Hello, and welcome to today's Dr. Martens Q4 Update. My name is Bailey, and I'll be your moderator for today's call. All lines will be muted during the presentation portion of the call, with an opportunity for questions and answers at the end. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to pass the conference over to Kenny Wilson, CEO of Dr. Martens. Please go ahead when you're ready.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our FY 2023 Q4 update call. The focus of today's call will be to update you on our Q4 trading ahead of our full year announcement in June, and also demonstrate the strong progress we have made in resolving the issues at our L.A. distribution center. Let me talk about trading. Revenue in the fourth quarter was up 6% on an actual currency basis and flat in constant currency. By channel, our direct to consumer business grew 20% or 13% in constant currency, with wholesale down 4% year-on-year, which is 11% constant currency. This means overall that full year revenue was up 10% on an actual currency basis and up 4% in constant currency, which was at the bottom end of our guidance range.
The costs associated with resolving the inventory issues at our Los Angeles distribution center and the wholesale underperformance in Q4 means that full year EBITDA is likely to be around GBP 245 million, which is a disappointing number. Jon is gonna provide more color on these numbers. I want to talk about the L.A. D.C. situation. Back in January, we told you that we had a major bottleneck at our L.A. D.C., and that we were taking four major actions to resolve it. The four actions were firstly, securing overflow distribution centers to store all of the inventory, adding a third shift to improve capacity, accelerating the expansion of our New Jersey D.C., and landing our best distribution experts in L.A. to manage the problem. What has happened in the last 14 weeks?
Some of our best people are still on the ground in L.A., and I'm pleased to see that the throughput is now back to normal levels in Los Angeles. We have fixed the operational problem. We opened the three temporary storage facilities, which has enabled us to release the excess shipping containers and get stock into storage. The third shift has been added, helping us to unlock the bottleneck and transfer stock to the temporary warehouses. Work has also begun on enlarging and reconfiguring our New Jersey D.C. to enable it to pick, pack, and store inventory for both our direct and wholesale channels in the United States. We also successfully ran a trial wholesale order from New Jersey in March. We are on schedule to have this D.C. fully operational from the Autumn/Winter 2023 season, which starts in July.
The actual costs of resolving the issues in L.A. have been higher than we initially thought at GBP 50 million in this financial year versus the GBP 8 million-GBP 11 million, which was anticipated in January. Our internal audit and legal teams have conducted a full review into what happened in Los Angeles and have recommended a number of changes that we are now working through. We will share some of the key themes at our year-end results in June. Finally, on Los Angeles, as I said in January, we have too much inventory in L.A., and that is what caused the initial problem. It is now correctly stored, it is the right product, and it is not a seasonal markdown problem. We've told you many times before of the continuity nature of Dr. Martens product and that four out of every five pairs which we sell are black.
We are now into our FY 2024, which started on the 1st of April. We're going to provide more detailed guidance in June at our full year results. However, we are maintaining revenue growth guidance of mid to high single digit for FY 2024. We also now expect that FY 2024 incremental costs associated with inventory at Los Angeles will be around GBP 50 million, driven primarily by the rent of additional space. Lastly from me, as you will have seen in a separate announcement this morning, Jon is retiring from his position as Chief Financial Officer. Jon will be staying in role until we find a successor to ensure continuity and also an orderly succession to our new CFO.
I'd like to take this opportunity to publicly thank Jon for his contribution to DMs over the last seven years, during which time revenues have grown from GBP 230 million to breaking through the GBP 1 billion this year. Jon has been a key member of our leadership team that has driven this growth. I just wanted to say a big thank you, Jon. Now over to you for some more financial color.
