Hello, dear analysts and investors. Welcome to Mavi webcast regarding the financial results of the Q2 of 2024. Our CEO, Cüneyt Yavuz, will be presenting the results. It will be followed up by a Q&A session. We would like to remind you that, as always, this presentation is being recorded. Please make sure you keep your microphones muted throughout the presentation. I will leave the floor to Cüneyt Yavuz.
Thank you, Duygu. Hello, everyone. Welcome to our webcast regarding the financial results for the Q2 of 2024. As you all know, pursuant to the Capital Markets Board of Turkey, our financial statements are prepared in accordance with IAS 29 Inflationary Accounting Provisions, and this presentation reflects the company's audited financial information, including inflationary accounting. To enable investors and analysts to conduct a full-fledged analysis, supplementary historical information for selected key performance indicators are also provided. Please note that such supplementary information is made available only for information purposes and are not audited. I would like to start with a few words on the trading environment and its effects on the Q2. Recall that in the Q1, positive consumer demand trends largely continued from twenty twenty-three, driven by a substantial wage increase in January.
By mid-June, when we reported on the Q1, we had observed an initial normalization in consumer behavior. Following the Eid holiday and the government's announcement of no minimum wage increase for the latter half of the year, consumer demand experienced a noticeable decline, affecting sales performance across various industries in Turkey. The impact on our sales was also more significant than initially anticipated. However, as we have consistently communicated to our investment community, Mavi remains exceptionally well positioned to navigate these macroeconomic challenges. With our robust brand strategy, continuous communication, and dynamic product and pricing positioning, we achieved 200 basis points improvement in gross margins year over year in the Q2. We reported a Q2 EBITDA of TRY 1.2 billion, and a net income of TRY 468 million. Our flexible supply chain and effective planning capabilities. Sorry for that.
Our flexible supply chain and effective planning capabilities have ensured that our inventory levels remain optimal. Furthermore, efficient working capital management enabled us to generate over TRY 1.3 billion in operational cash flow during this challenging quarter. In Turkey, retail operations demonstrate resilience with a 1.8% increase in volumes on a high base. We acquired 359,000 new customers in the Q2, in line with our annual goal of 1.3 million new customer acquisition. Online sales growth in Turkey was driven by mavi.com, which effectively offset the weaker performance in marketplaces, resulting in a 4% volume increase for the quarter. We attribute this success to our superior marketing and CRM efforts, including personalized approaches, brand partnerships, strong communications, and data-driven methodologies that cater to diverse customer needs.
Conversely, international sales were notably weak this quarter, contracting 12% year over year in constant currency terms. North America was the sole market delivering growth, while Russia also faces macroeconomic challenges, and Europe is experiencing significant structural changes. Let's start with the key highlights of the quarter and go to slide five. Our consolidated sales reached TRY 16 billion, 359 million in H1 2024, growing 6% year on year. Specifically, Turkey retail sales grew 11%, and Turkey online sales grew 10% in the period. EBITDA realized 3 billion, TRY 371 million , resulting with an EBITDA margin of 20.6%. Our net income, growing 30% year on year, realized 1 billion, TRY 519 million , with 9.3% net income margin.
With a cash conversion rate of 99% in the H1 of the year, our net cash position as of period end is 4.9 billion TRY. In line with our extended targets to reach 1.3 million customers annually, we acquired 768,000 new customers in the H1 of 2024. Recall that as of this year, because of customers' frequency and volume increasing significantly, we are following and reporting on the active customers that have shopped with us in the last one year instead of two years. With this approach, Turkey active Kartuş card members who shopped with us in the last twelve months is 5.7 million as of the end of July. Let's now move on to slide seven to review our channel performance.
All channels in Turkey were impacted by the slowdown in consumer demand in the Q2, but showed resilience. Turkey retail sales grew 1.8% in volume and contracted 2% in real TL terms when applying inflation accounting. Likewise, Turkey online sales grew 4% in volume and was down 3.5% in real lira terms. As of the H1 of the year, Turkey retail sales is up 11%, online sales is up 10%, and wholesale sale is up 4% year on year. International revenue declined by nearly 12% in constant currency during the Q2, leading to a 7.5% contraction for the half of the year, H1 of the year.
This decrease was primarily driven by macroeconomic demand weakness across most of our international markets, the cessation of operations by some wholesale customers, and transitional issues in online marketplace sales operations in Europe. It is worth highlighting that our US business continues to deliver positive results. As outlined in our Q1 webcast, 2024 will serve as a foundational year focused on structural enhancements within our international operations. We are actively developing the strategic roadmap for our North America operations, while continuing to invest in talent and infrastructure. Simultaneously, we are addressing structural challenges in Europe, focusing on management restructuring, warehouse enhancements, and the SAP transformation. We anticipate that these initiatives will begin delivering positive outcomes from next year onward.
