Good morning and welcome to our Q4 2024 presentation. With that, also the closure of 2024. Looking back for us, it's been a great year. When we were here the last time, announcing our Q3, and also, of course, just prior to that, we updated our long-term financial goals, and we clearly told the world that we are now ready to start growing. Looking at what has happened since, that is exactly what we have done. We have identified a number of growth initiatives, of which two are strong categories in footwear and sports apparel, and those are doing an exceptionally strong development currently, which is absolutely great, of course. We've also said that we want to grow more in Germany, and that's been our number one growth market.
We see also good progress, together with, of course, all the other categories, all the other markets continuing to slowly, of course, add to our top-line growth. Looking at 2024 clearly the highlights are divided into two things. One, an ongoing very strong development for our sports apparel collection. Looking back, now we have 10 or 11 quarters in a row with double-digit sports apparel growth, also, of course, integrating footwear. A year ago, our licensed partner went bankrupt, and it more or less just landed in our lap. Thanks to an incredible team in Stockholm and out in the markets, we managed to capture and take care of the chaos that all of a sudden just appeared. Now looking at that the way that we handle it is our biggest success for 2024.
We did it, still managing to increase our profit full year, and of course we did it, and also continued then to grow our footwear. For footwear, we believe that this is by far our number one growth opportunity. This we can do a lot, lot better. Some of the highlights in the quarter is that we're growing 19% almost to SEK 235. Looking at all the channels, we saw a very strong development for our wholesale division. That's again the Stadium, the XXL, very good momentum. At the same time, our e-commerce continuing to grow at 10%, a bit lower than what we're used to, much thanks to that we're reducing our discounts, so we want to sell more products to full price. W e can do that because the brand is getting stronger and stronger.
With that said 10% growth is still strong, but of course not the high 20% that we've been used to looking at the other years. Looking for full year, we're still growing almost twice as fast as what we did in Q4. Retail stores, of course, as you already know, I've been talking about this for many, many quarters. We want to close down our full-price stores. We want to keep our outlet stores, and instead we want to invest that money into online growth, but also then building branded space with leading retailers. One of those examples was shop-in-shop at Alsterhaus in Hamburg. Due to that, of course, retail will continue to decline. Looking at the comp stores, so stores versus stores that were open, we still see an increase. As I said the product groups are developing nicely.
All of them are growing very, very good in Q4. T he full year victories, of course, footwear, but also, of course, a very, very strong sports apparel growth. Here we see that after many years of just focusing on moving the brand from only being underwear into becoming sports apparel and sports fashion, it's really now working. Good, good opportunity, good momentum, and I'm really, really proud over all the work that we've done so far. Gross margin in the quarter is declining a bit, down to 53.3% versus last year. It's partly due to currency, but not so much actually. Most of it relates to integrating footwear. A s you can imagine, you have a partner that goes bankrupt.
You need to retrieve products in harbors, in boats, sold in by someone else to customers that you potentially have not called. I n all of that work, in order for them to still take those products that are most of the time, of course, also very late, we had to give one-off discounts. That has been impacting us for the last probably six or perhaps even nine months in terms of gross margin dilution versus how it was last year. Looking at our operating profit, then we in the quarter are decreasing again thanks to, on one hand, of course, the footwear margin and also investment into the team, and also us continuing to invest into the brand to make it even stronger. Both those investments, of course, are essential to enable us to continue to grow.
Looking at full year, still, of course, our profit is higher than last year. The long-term vision is exactly the same, so we're not changing here. W e're here to build a sports fashion brand for those who want to feel active and attractive. The whole idea again is to build that sports brand that inspires you, that you should move, you should train, not to become an athlete, not to take part in any competitions. You can do that too if you want, but actually to live longer, to be a bit happier. We believe that even in a world that is, well, a bit shaky, that's exactly what the consumers are looking for and also exactly what they need. T ake control over what you can take control over.
One thing, of course, by doing a bit of exercise every day, moving a bit, that day will be a better day for you. Looking at the brand heat, and of course, we know that one of the things that makes us completely unique is, of course, the brand. Our job here is to fuel that brand with as much value as we can. Here we can see that the brand is getting stronger and stronger. We measure that every week in all of our markets by asking end consumers. Some of the highlights this quarter have been around her. Both purchasing intent in Sweden and Holland is increasing dramatically, and aided awareness in him in Germany is also increasing.
In Germany, as I said, one of our focus markets, the deal here is really to build a brand that people recognize. I t's going to be a long road before we are as strong as we are in Sweden and the Netherlands. The work has really started, and we see promising signs of the brand actually getting stronger and stronger every quarter here as well. Underwear, him, we're maintaining a very strong position. T he trick here is to move into a new arena where the potential is bigger, but without, of course, losing the category ownership in underwear for him. We're managing to do that. Not only does the brand in and around underwear become stronger, but also, of course, the revenue. We've never sold more underwear than what we did last year.