Thank you, Kenny, and good morning. I'm gonna talk more about our Q4 performance and resulting full year numbers, which remain subject to audit. I'll give a high level summary of implications for FY 2024 with detailed guidance, particularly in relation to margins scheduled as normal to be given at our year-end announcement on the 1st of June. Q4. Revenue in the fourth quarter was up 6% on an actual currency basis, but flat on a constant currency basis. D2C or direct-to-consumer revenues grew by 20% in the quarter, which was 13% constant currency. Driven by very strong retail, which was up 36%, 28% constant currency, with e-com up 8, 2% on a constant currency basis.
The fourth quarter saw very strong acceleration of D2C growth trends compared to Q3 growth trends in both EMEA and Asia Pacific, with continued soft America trading. These trends in aggregate were in line with our expectations. Wholesale revenue declined by 4% compared to last year in the quarter, which was down by 11% on a constant currency basis and was mainly in America. With a planned reduction of shipments into the China distributor following our decision to not renew the distribution contract, part offset by growth in EMEA. In America, wholesale shipments from the LADC are now in line with plan. As Kenny said, the D.C. is operationally fixed. However, it took longer to ramp up pick, pack, and dispatch capacity, which resulted in lower than expected revenue across the quarter.
Turning to the full year, revenue will be approximately GBP 1 billion, representing growth of 10%, which is up 4% on a constant currency basis. D2C revenue was up 16%, 11% constant currency, driven by very good retail, which grew 30% in the year, up 25% on a constant currency basis, and was supported by steady e-com growth of up 6 or 1% constant currency. In the year, our D2C mix expanded by 3 percentage points to 52% from 49% last year. EBITDA will be around GBP 245 million compared to GBP 263 million in FY 2022. This is below previous guidance due to lower wholesale revenue together with higher LADC costs.
The higher costs are in relation to taking longer than expected to clear the container backlog, with total costs now estimated around GBP 15 million, being between GBP 4 million and GBP 7 million higher. The container backlog has now been cleared. Inventory at the balance sheet, year-end balance sheet date will be approximately GBP 258 million, being broadly similar to the quantum of inventory at the half year balance sheet date. This figure is higher than optimal, but is predominantly continuity product in nature with minimal markdown risk. Cash at the balance sheet date was GBP 158 million. For FY 2024, we'll give more detailed appropriate guidance of our year at our year-end announcement. We maintain revenue guidance of mid to high single-digit growth on a constant currency basis.
In order to minimize risk and ensure continued smooth distribution, we intend to maintain the three temporary warehouses in L.A. through FY 2024. As a result of the annualization of rent associated with these warehouses, we estimate an incremental GBP 15 million of cost will be incurred in FY 2024 before normalizing in FY 2025. Of this cost, approximately GBP 10 million will be incurred in the first half. You'll have read that I've decided to retire from executive life. I've been at DOCS for seven years and feel it is now time to hand over to someone new. This is a great brand, has really high margins, has strong cash generative characteristics, and loads of white space growth opportunity. Thank you. We can now move on to Q&A.
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If for any reason you would like to remove that question, please press star followed by two. Again, to ask a question, please press star followed by one. As a reminder, if you are using a speaker phone, please remember to pick up your handset and please remember to unmute locally before asking your question. Our first question today comes from the line of Louise Singlehurst from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Hi. Morning, everyone. Morning, Jon and Kenny. Thank you very much for the details so far. Quick one from me if I could just ask two. Just on the DTC, I think by region, you highlighted the acceleration in Europe and Asia. Can we just focus a little bit on the U.S. and if there's been any incremental kind of softness during the period versus the commentary that you made back in January? In addition to that, you know, can you help contextualize the mood across the wholesale and the retail partners, specifically in the U.S.?
My second question, just to clarify on that inventory position, are we right to assume that obviously the year, last year it was a little bit low, this year it's a little bit high, so it's got, obviously got to see some normalization during the course of FY 2024. When should we expect to see that inventory start to normalize? Is it more back-end loaded in FY 2024 given the seasonality? I did take your point about it being mostly evergreen and limited risk to the P&L, if that's correct. Thank you.
