Good morning and welcome to today's presentation of the Björn Borg Q2 report. We are joined today by CEO Henrik Bunge and CFO Jens Nyström, who will present the second quarter results, followed by a Q&A session. Henrik, the floor is yours.
Brilliant, brilliant. Hjalmar, thank you for being back here again. Of course, we are all fired up as always. We are as hot as the weather is outside currently. So let's just run through a brief. We'll talk about then. So we've summarized the key takeaways in a one-pager. Then we'll remind us all, hey, where are we going again? And then, of course, the performance in Q2 a bit also, year-to-date numbers, and then we'll close off with some key takeaways. So I think with that said, let's jump straight into the executive summary then. So some quarters, you can just read them in 30 seconds and it looks all fantastic, and that was the case with Q1. With Q2, you need to look a bit closer. And perhaps you need to read it twice, actually, to see that it's actually a very, very strong quarter.
One of the key highlights is that we are having a fantastic momentum in own online. So growing 18% in the quarter, which is fantastic, and going against almost anyone else actually in the market. So that's a very, very strong sign of having a strong pull in the market. Secondly, and of course, you can debate whether you should add or take away currencies, but at least if you want to look at our performance, we've said that why don't you take out the dollar exchange rate impact in Q2 and see what we have done internally. And there we see a 3.3% gross margin lift, which of course is an indication that we managed to charge more money for our products, which is a sign that the brand is getting stronger and stronger. So those two clearly are the highlights of the quarter.
But then again, if you look a bit closer, we know that we are having a flat sales development. And again, that's related to the very, very challenging environment that we see with our external e-tailers, such as Zalando, for example. When they're dropping, when they have a tough time, of course we drop with them. So that's really the massive impact for Q2. If you look at the not-so-e-tailer-dominated markets, such as Finland and Denmark, we're growing double digit. And of course, also looking at our own channels that you will see later, we have a strong growth as well. So comp growth retail, 11% up, and own e-comm again, 18% up in the quarter. So very, very good. Looking at gross margins, so we are dropping versus last year.
But again, of course, if you look at how the currencies are developing, taking that out, we are closing the quarter at 59.6%, which is a massive improvement versus last year. So thanks to price increases, lower discounts, again, a sign of having a stronger brand. Looking at the EBIT margin, well, yes, it is decreasing, is 3.2% in the quarter versus last quarter. In Q2 last year, that was a record quarter. But still, of course, again, as I wrote in my CEO comments, if we look at the other Q2s prior to last year, this is actually a record quarter in terms of profitability as well. And on top of that, if we looked at the year-to-date numbers, this year we are doing accruals for a long-term incentive program for some of our key employees. And that we didn't have last year.
If you take that out to get a comparable EBIT level, then actually year-to-date, we are ahead of last year. And I think that's a sign that the underlying business is doing exceptionally well. Looking at our financial solidity, it's also improving. And again, we closed the quarter at a net debt at SEK four million versus SEK 68 million last year. So of course, a lot of signs that the company is in great shape. And of course, we don't know what tomorrow will bring, but it looks a bit cloudy. And I think we're ready for whatever challenge it's thrown at us. And I think we believe that the strength really is that we have a very, very clear long-term ambition. We are here to inspire people that you can be more. And that training is the key enabler to become better. And training doesn't cost anything at all.
And we want to just help you out, reminding you that if you only should do one thing today, then you go out and do a bit of burpees. It's for free. You'll live longer, you'll become stronger, and you'll be much, much happier. And we want to be that brand that guides you through all the challenges that you might have. Our financial goal is to grow 5% and have an annual operating margin of 10%. Dividend to minimum 50% profit and then an asset ratio of 35%. And all of that, of course, is well underway also with Q2 behind us.
