Good morning, all. Welcome to our Q3 results announcement today, which of course covers the last four months to June 30th, 2021. I'll start by taking you through a high-level overview of the results and a little bit more color on Topshop integration progress and also our new partnership that we announced earlier this week with Nordstrom. I'll hand over to Mat, who will take you through a bit more detail and unpack some of the moving parts. Of course, we'll hand over to questions at the end. Let me start with a quick overview of Q3. Q3 was another strong performance for ASOS against a volatile backdrop. The variant restrictions had an effect on changed demand patterns and global supply chain pressures have impacted our flexibility to react.
Our reported growth was 31% year-on-year for the group on a constant currency basis. For clarity and comparability, we've adjusted the return provision movement from last year. I'm going to refer to the underlying constant currency rates for the rest of this script. On an underlying basis, we also delivered a strong sales growth of 21% across the group. This was driven notably with a very strong performance in the U.K., an improvement in the U.S. growth rate, and a solid performance in the E.U. market. That was most notable with a much improved performance in Germany. Our active customer base has grown well again, with a further 1.2 million customers since H1, taking the total to 26.1 million active customers. Pleasingly, we've seen a reduction in the churn rate in our biggest market, the U.K.
You'll be aware of the uncertainty in lockdown restrictions, the rise in new variants, and uncertainty around holiday prospects. This has meant a more unpredictable trading environment for fashion. The changing environment, combined with unseasonal weather, has made it not only frustrating for our customers, but it's also meant it has been difficult to plan their lives and their wardrobe choices accordingly. Just to illuminate this, as an example, we saw searches for coats one week up 77%, and then the following week, we saw dresses up triple digits. In spite of that, I'd love to thank the ASOS team for their incredible resilience and agility in helping us navigate this uncertain trading pattern.
This, of course, has not been without challenges, as across the industry, we're seeing continued pressures on the global supply chain with global capacity shortages and an increase in delivery days for shipments coming out of the key ports. Moving on to Topshop. I'm pleased to say the brand has continued to perform strongly with sustained triple-digit sales growth since the acquisition. We've seen a continued step-up in visits since the customer relaunch, and in clothing, we're seeing sustained increase in total visits across U.S., U.K., and Germany. This has been particularly strong in the U.K., with visits for Topshop products growing at more than double the rate we saw pre-acquisition. We're also seeing a highly engaged Topshop customer who has both high frequency and a higher ABV than our existing ASOS customers.
I'm sure you saw it, but we're delighted to announce, and we did on Monday, that we've agreed a partnership with the U.S.-based multi-channel retailer, Nordstrom. This will drive growth in North America for us. Through this joint venture, Nordstrom will acquire a minority interest in the Topshop, Topman, Miss Selfridge, and HIIT brands. Nordstrom has a strong history with Topshop, being the first U.S. retailer to offer the brand to the U.S. market as far back as 2012, and understands the brand and the customer well. We look forward to partnering together to build out an exciting future for these brands. Nordstrom also has unrivaled physical and digital reach in North America with more than 350 physical stores alongside online platforms that attract almost 2 ,000,000,000 annual visits. The investment with Nordstrom also underpins a wider strategic partnership.
This partnership will see ASOS debut in its first-ever in-store edit. It'll be the best of ASOS DESIGN, COLLUSION, and the ASYOU brands, which will be launching in selected Nordstrom stores and across nordstrom.com. I'll now hand over to Mat, who'll talk you through a couple of the key financial and operational highlights.
Thanks, Nick, good morning, everybody. I'll start by taking you through the territory performance before moving on to gross margin, and then I'll wrap up by talking to the outlook. As Nick mentioned, we saw strong performance in the U.K. with 36% growth, despite physical retail reopening in early April, underpinned by a strong promotional calendar to capture the available demand. Towards the end of the period, the unseasonal weather, combined with continued COVID uncertainty and the increasing acceptance that overseas holidays and major events are not going to be a reality for most 20-somethings, contributed to increased volatility and an overall slowing of demand. We saw good growth in Europe of 15%, despite an initially slow vaccine rollout and varying levels of COVID restrictions in place across the continent, and Brexit-related delays from the U.K. to Europe impacting on our supply chain flexibility and increasing product lead times.
