Good morning, and it's Friday again, and I'm happy that you have joined us for our Q4 presentation, closing the 2025. And decided to squeeze in three victories in one sentence. I think that's gonna wrap up pretty much the feeling of our last quarter. So, I think first, of course we closed the year with very strong momentum in own e-com, so growing 24% in the quarter, taking market shares. So that's reassuring. And the second one, of course, sports apparel continues to drive growth. Very, very important part of our key strategic initiative to move the entire brand then into becoming a sports fashion brand.
I think last, of course, it's not easy to navigate in the world these days, but to improve then operating profit within, you know, 28% in the quarter, I think, yes, showcase the strength of the business model that we're operating. So, overall, we're leaving a Q4 that we are, you know, satisfied with. Of course, we want to grow even more, and we'll dig a bit deeper into some of the things that we want to do even better going forward. But, to wrap it up then, net sales SEK 238. So, currency neutral, we're growing about 5%. The world, however, is not currency neutral, so the real growth is 1.5% lower than what we would want, of course.
Closing the year still on a growth, yes, close of 6%. Currency neutral is 8%, so a bit below versus our financial targets. Looking at gross profit, however, that's going in the right direction. And of course, here we have some help with the currency, but also, of course, the channel mix, and we can still see that we have a very strong pricing power. And of course, that is leading into then a very, very strong operating profit in the last quarter. And also, of course, closing down the full year at 10.5%, so well above our financial target. So, overall, you know, a good, a good year, 2025, and a strong finish of the year with a strong quarter four.
Our background and platform, of course, is the same. We're here to inspire and to build a brand that wants you to move, not to become an athlete or to win any Olympic gold medals, even though we love that the Swedish guys and girls are doing that, too. But actually, we think that this journey is about inspiring you to move, you can become better at something else. And we see that that's more relevant than ever. So a strong why is really resonating with the world around us right now, which is super strong, of course. The financial objectives remains the same, and of course, the business strategy has been to focus on online, e-tail, marketplace, and own e-com. That is going really, really well.
Grow sales, of course, and predominantly then throughout our sports apparel push, but also now with bags and footwear. That is, of course, what comes to be our future growth initiatives, even though neither one of those actually are growing last year, which of course, is a bit of a disappointment, but here we need to do a lot better. The focus in terms of countries is still Europe. Looking at the brand, of course, that's, you know, our biggest and most important asset. Here we only have one German number, but one thing that we saw in Q4, and actually for the full year last year, is that the brand is getting stronger in Germany, towards German consumers.
And yes, of course, at a very low base, and we also know, of course, that there's some challenges in Germany in terms of their economic output, but we see a very strong momentum. So we're gaining growth also in terms of sales towards German consumers, and also the brand is getting stronger and getting some traction here. Sweden and Holland is continuing to develop good in terms of our brand. And here we have consideration. So this is full year 2025 numbers. And of course, what we ask the consumer here is a list of a lot of different brands of which here do you consider buying?
We have a, you know, very high ratio at 53%, which, of course, tells us again that the biggest opportunity for us here is really to be visible when the consumer is out there shopping, because, you know, then they are very likely to pick us before, you know, any of our competitors. So the brand is going in the right direction, which is reassuring. Looking at the full year numbers as I think I wrote in my CEO comment, with the profit and the sales in Q4 that we did in 2025, that's actually the best Q4 that we have done since I started, now 11 years ago. So, a very strong finish of the year. And looking at the full year, you know, we're growing.
The growth is driven from e-com and sports apparel. Footwear and bags are, you know, lagging a bit behind, so here we need to increase our focus. But overall, you know, a fairly strong year is behind us. Looking at some of the categories, and here we have only Q4, loungewear is doing really, really well. Sports apparel, as I said, is continuing to grow, and socks is also, you know, gaining momentum, and it's actually now almost twice the size of women's underwear. So we see that these smaller categories require, you know, not so much effort, but we can still drive a lot of growth in a very profitable way.
Socks also, as opposed to, you know, footwear and apparel, has a very low, you know, return rate on own e-com, for example. So a very profitable category. Looking at the country, so it's a bit of a mixed picture here. Full year, all our countries are growing except Germany and Belgium. Looking at the quarter, we see super strong growth in Germany, so a good rebalance of last year in Germany. Sweden is doing really, really well. Denmark is having a strong momentum, and Finland is also doing really, really good, and they had also exceptionally good finish of last year. The distributors are, you know, continuing to struggle, even though a few of the smaller ones are growing, but that's still low numbers. And of course, here, we're not focusing too much on those.