Looking into our Turkey retail business in more detail, in the H1 of this year, we opened six stores and expanded square meters of six stores in Turkey. This implies a 6% increase in square meters year over year, which will be supporting our sales targets in the coming months. We are now operating 342 stores, with an average size of 524 square meters as of end of July. On slide ten, let's elaborate on the like-for-like stores performance. In the Q2, as a result of the weak trading environment, like-for-like sales contracted 4.4%, in TL terms, and was down 1% in volume.
Reflecting effective pricing and increased units per transaction, basket size grew 1.4%, I mean, what I should say is that translates into 73.5% in nominal terms in quarter two. In the H1, like-for-like sales grew 6.6% in value and 10.5% in volume. Let's now move on to slide 11 to review category-based developments in Turkey retail. As of H1, reflecting the performance of our spring/summer 2024 season, all categories grew in value and volume. Denim sales growth is seasonally limited at 4% and is balanced with the growth in non-denim bottoms category, which grew 33% year on year. Our knits business, constituting of T-shirts, sweatshirt, and jersey offerings, grew 9%, shirts grew 15%, accessories grew 12%, and jackets grew 16% in real terms, adjusted for inflation.
Going forward to review our online sales performance, let's move on to page 13. As of the H1, our global online sales, including the wholesale business partners, constitute 10.1% of total consolidated revenue. Online sales in Turkey consists of only direct-to-consumer channels and grew 10%, driven by the strong 20% growth of mavi.com. Online sales constitute 8% of total sales in Turkey. International online contracted 7% in the H1. On a positive note, mavi.com is still the most resilient channel here, with 3% decline in sales year on year. Online business makes up 28.9% of total international sales. At Mavi, we remain committed to enhancing our omnichannel capabilities and elevating the Mavi shopping experience for consumers.
We will continue investing in CRM and data analytics to drive omnichannel growth, ensuring that our online business remains a positive contributor to margins. I am also pleased to share some exciting news about our online operations. We have launched our MENA, MENA online store, mena.mavi.com, serving five countries, UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait, with fulfillment from our Turkey warehouse. Although it is still in the early stages, the initial results are encouraging, and we look forward to providing more updates in the coming quarters. Now, let's move on to review our consolidated financial results. Looking at our gross margin performance on slide 15. Despite the slowing economy weighing on sales performance, with the right product, price positioning, and an efficient sourcing model, our gross margin improved 200 basis points and realized at 51% in the Q2.
There is 170 basis points negative impact of inflation adjustments due to higher inflation this quarter versus same quarter last year, and 210 basis points positive impact of increased imputed interest rate. In the H1 of the year, our gross margin realized that 51.8%, improving 430 basis points year on year. Now, let's move on to slide 16 to review our EBITDA performance. In Q2 2024, gross margin improvements were offset by a 440 basis point deterioration in the operating expense to sales ratio, primarily driven by employee costs and logistics expenses, both of which reflected significant wage increases exceeding 100% year on year. Consequently, our EBITDA margin declined by 260 points in Q2, landing at 16.4%.
For the first 6 months, our IAS 29 EBITDA margin stands at 20.6%. The EBITDA, EBITDA margins without inflation accounting and without IFRS 16 adjustments are presented for information purposes. It is important to note here that EBITDA margins without IAS 29 adjustments are still slightly above our guidance as of H1 results. On slide 17, we look into our net income margin performances. Our net income in the Q2 is TRY 468 million, which is 34% lower than the same quarter last year. The impact of inflation accounting on net income is higher in Q2 compared to both last year and last quarter, due to higher inflation rates, and hence, the significant monetary loss arising from the balance sheet.
Without IAS 29 inflation accounting, our net income margin in the quarter would be 13%, with an earnings growth of 49%. Our net income in the H1 of the year is TRY 1.519 billion, growing 30% year on year, with a net income margin of 9.3%. On Slide 18, we will review our operational cash flow and working capital performance. Thanks to our dynamic and flexible supply chain management, coupled with effective planning capabilities, our inventory remains at very healthy levels, consisting entirely of fresh, current, and upcoming season products. Working capital has been efficiently managed, representing 3.5% of sales over the last 12 months.
In the H1 of 2024, Mavi generated over TRY 3.3 billion in operational cash, with which is an impressive 99% cash conversion rate. Now, let's move on to slide 19. In the H1 of 2024, we invested TRY 507 million in capital expenditures, resulting in a CapEx to sales ratio of 3.1%. These expenditures were primarily focused on store openings and expansions, as well as digital investments and R&D. The CapEx related to our new headquarters is not yet included in these figures. Despite a significant dividend payment in the Q2, our strong operational cash generation has allowed us to reach a net cash position of TRY 4.9 million as of the end of July.
As always, the foreign currency debt reflected in our consolidated reports pertains solely to our subsidiaries, which borrow in their respective local currencies, thereby eliminating currency risk. We maintain our policy of holding no foreign exchange exposure on our balance sheet. On slide 20, a short note on the guidance for the year and trading update for the Q3. We anticipate that macroeconomic pressures will persist into the second half of the year. However, we believe our strong brand position, resilient business model, and solid balance sheet will enable us to navigate these challenges and emerge even stronger as we have in the past. As a team, we remain committed to sustaining our profitable growth trajectory over the long term. At this stage, Mavi management aims to remain within our initial guidance range.
As of mid Q3, the consumer demand trends have shown variability and is not easily predictable. The quarter commenced with weaker performance in August, marked by a year-over-year decline in sales volumes. IAS 29 excluded nominal figures show 53% growth in Turkey retail and 63% growth in Turkey online sales. In the first 15 days of September, the trend is doing slightly better than the last couple of months, delivering growth in volumes, delivering 57% sales growth in Turkey retail, and 64% sales growth in Turkey online. With this final note, I am now ready to take any questions you may have. Thank you very much.
Okay, we already have questions on the platform. Oğuzhan Bıkmaz has the first question. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much for the presentation. Oğuzhan Bikmaz from Info Yatırım. My question is about this. I actually want to confirm what I think. We see a decline in the EBITDA, thinking the reason is being slower in the revenue, top line part. But we see a remaining still gross margin. So the OpEx is remaining still, so the revenue is getting declined, so it makes sense to have a lower EBITDA. But my question is your volume and number of material sales remains still according to your numbers in the presentation. So I think-
... there should be a decline in the prices, but also we don't see a decline in the gross margin. So can we link it to the decline in the cotton prices, so that your costs are getting declined as well in the gross margin side? Is my question clear or should I-
Yeah. Thank you very much . And I'll try to, you know, shoot off how we see and how we read the numbers. And then if it's not clear, we can re-elaborate what I think is happening. As you just mentioned, what is happening is we have started seeing post-Bayram period, lead period, a slowdown in consumer traffic and also spending, appetite to spend. Especially, a kick in started when people realized that there was not going to be a minimum wage adjustment. So that had been. I think from a consumer perspective, we have witnessed a sort of adjustment period in terms of how do I plan and how do I behave and continue to shop as a behavior. To this extent, we are sort of relatively above water.
I think performing very well, strong balance sheet, although some amount of traffic and shopping appetite has come down, as you mentioned. Then it came in a little sort of stronger than what we expected in terms of what we were guiding or feeling would happen. But if I look at the overall industry, adjacencies, other food, condiments, and other fast moving consumer goods, I think as always, you will recall that as Mavi, we consider ourselves quite resilient, and we observe that we are remaining vis-à-vis the market, more resilient than ever. Now, what has happened is, overall, top line growth has come down, vis-à-vis what we have expected, and then we had constant OpEx costs.
So as a ratio, that chunk that we have been spending or have planned to spend has remained fixed, and therefore, mostly speaking, the EBITDA margin has been squeezed, due to this. Now, looking forward down the road, also let me say a few words on COGS. COGS is already factored in. We don't see necessarily a lot of COGS that are coming in, in terms of cotton price ups and downs, especially for this period of time. That would not be correct to say. Generally speaking, how we manage our costs is through the product mix. So if you look at the. On the one hand, we have denim, we have outerwear, we have accessory products, we have non-denim bottoms, T-shirts, shorts, et cetera.
And we, in terms of our COGS management and product mix management, and the product mix we have, we do our best to make sure, and we have actually have done a very good job of playing with our product mix to maintain and even improve our gross margins, which have been the positive side. And in terms of competition, this sort of well management of COGS gives us a great enabling margin of error or power to deal with competitive pricing and promotion and sentiments that might take place in the, let's say, retail environment. Now, moving from here, into the next couple of months, quarter three, quarter four, and then the following quarter next year, we still have a lot of...