That's a very, very strong sign that the whole idea of moving into a bigger arena, building a different brand, still enables you to continue to drive high growth in your core category. Apparel and purchasing intent is also slowly increasing, meaning, of course, that we're getting more and more traction with end consumers in all of our markets simply wanting to buy our stuff. The top line, again, of course, looking at the quarter, record quarter, we've never done it anymore. W e're far, far above our second best quarter. Nineteen percent growth, absolutely incredible. Yes, one part of that is due to footwear, but we should remember here that we also did footwear in Sweden and online, for example, last year. There's no non-comparable impacts here.
The only thing that we did was add the sales in Europe that we did not have last year. Here, of course, we have a bit of an upside. Overall, the major growth actually is driven from footwear, but also in the markets where we already had footwear, which of course showcased that when we take it in-house, when we take control, we can have a fantastic momentum. Also, of course, sports apparel is driving the growth here, a record quarter and also with that a record full year. We are super, super proud of the top-line development and very happy then to tell all of you that we are well above the financial charts that we communicated to you guys in August. Nineteen percent growth in the quarter, 14% growth full year. Absolutely fantastic. It is spread across most of the markets.
Sweden has done a fantastic job in Q4, but full year we see a strong growth across the board. Looking at the different channels wholesale, as I said, did something incredible in Q4. Very, very strong momentum. E-com continuing to have a strong growth. Retail declining a bit. However, of course, comp store development is still plus 5%. Last, then distributors. A smaller and smaller part of our business is still growing, which is, of course, good. Not showcasing that we have a very good momentum in all of the different markets. Again small part of the business and not our focus.
We simply, again, believe that where we can make the biggest difference is where we talk directly to consumers and where we can take ownership of the full supply chain creation to a customer buying our product. Look at that online development. This is something we started tracking back in 2018 and we continue to do so. We see that a big share of our business is done through online. However, what we've seen probably the last year and a half and has really been accelerating during Q4 is an increased traction in physical stores amongst our wholesale partners. Very, very strong development. We see that a lot of consumers are shopping at the shop floor, not online.
We believe that one of our strengths is that we can manage different channels and different ways of going to market within what we're doing here. Both own e-com, of course, both strong cooperation with strong e-tailers such as Boozt and Zalando, but also, of course a very strong partnership with customers that had a mixed go-to-market with both own e-com and physical stores. That has been working really, really good in the quarter. W e should continue focusing on that. Again, of course, with a record quarter, everything is looking good from a sales perspective. Looking at our categories, underwear is plus 14%, so absolutely fantastic. Also strong full year growth numbers.
Apparel 44%, bags 30%, and footwear then plus 57%, of which our own e-com is driving a very, very strong growth momentum, almost 100% growth as of last year. Very, very proud of that. With that said, of course, again bottom line struggling a bit, but I just wanted to remember that full year, of course, we're still making more money than last year, despite, of course, doing a lot of stuff that will drive growth for the future. Again, who better than to run this through than our fantastic CFO, Jens. Welcome on stage, Jens. You are just far away.
Thank you, Henrik. Thanks for that. Good morning from myself as well. What a Friday it is. I was just thinking this morning that how lucky am I to work at Björn Borg. I work with colleagues such as Jessica and Kim. You're simply amazing. You make everything possible. Polina, Anna, simply superstars. I cannot wait to get back to work. See you guys soon. Anyway, bottom line, we talked about the gross margin already, slight decline towards the end of the year due to the investments that Henrik just mentioned. There is marketing investment to build the brand going forward. There are some investments due to the footwear integration. However, we do see some uplift in the footwear area that we have communicated earlier. We estimate the gross margin in the footwear area to go up after the initial investments are done, let's say.
In terms of the profitability, EBIT, as Henrik also mentioned, SEK 102 million stronger than last year, even though the Q4 itself isolated was slightly shy of last year due to the investments just mentioned. Super proud of delivering a full year profit that is higher than last year with everything that we've done during the year. That's fantastic. Same story on the bottom line in the net income, where we see a slight decline due to, well, to some FX conversions of the cash pool, you could say. Nevertheless, super strong year in terms of profitability if you look at the full year with everything that's been going on throughout 2024. If we take a look at the balance sheet, the equity through assets is slightly declining, but still on a strong level, around 50% where we've been all the time.