Morning, Louise. I'll take the DTC question and the USA question and Jon can answer the inventory one. You're correct. In the fourth quarter, we saw an acceleration in the DTC business in both Europe and Asia Pacific. We didn't see that in the USA. The trends in the USA for direct to consumer were broadly similar in Q4 to what they were in the third quarter. In terms of the USA overall, in your question about wholesale versus DTC, we saw the same trend in the fourth quarter that we did in the third quarter. What I mean by that is pairs sold from our wholesale partners to consumers in the United States were up high single digit.
Which was actually better than our DTC performance. It's the only region in the world where wholesale sales to consumers were better than direct to consumer. Obviously, as Jon said today, sales in to our wholesale partners in the United States were down, which is what we expected. They were down a little bit more than we expected because of the three-month operational ramp up. Overall, DTC, very good in EMEA and APAC. Bit slower in the United States and we think the U.S. consumer environment will be slow through the balance of this calendar year. Wholesale sell-out in the United States at high single-digit % is actually pretty encouraging.
Yeah. Inventory, you're absolutely right, Louise. Predominantly evergreen, so minimal P&L risk. This year we have higher levels of inventory than optimal. You're absolutely right. Last year, the comparable was, though, too low. Year-on-year, we've got too much this year, too little last year. What we're looking at is obviously inefficient working capital rather than anything else. We'll give much more detail in terms of stock turn and weeks cover at the year-end. In broad terms, we plan to have a much more optimal level of inventory by the exit period of FY 2024, so March 2024. We'll achieve that by essentially buying less than we plan to sell. Because of the lead times involved in the business, that, if you like, optimization will take place predominantly through the second half.
Very clear. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question today comes from the line of Natasha Bonnet from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. First, could you please comment on the exit rates you've seen in March and current trading so far in April first, please? On your guidance for financial year 2024 for mid to high single digit growth at constant currency, could you please tell us what gives you confidence that sales will accelerate next year? Just a third question, please, on the U.S. specifically, can you tell us what you've been seeing on the underlying trends and most of all on Louise's points, which you mentioned earlier on wholesale, can you tell us how wholesale orders are looking ahead for the financial year, please? Thank you.
In terms of the exit running rate, I mean, fourth quarter, I mean our direct to consumer business was up 20% and retail grew 36%. Both of those numbers were higher than the full year number. That says that overall our trend was accelerating. I'll take the last question, and then Jon can take the middle one. The question about the USA and forward orders. The situation that we're in is we haven't finalized the order book. As we did last year, our full year results in June will give an overview on the order book for Autumn/Winter 2023.
I think as we've said, you know, earlier this morning, you know, what do we see as we look at the business is we see EMEA and APAC stronger, and we expect United States to be weaker in next year. That thinking is built into our conservative guidance of mid to high single digit revenue for next year.
Yeah. In terms of confidence in the revenue guides of mid to high single digit on a constant currency basis, what we've said so far is, we will have a price increase worth approximately 6% from Autumn/Winter 2023, which is in place. We have said that we are reducing sales into European e-tailer wholesale accounts, which are pure play e-com accounts that will cost approximately 4 percentage points of growth. Going back the other way, you've then got the benefit, which, we won't be guiding on at this moment in time, but the benefit of the annualization of the stores that we've opened in this year, and we've opened a high 40s number of stores, including the Japanese franchise store takeback.
The other benefit will be the DTC mix enhancement through next year, which one's view on like-for-like retail and also e-com. What would go the other way, plus or minus, again, would be your view of underlying volumes based on the economics of the countries that we operate in. As we said, we are happy with the guidance as given of mid-to-high single-digit .
Thank you. The next question today comes from the line of Doriana Russo from HSBC. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Yes. Thank you very much. Thank you for taking my question. I just wanted to ask a little bit more in terms of the acceleration of retail revenues. Sorry, retail and DTC revenues that you've seen in Europe and APAC. Can you elaborate a little bit more in terms of whether this acceleration is due to retail expansion or is it actually on a like-for-like basis in which countries? And also whether you've seen the traffic in the stores accelerate and the conversion actually normalizing that historically, if I'm not wrong, we're still behind pre-COVID. My second question relates to the... Sorry, can you hear me?