Although some of the costs are fixed, we do have a lot of retail-related costs which are more flexible. Meaning we have staffing, which is more part-time, which is in and out, et cetera, which we can adjust and use as a buffer to mitigate some of the operational costs. That's one thing. The second thing is, we also have, as one can imagine, as any company has, certain costs that we can cut along the line. So as Mavi, in terms of our team, people staffing, we are not looking into any opportunities when it comes to overheads, but we are looking into every single opportunity where costs can be deferred, payments can be deferred, and certain activities can be canceled.
I think quarter three, quarter four, some of those actions that we have already taken will start to kick in, in terms of, in an effort to protect our bottom line, EBITDA margin. Again, having said that, I'll give a little even extra flavor. For quarter three, quarter four, not many industry has done it, but we have, as Mavi, both for the field staff and for the HQ staff, have done a 25% salary increase. So we have been proactive in protecting our employees and, you know, trusting on our strong balance sheet, we valued our employee satisfaction and retention of employees in this difficult times. This will have a positive impact.
This will have a initially a negative impact, but it will have a more positive impact on quarter one, when many of the companies who have not done minimum salary wage adaptations, they will have to deal with a higher ramp up. Whereas as Mavi, on a base, if you look at it from a base perspective, we will be looking into a less salary hike up, which will also help us transition into a very high base Q1 we had. Because we are already, as you know, we are trying to be a consistently and well-managed company, and we are also looking at Q3 , Q4 , and the Q1 of next year.
So that we are consistently delivering results that are not moving up and down, left and right, with big margins, to the best that we can deal with. So it, of course, externalities, you know, interest rates, economic ups and downs, which are externalities, which we'll deal with separately. I don't know if and it's a bit, maybe a bit more information than you asked for, but if this helps you, I'll stop it at that. If not, please do ask a few questions. I'll leave it to you.
Thank you very much for the information. That's really helpful. One more follow-up then.
Sure.
If there is a salary increase in the HQ-
Yeah.
What compensates the OpEx? Because OpEx seems to be constant. There has to be something diminished in place of personnel cost.
In this, when you look at the H1 results, the salary increase has not been factored in. Because the salary increase, as you know, our quarter is a little skewed.
Yeah.
So the salary increases and payments pay into next quarter, which is the quarter three.
Sorry.
So that's why I was giving you a heads-up of what is to come. So I'm trying to do a forward thinking for you guys because you like to sort of project out what's happening. So I just wanted to give you a heads-up that we have done a salary adjustment, effective August. These are being paid out, which July was the end of our quarter two. And it will continue until all the way to end of January, and it's February is when we do the salary adjustment in the Mavi terms for headquarters. The field team, of course, will follow in line with the government's decision on how they impact on January, the minimum wages.
But my whole point is we have done 25%, and let's say if a decision comes through to do 30%, 35%, 40% minimum wage adjustment, our increase over the current base will only be 5%, 10%, vis-a-vis doing a jump, one jump of 40% on Q1 2024. So that's the sort of heads-up I was trying to give you guys.
Okay, thank you very much. I missed the time part. Sorry.
Yeah. No problem. No problem. Yeah, it's clear. I also mix it up sometimes because our quarter can be sometimes confusing, and I'm also following others reporting their quarter results. So it's not only you. Thank you.
Thanks a lot. Yeah. So my part... Thank you.
Thank you. Cemal, you can go ahead.
Thank you for the presentation. My question is related to July figures in particular. As we see in your previous trading update, we saw 74% in May and 120% in the first 12 days of June, so it was the trading update ahead of this quarter. Did anything happen in specific to July so that your growth declined to 60-65% levels in the, I guess, you know, domestic market? That's my first question. And related to that, do you see any major change on the consumer behavior recently? Thank you. Or for the future, do you have any sign of postponing the spending et cetera? Thank you.
Overall, if you look at how we closed July, it was around again, another six, on average, roughly 65% growth. At the point when we were reporting the quarter one results with you guys, it was just after the Bayram period-
Before.
- which was just before the Bayram period, which was pre-Bayram, a lot of positive shopping that was going on. So it was a hyped up period. So if you do a like for like pre-Bayram, post-Bayram, and you do on average, it became normalized. I think what we have seen overall in terms of consumer sentiment, as I mentioned in my presentation or as we were talking a while ago, post-Bayram, and with the sudden increase of minimum wage, the sort of the economy or the shopping behavior slowed down a little faster than what we had anticipated for. Coming back to your question with regards to, do we see any consumer behavior trends?
If you look at our customers, and if you look at our stores and store clusters, we cluster them typically into A, B, C kind of store customers, and depending on location and customer base. We see more of the impact. As one would expect, we see more of the impact being felt by C customers, so the lower income areas have been impacted more, whereas the A/B categories of stores and consumers are still continuing with their trend of normal Mavi shopping. C customers typically constitute about 35%, 35-40% of our sales. So we would have to, and we will, of course, and that's why we still want to maintain our guidance for the rest of the year. We are very quickly adjusting product offering, campaign, and product availabilities for the C customer, considering their disposable income.
As you know, we always start with the consumer in mind first, and we start with the mentality of understanding their capability to shop and come to Mavi, and make sure that they feel that their money's worth is taking at Mavi. And I think if you look at our balance sheet and repositioning, we have that opportunity to continue to make offers and good positioning offers for this customer base. It is still gonna be a challenge because. As we all know, the second half of the year is also, quote-unquote, "a more expensive part of the year," with schools opening, heating bills coming in, and so, inflation continuing, and disposable income, therefore, coming under a lot more pressure. Having said, I mean, this is a reality. It's not new. It's a like for like base, so we will deal with that.
And we will, as always, make sure that Mavi is, whether it's a growing market or a maintaining market, stable market, that we continue to gain market share. And, regardless of the total market, we maintain our strong, trusted, best place to shop, best experience, best products, best quality, mentality. So we will not do anything crazy, meaning that we won't go and do crazy stuff in terms of doing crazy markdowns or vice versa. We will not do crazy in terms of pricing things up because there is inflation. We haven't done it this way or that way. We will continue to be closely monitoring the consumer behavior. We are buying into a lot of Ipsos data, which comes in quarterly. We are working with other, market research entities to understand the consumer behavior.
We're actually ramping up, as we did in COVID era. We are ramping up our consumer communication. You will see, starting this quarter, a lot of rackets, billboards, TV advertisements, both with Kıvanç and Serenay. We are working with also digital platforms to focus on, again, customer groups that might be interested to buy more of the Mavi, and make sure that we have a fair fight, let's say, fair attitude in terms of making sure that consumer, when they come to shop, they come to shop with Mavi. But again, short answer is, beyond what you would have expected, which is the lower end of the consumer spectrum, generally speaking, the other AB socioeconomic group, which we classify as our solid shoppers, they're still there. They're coming and buying Mavi products.
As fall/winter kicks in, more of the jackets and heavywear products will kick in, which will also, hypothetically, probably help us in terms of growing the revenue. We started September. I gave you some numbers in terms of the quarter three, but if you look at product categories, denim sales are really solid. We are very happy with how the denim sales are going through, which is always a good indicator, because denims are typically the more pricey ticket items that we are offering, and consumers are still coming and positively buying more of the Mavies, which is very happy news for us all. Thank you.
Thank you. And, another question is about the international revenue side. We see 27% decline in-
Yes.
inflation-based numbers, real numbers.
Right.
Excluding the inflation impact, what was the rate of decline in, you know, the FX rates, FX base? What was the decline? And maybe you elaborate further on that.
Mm.
It's a small portion, but still, I wonder, you know, what was the real in the FX terms and the reasoning behind that?
That's good. So, I just was gathering the numbers for you. Sorry for that. Now, when I look at what's happening in Europe. In Europe, let me go one by one. In Russia, things have slowed down a bit, similar to Turkey. It's a very small portion of our business, have slowed down, so it's more than 20%, slowdown is what we are observing in the Russian market. In Europe, there is a bit of a structural adjustment in the sense that we had a lot of e-com business which was taking place via Zalando, which was seen direct for wholesale versus direct to consumer sales, which we are recalibrating. So that is sort of up and down in the adjustment period, which should normally kick in and normalize starting next year. We are also in Germany as we speak.
As I mentioned in my presentation, we are in the midst of an ERP change, so hopefully we move on to SAP, which will also streamline and improve our EDS sales, which are linked up to the key department stores. And hopefully, we want to see, we hope, we look forward to seeing more of our most sales, which is never out of stock sales, going up. Which in this interim period, there is some, let's say, more externally, some of it caused by us, that is disrupting some of the numbers. When you look at US, it is more in the... So Europe is also down around 20% through this adjustment. But then when you look at US, it's more like plus 5-6%.
Net-net, it comes down to a minus when you add it all up.
In overall, in total? In total, actually, overall, because they're all in different currencies, but if you look at - if you wanna look at it in dollar terms, it's minus 14, by the way. The next question is, Arman Yıldız. Please go ahead.
Hi. My question is about the stock levels. The stock level has increased about TRY 1 billion in the Q2 compared to Q1. Is it because of weak demand or are you preferring to keep higher stock? Can you explain it, please? And also, I have one more question. It's about the weather in the first fifteen days of September. The temperature was really high compared to averages. Is it postponing your fall season demand? ... My question is-
Two pieces. One on the inventory side. I think one part of the increase. I mean, generally speaking, as I mentioned in our presentation, personally, inventory is my number one KPI that I follow. So, and the last thing I want to do is make sure that we have a deterioration in terms of our inventory and working therefore, a working capital negative impact. There is an increase, but it's mostly because of new product for quarter three, new season, fall, winter, coming into our warehouses. That is bumping up the inventory levels. But if I look at. Having said that, if I look at the total inventory cover, freshness, you know, leftovers, one season to another, we are in very good shape.
I think the... I keep reiterating this, the fact that more than 80% of what we produce is being produced in Turkey, and the relationship with the manufacturers, the speed with which we can bring things into, onto shelf and slow things, start things, is phenomenally well, and well run. Therefore, I would read that TRY 1 billion increase more as a part of for next season preparation and products coming in for fall, winter, like jackets, outerwear, et cetera. When it comes to weather, weather is always an element of what we sell. It is true, like, believe it or not, when it rains, we say, sell rain jackets. When it's cold, you sell sweaters. And when it's snowing, you sell jackets and outerwear.
So the weather does impact, but generally speaking, I don't know, I mean, my experience is these things wash out in the end. There is an overall tendency of global warming that is coming up, so we have to factor that in. And to that end, I think the critical thing over the last five, six years, especially on Mavi side, has been the management of outerwear and jackets. How we, you know, how many we order and how many we sell. So the rest, like T-shirts, sweatshirt, jeans, are quite seasonless. They do slow down and pick up speed, you know, when the weather gets cold. Today, for instance, a bit of a cold, you know, more cloudy day, and we will automatically see the benefit of that.
I worry more about the jackets, and typically, over the last four or five years, I think we have learned to sell what we buy and be, in a way, in a positive sense, to be out of stock at the end of the season, especially when it comes to the seasonal products, like winter products. That will be my worry, but that worry is not at this point in time. I don't have any worries. Products are coming in on time. Our planning, you know, based on last year's performance and last many years of performance and future performance, we are prepared to deal with what we will sell. Inventory, maybe at the end of the year, might be up one, two days, but it's not gonna be significantly deteriorating vis-a-vis the prior years.
By the way, tomorrow, we are having one of the biggest supply days in our history. So we will have more than 400 people attending our conference, where I was calculating at the back of the envelope, that's about 20% of Turkish textile industry will be under one roof, where we will celebrate the 30+ years of Mavi's collaboration and talk about the future plans, and I'm really happy to say that every single supplier that has joined our board, whether it's the new ones that have joined us or just only over 1 year, or those that have been working with us more than 30 years, and there are quite a few of those, will be under one roof, talking about the future and the challenges we have.
So it's another testament of Mavi's strength, not only from a consumer point of view, but it is also a testament with our business partners to plan for the future and the challenging times that are ahead of us and ahead of them. So we can listen to each other under one roof, one big family, supporting our brand and supporting our company. And I think it will be one of a kind, conference, which hopefully you will remind me to say a few words at the end of quarter three about how that went. And we are really excited to be holding this conference.
Thank you, Cüneyt. Also, I have one more question. It's about the TRY gaining value against the other currencies, dollar and euro, and are you expecting a competition from the foreign companies if this trend continues? Because there is a inflation in dollar terms and euro terms in Turkey. Will it change the view after this, in terms of market share?
This is a pendulum movement. I mean, in my 16 years with Mavi, it moves left and right. Sometimes for us, the bigger challenge comes from LC Waikiki, Koton, the local big players. And sometimes, as you mentioned, the competition comes from H&M, Zara, Mango, and other imported goods because of the Turkish currency swings from up to down. We are on a constant and weekly basis for an SKU basis, on an SKU level basis, tracking and monitoring the pricing position of Mavi products vis-a-vis more than 20 plus competitors.
We believe with the stronger gross margin position we have, the manufacturing capabilities and the product mix management capabilities, you know, and choosing to make certain products or not, or not to make certain products, we will be able to manage and deal with import competitive importing competitors. But your point is very valid. Over the next, probably at this rate, next nine months, not only for Mavi, for all local players, importing brands like Zara or H&M, will have an advantage, and we, as the local players, have to adapt to that. But this in no way necessarily changes our outlook or activity, because this is for us, business as usual to a certain extent, because there are times when we benefit and there are times when we lose.
This will be a transition for the next, I think, six, nine months, that we will have to deal with, and I think we have the capabilities and the tools to deal with it.
Thank you so much.
Thank you very much.
[crosstalk]
Yavuz Bigal, go ahead, please.