That's super strong. Remember, we had quite a high dividend during 2024, and the board will present to the AGM that comes up in May the same dividend of SEK 3 per share. We will see if the AGM accepts that, obviously, but that's a strong message sent. In terms of the net debt, that goes a bit up and down towards the end of the year, but we are fairly close to being on a, let's say, a cash position that we were last year. SEK 9 million in net debt is quite low. We're coming from a much higher debt situation. Even here, we see a strong position when it comes to the balance sheet.
Finally, another KPI that we measure is the working capital, which obviously has quite a big impact on our business, and we want it internally to be stable around 20% in relation to rolling 12-month gross sales. That's where we've been for the last couple of years. Keeping the inventory mainly in the accounts receivable payables in good control, you could say, is quite a good sign for a healthy company, at least if you ask me. With that message you should close this Friday.
Yes . Let's wrap it up. I'm sure that Hjalmar has a couple of questions as well, but just to summarize everything then. Record sales in the quarter, record sales for the full year. Thanks, predominantly then to one thing, and that is that we have a fantastic and a very, very strong team. Sales is not the only record we broke last year. Actually, also our internal anonymous engagement service showed record levels. It is a very strong team that you are investing in. A great team will accomplish great things.
The brand is continuing to become stronger. Secondly, of course, we have very strong momentum in all of our channels. Last, of course, our carriers are really, really growing. W e've showcased since we've changed our financial targets that we are now into growth mode. We strongly believe that we can continue to grow more than double digit. At the same time, of course maintain good profit levels and a strong dividend. Again, of course, just looking at today, probably a dividend yield of around 5%, which is a very strong sign for the future. As you see and as you feel, we're fired up. We're ready to get this going.
Been here many quarters, but there's a lot of things now that are falling into place, despite, of course, the world around us being a bit challenging. As we've always said, we're still small. Market going down still means that we could take market shares. Looking at 2024, in Sweden, we took market shares in all of our categories. T hat's the intention to continue doing so. With that said have a fantastic Friday. Don't leave us just yet. I know that Hjalmar is just eager to ask me some questions as well. Hjalmar , why don't you just fire away?
Oh, yes, thank you. Let's get, let's go into the Q&A. L et's start off at the gross margin. Y ou spoke some of it and that you expect some contribution then from the shoe segment looking ahead. Could you provide us with some time frame on this? Is this early 2025 that you expect margins to reach some steady state in the shoe business, or is it more like a long-term prospect 2026, 2027, and so on?
No, the margin development when it comes to our categories is a bit tied into how the selling in is working. I f we look at Autumn Winter 2025, that business was sold in and we just placed that purchase. I t is a bit of a lag when it comes to margin improvements. However, of course, we did a lot of initiatives already last year that would improve the margin.
If you would look at footwear isolated, actually last year's footwear margin were a lot better than the year before. However, of course, taking a bigger share of the business means that it's impacting the overall margin and that's why it's dragging down. We're on a good trend and we can expect, of course, our margin to continue to increase during 2025 already fairly soon. All other things the same, of course. We know that the channel split is impacting. H igh share of e-com is dragging up the gross margin. At the same time, we're closing down retail stores. That's going to drag down the margin. We know that depending on which category we sell in, the margin will look differently. We still have the highest margin in underwear.
We truly believe then that on footwear, it should be able to have a similar margin as sports apparel. Actually a bit higher if you look at leisure footwear. S pending many, many years at Adidas, one of our high margin products was leisure footwear and sneakers for Adidas, not the sports apparel. We strongly believe that looking at our portfolio categories, we should be able to increase the margin. It gets close to what we said in the past of 55% quarter by quarter.
Yeah. Speaking then of the sales channels, of course, the own e-commerce grows strongly for the full year. You also mentioned a trend where customers are engaging more into physical stores. Should we interpret that you expect maybe stronger growth than in the stores looking ahead, or is this more of a general trend that you're seeing in the market for the customer overall?
Yeah, it goes a bit up and down. For us, it's important to be where the consumers are. T hat's the starting point. It changes a bit. We can look at Q4, a very high share of our turnover actually done in physical stores. We simply need to be there. We strongly believe still, of course, that we need to invest into our own online so we can continue to grow. Again we're still fairly small rolling 12. We're doing roughly SEK 200 million on own e-com.
We can continue to probably quadruple that without, of course, being impacted on general market trends. F or us, it's very important just to follow what's happening, making sure that we are always relevant and that we are where the consumers are. It's very, very clear that a high share of you still then wants to shop product at the shop floor feel and meet people and talk to people. We need to be there as well. There's also, of course a very strong demand of being in online platforms such as Boozt or Zalando, but also, of course Björn Borg.com. For us, the strength is that we can handle all of those channels.
