Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Burberry Third Quarter Trading Update Analyst and Investor Conference Call. My name is Courtney, and I'll be your coordinator for today's conference. For the duration of the call, you will be on listen only. However, at the end of the update, you'll have the opportunity to ask questions. I will now hand you over to your host, Julie Brown, Chief Operating and Financial Officer and Charlotte Powley, Director of Investor Relations to begin today's conference.
Thank you.
Good morning, and welcome to Burberry's 3rd quarter trading update conference call. My name is Julie Brown, and I'm Burberry's new Chief Operating and Financial Officer. I'm delighted to be joining Burberry today. This is an exciting time for Burberry as we implement our 5 key strategies and position ourselves for future growth. As this is my first day, I'm going to hand you over to Charlotte Cowley, Director of Investor Relations, who will take you through this morning's update and answer your questions.
I look forward to meeting you in due course and to speaking with you again in April. Over to you, Charlotte.
Thank you, Julie, and good morning, everyone. Firstly, as we have seen from our announcement on Monday, we are delighted that Marco Gobetti is joining us as Executive Chairman, Asia Pacific and Middle East next week and will become CEO on the 5th July. Turning to this morning's announcement. Retail revenue for the Q3 was up 4% underlying and up 22% of reported FX. Comparable sales were up 3% with the balance from net new space.
Mainline footfall remained down year on year, but less so than in the Q2 and improved conversion more than offset the footfall decline. Looking at comparable sales by region. Asia Pacific returned to growth, up low single digit percentage. The key drivers of this were acceleration in Mainland China, delivering high single digit percentage growth with both better footfall trends and improved conversion. Beijing continues to be impacted by the work we are doing to elevate the store portfolio in the city.
Excluding Beijing, Mainland China comps were up about 15%. In Hong Kong, we also saw an improvement in performance. While still negative, the comp sales decline was a low single digit percentage compared to the double digit percentage decline we saw in Q2. Traffic remains weak, down double digits, but continued to be offset by improved conversion. Next, EMEA delivered double digit percentage comparable sales growth, led by the continued exceptional performance of the UK, which, boosted by tourism, saw comparable sales up about 40%, and we continue to see growth from domestic UK customers as well.
Continental Europe remained weak with a decline in both domestic and tourist spend. However, we did see an improvement in France compared to Q2. Finally, in the Americas, comparable sales remained down by a low single digit percentage. Trends were similar to the first half with uneven spend from domestic and traveling luxury customers. However, global spend from American customers increased year on year.
In mainline, conversion remained strong with the Americas Burberry private client teams delivering significant client engagement and revenue growth. The U. S. Market was a very promotional environment with the majority of businesses going on sale earlier than in previous years. As you know, we are taking strategic actions to elevate our brand positioning in the U.
S, and we chose not to accelerate sale in response to others' moves and also reduced our participation in promotional events held by our wholesale partners. Next, let me give you a few highlights of operational and strategic progress we have made against the plans we set out to you in May. Firstly, a couple of comments on our brands and marketing. We saw record engagement with our festive campaign this year with 22,000,000 views of the film globally, more than double last year. With better data and analytics, we shifted our marketing spend to higher ROI channels, particularly in digital to improve our marketing effectiveness.
I'd also like to highlight our festive partnership with Harrods here in London, which we were delighted with. We had 18 sites in store and 29 windows focused on Burberry for Festive. There was strong brand messaging and visibility throughout the store and on their online media channel. This resulted in very strong sales growth for us in the store and also delivered fantastic reach and positioning for the brand. 2nd, turning to product.
Fashion once again outperformed replenishment as customers sought innovation and newness, which was clear to see in store given the 15% to 20% SKU reduction we made for the product that landed in store in November. We also saw great commercial results from the runway collection following the exceptional response to the show in September. In terms of product performance, our strategic focus on bags resulted in continued outperformance in the category and a strong response to the festive assortment supported by our book of gifts produced good growth in small leather goods with a high percentage of those SLGs being personalized by monogramming. Thirdly, under productive space, our intense focus on customer cultivation and retail service delivered positive results. Globally, conversion in mainline improved sequentially, and we saw a double digit uplift in spend from returning customers.