Our business strategy, even though of course we saw a bit of a decline in e-tailers in Q2, we still believe in online transition and believe that we as a brand have much, much more to do both for e-tailer, own e-comm, and also, of course, for various social channels and building the brand in that environment, and that doesn't change even though Q2, of course, saw a bit of a dip, so how far did we get then in 2022, so first, let's look at the brand health, so again, as I told you last time, we ask consumers every week in all our mature markets a ton of different questions, yes, making sure that the stuff that we're doing is really working, that it resonates with what they're looking for, and here we see that we are continuing to make a stronger brand.
Of course, what we want to do is to maintain our market leader position in underwear, but at the same time, of course, build a sports fashion brand in a bigger arena connected to health. We believe that the future there is limitless. Here, when we ask consumers around top three, so that means that we give them a list of sports brands and you can only pick three, we are increasing that. 24% is now saying, hey, Björn Borg is one of those three. Of course, one and two is always Nike and Adidas and do a bit of higher turnover than we're doing. Here, 24% are saying that we're number three. Ahead of a lot of the other global sports brands. That's a fantastic strength. Brand awareness, which is of course how strong we are as a brand.
Here in Sweden, we're increasing 20% versus last quarter. Brand preference for her, one of the things that we've been focusing on, of course, is the massive growing female consumer. In Netherlands, that's growing tremendously. I just picked a couple of the KPIs showcasing again that the brand is getting stronger and stronger. Even, of course, though we see in Q2 that the acquisition cost to build the brand is getting more and more expensive. That's very, very clear. We see that the cost of driving turnover at e-comm or driving conversion at social media is more expensive than last year. That's probably going to continue. Of course, for us, it's all about finding new environments, new platforms, new ways of reaching out to the consumer so we can continue to drive a profitable growth, which is then the overall ambition.
Here, looking at our underwear for all markets, purchase intent, so what do you plan on purchasing? We have a strong trend in underwear and on apparel, of course, also a strong increase here, so both sides of the business is looking really, really well also in Q2, and that's, of course, a strength for the future. Looking at the top line, so as we've said, it is a flat development in the quarter, but again, of course, it relates only to a few really big e-tailers that are struggling. Everything else is growing and most actually growing double digit. Looking at year-to-date, then we're up 11.7%, so still a strong number, and of course, as I already said, a bit of reflection on the own market, so here we can see the strength of having your own brand, so you can work your own store.
You can work with your own e-comm. You can work in external e-tailers and external brick-and-mortar stores, and in the quarter, it's clear that the brand is still hot, and we see in markets where there is a lower penetration of e-tailers that we're growing, so such as Finland, Belgium, Denmark is up 12%, 29%, 23%, so again a strong sign that there's a lot of consumers in our different markets that really want to buy into Björn Borg, and of course here again we're benchmarking against a record quarter also in turnover last year, so with that said we also see a very, very strong momentum with a few of our distributors, so all in all the e-tailers very, very tough environment that brings back the sales, but everything else is showing very, very solid growth numbers.
And here, of course, if we then look at the transition, so of course, as we've been talking about for three, four years right now, we believe that the environment in where we can be best is the online environment, both in terms of distribution, but also in terms of building the brand. We still believe that's relevant. We believe that the cut down in e-tailers is something that happens temporarily. We might think and see that there's a more even out growth spread between brick-and-mortar and e-tailers going forward, but still, of course, the biggest volume and the growth will come from e-tailers. And of course, we are ready to be there and we have done a fantastic job. We do see though that the overall share of online business is declining a bit in the quarter, despite, of course, our own e-comm growing tremendously well.
So with that said, yes, wrapping up then the different channels. Own retail, so we're down 3% in the quarter. Comp growth, so store by store, we're up 11%. So we're closing down stores as you know we've been doing for quite some time. And that's also the plan going forward. We do not see ourselves operating full-price stores. We rather tie ourselves into strong partners that have a strong physical presence. It could be department stores or Stadium or Intersport, but rather be where there is traffic and where they already have a store portfolio rather than driving our own monobranded stores. So that continues to be the plan to close down full-price stores. And that's why we're declining in the quarter. But again, comp stores up 11%. Online, well, 16% down. And again, that's related to the e-tailers that is dropping more than 30%.
Of course, our own e-comm again growing 18%. So a very, very strong performance from our own e-comm side. Wholesale and distributors showing an okay growth. I think here we need to look at the year-to-date numbers, but of course, it's always a bit early with one quarter and the second quarter. So looking at year-to-date, we still have a strong momentum for wholesalers and distributors. So I think overall, the sales development in all the channels are performing really, really well. We have one massive challenge in the quarter, and that's related to e-tailers. And within the e-tailers, two, three really big ones. So with that said, then looking into the categories. So of course, as we've said, we want to build a sports fashion brand. And the whole idea, of course, is if you do that, you can have many different entry points.
You can sell footwear or T-shirts or training shirts or caps if you are a sports brand. If you are an underwear brand only, you will struggle to diversify your portfolio. So I think what we are constantly measuring is how our categories are performing because that's a sign that also the brand is becoming bigger. And here, of course, we can see that we are growing in all of our focus categories. So yes, underwear is taking a bit of a dip, our biggest category, temporarily and only connected to the e-tailers, but all other categories show a strong momentum. And here, of course, we see, for example, footwear growing 125%. Looking at the year-to-date numbers, it's actually 15%. So it's just a Q2 phenomenon. But again, we have strong growth in footwear, strong growth in performance.
And of course, also our apparel business continuing to grow in the quarter with 9%. So a lot of signs that this transition that we've been doing for quite some time now is really, really working. And we're moving ourselves into a bigger arena and, of course, being less vulnerable. And also, eyewear and bags is showing a very, very good trend. So I think with that said, of course, as I said, I think my key takeaway in terms of the bottom line, looking at year-to-date, take off the one-off that we're currently doing with the long-term incentive plan, we are ahead of profit. I think that's the clear message we want to send. The underlying business for Björn Borg is very, very strong. We are well equipped for whatever challenge that will come our way.
So with that said, welcome Jens on board to dig a bit deeper into some of the financial KPIs.
Yes. Thank you. Well, thanks for that. Happy to be here. Very clear, Henrik. In terms of some of the financial numbers more on the P&L, on the bottom line, the gross margin we already talked about, Henrik mentioned, it is dropping. However, if you look at it, currency neutral, as we heard now, it's up 3.3% in the quarter. And also year-to-date, it's actually up if we take away the effects of the currencies. The operating profit or the EBIT, we already heard that as well. It's SEK 5 million versus a loss of SEK 19 million in Q2. However, we need to look a bit deeper. You need to scratch the surface a little bit, and then you will actually find that it's a fantastic performance in Q2 this year.
We have one-off effects of around SEK 4 million in the quarter standalone. We have a currency effect that affects this, of course, negatively. And also, if we look back, it's a bit hard to see on this slide, but during 2019 and 2020, we actually show a negative EBIT in Q2. And historically, we tend to be around break-even in Q2, our weakest quarter of the year. So SEK 5 million is actually a fantastic result. I think we have to go back 10 years to find a better Q2 result, except for 2021, then we've got fantastic catch-up from the pandemic. In terms of net income, so the very bottom line, same thing actually. We're showing a positive result. Last year was exceptionally well. And then again, as you can see here, 2019 and 2020, we show a negative net income.
Summary, as you heard Henrik said already, it's actually a fantastic Q2 in terms of the financials. EBIT margin, yes, it's dropping in 2022 to 3% versus 12% last year. Again, if we look at 2020, also that is an exceptionally bad year perhaps, but -9%. If we go back, the trend is basically the same. We found ourselves on a quite good level, quite stable, a bit higher than what we've seen historically in the company. If we look a little bit on the balance sheet items, we are basically strong. We're a strong, solid company. The equity of assets, so the solidity is going steadily upwards, showing 53% in the Q2 versus much lower numbers historically. The net debt, SEK 4 million when we closed Q2, ending 2021 minus ten. So a net cash position versus historically over SEK 100 million in net debt.
So we managed to control the cash situation in the company. And we are actually now on very, very good levels. The working capital, as we compare it to the rolling sales, 12-month rolling sales, is steadily going down. So well control of our inventory and accounts receivable. So accounts receivable is trending downwards. The accounts payable is slightly upwards. So good discussions with vendors and customers and good control of our purchasing of the inventory, more especially we're buying the right stuff and at the same time getting the ratio of sales downwards. So a good situation on the balance sheet, I would summarize the whole situation. So that was quite quick on the numbers. I think I'll leave the last slides to Henrik to take this into final.
Brilliant. Thank you, Jens. So let's wrap it up.
I'm sure that Hjalmar is going to have tons of questions afterwards as well. So hang in there. But first, just a couple of key takeaways. First, the brand is gaining strength, both in terms of awareness and preference. The transition to become a sports brand is continuing. That was a choice we made in 2014. It's been a long, long journey, but we see steady progress towards building a sports brand. One of the clear signs is that all the categories now are seeing strong growth. Secondly, of course, in our own channels, D2C, that's working really well for both comp growth and own retail stores. And of course, our own e-comm is up 18%. I think together then with a very, very strong currency neutral gross margin development showcased that the underlying business is really, really well managed.
And I just have to say thank you to the team that we're having. They're doing exceptionally good work. And I think also looking back at the COVID, it clearly looks like tomorrow might be a bit more challenging than yesterday. But I think we've showcased that this organization is the best when things are really, really tough. So I think I look forward to the fall and all the challenges because I think really that's when you need to bring your A game. And last, of course, again, the transition of the brand is all about taking market share and growing in sports apparel. And we see ongoing growth in the quarter despite, of course, the e-tailers dropping dramatically. So that tells us that the growth within the other channels is double-digit on sports apparel. And again, the collection that we're having is simply just working fantastic.
So we're looking at this one here. Sustainability message with health is. So yes, reminding you that you want to train sustainable sourced materials. So I think we found a product proposition in sports apparel that is really unique actually and that is really ready to kick off and to continue to grow. So overall, of course, yes, if you look quick at the Q2, you might say, profit drop, flat sales. If you look a bit closer, actually, you will conclude that, well, hey, it's actually a quite strong quarter. The year-to-date numbers are very, very solid. And if you look even deeper, you'll see that the financial numbers is actually indicating this is a very, very strong company, actually stronger than last year and the years before. So we are really ready for whatever will be thrown at us.
So I think with that said, Hjalmar, I'm sure that you want to fire away some questions as well. But in terms of the presentation, thank you for listening in and happy to be here again. So Hjalmar, why don't you shoot?
All right. Thank you so much for a great presentation. I was thinking first we could start off by discussing some sales channels, the own online that grew strongly in the quarter. Is this driven by heavy spending on marketing? And do you feel that going forward that you need to spend more heavily on marketing to maintain this growth? And how do you perceive the balance of growth versus then marketing spend for the second half?
No, I think it's clear. Looking back and looking at 2022, it's much harder to drive growth online. And it is much more costly.
So we see that we are investing more in marketing to enable us to continue to grow. Hence, of course, I think we're still on a very, very strong profit margin on e-comm. So we're doing 22%, 23% profit. But again, last year, we were just above 30%. So profitability as a ratio is actually going down a bit and also a bit in absolute numbers. And I think that's a trend that we will see also in the future. So it will simply cost a bit more currently to drive the growth. But still, of course, we have a very profitable e-comm business. But very clearly, traffic acquisition is much more expensive than just a year ago.
And if we look at the physical stores then, of course, last quarter, then you had a tremendous growth in physical stores. And now you have a level of, I believe, 6%.
Do you believe that this is a healthy level that you can maintain looking forward, and what can we expect from the physical stores?
I think the approach with our physical stores is to close them down in a controlled manner. We see that there is a massive relevance in being in brick-and-mortar environments of physical retail. We believe that could continue to grow. We believe that there will be probably a net decline in stores in general across Europe. However, of course, we know that there's a few strong partners that are continuing to grow, so looking at Stadium, for example, looking at their financial performance, they're doing tremendously well, and there's also others, so, of course, we believe that we should not drive monobranded full-price stores, but we should definitely focus a lot of efforts in being into physical retail because there will be consumers there as well.
There are a lot of people that are managing that type of business exceptionally well. So for us, it's really about identifying those right partners and then building a strong proposition together with them. But own retail will slowly decline and will be less and less relevant for us as we go forward.
Thank you. And if we look at the growth in e-tailers in the quarter, is this mainly driven by certain product segments? Is it underwear or is it sports apparel? Can you elaborate a bit on this?
No, I think we're with e-tailers, so the external one, so the Zalando and the Boozt, we're declining across the board. And of course, many of them have purchasing stops. They're cleaning out their already existing inventories. They don't want to buy more. So, of course, they're also adjusting to a slightly different reality.
It seems, at least when we're listening into some of the bigger ones, that it's picking up again. But clearly, I think Q2 was very tough for external e-tailers. And of course, when they're dropping, then of course also we're impacted, then we're dropping as well. And of course, we have a few that are really, really big. So, of course, when we drop with them, it hurts the overall business as well. But I think for me, at least, looking into the channel mix and the way we're growing in the other, I think it's a strong sign that there's still a lot of consumers willing to buy Björn Borg products. And again, I think the drop in e-tailers is more temporary. I think that's going to slowly get back again. But again, also let's remind ourselves then both 2021 and 2020 were exceptional years for e-tailers.
So, a bit of decline or a slower growth is probably as to mitigate comp numbers that was simply unbelievable.
And if we look at the sports apparel segment, you previously mentioned that you have a great momentum mainly driven, or among other things, driven by Padel. Do you see any drivers looking forward? Will it still be Padel as a driver of sports apparel? Or do you see any other initiatives that can drive growth in that segment?
No, absolutely. So, I think we have on one end, of course, we have our training proposition. So, for people that are doing general training, that's the biggest category. That's also where the biggest volume is. And of course, here's about tying in different partnerships such as gym chains. So, that's one focus area. The other one, of course, is Padel tennis. We have a strong heritage in tennis.
Of course, we will continue to focus on tennis, even though that's quite a small sport, not very commercial. But we're doing really well with some of the European tennis e-tailers. And then, of course, we also have Padel. We see a slightly different development depending on markets. So in Sweden, probably Padel is flattening out a bit. We see that some of the people opening up Padel courts are struggling a bit. So probably when it comes to Padel, we'll see during the fall, perhaps next year, there will be a few closures of Padel halls. However, we believe that the sport will continue to grow. And we think that we can take additional market shares within Padel. And that's still a high focus. It's also a very strong overlap with tennis. So the products are very similar.
So it's sort of that racket collection is still a high focus for us. And then, of course, there's a massive trend within studio yoga for women. So seamless tights, for example. And here we see good growth. And especially, of course, when we work with our various influencers, ambassadors, we see massive momentum in all of the markets for studio yoga tights. And then we're also launching our running collection. And we believe that's going to be a massive opportunity for us. We think that there's many people out there that run, but don't necessarily call themselves runners. And for you, we will have an exceptional collection with sustainable products that you could use also for other sports. But if you want to get a good run out of it, then those products will actually serve the purpose. That's something we're adding during 2023.
Of course, constantly developing the sports collection so we can capture more momentum and gain more market shares.
Thank you. And then I was thinking on speaking on inventory, you mentioned previously that you have to purchase the right things. Are you happy with the quality of your current inventory? And how do you plan purchases looking forward, granted that there's a volatile underlying market, so to speak?
No, but I think our business model, of course, is consisting of, I guess you can say, two different purchase behaviors. So on one hand, of course, you have a lot of wholesale customers, and they're buying firm pre-orders. So, of course, that's a firm order. And, of course, they have placed their orders already right now for Spring Summer 2023. So that's already in the books.
