age range of customer is shifting dramatically to a younger generation, especially with some of the novelties that are in stores. Some of the novelties that are in store, completely goes in the direction of stronger KPIs in terms of retention, SKU per transaction, et cetera. About the traffic, I would say, of local and tourist, I would say that compared the sector and other brands, we were already did the big shift in terms of investing towards the local consumer. Actually, I would say that even during the pandemic, we had months where the local consumer were growing even more than 2019.
I would say that we are ready to dialogue with the local consumer, and then if we're going to have even more travelers, it's just to be a bigger part in terms of revenue. The focus is for sure on the local consumer.
This is Patrizio Bertelli speaking. Can I answer on our store network first? First of all, as Alessandra Cozzani pointed out, we have 130 stores that are still closed, and the performance is quite good anyway. That means bigger sales per square meter in all stores. As far as store network optimization is concerned, we didn't really close any stores. We improved and enhanced some of our locations. You should note that today in Japan, in the U.S., and everywhere, there's a lot of relocations and optimizations going on. Of course, you know about the department stores in the U.S. KaDeWe in Germany is redeveloping and renovating most of their stores. Most of what you see as closing stores is actually transferring to better locations. That's for stores networks. Then e-commerce. E-commerce doesn't make sense without a physical stores platform.
I think it's just an illusion that e-commerce may thrive without some brick-and-mortar stores. The luxury consumers need some physical experience too, and not just online. They need to go to the stores, look at product presentations. They need to come in touch with everything we see, including service. We definitely want to involve our customers more to improve customer service at the stores so as to present our product experience in an even more appealing way with more targeted and personalized services. This is for stores networks. Now, as for the two brands you mentioned, Car Shoe and Church's, of course, they suffered more than the other brands for the very simple reason of their size. Also, it was impossible to organize e-commerce distribution suitably for them.
The smaller a brand is, the more it suffered last year because these brands don't have a distribution network in countries like China, for instance. This is actually where the market picked up quicker than others in the second half of 2020. Both Car Shoe and Church's are typically European products, they suffered even more than the other brands. Sorry, I can't remember your last question perfectly. Let me review it. Okay. As to acquisitions, we're not selling anything. We may buy, perhaps, but not sell. If something happens, we'll be buying, not selling. Thank you. Next question, please.
Our next question comes from the line of Luca Solca from Bernstein. Please ask your question.
Yes. Hello, good afternoon. I was wondering how you are trying to anticipate organic growth and how you monitor the Prada brand continuing to stay relevant. You mentioned a few interesting metrics in your presentation, looking at Instagram and Google Trends. I was wondering whether you can share more with us and what kind of confidence you get from those measures that things are continuing to go in the right direction. Separately from that, we heard from your peers that customer service and remote contact with consumers and CRM in general have been vital in sustaining top-line growth and consumer dialogue, especially at a time when so many stores are closed because of the pandemic. I wonder what your plans are on these fronts and whether COVID-19 has helped you to boost activities on this area.
Last, I was impressed not to see a mention of the Prada Cup activity, and congratulations by the way, for securing that trophy. Is that still a relevant portion of how you plan to support marketing and to engineer marketing for your brand going forward? Is that a relatively separate activity that comes from legacy decisions taken in the past? Can that become, in other words, more relevant to enhance Prada's standing with consumers at the moment and in the future? Thank you very much indeed.
Good evening, Luca. We'll take your three question. Organic trends, as you saw in the presentation, and then also some of the indicator and KPI we are looking for is public, so is not private. Some is private. In this panorama of multiple platform and channel, you have to look at all. We have a structure internally that allow us to review monthly, and in some cases even weekly.
The trends that we have in terms of share of voice compared to the other brands, this is the most important thing, because it's not important that much how much well you're doing compared yourself, but how much well you're doing compared the other peers. We have, for sure, tools, several tools, and a dedicated team, the possibility to monitor the situation. We also work every time to improve our performance and see also what kind of content works and activity works, and which one doesn't work that much. It's day by day, we get more know-how. About the omnichannel, this is a very relevant topic because to activate and enable some of the key activity that are needed to do a proper omnichannel strategy.