We now have Burberry private client teams in over 150 locations, providing an elevated level of service to our highest spending customers. And the festive book of gifts was mailed to all our top customers with elite customers receiving their own personalized copy. Supported by our customer value management program and the investment in training over the summer, our sales associates reached out to many more of our customers this year compared to last and booked a record number of appointments, with the average transaction value of these appointments more than double the global average. The pilot customer feedback tool based on Net Promoter scores is now live in all three regions, both in store and online, providing real time feedback to our store managers, enabling us to improve our service levels and refine our future plans. One label fully rolled out to our stores in November with positive response from our customers and our store staff alike, simplifying both the in store shopping experience and our back of house operations.
In relation to e commerce leadership, digital continued to outperform with growth in all regions. Mobile delivered the majority of the growth with a significant improvement in conversion supported by the launch of new payment methods, including Apple Pay. We are very pleased with the performance of the redesigned global site with good customer feedback, and the new local website in China also delivered very positive results with direct to consumer sales more than doubling in the quarter. And finally, on operational excellence, we remain confident in delivering the planned savings of around £20,000,000 this year and on track to deliver our targets of at least £100,000,000 of annualized savings by FY 2019. Before turning to guidance, in terms of the share buyback, we have now completed £77,000,000 of the program.
And as we said in November, an additional £50,000,000 buyback will commence once the first £100,000,000 has been completed. Turning to guidance. There is no change to our revenue guidance for the full year to that given in November. As regards FX, the expected benefit to this year's retail wholesale profit based on the 31 October rate compared to last year's rate was about GBP 125,000,000 This reduced to about GBP 115,000,000 using the 31st December rate, and as ever, the rates have moved since the start of the year and are now slightly more favorable than then. In conclusion, we remain focused on implementing the initiatives we announced in May and are pleased with the early results we are seeing.
We continue to invest and take action to deliver long term growth for our brand and business, while closely managing the business day to day through important trading periods. With that, I would now be pleased to take your questions.
Our first question comes in from the line of Helen Brandt at UBS. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning. And Julie, welcome. Good to have you on board.
I've got three questions this morning. Firstly, what did the Chinese consumer growth globally in the quarter following flattish in Q2 when you put Hong Kong and the international spending together with that accelerating Mainland China number? Secondly, within the 3% like for like, can you break down ASP versus volume within that? And then finally, you said that handbags was strong in the quarter. Can you quantify what growth at retail you saw and how that breakdown between ASP and volume?
And what price point and products specifically on handbags are outperforming given the strategic focus there? Thanks very much.
Hi, Ellen. Yes, so if we look at Chinese growth globally, if you look at our total Chinese spend, that was basically flat in Q2 and it grew to a high single digit percentage percent growth in the Q3 when you look at our total global spend. The 3% comp and AUR average price flat, so it's all volume. And in terms of bags, the products that we're really performing, again, it's the newness, it's the newness that's performing both across accessories and apparel, but particularly in bags, the banner is still the number 1, the rucksack and the solid leather buckle tote part of the buckle family. So we've been talking about building new families and the bags and so nice to see that performing well as well.
And then any quantification on what the handbags grew in the quarter at retail?
No, I don't even give a phone number on that.
Okay. Thanks very much. Our next question comes in from the line of John Guy at MainFirst. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Charlotte, and welcome, Julie. A couple of questions for me, please. First of all, with regards to the Americas, you flagged still a relatively volatile market there. Could you talk about how you see U. S.
Wholesale and in particular, I suppose, wholesale broader wholesale going into 1H18? So that's my first question. The second question with regards to the product performance looking at fashion over replenishment. From a mix perspective, given the fact you're talking about small leather goods outperforming and some accessories outperforming given their gross margin, is it fair to say that gross margin mix is relatively positive during the Christmas period? I mean, typically, when fashion outperforms replenishment, I would think that the mix would be slightly dilutive.
But given your comments, could you maybe just flesh out your views on the margin mix? And finally, with regards to the French market, you talked about a small improvement. We've seen a roughly a 10% increase in footfall coming back into Guerrilla Lafayette and a few other areas in Paris. You maybe just give us a little bit more quantification in terms of the relative improvement there? Thank you.