As an example, what used to take us four days now takes us 20 days in terms of product from the U.K. to our German warehouse. Our share held up, reflecting the resonance of our strong product offer and customer experience among consumers. Performance was particularly good in Germany, although Southern Europe continues to be challenging with tourism-related economic pressures disproportionately impacting 20-somethings. Pleasingly, we saw improvement in U.S. growth rates to 20%, which reflects our improved stock offer, supported by stimulus checks and the removal of a significant number of COVID restrictions. Lastly, rest of world trading declined 3%, impacted by COVID related disruptions to our delivery proposition in comparison to local competition with Russia, Australia, and MENA all impacted. At H1, we noted the increasing promotion-intensive environment, and this trend continued in the period.
Turning now to gross margin, which reduced by 150 basis points compared to the same period last year. You will recall at our half year, we walked you through a bridge of the variation in past winning gross margin, which comprised of FX and freight headwinds, changes in product mix. These elements were broadly similar for P3, with continued FX headwinds in line with H1, along with freight and duty, which continue due to the global supply chain challenges along with Brexit related impacts. Moving now to product mix. Encouragingly, we are starting to see consumer demand shift back into our strong going out offer. In the U.K., whilst our casual wear business remains strong, we have seen an increasing shift into occasion wear since the lifting of restrictions. Our return rates have tracked in line with this shift back into occasion wear and are normalizing at an increasing rate.
We see similar trends across the U.S. and most of our European territories, with Germany the most pronounced. A couple of specific points. You'll recall that we issued a GBP 500 million convertible bond in April of this year with a 0.75% coupon. Some of you may have already put this into your model, but it is worth flagging that this represents a GBP 6 million interest charge in this year and a GBP 17 million interest charge for next year, which PBT numbers will need to be adjusted for. Other than that, our full year PBT outlook remains in line with expectations. In terms of CapEx, all key investment projects are on track. We have been able to improve the phasing of our spend between years, which means our CapEx number for this year is expected to be circa GBP 160 million.
We also expect returns rates to continue to normalize at an increasing rate in line with the continued shift back into occasion wear. Lastly, we expect global freight issues to remain a challenge going forward. As mentioned earlier, we saw a softening in the final weeks in June, largely driven by continued COVID uncertainty and unseasonal weather. As we sit here today, we expect the characteristics of recent trading to continue for the balance of the year, and as a result, we expect the P4 growth rate to be broadly in line with the prior comparable period on an underlying constant currency basis. This has been a year that we consistently called out that there will be an increase in volatility. We've certainly seen that step up. Against this backdrop, we're pleased that our full year PBT outlook remains unchanged. Within that we continue to invest for the long term.
Thanks, Mat. As Mat just said, we have continued to invest in our business across our unique ASOS brands, our ASOS platform, and our ASOS experience. All this is continuously powered by our ASOSers, by improving technology, and our enhanced global warehouse capability. We strongly believe the structure of the global e-commerce fashion market has changed forever. This will drive an increase in online fashion sales over the long term, and we're confidently investing in our business to achieve that opportunity. I'd like to hand over to questions operator.
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you've changed your mind, please press star followed by two. For those who have joined online, you can press the request to speak flag icon. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure your phone is unmuted locally. Our first question comes from John Stevenson from Peel Hunt. John, please go ahead.
Hi, thanks. Morning, all. I have two questions for me, please. Firstly, on actives, it looks like a 5% increase on the headline numbers you put out this morning. Can you talk a little bit about signs of improving churn and how that active growth is in the U.S. and Europe and how that's been changing? The second question is just on the normality trade. I don't know if you can give, again, a little bit more difference in terms of how mix and returns rates have changed over the territories and maybe give a sense of how close to normal we are now.
Sure. Morning, John. Mat will pick up both those questions.