And then, of course, we have consignment customers or marketplace customers or own retail, own e-comm. Of course, no consumer has seen this stuff. So, of course, that's a risk buy, you could say. I think for us, of course, it's about understanding, okay, how is the overlap between those purchases? So we're still sort of narrowing down the width of our products. And also, of course, making sure that we together are looking at the products that we're buying and have a strong support package tied into them. So if we want to buy that for wholesale and own e-comm, let's make sure we have the right influencers, the right partnership, the right distribution to drive the growth there. So I think we're not doing a lot of overbuys. So we have a quite tight view in terms of how we purchase.
But, of course, still with quite a big share of D2C business, it's still what you would then call a blind buy. But I think looking at last year and also the year before, we rolled something we called purchase excellence, which is really about looking at data to try to understand what we'll sell tomorrow based on what's been sold yesterday. And that has really had a massive impact on our inventories. So we can see, of course, they're also sort of steadily going down, both as a ratio of sales, but also in absolute numbers, actually. So I think we're doing a good job there as well.
And you mentioned also the marketplaces and the sales within that channel. Could you elaborate a bit on your strategy looking forward? And do you feel that you have a momentum on the marketplaces?
Absolutely.
So we're currently doing a trial buy with Amazon US. So, of course, during the fall. And it's been delayed because the plan was really to launch that in the spring already, but we want to get it right. So there we will operate on a seller model with Amazon US. So that's going to be launched during the fall. And then probably we'll get back then with the next quarter report to tell you how that went. And then we have a few marketplaces. The biggest one is bol.com. That's the biggest marketplace in the Netherlands. And that is doing really, really well. For most of the others, we're working as a traditional wholesaler with a pre-order business.
We believe that that's a clear strength to understand that business because, of course, that's easier to forecast because, of course, you get your firm orders when you do the purchase. You don't need to do the blind buys. So currently, we're not working on a strategic plan to extend our marketplace setup. We want to do the trial with Amazon U.S. We have bol.com that is super, super strong and a few smaller ones. But for the most part, we want to continue to work with a traditional sort of pre-order model with the bigger retailers.
Thank you. Speaking of U.S., do you have a plan for a geographical strategy? And is this something that you could share, any potential markets that you're currently evaluating? Do you have the strategy that you launch via a marketplace and then you can get data on certain products with momentum?
Could you elaborate a bit on this?
No, absolutely. I think for us, there's one clear route in terms of attacking new markets and that's through our own e-comm site. We know if you want to localize our site into the local language, that's about a EUR 10,000-EUR 12,000 investment. It's not a high investment. You need to have some support people in turn that can help you, of course, to translate newsletters and make it really adaptive for the local market. Then it's really about pushing the own e-comm site through influencers and ambassadors. I think that's the key. That's what we're currently doing in some of the newer markets in Europe. As opposed to that, we also have the Amazon launch in the U.S. That is, of course, something that could be huge if it's done right.
But here, let's do one step at a time. So in terms of geographical expansion, Amazon U.S., that's one clear strategy that we will execute during the fall. And then we have additional markets in Europe where we'll then try out with our own e-comm site, localize it, use influencers and ambassadors to drive traffic and conversion through predominantly then discount codes. But here we also see, and also looking, of course, at some of our competitors that in some of the mature markets like Sweden and Germany, for example, the acquisition cost of influencers and ambassadors is also getting a lot higher. So the return on that spent is not at all as good as it was only six months ago. However, looking at smaller markets, there we still see massive potential and a very high return on investment.
Very helpful. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Thank you. Thank you. Again, it's Friday, 11:00 A.M. We work out at Björn Borg. You might want to join us at First Nordic. If you want to create a fantastic Friday, you need to work out and perhaps buy some shares at Björn Borg as well, of course. But that's completely voluntary. Let's do the workout, guys. Thank you for being here and have a fantastic Friday.