Yes, we can hear you. You said my second question is, then we didn't hear you after that, Doriana.
Yeah, yeah. My second question is related to your price increases. I was wondering at what point shall we expect the new prices for to hit the market in terms of. Whether you can give us some color in terms of, you know, take from sort of a consumer reaction on the market so far of the price increases put in last year for Autumn/Winter, and whether you have already we can find something, you know, for the new season? Any feedback on that one, please. The high single digit that you're putting for 2024, I'm referring to.
Well, we'll take those questions. I'll start off and then Jon can add in. You're right. Obviously Europe and Asia Pacific did accelerate in retail in the fourth quarter. That was a combination of very strong like-for-like performance and incremental space. We've got more stores than we had a year ago, but the underlying like-for-likes are up. I'm not gonna go into all the country detail here. We'll give a bit more color when we get to June, fair to say that we've seen in Europe like-for-like improvement pretty much across the board. If you take the U.K., which is obviously the company's most developed market, you know, on a full year basis, we grew both with pairs and revenue.
We feel very good about both the like-for-like performance and also the new space that we've added in the European environment. In Asia Pacific, our biggest market is Japan, and effectively, there's a couple of things going on there. We're seeing good like-for-like growth in Japan, and obviously we transferred successfully the 14 franchise stores that we said we would do in February and March. Those stores, after a couple of weeks, are now trading in line with the normal like-for-like estate. Overall, it's both like-for-like and some additional stores. In terms of your question around traffic everywhere in the world is still behind pre-COVID levels. That gives us confidence as we look forward to say, fundamentally, you know, there's still an opportunity to grow traffic, I think in FY 2024.
Obviously we would expect that conversion comes back a bit because as traffic goes up, you tend to have more browsers. As a consequence, you lose a little bit on conversion. In terms of price increases, which was your second question, the Autumn/Winter price increases this year don't really flow through until July. We've taken an odd couple of products here or there, where we've pushed price up because demand is high for those products. The main price increase will flow through in July. In terms of last year's price increases, you know, we took price up in Europe, in all countries, and we took price up in North America. As we've just discussed, we're seeing an accelerating trend in Europe.
That kind of says, even with the pressure the consumer is under, you know, the price increases moved through, you know, well. In terms of North America, you know, the picture looks more mixed, but I don't think it's just down to price, Doriana, because our pairs sold to consumers through wholesale, which is our biggest channel, are actually up even with the price increase. DTC, as we said, the business is a little bit softer, so that one's a bit more nuanced. Do you wanna add anything, Jon?
Just to build, I think in terms of I've now got the numbers in front of me. In terms of stores opened, yeah, we've opened a gross 52 stores, including the 14 Japan transfer stores, and closed six. A net incremental store increase of 46 stores, which is pretty close to being double last year. One of the earlier questions, confidence in next year, the annualization of space will help drive our numbers. I think guidance would have been, was 25-35 stores excluding Japan. We've done the net 32.
Just to be super clear, those Japanese stores came back end February into March, so there's very little benefit from them on a revenue basis for FY 2023, but obviously they give us a significant benefit as we move into FY 2024.
Thank you. Can I ask a follow-up question on the wholesalers? I mean, obviously the shipment in the U.S. have been affected by the L.A. issues, but what about the other regions? Can you give us a sense of what Q4 was like in EMEA and Asia, please?
Yeah. I mean, Jon mentioned this in his script. I mean, effectively, U.S. was down. We planned Asia Pacific down primarily because of the fact that we knew we were gonna ship less to the Chinese distributor, because if you remember, that contract ends in June. Then there was a little bit at the end of the year in Japan where franchise stores became owned and operated stores, and then European wholesale was up in shipments and in sell-out to consumers.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question today comes from the line of Kate Calvert from Investec. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Kate, hello?