Hi, John. Morning. On active customers, our active customer base by territory, I guess, reflects broadly the trading performance. Other than the strengthening churn or improving churn we've seen in the U.K., I would say that the performance has been fairly similar across the territories. There's probably nothing notable to call out there. It reflects the overall performance that we talked about today. In terms of product mix and returns rates, product mix is, I guess the best way to put it is, if you looked at F2019 levels as a proxy for pre-pandemic, and you looked at F2020, or certainly F2020's second half as a proxy for the heart of the pandemic, the reality is that the product mix is somewhere in between those two, and I think that reflects where consumers are.
Consumers have significantly more freedom in most territories than they did this time last year, but people are still far from living normal lives, as I'm sure everyone on the call will recognize. Our product mix reflects. Returns rates are on a similar trajectory. They're not back to pre-pandemic levels, but they're also not where they were at the height of the pandemic. Our expectation is over time that those things will both continue to go back towards more normal levels. It's hard to know what normal looks like, I guess, and particularly over what time frame that's going to happen. As we flag today, consumers are living in very uncertain times, and their behavior reflects that.
Just one thing on active customers. One thing on active customers, we continue to see a very strong increase in our premium customers, and that's ahead of actual active customers as well. We don't really give those numbers out, but in terms of color, our premium customer membership is growing faster than our active customers, and that's most notable in U.K. and U.S.
Okay, that's pretty helpful. Thank you. Cheers.
Our next question comes from Rebecca McClellan from Santander. Rebecca, please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Can you just talk a little bit more about Southern Europe, what's going on there? I think previously you said it was mainly Spain and is it a broader thing now? Could you give us an idea of perhaps the weakness in demand that you've seen? Finally, as tourism does open up, would you expect there to be some underpinning of the trends?
Sure. Morning, Rebecca. Let me give you that. Mat will give you a couple of details. In Europe, we're seeing the strongest growth continue in France and a much improved performance in Germany, and we're very pleased about that. We're seeing a very poor demand profile in Italy and Spain and some of the other parts of Europe for probably the best part of the last few months. That's been the key trend to call out. Mat, anything on that?
I guess, Rebecca, we do think that the situation is related to the income associated with tourism. I guess if it does pick up, we would expect that to have an impact. I guess the challenge is calling with certainty whether it is going to pick up or it's not going to pick up is quite difficult. You'll know, obviously, the U.K. put the Balearics back on the amber list, and Germany and France have both said that their tourists shouldn't visit Spain. I think we're trying to call it as we see it today. I think one of the challenges we've had in this and in other statements is knowing with any clarity what the market thinks is going to do going forward. But where that happens, then it should pick up.
Yeah, at this time of the year, normally people are thinking about their holidays, their holiday outfits, their festivals, their events, all those kinds of fashion choices. Absolutely been delayed. Whether they will come back on Monday onwards looks a little bit questionable at this point in time, Rebecca.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Simon Bowler from Numis. Simon, please go ahead.
Hi. Morning. You spoke towards the end of the call around continuing to put investment into the business to grow into the opportunity ahead of you. Can you just give a bit of color on where some of that investment fell during Q3 and where your immediate plans are for that to go? I guess, whether that's in pricing, marketing, or other aspects of the proposition.
Sure. Hi, Simon. I'll do that. We flagged that half of the investment we were making in pricing, and that would've been a feature throughout the course of Q3, and we would expect that investment to continue into Q4. That is a good proportion of where that investment is going. We have also continued to invest in marketing where we see the opportunity. They'd be the two big elements of investment, but we're also, I guess, building out capability in a number of different areas in technology, although most of that investment was just in CapEx, as you know. We are continuing to invest in all the elements of the business, but I guess where it's most notably going to hit the P&L is that investment in pricing and the marketing spend.
Okay, thank you.
Thanks, Simon.
We now have a question from Michael Benedict from Berenberg. Michael, please go ahead.
Morning, all. Thanks very much for taking my questions. Just a couple from me, please. Appreciate the circumstances over the back end of June were unfavorable, but I wondered if you could give some color on how you're thinking about, I guess, the coming weeks with lockdown restrictions in the U.K. ending. Clearly, the weather is improving day by day. Then the second one, just on your priorities for the cash from the convertible bond raise to be invested for your forecast.
Sure. Let me have a go at that, Michael. Good morning. What we've attempted to do and always attempt to do is just be clear how we're seeing things and set our expectations so you can see what we're experiencing and all of those things. We continue to do that again this morning. We always thought there's going to be a moment where there's going to be volatility, and it has been extremely so in June. In terms of the balance of the year, we call it as best we can. It's a short period. If the weather does improve in the U.K. and people do feel more able to travel and more events come on, that would be really helpful, but it's a short period. By all means, that's going to be extremely helpful for us. What's your second question, Mike?
Just for the priorities for cash from the convertibles gap.
Sure. Back in April when we did the convertible, we had two priorities. To enhance our flexibility to accelerate our organic growth, i.e. invest harder and more, and secondly, to give us the agility to pick up any acquisitions that would help turbocharge our growth where necessary and where we thought the opportunity arose. One of the things that we learned through the Topshop acquisition is having the agility through cash means you can actually move quickly and get assets if you want them. Of course, there's a very high bar we apply on those. They've got to be 20-something, they've got to be core categories, they've got to have geographical expansion, and have got strong ROI. Those are the two principal reasons why we raised that money, and very, very consistent today.
Great. Thanks so much.
Our next question comes from Simon Irwin from Credit Suisse. Simon, please go ahead.
Morning, guys. Two questions for you. Firstly, can you just talk us through where we are with TGR, in terms of the rollout, what you're finding, where you're able to switch off legacy systems, et cetera. Secondly, just going back to the question on active customers, do you know how much of the increase in recent quarters has been down to former Topshop or Arcadia customers? Do you think you've milked that opportunity yet, or is there still a big list of people that you've yet to approach?
Okay. TGR went live several months ago. The old systems have been retired, and it's working extremely well, no issues whatsoever. All these next season planning has been done on it, and so that's been extremely successful implementation. What's important about that is then that moves our attention for us to invest more heavily in our platform capability. We haven't mentioned our Flex Fulfillment Program this morning, but that's something we'll be talking to you about again shortly. That's on track, and we're expecting to heavily invest in that capability, that platform, to improve our connection with our customers and the ability to scale our top line faster than the requirements of landing more distribution centers. In terms of the active customers, Mat will give you some numbers, if he's got them, but we haven't yet exploited Topshop Topman brands to its full potential.
We're expecting far more of those, particularly with North America and particularly within Germany. If you recall, when we acquired Topshop, we said the following. In 2019, that was a GBP 1 billion brand. We acquired it for GBP 265+ million some stock on top of that. Our plan is to return that to a GBP 1 billion revenues, anchored in North America, actually also in the U.K., and then in Europe. What we're building with Nordstrom isn't just a wholesale relationship. We're building a multi-channel model that will have B2C with us B2C, leveraging their capabilities, leveraging their data, leveraging their stock pools, but more importantly for ASOS, leveraging their eyeballs. Think about $10 billion worth of eyeballs going to ASOS brands and Topshop Topman brands with our full offer in North America.
Our target is to return the Topshop Topman brands to the 2019 revenues with a digital-first offer and augmented by the store offer in North America.
Okay, thanks. The product you're supplying to Nordstrom is going to be sold to them as wholesale customers. Is that correct? Is it some kind of franchise or marketplace type of deal?
No. The joint venture with Topshop Topman brands that they've invested in, it will be sold to them at a commercial margin, and the ASOS DESIGN will be sold at a commercial margin too. Does that address your Simon?
Yep. No, that's fine. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Charlie Muir-Sands with Exane BNP Paribas. Charlie, please go ahead.
Morning, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Given the slowdown you flagged in recent weeks and the volatility by category, obviously counterbalanced by the fact you're talking about delays getting inventory in, what's your view on how clean you'll be able to exit this year or the summer season collections? Secondly, related to that, if you hit that PBT that you're anticipating, can you give us a rough indication of where you might be for net cash, please?
Mat, do you want to take that?
Yeah. Obviously on the cash, Charlie, our guidance is unchanged from half year. It's overall, we talked about being cash positive in the second half of the year, and also that other than the unwind of the working capital that we flagged at the start of the year, we expect to be cash flow positive over the full year. The expectations are broadly unchanged. There will be links, I suppose, to a little bit of your first question, that the only uncertainty I guess around cash will be exactly where we bring product in for peak and the exact timing of that with the global supply chain pressures as they are. It's possible that could have a cash flow favorable impact if it comes in slightly later. Obviously we're looking to do everything we can to secure that product and it might end up with a slight working capital move.
Other than that, I guess that's all kind of encompassed within the guidance. From an exit in terms of stock, we're proactively managing the volatility on our stock. Actually, Nick was talking about TGR, one of the flexibilities that TGR gives us is an ability to be more dynamic and more targeted in how we do that. At this stage, I'm relatively comfortable with where we're likely to exit the year. Notwithstanding the fact we've still got seven weeks of trade left to go. I'm comfortable at this stage, but clearly the volatility is making that harder rather than easier. As I said, I think we've got the tools at our disposal to handle it.
Great. Thank you.
Charlie, the main priority is now is we've got to have stock in place for the end of the year. We're already planning autumn, winter, and into spring for ourselves up to do a great autumn, winter with the U.K. collections we've got. TGR is one of them. We will be doing it with Nordstrom, and we launched a Topman over there. We've also got something planned in the U.S. Our job is to exit with product, reset, build.
Very clear. Thank you.
Our next question comes from Olivia Townsend from UBS. Olivia, please go ahead.
Hi, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. Just on P3, I was wondering if you could give a bit more information on the other KPIs during the period. Am I right in thinking the basket size should have improved? Anything on order frequency as well. My second question is just on some of those gross margin pressures that you were referring to in the statement. I'm just wondering how much visibility do you have on things like freight costs into next year? I'm thinking of lengths of contracts, timing of renegotiations, that kind of thing. Thanks.
I can pick those up. Just in terms of freight, we do have contracts in place, but my expectation based on everything we know today is that freight rates are likely to remain elevated at least for the rest of the calendar year. It is fast moving. I'm also aware that a number of the big shipping companies are looking to inject significant amount of capacity into the system. I think it's unrealistic to expect that they will materially improve between now and the end of the year. I'm hopeful that, once we get past the peak trading period, that we will start to see those pressures alleviate quite significantly. It's a very dynamic situation and I could be proven wrong on the upside or on the downside.
In terms of the broader KPI set, yes, we've seen some improvement in average basket values, albeit given some of the trends that Nick was referring to, perhaps not as much as we might expect in recent weeks. Frequency is definitely positive and probably particularly outside of the U.K. I guess what we've experienced over the last almost 18 months since the pandemic started is that the less frequent shoppers are probably the shoppers who've chosen not to shop. What you've then seen is our most engaged customers everywhere really continue to engage, and therefore our overall frequency and quality of customer base has probably gone up over the last 18 months. I think as we referred to at half year, the customers we've acquired through the pandemic appear to be on the whole at least as good as if not slightly better than our existing customer base.
I think the underlying dynamics on the customer base are reasonably positive, but again, we're in the kind of middle of a shift from pandemic to post-pandemic. We're somewhere in the middle, so we'll know a lot more in a few months.
Just to give you a color on basket by territory, the baskets have improved on a value and a size basis, most notably in the U.K. and U.S. and in Germany within Europe. Those are following the key trends we called out today, Olivia.
Great. Maybe if I could just quickly follow up on the point about freight and the capacity. Just to clarify, you have no concerns about availability into early next year, but then we'll see what happens after that in any region. Is that right?
I wouldn't say no concerns. It's a challenging environment, so particularly out of China, there are significant delays, but we're confident that we're doing all the right things and therefore that we'll be able to manage it. It is challenging and there will be product shortages across the industry. We would hope that what we've done throughout the pandemic, that we would do better rather than worse in the context of the overall market.
That's great. Thanks.
Thank you.
This concludes today's ASOS P3 Trading Update call.