Thanks a lot. I hope you hear me well. In your presentation, you generally mentioned the outlook for the coming quarter. Thanks for that, first of all. Consistently, you are providing that. And, when I look into the numbers, it seems that in August and, I mean, since the beginning of August, which means half of the Q3, somewhere around 60%, revenue growth on a year-on-year basis in nominal terms. Is it possible to give a little bit more color regarding details of that? For example, how the back-to-school period started in terms of the quantities, volumes, and also the transaction. So if you divide this around 60% into detail, how much comes from price, how much comes from tickets, how much comes from the quantities?
This is my first question, and I will have another question after your answer. It will be a very short one. Thanks a lot.
Overall, for the August. I mean, first of all, I should put it this way. Since the beginning of quarter, and actually since July, one week to another has been quite unpredictable. So there have been weeks within, like, over the last 16, 17, 18 weeks, where we had a very good week and then very slow week. Some of it weather related, some of it may be product related, some of it sentiment related in terms of people looking at dollar price, inflation price, politics, what's happening externally, et cetera. If you look at the August numbers, I mean, I can. I'll probably, I can share with you two points.
One, again, as I mentioned just a few minutes ago, we see a bit of weakness on the lower end, like the C outlet areas, but we are in the midst to prepare products and product mix that will cater to that customer in our stores over the next couple of months, so I think I can ameliorate some of the gap that is coming there, as I also mentioned there, but AB customer base and the back to school, when it comes to especially kids coming in, buying their blue jeans and buying their school-related products, I've been quite happy, and the volume was, if I'm not mistaken, roughly 4 or 5% above last year, so we had a positive volume growth, which is always great to see, especially in these challenging times.
So that's the amount of information I can give at this point in time. We have post the Bayram period, I've been at Mavi, sort of, managing the business, literally, every week, gathering together, looking at competition, pricing, product we have, campaigns we have, channels that are performing, and being more vigilant than we normally are. I mean, we are typically busy bees, but we have extremely, sort of, elevated our vigilance. And also, as I also mentioned, we are not doing anything silly, but we are also looking into every single expense-related stuff when it comes to, you know, money being spent to get the biggest return. Like today, we were having a big meeting, for instance, with Meta team, to discuss in terms of customer segments and to find, like, new customers, how do we use influencers better, et cetera.
Just to give you a sentiment, not in a mindset of defensive, on the contrary, to find that extra customer who's out there shopping, spending money, and to make sure that they find what they're looking for at Mavi. This will, you know, continue, and it's getting tougher, but we believe in terms of our attitude, our outlook, which as always, is sunny side up. How do we make the most of what we have? We have a great brand, great constituency of Mavi brand supporters, customers, consumers, suppliers, and keep the business chugging on. Thank you.
Thanks a lot. Very short one, the second one. You said, if I hear properly, a 25% increase, and when did you do that? And after this increase, what is the total wage increase that you have done since the beginning of the year? Thanks. And is it like a base wage increase or just like fringe benefits that you provided the second 25%? Did you increase the base-
which is-
-like?
Okay. Yeah. We, at the beginning of the year, we started with a 55% salary increase. And then we did another 25% salary increase starting August. So it's not a fringe benefit, it's an end of the month salary increase that people get.
... apologies, just one shot wage increase starting will affect the Q3?
Coming into Q3, into the positive pockets of our employees and also have an OpEx hit. Some of it will be managed and offset by the already actions we took during quarter two. And I do believe, if I'm not mistaken, but maybe you can give some color, Duygu. Quarter three, OpEx actually should come down, in absolute terms, vis-a-vis quarter two, despite the salary increase.
Yeah, the taxes to sales ratio-
Not the ratio, but I'm talking about the absolute.
Yeah. So the ratio will continue to be lower than last year, but not as much as what you saw in the quarter.
So this 25% salary increase should not intimidate you in terms of an OpEx bump. So I think we've taken the right measures to make sure that we deservedly can hand out this salary increase.
I see. And also, you mentioned when the time comes in January, after this twenty-five, are you able to reflect below the minimum?
Yeah, I mean, I think the good news is when we do this 25, this is on the side. When the minimum wage comes in, let's say if there is 35%, we will have to do only 10. So, base perspective, some companies, I don't know how other companies have managed this. Some companies may, in January, have all of a sudden 30, 40, 50%, depending on the minimum wage impact on their balance sheet. Whereas our labor jump will be lower, and a lot of the OpEx will be in the base. This upfront salary adjustment is also a great tool for us to tighten our belts in other areas and to see how we will manage the rest of the coming quarters in the right way.