We still, of course, want them to grow, but the plan really is to work even more with wholesale and, of course, continue our D2C push with e-com at the forefront. With that, of course, wholesale is growing in the quarter, +2%. We also have a full year growth on the wholesale e-com 24%, so a very, very strong finish of the year. Full year numbers is 19.7%, so just shy of 20%. So here we're taking market shares and doing an exceptionally good work. Actually, also on e-com, we can see that footwear is growing, you know, almost 20%. So there are consumers out there that wants to buy our footwear.
We just need to be better at also managing our wholesale, so they also can, you know, grow and benefit from the need that consumers really feel around our footwear collection. Own retail is declining, and of course, that's because we're closing down stores. I think now when we come into 2026, we have a store base that we are, you know, fine with. It's an outlet store focus, and from here, most likely we'll rather add stores than actually reduce store. But with that said, also the comparable stores are declining 2%. Distributors, as I said, you know, a poor quarter, and a fairly poor development.
Not so much focus, but with that said, of course, we still would want them to grow, even though, of course, our strategy is to focus on our own channels. I think with that said, there's no one else better than Jens to run you through some of the other lines in our P&L, which is also actually showcasing a very, very strong quarter. Jens, why don't you fire away?
Thanks a lot, Henrik.
Thank you.
Thank you. I wish you all a happy Friday as well, and I'm wishing the best of success to the male Swedish hockey team, playing against Finland in just a couple of hours. But leaving that aside and focusing on this, Q4, the gross margin was a jump up with 0.7 percentage points compared to Q4 last year. Here we have been helped with some favorable FX development, putting the gross margin in the right direction, but still, it's a good sign for closing 2025. In terms of profitability, as Henrik already mentioned, the operating profit is up 28% in the quarter to SEK 22 million almost, compared to SEK 17 million last year, so super strong close in terms of profitability for 2025.
If we look at a simplified P&L for the quarter, as well as full year 2025, sales was up 5% currency neutral, and for the full year, 8%, to just above SEK 1 billion. The gross margin, just mentioned, up 0.7 points for the quarter, and almost the same, but the opposite direction for the full year, so closing close to 52%. The operating expenses in the quarter is a bit favorable, and then more or less, a bit unfavorable to towards the full year. However, this is planned with mainly increased marketing investments driving the OpEx growth for the full year. EBIT, as I mentioned, 28%, super strong close of 2025.
+ 9% for the full year to SEK 112 million, bringing the EBIT margin to 10.7%. So, very pleased with the profitability for 2025 and especially the last quarter of the year. If we look at the balance sheet items for a second, we can see the solidity or the equity to assets is strong. It's about 50%, increasing versus last year. The net debt, on the other hand, is increasing slightly to SEK 50 million. Still fairly low compared to previous years, but compared to last year, there's an increase that's quite substantial. This is driven by two things, mainly. First of all, the own e-commerce is taking a bigger share of our sales, which is very positive.
But on the other hand, it needs it requires some larger inventory and hence bigger payments. And we also have the footwear integration that is playing a bigger part this year compared to previous year. The working capital is increasing for mainly the same reason as I just mentioned, mainly coming from the bigger inventory in, while e-com is taking a bigger share, so all in all, positive signs. Having a working capital in relation to sales of just about 20%, that's where we wanna be, around 20%. So quite good KPIs on the balance sheet. There's lots of stuff to look at, obviously, but these are the main ones that we focus on, and quite pleased to see where we are.
So with that, I think we're coming towards the close of this presentation, and, Henrik, why don't you c lose this before we have questions.
Yes, I'm back again.
Back again.
Let's just wrap it up then. So, we have a number of different, of course, you know, highlights in the quarter and also when we look at the full year, 2025. So obviously, you know, the first one is that we see that the brand is continuing to get stronger and stronger. We see a very, very strong momentum in Germany, where the brand is growing a lot on a small base, but you know, that's like, you know, a key strength that looking back. Secondly, of course, E-com is continuing to develop, so close to 20% full year, you know, finishing off the year 24% growth is very, very strong.
We, we know then that the consumer really wants to buy our stuff, and even some of our weaker categories is actually performing fairly well on e-com. So footwear is growing 20, is one example. And then last, of course, we're doing really, really well on sports apparel. So that's really, I think, the, the key highlight. The brand is getting stronger, on e-com is doing really, really well. Sports apparel is continuing to grow. The stuff, of course, that needs to be better is footwear and bags. So footwear were declining last year overall. You know, that's not part of the plan, and of course, here we need to continue to build.