Hi, John. Yes. So Americas and U. S. Wholesale, I haven't seen much of positive news coming out of that market recently.
I mean, we're in the middle of closing the order books. I haven't got an infirm say on the first half of next year. But clearly, you saw that in the first half of this year, the U. S. Wholesale business is down over 20%.
We said we'd expect a similar trend in the second half of this year. And there might be still a bit more work to do there. And we're just clearly thinking about the elevation of the brand in the U. S. And doing that particularly in wholesale.
So that's wholesale. Products gross margin, really, I think, I don't think there's that much to think about in terms of the bags and the SLG. That's much more about the fashion and the return mix and that fashion being a headwind. So I wouldn't be thinking that was particularly favorable in terms of mix on the gross margin. Clearly, there's an opportunity for us to improve the productivity across the product piece.
What was great we're seeing is a good response to fashion. We talked to you about the SKU reductions, actually now that's live in store, the fashion and the newness can really shine through our customers and also the one label working in store in terms of simplifying that shopping experience. So that's probably product. France, I mean, it was better. So we talked, I think, about the near double digit decline in the past and it's really improved from that.
I don't think we're going to dig into the numbers in particular.
Okay, great. Thanks, Cheddar. Maybe just one on follow-up on the one label with regards to the Americas in particular. Could you just talk about how you're seeing at the moment the 3rd party retailers react to that one legible in terms of ordering? What sort of in conjunction with you not participating in heavy discount?
I mean, can you give us a little bit more in terms of how the 3rd party reset is reacting to that change?
Yes. We've had great response from our partners in terms of the one label and where we've got single destination space in stores, it's performing really well. So it's been very well received by those partners as well as clearly our own retail customers.
Great. Thanks very much.
Our next question comes in from the line of Thomas Chauvet at Citi. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Charlotte and Julie. Thomas from Citi. I have three questions, please. Firstly, on fashion versus replenishment, it's been several quarters now that we've had newness outperform. On the weakness of replenishment products, for instance, your heritage transport business, is it a problem you think of price points being too high, lack of innovation, greater competition?
And have you taken any recent initiatives to address that? Secondly, on the Chinese demand, up high single digit globally, if I understood correctly, Is it fair to say that the bulk of the improvement sequentially is actually captured in that U. K. LFL accelerating? And in China, was there any recent price initiatives or store closures you want to highlight?
And thirdly, on beauty, I know you've reiterated the wholesale guidance, but could you just comment on how the business has evolved in the important Christmas quarter in terms of sell insum outs and whether you expect to start FY 2018 with a bit of a clean sheet in order to grow that important business again? Thank you.
Okay. Hi, Thomas. Yes, so on heritage, clearly, you have pulled out other categories had a better quarter than heritage. What we're excited about, we've got some really great innovation coming down the track in the next couple of months or so on trench. Clearly, I can't update you on that now, but look forward to talking about that and talking to you about that in April.
So yes, everywhere is the fashion and the newness is performing, so clearly innovating in that category. Chinese demand, still about half of their spend is at home. And so you did see that acceleration in Mainland China. So you saw that high single digit percentage comp there. And if you strip out the impact of the Beijing stores, because it's still that work is ongoing.
So in the quarter, we opened another couple of spaces in the Xingcom Place Mall, Those stores and I've got 3 stores open in the mall, the men's, women's and the accessory space. They're performing really well. And so ex that Beijing piece, as I said earlier, China was up about 15%. And then on Beauty, the pillar fragrances continue to perform really well. We're gaining share in the key fragrance markets.
They're really pleased with their positioning and how they're performing. And then clearly, making sure that we know we've got the positioning right and elevating the positioning in key markets for Beauty.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
Our next question comes in from the line of Thomas Forte at Maxim Group. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. Just two questions. 1, can you give us an update on your plans to launch in mobile app and thoughts on what that could do for your sales? And then 2, in the United States, was there a difference in your comp performance for local versus tourists?
Thank you.
Hi, Tom. Yes, so the app, we're in we're testing the app with a select group of users at the moment. We want to make sure it's absolutely right. It's all about building a good connection with our customers. So that will be launching plan by the end of the year.
So you should see an update on that. In the U. S, we still saw that tourists were weak and there was a bit of unevenness as well in the domestic spend. But I'm sure you saw on the front page of the announcement that if you looked at global spend by the American consumer, it did grow. So it's a change in where that customer shopping for us, the brand and the product still resonating with the consumer.
Thank you.
Our next question comes in from the line of Susanna Puth from Berenberg. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning. Hi, Julien
and Charlotte. Just two questions for First of all, in terms of the pricing, I mean, given the ongoing FX volatility, what is your view on pricing right now? Are you currently more or less happy with your architecture? Or can we expect any additional cuts following the changes you introduced in October November? And secondly, maybe if you could comment on the U.
S. Retail business. Are you seeing an outperformance of the outlet stores? Anything worth mentioning in there? That would be very helpful.
Okay. Hi, Susanna. Yes, on pricing, I mean, you know that we have we always keep our pricing under regular review. We have our strategic pricing architecture. There's nothing to update you on today.
You saw we made some moves in November. I think we talked to you about those at the interims, but the FX markets continue to move and so we continue to keep an eye on pricing. In terms of retail, we never decide the performance. I think it was great. We saw conversion improve again in our mainline business in the U.
S. And our BPC teams do a fantastic job there. They're very developed in terms of building good strong relationships with customers and driving the returning spend from our top customers in the U. S.
Perfect. Thanks very much.
Our next question comes in from the line of Louise Singlehurst of Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Hi, good
morning, Charlotte, and a big welcome to Julie. I think we're all very much looking forward to meeting you, but probably most importantly, seeing which handbag you'll no doubt be carrying. A couple of quick follow on follow ups from me. Mainland China, can
you just give us the
impact of Beijing or more importantly, when the effect drops out, so when we get to a normalized point for the store rationalization going into full year 2018? And then just secondly, to clarify on pricing, were there any other changes aside from the UK in the quarter?
Thank you. Hi, Louise. Yes. So Beijing, it will be clean by Q2 next year. So that's when and it's quite a big impact if you think that including Beijing, China was up high single digit.
And if you strip it out, it was up 15%. So it is still having quite a big impact on the comp in China. We are clearly delighted with the performance of the elevated stores, but it's just really muddying the waters in terms of the comp number, but only a couple of few more quarters to go on that. In terms of pricing, yes, we did make some further adjustments in November as we always do. We tend to make those adjustments when the new collection goes into stores.
So there were actually more adjustments in Asia. And of course, we talked about the moves we made in the UK.
And just remind me on Asia, Charlotte, sorry. Thanks.
Yes. So Asia, I mean, we tend to target sort of if you're thinking about China, Hong Kong, if you're 100 at home, you're tending to look to be about sort of 115 not into Hong Kong, we're a little bit higher than that at the moment, but we took a bit due to the way rates have moved, we took about another, I think it was sort of 5% to 10% reduction there. And in the UK, it was up sort of 7% to 10% hold in November. Great. That's very clear.
Thank you.
Our next question comes in from the line of Warwick O'Kane from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Two questions. Actually, one the first one just follows on from your comments around pricing in Asia. Are you seeing volume growth in Hong Kong now? I think from what you just said that, that is the case.
And if so, where are you finding that volume from? What type of consumer? What type of products? And secondly, on gross margins, are you currently experiencing a procurement headwind? Or is that headwind because hedging more likely to hit the next financial year?
Yes. So on the volume, so yes, I think we did see volume growth in Hong Kong. I'm seeing the tourists are still a little weaker, as you'd expect given footfall is still down double digit, but good performance of the local customers in Hong Kong. And in terms of products, it's the same story as well. It's all the fashion that's outperforming the strength in bags.
So that's consistent with whichever market you look at. And in terms of procurement, I mean, yes, if you're thinking about next year, then yes, you certainly will have the headwind of the COGS into next year. You're going to have the revenue benefit in terms of the FX and then offset particularly in Q1 the COGS and then the OpEx.
Right. But the procurement wasn't really an issue for this quarter or
Not really in Q4.
Hi, Julie and Charlie. Two quick questions. There was no comment in the release about Japan and Korea. So could you update us on most recent like for like trends? And my second question is on e commerce.
In your strategic plan, e commerce is expected to drive 1 third of total sales growth. Could you give us an idea of how much e commerce outperformed at global level and especially in the U. S? Thank you.
Hi, Rogerio. Yes. So Japan still small legged better than it was in the Q2. I'm still pleased with the performance of the domestic consumer in particular, but impacted by the tourists in Japan. And in Korea, again, a small negative local sentiment, a little bit subdued, I think, in terms of what's happening in Korea at the minute and also declines from the Chinese, even though the Chinese are a small part of our business because they tend we tend to see them in the duty free channel, which is wholesale for us rather than retail, but certainly, you saw that impact retail business in Korea.
E Commerce, I think comments on e Commerce is it's great that it is outperforming the rest of the business. We've said it's an area of strategic focus. We talked about the opportunity for mobile conversion. We've seen that start to change and that's like growth in this quarter and also the Asia localization. So great that the new China site launched and seeing great growth out of that direct to consumer business in China.
But is it fair to say it's driving more than 1 third of total sales growth?
I'm not even going to spit out the numbers, to be honest right now.
Okay. Thank you.
Our next question comes in from the line of Erwan Ramburg from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, good morning again, Charlotte, and welcome, Julie. Most of my questions have been answered. So these are just quick follow ups. Calling out nationalities, the American nationality.
So Americas, I mean, U. S. Sales were slightly down, but I think you mentioned that American customers were actually up globally. Is it fair to assume that sales to American citizens are in line with group average or is it still slightly lower than that? Secondly, can you give us an update on the Japanese footprint?
Where are you in terms of retail expansion, number of stores and what you're targeting over the next few months? And then finally, sorry to labor a point on prices. In the U. K, you've seen a surge. My understanding is Continental Europe outside of France is a bit subdued, probably because a lot of customers are actually coming to London to benefit from what is a very attractive market.
Is there any willingness, ability intention to increase prices further in the U. K? Because it seems that a lot of your peers are continuing to increase prices and it doesn't seem to affect the business that much. So that's the three questions I have. Thank you.
Hi. Yes. So the Americas, yes, positive, but slightly below the average for the group. So it's still the majority of spend from the U. S.
Consumer does occur in the U. S. And so as you say, that was slightly negative, but very strong growth from them as a tourist nationality. Japanese footprint, we've got 6 stores and 31 concessions, all of those in great luxury locations and really pleased with how the business is working with the domestic customer in Japan. Nothing new, I think, on footprint.
And U. K. Pricing, I mean, we keep our pricing under regular review, monitoring what our peers are doing and looking at FX rates, but nothing to update you on today.
Okay. All right. Thank you.
Our next question comes in from the line of Mario Autale from Bernstein. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Quickly questions. The first one, if you can give us an idea of the performance of wholesale in 3Q and which percentage of the wholesale sales is done in the U. S? The second one is what was the performance of Beauty in this quarter?
And when you have got a plan of the new launches of any new launches in beauty going forward? And last but not the least is Mr. Gobetti will start soon with original responsibility. And in July, he will take the position of CEO. In the meanwhile, while he has got his responsibility, he is involved also in decision as CEO or Mr.
Bailey is keeping all his current responsibilities? Thank you.
Hi, Mario. I don't think it's going to be particularly helpful on your first two because it's only retail update today. And we said in the statement that no change to our guidance for wholesale. And Beauty, I think somebody else just asked, we're pleased with the way the pillar fragrances are performing, so nothing else really to say on that. With Marco joining, he is joining, as you say, as the Executive Chairman of Asia Pacific in the Middle East.
That will be his role until July when he becomes CEO. So yes, you're right, Christopher remains our CEO until that July transition.
A clarification on Beauty, have you got any launch plan for the next month so that you can disclose with us?
Not that I can share with you, but obviously, you would expect us to continue to build our pillar fragrances.
Thank you.
Our next question comes in from the line of Julian Eastblatt of Barclays. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, good morning, everyone. Again, welcome to Julian I also look forward to seeing you. First, three questions as well. In terms of the 1 boat that we roll out, I know that the pilot store that you did actually extremely well, because this was actually introduced really across the board in November.