We are like a true multi-channel company where the entire team has been working with all of these channels for many years. We know wholesale, we know D2C, we can drive our own retail stores and everything in between. T hat's a very strong sign of having a good set of competence to handle a changing world.
Yeah . Speaking of the shoe segment, naturally, strong growth during this year, and you spoke a lot of it, but what are the key challenges looking ahead? We're speaking about sourcing, design, sales. Which ones would you like to highlight and what are you focusing on to maybe like maintain this growth that we've seen?
Yeah, of course nothing is easy anymore, even though it potentially looks like that from the outside. Rolling 12 apparel is heading towards SEK 300 million, just standing alone. And that's without swimwear and loungewear. I t really only sports apparel. T hat's like a small proper sports brand, just alone. Footwear last year did SEK 97 million. Footwear as a category is as big as sports apparel. F irst of all, of course, the ceiling is very high. T here's incredible potential ahead of us. I n order to do that, you need to do great products. Y ou need to make sure you fuel the brand with a lot of strong value. Y ou as a consumer really want to buy our stuff.
We have a plan for both. W e know that life is not going to play out the way we want. It could well be challenges with supply chain with customers and everything in between. I believe that we have a very strong team in place. Also, we've showcased that we are very persistent. T here potentially has been reasons back in the days to abandon the whole sports apparel push. N ow looking back, I'm just very proud that we never gave it up, even though it was super, super tough.
The same goes for footwear. We simply need to get on with it, understand how important it is, and then just get it going. With that said, it will be challenges, no matter where we look. W e've shown in the past we can handle all of those. We have a very strong team in place. Super happy and super proud. I'm sure they will do something absolutely incredible. First signs also of the collection are very promising.
Very helpful. Thank you. Speaking of your geographical markets, maybe you mentioned like Germany, for example. What are the key characteristics for such a market? How do you perceive Germany compared to other European countries for the potential of expansion?
The way we do things, and I know there was a question around the U.K. that came up here from some of you guys, on one hand, we believe you need to be reactive and data-driven, meaning that if something is working dig, continue to focus. Y ou need to have your own plan in terms of what you want to accomplish. The difference between Germany and the U.K., for example, is of course, both markets are really, really big massive potential. However, in the U.K., for whatever reason, we do not feel the same traction that we see and feel in Germany. Instead of pushing water up the hill in the U.K., we swap our focus into Germany because, of course, breaking through in one of those markets will be enough to double or quadruple the turnover for us.
That is a bit how we work. I t did not really help with the Brexit and all the other stuff that happened in the U.K. Doing business in Germany is simply a lot easier. The reason for our approach is then we test a lot of stuff, get some traction, and then we select what we feel that, hey here we have signs that things could work. W e simply made the decision to continue to dig there with relentless focus. That is really the approach now in Germany. We will succeed in Germany. The question is just, okay, when?
Yes, thank you. On the pricing, you mentioned that you feel that you maintain a strong pricing power. Do you feel confident looking into 2025 that you will be able to maintain this pricing towards the end customer in, I mean, when we are assessing the gross margin?
No, I'm super confident. W e can see a lot of signs that our brand is getting stronger and stronger and stronger. Looking at e-com, of course, lowering discounts now for the second or third year in a row and still, of course, driving double-digit growth. T hat's a very clear sign. Not to mention, of course, that Messi continues to buy our stuff from own e-com. T he brand is getting stronger and we see a lot of evidence for that. W ith that comes then a strong pricing power. One of the measurements of a strong brand is your ability then to charge full price. We need to find the right balance here. W e want to build a brand that is accessible.
We do not want to, it is not a premium brand in the sense that it should be super expensive. We want to create a good t-shirt made of recycled polyester with a great fit at a very accessible price point. There are no hurdles for you to pick it up. Every time you see that in your closet, we want you to think about Björn Borg as your best friend reminding you that today is the day you will go out running or do a push-up or a couple of burpees. That is the whole intention with the entire brand. Here, we are making inroads every quarter, every year to becoming stronger and stronger.
That is great. Thank you so much. Thank you, Henrik and Jens, for coming here. I will leave it to you to finish.
Yes, thank you, Hjalmar. You're happy to be here. Happy that you're listening in. C ontinue to follow us. We're on a quest to make sure that the entire world moves more, more needed than ever. As of course on Fridays, we have a compulsory sports hour, meaning that all of the offices are closing down. W e're training together. Y ou're always welcome to join us, whether you're in Amsterdam or in Sweden. Just look up our headquarter and then you join us for our workout. At least that will make your day a lot better than if you're not joining. With that said, have a fantastic Friday and I'll see you in, well, three months then for our Q1. I can't wait to talk to you again. Thank you.