It appears we have lost Kate, so we'll move to the next question. The next question comes from the line of Alison Lygo from Numis. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. A couple from me. I suppose, looking kind of into next year and the color you gave around expecting the U.S. and D.C. to be a bit soft, is that sort of changing or impacting how you feel about your store rollout program in the U.S. for next year, or should we think about you kind of continuing as planned there? The second one is really around the kind of the moving parts and gross margin. I know you'll give us some more color when you speak in early June, but conscious there's a lot of moving parts. We've probably got some sort of tailwinds from freight coming through as that normalizes.
There's also sort of a D2C mix shift that we should probably be expecting to support there. Is it reasonable to be expecting some sort of full price mix pressure as well coming through, given the elevated inventory and just having, you know, more stock to actually sell rather than restricted inventory at this point?
I'll take the first question, Alison, around US DTC. You know, obviously we said that it was our softest business in the fourth quarter, so therefore, you know, we've made the assumption that it will continue to be softest business going into next year. In terms of new stores, I think if I remember correctly, we've opened 14 new stores in the United States this year. Those stores are trading well, and in terms of next year, our plans are to open, let's say, broadly half of the number of stores. It's around 7-8 stores for the United States for next year. That's really just about finding the right stores in the right locations. Our number one priority in the United States is, you know, focusing on USA existing DTC.
That's our top priority for the U.S.
The second question regarding any margin pressure next year. As we said earlier, the vast majority of our stock is evergreen. We do not anticipate any material markdown P&L pressure through next year, so we will give obviously more gross margin guidance on the first of June, but we would not anticipate guiding margins down in relation to anything to do with markdown or lower full price mix.
I think it's really super important. I mean, we've always said we manage this business for the long term. The stock that we've got in Los Angeles, we've got more inventory than we would want, but it's core black stock and, you know, there is no way that we are gonna mark that stock down because that undermines long-term brand value. This is just about cash really. It's about an inventory carrying cost for a period of time, but it's not a seasonal markdown problem.
Great. That's super clear. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question today comes from the line of David Roux from BofA. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Morning, Kenny and Jon. Just three questions from my side. The first two is relating to the U.S. Just going back to D2C trends in the U.S., could you please tell us if growth in March was better than February and January? Secondly, on the wholesale channel, could you just give us a sense of where you think inventories are within the channel at your key partners? My last question is on the L.A. D.C. I think in January you had expected some knock-on impacts for 1H FY 2024. Is the GBP 15 million costs that you flagged fully incremental from what you had expected in January? Thank you.
If I do the first one, we won't be giving monthly trading performance, but across the quarter there was no material difference in trading January, February or March. Pretty much the same across the quarter.
In terms of your second question, which is around wholesale inventories in the United States, at the macro level, we don't have significant issues around wholesale inventory. You know, we've said previously that there are two customers in the U.S. that we think the inventories are higher than we would like, and therefore, as it was to an earlier question around the Autumn/Winter 2023 order book, as we manage forward orders with those two customers, we'll just manage that down. We manage the inventory down gradually over time because just like Dr. Martens predominantly has core stock, obviously most of our key partners around the world also sell a lot of our core products. Therefore, you know, they'll manage that down in a sensible way in partnership with ourselves. It's not like we're sitting here.
We get inventory on a weekly basis from all of our key accounts around the world. We know that there's only two accounts that have got a little bit more stock than we would like.
In terms of the 15 next year, the 15 is all incremental before it obviously normalizes or majorly mainly falls away in FY 2025. We estimate that phasing is roughly 10 in H1, five in H2.
Okay. Thanks very much. Sorry, Jon, just to follow up on that last question. In January, you hadn't expected GBP 15 million in costs, right? Just to be clear. For next year.
When we spoke in January, we specifically didn't give EBITDA margin guidance. We hadn't finalized what the costing structure would be. I think we said we expected some costs to run into FY 2024. We hadn't at that time been able to quantify them. We're now able to quantify them.
Yeah.
As Kenny said, it's mainly in relation to rent on the three extra warehouses we're now keeping for the full year.
What we said in January, obviously we were at the point of least visibility because we moved extremely fast to get the numbers out to the marketplace. We said that the impact from L.A. would continue through until September of this calendar year. The reality is the movement part and operational part, actually, we fixed much quicker, but the bit that will linger on will be the storage space for incremental inventory in the U.S. One bit is faster than September, the other bit's a bit slower.
Very clear. Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question today comes from the line of Richard Taylor from Barclays. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Yeah. Morning, all. Two questions, please. One was what's your consumer feedback on the brand at the moment? How do you see brand heat in your key markets from the checks and the surveys that you do? Secondly, you've given us gross cash and inventory in the statement. Can you give us the net debt number at year-end as well, please? Thanks very much.
Great. Thanks, Richard. We do a smaller pulse survey in January. The big survey we do on consumers is in November. The consumer feedback overall is U.S., the metrics between November and January are broadly flat, which I think is probably in line with, you know, what we're seeing trading wise. Brand awareness grew slightly and familiarity slightly improved. Overall, I'd say, you know, a relatively static picture in the United States. We are seeing improvement November to January in Europe, and specifically in some of the continental European countries, where we've seen a significant move forward. One example of that is Germany, where the brand has really moved forward.
In Asia Pacific, our major market is obviously Japan, actually we've seen, you know, brand move forward there also. Again, that's in line with what we're seeing in terms of trading performance. If I was calling it brand heat or, you know, top of mind, I would say Europe and Japan, we got good movements between November and January. The U.S. was pretty static. In terms of your net debt question, net debt balance sheet date was approximately GBP 287 million, Richard. That calculation's cash at GBP 158, bank debt GBP 293, and then leases at GBP 152.
That's great. Thank you. Just a response to the brand heat point. I think you said earlier that pairs and sales were up in the U.K., could you quantify that or give us a sort of a range as to how that's doing at the moment?
Double digit, Richard. The U.K. business, which, you know, obviously is our, is our most mature, is up double digit. That really gives us a lot of confidence because, you know, as we've talked many times before, you know, there's a bunch of white space in other territories. Seeing our most mature market growing at those levels when probably the U.K. consumer is one of the most under pressure in the world, you know, that gives us a lot of confidence. If we get an execution right, we've got a great iconic brand with a lot of space ahead of us. Long-winded answer, U.K.'s up double digit is the short answer.
That's pairs or revenue or both?
Both.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Richard.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. The next question today comes from the line of John Stevenson from Peel Hunt. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Thanks. Morning, guys. Couple of questions from me as well, please. Just, in terms of stock, and apologies if this has been asked already, came on a little late. Just, thinking about the number of weeks cover you hope to settle at by the end of next year, I guess to get a sense of what sort of working capital inflow we should expect over the course of the coming 12 months. You can maybe comment on where you hope to get stock down to and how that sits versus sort of long-term aspiration. Another question on the U.S., just around that sort of softer D2C performance, you know, how are the new stores landing? You mentioned obviously brand awareness.
Just what is it you think that's not quite firing as well as some of the other markets and how you intend to sort of maybe give it a little boost over the coming year?
In regard to the stock one, I think we'll give much more detail on stock in terms of stock cover, stock weeks and target at the year-end. I recall at the half year, we said that we had historic weeks cover at the half year of high 30s and a number.
Yeah.
-towards the bottom end of the 30s makes more sense. That's probably not unrealistic. We'll achieve that by buying less than we're selling, because the lead time on inventory in terms of placing in order to get delivered is about round about seven months. This true up will occur predominantly through the second half, but we'll give more detail on that, John, and the cash implications there at the year-end announcement.
Fine.
In terms of-
Sorry, carry on. Yeah. Just in terms of that cash position then, given the sort of seven months lead time you'd expect to be down at your kind of long term run rate for stock covered by next year-end.
Yes. We'd exit the new financial year at the optimal level of stock cover. Correct.
Yeah. Brilliant. Okay. Thank you.
In terms of your questions, you know, around the USA, specifically on the new stores question, we're overall we're happy with our new stores performance in the United States. They're in line with the expectations when we signed those stores off. You know, as we said, we're committing to sort of a mid-single digit number of new stores for the U.S. next year. I think, you know, what we're seeing with the acceleration of performance in Europe and Asia Pacific is that we're very confident in the DOCS strategy. You know, in the United States, we need to sharpen up some of our implementation to make sure that it's as good as it can be.
We've just invested in, you know, a new vice president of marketing for the United States, which I think is really important because consumer demand generation, you know, getting brand news out there is super important. We've also just invested in a new vice president of digital for the United States as well. You know, we've always said DOCS is our strategy, be clear about it and get the best people in the jobs to effectively get things done. I think those two heavyweight hires in the U.S. are an important part of the implementation of DOCS in the United States. I'm gonna be out there next week for the whole week with the team.
Okay, perfect. And just on that point, I mean, has it been the sort of engagement rates online that haven't, you know, come through strongly? Are there any sort of specific sort of areas or KPIs that have been a little bit softer, what you know, you're looking to focus on?
I think overall, I mean, what we said earlier is that we're seeing stronger performance in wholesale in the United States in terms of sales to consumers than we are seeing in our own DTC. Our strategy is DTC first. Therefore, you know, we need to make sure that just as we are doing in Europe and Asia-Pacific, we're getting our own business growing faster. That's it. That's where our focus is. Brand heat and making sure our own DTC is performing as best as it possibly can.
Okay. Cheers. Thanks, Kenny.
Thank you. The next question today comes from the line of Kate Calvert from Investec. Please go ahead, Kate. Your line is now open.
Morning, everyone. I'll try again. Just a clarification question. Could you talk about the timing of the cutoff of volumes to the third-party online partners in EMEA, and when that sort of kicks in in the year ahead?
Kate, what we've been doing is we've been slowly bringing that down through the end of this year, the end of this financial year. We've been bringing down wholesale volumes to e-tailers during that period. We're affecting the really significant shift from the start of Autumn/Winter 2023, which is from July. Within that overall EMEA wholesale number growing in the fourth quarter, we did reduce volumes into some significant e-tailers. The real big, the four points that Jon talked about earlier, that will be starting from July.
Great. Thanks so much.
Thank you. The next question today comes from the line of Richard Taylor from Barclays. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Sorry, it's just to clarify, the U.K. double digit, was that Q4 or full year?
Full year, Richard. Obviously, as we said earlier, the EMEA business actually performed, you know, better in the fourth quarter than it did on a full year basis. I think you can take the implication from that the U.K. also accelerated in the fourth quarter. The double-digit growth in revenue in pairs was for the full year.
Okay, great. Thank you.
Thank you. There are no additional questions waiting at this time. I'd like to pass the conference back over to Kenny Wilson for any closing remarks. Please go ahead.
Great. Thank you very much, everyone for taking the time to attend the call. I think, you know, what we've seen is that we have fixed the operational issues that we had in Los Angeles. Obviously, there will be a knock on cost impact of that into next year as we've tried to articulate. In terms of trading performance, you know, as we've discussed on many of the questions here, we've seen an acceleration in our European business in the fourth quarter, an acceleration in our Asia-Pacific business. You know, the area where we still believe that we've got work to do is in the United States. Overall, we look forward to next year where we'll give more guidance on the first of June, but we still believe in our mid to high single digit growth for next year.
Thank you very much for your time.