We need to be a bit patient, make even better products, and make sure they find the right home, where consumers want to pick the products up, so we can, you know, get back to growth mode when it comes to the footwear category. That's a major challenge that we are currently having. So I think that's that in terms of closing 2025 and also our last quarter of the year. So with that said, I know that Jan for sure have a lot of questions that he wants to shoot off as well.
Yeah, so let's get started.
Why don't you hit me?
Yeah, right away. So you mentioned Germany, and of course, the strength of the brand in this market. But if you look at Germany, maybe if we exclude e-tailers in this market, when do you feel that we are at a point, you know, when we can evaluate Germany from, from a sales perspective? What is sort of like the time frame that you are envisioning looking forward for the German market?
Well, you know, if you ask me, then I would say we can start doing it right now, but of course, I'm a bit impatient, but it's gonna take a bit of time. I think, the key learning is that, if you wanna build something that is sustainable also over time, it takes a bit of time to build that platform. So if you look at last year, so sales towards German consumers was up 20%, so that's good. And of course, that's a split then of our own e-com towards German consumers, German wholesalers towards German consumers, and also, of course, e-tailers that are selling into Germany. So that's a combination of those. So we see that we are growing and taking, you know, market shares in Germany. But again, it's very low numbers.
So I think this is just about, you know, continuing to push, and not give up. We see, of course, from some other, you know, Swedish brands that they're doing extremely well on the German market, and we believe that we have a place to play also on the German market. Even, of course, knowing that, it's, you know, it's fairly challenging, you know, consumer sentiment, and outlook is, you know, fairly pessimistic in the German market, but it's still a massive market. So we're in Germany to stay. But it's not gonna be, you know, a quick fix, so it's gonna take a bit of time, of course. But we have time.
Yeah. And considering categories, which categories do you think will be most successful in Germany? Will it be similar to the product mix of Björn Borg as a whole, or do you feel that there is, like, a pocket that you can maybe target in Germany?
No, but with the stuff that is really growing right now is sports apparel. And of course, we wanna build a sports fashion brand, and we wanna build the same brand in all the markets, independent on whether it's Norway or Finland or Germany. So of course, you know, our push is really to build the Germany, you know, from focusing on Hamburg. So we have tied up a number of different gyms, a number of different ambassadors, and of course, you know, the main focus is to really launch, you know, our sports apparel collection. And then, of course, they're also picking up socks and some footwear and some underwear, but the key category to drive growth initially is gonna be sports apparel, and that's also what is growing.
Yep. Okay. Yep, thank you. And then if we move on to the e-commerce or maybe the direct to consumer channel, in a wider sense, I mean, since the product offering, you've been growing maybe outside of the traditional underwear, are you feeling that you in the direct to consumer segment becoming more maybe sensitive to seasonal patterns, maybe weather patterns, items like that? I mean, many retailers in the Q4, they referred, you know, to the delayed winter in Sweden, for example. Do you feel any impact on this? I know previously you said that you don't feel, you know, that much impact.
But what we can expect going forward if the product mix will change in the future?
No, but I think on e-com, so, on one hand, we are weather dependent, and not because we do winterized products, but because, you know, when there's no winter, no one is visiting the stores in Sweden. And even though they're looking for a jacket, they're also then picking up Björn Borg stuff. So but that's sort of the wholesale part of the business. So there we are weather independent, simply because lower traffic means lower sales, for jackets, of course, which we don't do much, but also for other product categories. For e-com, we don't see any, you know, seasonal connection, tied into weather at all. So for us, e-com is something that, remains a key focus.
We need to invest, of course, to be really good at, you know, promoting the right products, but it doesn't correlate at all with the swings in the weather like we see in physical retail.
And of course, I think that's, you know, clear also, of course, visible in the Q4 finishing. So of course, that was a Q4 weather, where there simply were no winter, so of course, everyone was a bit struggling. But we are, you know, doing, you know, well, the best Q4 ever for our own e-com. So I think that's, that's probably says it all.
Okay, thank you. And then if we move on to the shoes and bags segment, I mean, you mentioned that maybe you had some struggles in 2025, although, I mean, looking at the full year, I guess. But could you elaborate a bit on this? Is it that, you know, do you need to address the product offering? Do you need to make it wider? Is it a price point concern, or what is the challenge that you maybe need to address if you're looking to 2026, if you are to maybe accelerate the growth from this point?
Yeah. No, but it starts with making really good products, and that takes a while to get that going. But of course, now, if you go in and look at our, you know, bjornborg.com, you see that the footwear collection is really, you know, fantastic. And if you also purchase one, and you will also feel that the fit, you know, and the step-in comfort is, you know, also spot on. And I think also the price points are where they need to be. And we see also that we're growing on e-com. However, of course, when it comes to wholesale, and of course, that's where the big volume in footwear is and will also be in the future.
On one hand, you know, the footwear distribution has been, you know, struggling probably for the last, you know, couple of years. I think we can estimate, you know, last year, a decline of 9%-10% in footwear specialist distribution, whilst, of course, apparel actually was growing a bit. So on one hand, they're struggling a bit, and also, of course, we're, you know, repositioning ourselves. So the footwear that we're now launching is better. It looks better, but different. It's slightly higher RRPs, and, of course, that might not fit than, you know, all of the old distributions. So it's also a bit about, you know, shifting distribution points. And here, you know, the ambition, of course, is to do that and still, you know, grow.
But we managed to do all of that, but we didn't manage to grow. But it's also very tightly linked into challenges in, you know, one or potentially two markets. So if we look at the development in Sweden and Finland, footwear is still doing good. And, of course, those were our old markets that we also owned in the past, even though we didn't make the footwear ourself. Whilst, of course, you know, Holland and Belgium, that was markets that our former license partner were also distributing, and that's where the big drop is. So, it's gonna take a bit of time. I think that's clear, as it did with sports apparel. And, we're not happy at all with the development, you know, from last year.
Here we simply need to do better, but it's gonna come down to, you know, continue to make better products, make sure, you know, we work with the right distribution points, we can drive traction in wholesale, and then, of course, we continue to focus on footwear as a category, so we don't, you know, give up just because it's a bit tough.
Yeah, that's very clear. Thank you. And then, on the gross margin, I mean, you mentioned that you feel that you're, in a good position in terms of pricing power currently. Could you, recap maybe this year or, or the Q4 in terms of, you know, campaign participation and things like that? Are you satisfied with the pricing level that you can have, driving the growth that you have, and, and do you see that maybe changing, going into 2026?
Well, if you wanna wrap up 2025, you can say that the year was, you know, a bit more, you know, off-price driven for almost everyone. And, of course, that's partly related to, you know, the, there's just no snow, and then when the snow comes, that's, you know, end December, and that's when you do clearance. So, of course, you know, probably all or most of the down jackets sold in Sweden last year were sold very late in the year when it's clearance. And we were also impacted by that. So, in all the channels, I would say that we've been a bit more price aggressive than what we were the year before. And of course, that's more, you know, tactics. So we need to see what happens in the market.
We need to continue to drive volumes, win consumers, but of course, at the same time, you know, remain at our price points. The quick answer is, slightly more campaign-driven last year in a general, and we also saw that the market was leading that way. But the plan, of course, is to, you know, continue to work with reducing discounts, and sell more products full price.
Yeah, thank you. And then finally, maybe if you could give us your picture of the current, maybe Swedish consumer right now. I know we get a lot of course, peers are reporting, we get a lot of indications of underlying market data and so forth. But would be very useful to maybe get your perception on the current state of the Swedish consumer.
Yeah, and it's a bit tricky, actually, 'cause, of course, w e said the same last year, there's a lot of indication or rational, you know, reasons for people starting to buy more, you know, more money, tax releases, interest rates going down. It's just a lot of stuff that just indicated, though now we can spend more money, but it doesn't really happen. It doesn't materialize. I think what we saw from last year, at least, that many of the e-com players recovered. So, I think PostNord reported, like, a 10% online growth in general last year, while some of the physical stores are struggling a bit. So this shift is, of course, continuing from physical stores to onliners.
At the same time, of course, it seems like the consumer is still a bit hesitant. So, let's see. Y ou know, as a year ago, there's a lot of indications that all of the ingredients are in place to get some consumptions going again. But again as soon as you open up a newspaper, you know, all you read is about the world, you know, going is going to explode, if you will. Of course, that's not gonna drive, you know, instant purchases. But, again, tomorrow is, we have Valentine's. Make sure you buy something for your wife, or your husband, or your kids, and of course, there's nothing better than a pair of underwear or a track top from Björn Borg.
I think we can all help each other out of that. We just need to purchase a bit more, and of course, ideally, Björn Borg stuff.
Yeah. All right, that's very useful. Thank you so much for answering the questions.
Thank you.
Yeah, I'll leave it to you to any concluding remarks.
No, thank you. Thank you so much. H appy that you dialed in. We're continuing our journey, and again, of course, short or long term, it might go a bit up and down, but we're here to build a sports brand that inspires you to move more. So make sure that, in the break, in the hockey game, in a few hours, that you do a bit of running yourself as well. That's gonna make you stronger and also happier. So with that, have a great Friday, and, well see you in a quarter.