So I find it, you know, a win-win proposition for all of us. And we can afford to do it also. It's yours. Okay.
Thanks a lot.
We also have some questions coming from the chat screen. A1 Capital, Mustafa says: Hello, although the winter and autumn season delays put pressure on finances, when do you think inflation accounting factors will end?
There is talk about when inflation accounting factors will end, that's not for me to say at this point in time. I cannot comment on that. We talked about the seasonality and, ups and downs of sales. I think overall, you know, weather is an important factor, but in terms of our performance, I think that's part of the challenge we will deal with, and I worry less about that.
Our next question is from Mikel. Why is the employee cost increasing so much as there was a second minimum wage hike?
You know, there wasn't an employee cost increase, but as a percentage going up because the top-line growth slowed down. So that's probably what you're referring to. But we did talk a lot about how this will play out, how it's played out, and how it will continue to play out all the way to spring, summer twenty twenty-five.
Mikel, we did last year, second half, we did 35% employee cost wage increase, and then January, we did 55% more. So if you look year-over-year for the H1 of this year compared to H1 of last year, this was in Mavi, but overall in Turkey, impacting all other costs, such as logistics, everyone did twice wage hikes, which were high. But that's the general case in Turkey. That's year over year, employee costs are much higher than top-line inflation right now.
Okay.
Another question from Erkan Edincik is: Based on our observations, the economic slowdown is becoming more pronounced. If you decide to revise your guidance for 2024, how do you plan to communicate this? Will it be done in the Q3 results or beforehand?
At this point in time, you know, we would, as Mavi team, as my Mavi management team, we would like to maintain and stick to our guidance, as it carries a lot of uncertainty, and we're almost within that. What we are hoping is that when it comes to quarter three, we will be in a position to guide you in terms of where we are heading to. That's the regular communication that we do at every single quarterly meeting. We give you an update if there is an update needed. That's our current plan, is that we do when we come together, when we finish the quarter, so the Q3, that we will share with how we are tracking to finish the year and then our outlook for the next year.
Probably, like, a similar question from Ayfer Atalan: Given the company's unchanged full year 2024 profitability guidance, despite contracting margins and wage hikes, could you explain if there has been any noticeable signs of improved profitability in August and September that will make you reach profitability targets?
I mean, I shared the whole, the numbers, the top-line growth and where we're heading, as well as OpEx, and you see where our numbers and you see where our guidance is. So, you know, that also gives you an indication of where we think the rest of the coming months, we think, will play out. So thank you.
Yavuz, do you have your hand again? Do you have another question?
... You left it up ? So, maybe you left it out.
No. Any other questions?
There is one more question, I think, on the chat screen. What? Are you considering a shift towards younger faces for Mavi's advertising campaigns? Personally, I believe that Kıvanç Tatlıtuğ now appeals more to middle-aged consumers rather than younger generation.
This is a very good question. This is something every season we track the value of our faces and celebrities. The great thing about Kıvanç is, yes, he's right now a middle-aged man. He's no longer the twenty-something guy he used to be, but overall, he's adding a lot of value to us. So he's bringing a lot of premium look for us. So we will look into Mavi. I mean, Kıvanç remains our face for the company, and he will be... We'll be capitalizing on Kıvanç's popularity, and all the research we do right now puts Kıvanç well ahead of any other celebrity across Turkey in terms of a male celebrity.
So, right, in line with what is right for Kıvanç, we are, as you might be aware, we have added, as you know, along the way, our Pro line, Black line, with Kıvanç, and most recently, we have added our Edition line, with Kıvanç. We will use Kıvanç to bring in more premiumness in line with Mavi and, in line with, Kıvanç aesthetics. And Serenay, of course, will be the new, young, aspirational woman, fashion-forward lady for us. Net-net, you have to understand that beyond these two very strong celebrities, we are using tons of influencers in TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, et cetera, to sub-segment and target audiences that are in line with that audience. It is a 360 effort.
The question is a valid one, but don't worry, we are really doing all the research, no matter what the celebrity is, whether it's called Serenay or no matter who the influencer is, that they fit, the Mavi way of, doing business. Thanks for that feedback.
Do we have any other questions?
At this point, I would like to thank each and every one of you for joining us in this podcast. We look forward to coming in with pretty good numbers in the end of quarter three. In the meantime, seems like in these challenging times, I wish you all the best in whatever you're doing, and that we, you know, deliver happy, healthy days. And as always, stay in touch. We are here whenever and wherever you feel like you need more information. We will be as transparent and as sharing as we can be in terms of how our business is tracking. And thank you all for attending once again. Bye-bye.