I just wondered whether or not you have an update in particular on how well that has actually gone from that point. And the second question, the kind of Chris Wu in China, has there was a Chris Wu edit collection, which I think was on about 5 pieces. Just wondering how important that particular type was for your Chinese sales. And just a quick point of clarification, in terms of the FX for 2018, there's quite a big translation benefit, at least from my numbers. Will that all be set off from the gross margin of all these stores, but to see some benefit from the FX with transaction as well as translation.
Any thoughts?
Okay. Thanks, Julian. Yes, so the one label, I think you remember when we talked about the pilot, don't extrapolate to pilot because pilot stores are always managed within an inch of their lives. So they always tend to outperform. But clearly, we were pleased with the response from both customers.
And actually, the efficiencies we got back of house in terms of putting the one label in store as well, that simplification. Nice to see it performing, but I wouldn't necessarily bake something in going forward on that. CRISPRU in China, I mean, yes, really delighted with that partnership. We've, of course, synced up the relaunch of the China site to coincide with that. So that all tied in nicely together.
And we've got this ongoing relationship with him, and he's clearly a great ambassador for the brand in that market. And then 2018 FX, as you say, big translation on the top line. And I think some of it will net off to maybe like €20,000,000 to €30,000,000 or so at the bottom line by the time you thought about the gross margin and the OpEx. And of course, that will be H1 rather than H2, and we'll see what rates do for the next couple of months of this year.
Okay, great. Thanks very much. Thank
Our next question comes in from the line of Peter Testa at 1 Investments. Please go ahead.
Hi, thank you very much. Maybe just quickly on the FX point, that €20,000,000 to €30,000,000 number you gave, is that a positive number or a negative number? And then on the couple of questions on traffic, please. If you look at Continental Europe, I was wondering if you could give us some sort of understanding of what you're seeing in terms of store traffic trends and then maybe domestic versus tourism. And on the Chinese traffic, the extent to which you see the age profile matching the Chris Wu relationship?
And then lastly, you made a comment earlier on wholesale space that your customers were performing well, where there was unified space or wholesale. I was wondering if you could give us just some understanding what proportion of your sales at wholesale come from customers with unified space.
Right. Okay. So the 20 to 30 year, that was positive, not negative. I'm sorry, I wasn't evidently clear enough on my first answer. So thank you for just clarification.
European traffic, so if you look at EMEA as a total, it was positive, but that was influenced by the U. K. So if you took the U. K. Out of it, then a footfall decline.
And domestic and tourists, we saw Continental Europeans negative at home, but actually as a group positive because again they were shopping in the UK and similar again with the tourists. Age profile of customers, actually, it was quite tricky for us to know the age of our customers. It's one of the things that is difficult to ask, but nothing really to call out on that in terms of age profile. And wholesale single destination space, it's quite small at the moment, but clearly where we get the space is working well and so we'll see where we can transition where we can.
We have another question coming in from the line of John Guy at MainFirst. Please go ahead.
Thanks, Sean. I was actually trying to get myself out of the queue because you answered my question on FX. Thanks.
Perfect. Excellent. I hope that you didn't do a good job answering it
because I
think the first part of you had to come back. Great.
Our next question comes in from the line of Carol Madueu from Haitong. Please go ahead. Hello, good morning. This is
Carol Madueu from Haitong Securities. A quick question for me on the retail excellence. Have you seen any improvements in terms of the retention of your sales force? That's my first question. And the second question on Hong Kong.
Should we expect any positive signs improvement, maybe positive comps in Hong Kong for full year 2018? Thank you.
Okay. So first, I mean, I think the retention stuff I focused on is the fact that we've had great returning growth and spend from returning customers and we've clearly been investing in our sales staff in terms of training and that's I think is one of the factors that's helped drive the uplift in conversion in the quarter. Forecasting Hong Kong comps, I mean, we've been looking at comps in Hong Kong for a while. Pleased, I think all we can talk about is that we're pleased with the fact that was just a low single digit negative this quarter and we'll have to see how we trend through Q4.
Okay. Thank you.
We have no further questions coming through. So I shall hand you back over to your host to conclude today's conference.
Super. So thank you very much for your attention and your questions. And I look forward to speaking to you at our next update, which will be our H2 trading update on the 19th April. Bye bye.