For example, to have remote sale with the sales associate, put in contact remotely our customer with our sales associate network, and drive conversation with our customer and new potential customer, you need to unlock a lot of tools and IT capabilities and infrastructure capabilities. Some of them is already in place. Otherwise, the growth that we had is not possible. As I said at the beginning of my presentation, we are still at the beginning because unfortunately, a lot of the things we would like to do now is not possible to do it in the short term, because first of all, we have to go through still a lot of enhancement of the platform of the Group.
I'm confident we will be soon ready with a stronger platform that will allow us to strengthen those omnichannel capability to engage even better in multiple ways with our customer. On the last question about Luna Rossa, as you see, first of all, thank you for your comment, and we believe that in this moment, Luna Rossa is a very important pillar for us because if we have been contacted by Adidas and vice versa, if we are relevant when we go to talk about sport with some suppliers and do collaboration in the sports world is because 20 years ago my father started Luna Rossa. Without this kind of credibility, we will not be strong in the sports world. I will say between the luxury player, Luna Rossa is strong and credible thanks to Luna Rossa.
In a world where shifting toward experiences and more storytelling, Luna Rossa is a perfect match, and also the new kind of boat is a perfect match and allows us to unlock even better the potential of Luna Rossa. I hope I answered your question. Thank you.
Next one.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Thierry Cota from Societe Generale. Please ask your question.
Good afternoon, and thank you for taking my questions. You gave a very clear indication of the gross margin expected this year, 74.5%. Do you expect to have a flat gross margin going forward? Are you happy with that level, or do you think this could go further higher? On your price positioning, I was wondering if there was any significant price increases realized since July after the ones you did in the spring, and whether as of now you are happy and satisfied with your relative price positioning versus peers. Lastly, just to make sure I understood well, for this year's EBIT margin, did I understand well, you said that the EBIT margin of the group should be between the 9.5% of full year 2019 and the 12% ex one-off of H2 2020?
On the retail sales growth as of now, the 5% approximately versus last year, that covers January and February, I would presume. If you could just clarify? Thank you.
Good afternoon. As far as price positioning is concerned, and this is Patrizio Bertelli speaking. As far as price positioning is concerned, we are partially satisfied because we actually recovered something which we had underestimated in the past. We decided to correct our price positioning, and the improvement was quite significant. I need to point out that the price positioning is not just given from increasing prices on individual products, but also we modified our product offer. We are providing products that have a higher perceived value, and they can command a higher price point. As to our performance for the first two months of this year, or the first quarter, which we're going to close at the end of March, the trend is what Alessandra Cozzani pointed out.
I think that the first quarter 2021 will point to the fact that in the next nine months of 2021, we expect to continue progressing and making advances. I think I answered all your questions. There's something left out?
Well, maybe just on the gross margin, the level you indicate for this year, is that the benchmark we should use for future years, or you think there could be some further upside there? Just repeat that on the EBIT margin for the year. I understand the target is to be in the low teens. Just to make sure I understood well.
Gross margin, we want to increase gross margin from 74.5%, which is the target now, to 78% in the future. As to the trend, this is exactly what Alessandra Cozzani said. We are going to experience a level which is going to be anywhere in between the performance of 2019 and the performance of the second half of 2020. Thank you.
Okay. Just want to clarify the 78% gross margin. Any idea of timing?
Two years. 78% in 18-24 months from now.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you. There are no further questions on the line. I will now hand it over to Alessandra Cozzani.
Okay. Thank you for joining us. Of course, we remain at your disposal for more detail. Alberto and Cinzia are, as always, available for additional comments. Thank you very much for staying with us, and see you next time, hopefully in person. Goodbye.
That concludes the conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect.