Good afternoon. My name is Nadia, and I'll be your conference call operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the H&M conference call, full year report for 2022. For the first part of this call, all participants will be in a listen-only mode during the speaker presentation, and afterwards, there'll be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please register via the link in the confirmation email and then dial in and then press star one on your telephone keypad. If you wish to withdraw your question, please press star two on your telephone keypad or press star zero for operator assistance. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. Today, I am pleased to present Nils Vinge, Head of Investor Relations. I will now hand over to your speakers. Please begin.
Hi, everyone. Thank you all for joining us today. Welcome to this telephone conference in connection with the H&M Group's full year report 2023. With me today is our CEO, Helena Helmersson, and our CFO, Adam Karlsson. We will start with a short sumary of the fourth quarter and full year. After that, we will be happy to answer your questions. You'll find the full year report at hmgroup.com/investor relations. Now I'll hand over to you, Helena.
Thank you very much, Nils. We started the year having left the worst of the negative effects of the pan-pandemic behind us. War broke out in Ukraine, and we quickly decided to pause sales in the countries affected, and later on, also decided to wind down our business in Russia and Belarus. Russia was an important and profitable market for us, our decision to wind down the business there has had a significant negative impact on our results. The hikes in raw materials and freight costs, combined with a historically strong U.S. dollar, led to substantial cost increases for purchases of goods. We have increased prices, rather than passing on the full increase to our customers, we chose to strengthen our market position further.
On top of this, there were increased energy costs as well as a one-time charge for the cost and efficiency program that was initiated at the end of the year. The combined effect of these factors amounted to a negative impact on profits in the fourth quarter, totaling around SEK 5 billion compared with the same quarter last year. 2022 was a turbulent and characterized by negative external factors, our sales increased by 6% during the year. Customers are showing that they appreciate our offering and customer preference is increasing among women. The external factors that have had a negative impact on our purchasing costs are gradually reversing and are expected to become positive for our results in the second half of 2023. Purchasing costs are already lower for the orders being placed now compared with the same time last year.
In addition, the second half will also see the positive effect of the cost and efficiency program that will drive growth and is expected to provide SEK 2 billion on an annual basis. Our long-term 2030 goals remain in place, including a double-digit operating margin for full year 2024. To achieve these goals, we are focusing on three growth areas. First and foremost, H&M, which is one of the world's largest fashion destinations with several billions of visits yearly in store and online across the world. We are further improving the assortment and the customer experience, both in store and online. In order to meet our customers' ever-evolving expectations, we are continuing to strengthen, develop, and broaden our offering with more products and services.
By engaging our customers in various ways, we are strengthening the existing relationships with our customers but also attracting new ones globally by offering them unbeatable value with affordable fashion in a more sustainable way. The new financial year has started well with strong sales development during the holidays. Sales development between the 1st of December and 25th of January increased by 5% in local currencies compared with the same period last year. Excluding Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine, the increase was 9%. This was mostly driven by H&M womenswear and COS, which continued to perform well. We are focusing our expansion on increasing sales across all our channels. We have made large long-term investments with a focus on digital. Online sales continue to develop well, and around 30% of sales are online, which is at the same level as last year.
With our digital expansion, we are attracting both existing customers to more channels as well as new customers who can meet us when, where, and how they want. At the same time, the physical store remains much appreciated by our customers, and we are continuously optimizing the store portfolio to make sure that we have the right store with the right format in the right place. We see clearly that customers want to shop both online and in store, and we are continuing to grow with omnichannel sales. This once again shows the value of having both physical and digital channels, which strengthen and complement each other. We are therefore continuing the integration of our sales channels to offer customers a convenient and inspiring experience. In 2022, H&M opened its first stores in Ecuador, Kosovo, North Macedonia, and via franchise in Cambodia, Costa Rica, and Guatemala.
We are also accelerating expansion in India as well as in the North and South America region with a focus on Latin America, which continues to perform well. H&M is also scheduled to open its first store in Albania during the first half of 2023. Ecuador will be a new online market for H&M from the start of 2023. Over the past year, we have made several investments in H&M's lifestyle brands, which covers sports, beauty, and home. H&M Move, a broadened sports assortment, is our latest addition and has been very well-received by our customers worldwide since its launch in August. We are also growing our beauty and home offerings. In 2022, we continued to develop H&M Beauty with good results both in store and online. In 2023, we will launch the first flagship stores for H&M Beauty in two European markets.
H&M Home also continues to perform well. In 2022, we opened seven standalone home stores, and six additional markets will have H&M Home concept stores in 2023. In parallel, we continue to develop all our portfolio brands and business ventures. This is our second growth area. During the fourth quarter, we saw strong sales development for our portfolio brands such as COS and ARKET, with an increase of 22%. Our third growth area is investments and innovative partnerships. We continue to invest through our investment arm, H&M CO:LAB. In a short time, these investments have created significant value, both financially and in the existing operations. Sellpy, which we are the majority owner of, is a good example of how we continuously work on developing new circular business models, and how investments in sustainability also provide H&M Group with long-term business opportunities.
Sellpy continues to grow rapidly, with sales expecting to pass SEK 1 billion during 2023, and is already one of the biggest players in secondhand fashion in Europe. We also continue to invest in other areas, particularly within tech, AI, and supply chain. An important part of our supply chain is our logistics systems. We currently have several global initiatives involving new highly automated logistics centers with a focus on innovation. Two examples of this are our new logistics centers in Canada, scheduled for completion in the first half of 2023, and also one in the Czech Republic, which is scheduled to open at the end of 2025. This will create additional capacity, flexibility, and speed between sales channels, as well as improved availability.
Looking ahead, the external factors are still challenging, which we are humbled by, but things are moving in the right direction. Despite the tough situation in the world around us, the H&M Group stands strong with a robust financial position, healthy cash flow, and a well-balanced inventory. Sales in the new financial year have started well. Combined with our investments and efficiency improvements, there are very good prerequisites for 2023 to be a year of increased sales and improved profitability. Therefore, our previously communicated goal of achieving a double-digit operating margin for full year 2024 remains in place. Thank you all very much for listening, and now we're happy to take your questions.
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question today, please register by the link in the confirmation email and then dial in and press star followed by one on your telephone keypads. If you choose to withdraw your question, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure your phone is unmuted locally. Our first question today goes to Richard Chamberlain of RBC. Richard, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thank you. Afternoon, everybody. I've got two questions, please. First of all, I just wondered if you can talk about your plans for sourcing more product in the Americas region, how you're getting on with that, and the sort of timeframe that we could be talking about for sourcing more product from the Americas, more sort of nearshoring and so on in that region. Thank you.
Sure. When looking at the sourcing map, as you know, we are continuously reviewing and reworking that. The bigger shift that we're working on right now is more nearshoring. Concretely, that means that we are increasing the sourcing mainly from Europe, but also we're exploring production also in the Americas primarily then in Latin America. The bigger shift that is happening right now is the increase in Europe. Let's see where the exploration work in Latin America leads us.
Okay. Thank you. The other one is on page nine, I see you state that sales on the secondhand platform, Sellpy, obviously up very strongly last year, expected to exceed SEK 1 billion in this year, and you're planning to consolidate that business as from Q1. Can you give us a sense of how much profit that company makes at the moment in terms so we to help us with the modeling for this year?
I think, when modeling it, you can consider it as profit neutral for the group for the year right now. We will consolidate it, but it will not have a material effect on profitability for the year.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question goes to Georgina Johanan of J.P. Morgan Chase. Georgina, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thank you. I've got two questions as well, please. Just the 1st one on the gross margin, appreciate that you comment external factors will be very negative in Q1 as well. Just to clarify understanding, should we expect a similar rate of decline year-on-year in the first quarter as we saw in Q4 2022, please?
As we comment in the report, the sum of all external factors are peaking now end of 2022 and into 2023. But on top of that, we also have some year-end effects in fourth quarter that will not be comparable into to first quarter. So we believe that some of the fundamental external factors will remain very negative, but potentially not to the full extent as is reported right now for the fourth quarter.
Are you able to provide a magnitude of the one-off year-end effects or year-end effects, please?
No. No, not right now. We don't quantify those effects.
Okay.
If you think of it as a shape, we most likely, it's the bottom now or the peak, hopefully, and things are going in. The direction is going in the right way, as we said. Of course, the inventory right now, most of the products are bought when the dollar peaked, so to speak, at historical heights. Going forward, the products we buy now, as we state, actually have a lower purchasing cost compared to last year this time for comparable products. That's why we dare to be brave and point out that we will improve during the year and stay with a target of the profitability target for next year, as we'll talk about more later probably.
That's helpful. Thank you. My second question, which was a follow-on, I guess, appreciate what you said on the gross margin, but obviously with Q1 tending to be a sort of somewhat smaller quarter in absolute terms, but yet you're seeing some gross margin pressure. I mean, should we be expecting a sort of a meaning, you know, a profit in Q1, or is close to breakeven a sort of a more sensible assumption at this stage?
As you know, we don't provide guidance and forecast like that. We just give you the background and the external factors, so to speak, and the, and the shape. We can't be so granular to say exactly how much. I leave it to you to make your best assumptions. It's definitely, as we said before, a very challenging external factors, also for Q1, definitely.
We do see, as you saw in the report, the start of sales, in this first quarter. We do see that it looks good, especially if we look at H&M, ladies, COS, just to give a few examples. That is a pretty good signal, of course.
Correct.
Thank you very much.
That's also just to add, and also be cautious, you know, I'm always cautious, because Q1 will be the last quarter when we have Russia in the basis for comparison last year before we paused and winded down the operations in Russia. That's still in the basis for comparison from last year.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question goes to Rebecca McClellan of Santander. Rebecca, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yeah. Hi, good afternoon. Can you hear me?
Yes.
Yes.
Yes. Hi. On the December and January trend of +5% or +9% underlying, is that sort of similar for both months? Or was there a change of sort of growth rates from December into Jan? Secondly, what's the price ASP contribution to that growth?
Well, looking at some of the December effects were driven by positive trading days and calendar effects. We saw a relative to January, a slightly stronger December, but all in all, it has been a fairly sort of... Given that it has been consistently strong throughout the period. We don't give complete guidance on the price increase and how much that has sort of driven the selling. We have over the autumn increased prices and still maintained our position to ensure that the value proposition is still complete for us compared to competitors.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question goes to Nick Coulter of Citigroup. Nick, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thank you. Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. I have two, please. Firstly, could you give a sense of the elements relating to Russia in the fourth quarter income statement? I guess for sales, gross profit and SGA, if it's possible to get a flavor there, please. How or does that interplay with the elements of the SEK 2.1 billion exceptional in the third quarter, please? That's the first one. Thank you.
Well, as we mentioned, there are two components to the effects of the wind down of operations in Russia. One is a one-time closure cost related provision we did in the third quarter, amounting to SEK 1.7 billion-SEK 1.8 billion. The rest that we mentioned in the report is about a SEK 2 billion sort of drag on the operational profit for the year than with the negative delta year-over-year based on less trading and having the stores in Russia closed. For fourth quarter specifically, that amounts to then to close to SEK 600 million, also stated in the report. That's pretty much the picture we can give at this time.
It looked like you sold through quite a lot in the fourth quarter. You cleared down quite a lot. You obviously had a decent amount of sales. I'm just interested in how that flowed down the income statement, if that's possible, please.
We saw that we had a strong reopening end of August and into September, then we gradually started to close stores. With that gradual closure, of course, we needed to take more discounts over the month in order to clear out the stock and time that with the closure of the stores by 30th of November. Not material impact on the profitability from a positive perspective during fourth quarter.
Okay, thank you. Secondly, would it be possible to talk a little more around your targets or ambitions for near sourcing, on a global basis, please? Are there any milestones we should have in mind? Thank you.
Right. To repeat a little bit, but we are driving a bit of a shift, of course, still working hard with our sourcing in Asia, but shifting some also to do more nearshoring. The biggest step is to increase it in Europe. The reason for why we do that is, first of all, that we do see a need to, even though lead times have been reduced to do it further, especially on the parts of the assortment that is more high fashion. Simply to be even quicker to react to upcoming trends and customer demand, we do see the benefits of being even faster and also using tech, data and AI to, for example, quantify, to be more precise.
Of course, it's also a benefit, looking at the exposure of currencies to also spread the risk a little bit.
Yeah. No, that's very helpful. Should we, in five years' time, should we think that you'll have a 50/50 split between near and far sourcing? Or how far do you think this shift will go?
No, we don't have any goals like that. I mean, this is an enabler for us to be even more responsive to customer trends. We are now implementing those plans that we have set, and we will evaluate them as we go.
Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next question goes to Adam Cochrane of Deutsche Bank. Adam, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Good afternoon, guys. A couple of questions, please. In terms of your proposition to customers, you talked about not fully passing through the input cost inflation to the consumer. Do you think that the consumer takes a while for it to notice the fact that your price position is improving compared to other companies, and then that the sales growth that maybe you saw in the first bit of the current financial year, is customers starting to reflect that?
I mean, difficult to say. We do our best to look at customer feedback in the sales analysis. So far it seems like we've taken the right decision when it comes to working quite dynamically with this. With that, I mean to raise prices a little bit differently on different markets to secure our competitive advantage and that we can truly keep our promise to deliver the best best value. Knowing the customer sentiments and looking at the collections and how they are received, we could say that overall it seems that we are competitive. I mean, this is something we have to follow throughout definitely and work with it as we go.
The most important part is also that we see that some of the external effects looks much better in the end of the year. We look upon this more long term.
Thanks. The second question is one that, I suppose Nils is asking me to ask about your double digit margin. How do you view the moving parts from where we are here to a double-digit margin over the next 18-24 months? You know, how would you try and help us classify what's the most important part? Sales, gross margin recovery, operating costs reduction? How would you think about those bits?
Right. I can start and then Adam feel free to fill in. This is really about pulling the brake and accelerating at the same time. Of course it's about implementing the cost and efficiency program that we have spoken about so that we become more efficient, but also faster and more flexible. It's also about having discipline when it comes to our focus areas, because we do see that those give us results both when it comes to sales but also profitability. With that, I mean how we work with the assortment, how we also keep on digitizing our supply chain and integrate it when we work with assortment so that we can become more precise and accurate to meet customer demand.
Of course also, when it comes to the customer experience, both digitally, but also how we continuously improve and update and optimize our store portfolio.
Exiting 2021 and into 2022, we were on a rolling 12 basis closer to 8.5% EBIT margin. We believe that we should be, sooner than later, be able to get back on that track with more stable sales and trading environment. The key, of course, enabler will be the normalized gross margin. That is what now, without giving a forecast, but some of the external factors are pointing at that we could see towards the end of the year.
Helena mentioned that we need to be disciplined in all of our cost actions, follow through on the selling, but also of course, having a normalized gross margin to ensure that we can continue that path we were on a year ago.
Can I just squeeze one last one in on sustainability? It's an important part of your business. There's been a few issues with the marketing and the advertising of sustainability over the last 12 months. Given it is one of your key strengths, how do you, how are you going about telling your customers now about your better sustainability credentials, given some of the challenges that we've got in the market?
Yeah, that's of course really important, both with the transparency to our customers, but also to create even more awareness and make sure that it's really one of our competitive edge in the customer offer. Right now, there's a lot of legislation going on. We have been in the lead for a very long time in this question in the industry and also collaborated with many others. There has not been any legal frameworks in the past, we decided to not wait for it, but to come together with others, academia, competitors and others in the industry to start and be more transparent to our customers. Now, as more legislation is being shaped, of course that is scrutinized. We need to come together to share our learnings with those also
Creating the new legislation, of course for us to come together and see how we can adapt and improve. We truly think it's great with more frameworks and more legislation around this. That also means that we will have an even clearer competitive edge.
That's great. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question goes to James Grzinic of Jefferies. James, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thank you and good afternoon all. I had two quick questions. I guess the first one, just a matter of specifics for Q4. Can I just ask what you did with your marketing budget in the past Q4 year-on-year, how that shifted to offset some of the one-off dynamics that you talked to in terms of that base of delivery? The second one is around, I guess, continuing on Adam's question. There's about 600 basis points of margin rebuild over the next two years that you're pointing to from the clean base of the full year you just reported.
Would it be fair to assume, given what you're saying, that about 400 basis points of that comes from gross margin and the balance is really coming from sales per square meter and OpEx efficiencies?
last question, we are given the external factors, seeing opportunities to come back to more normalized gross margin levels. If you look back a couple of years, that is approximately the delta you are seeing in at least in fourth quarter. So that is the answer to the second question. The other parts will come from the cost and efficiency program in combination with the operating efficiencies throughout the sales structures. On the first
Okay. Sorry, Adam. So 2/3, 1/3 split gross margin and the rest is broadly seems fair.?
Yeah. I think we're not going exactly into the details, but the majority of it will come from a more normalized gross margin as we're in an extreme situation right now. That's a fair assessment. Absolutely.
Great. Thank you.
The first question, sorry, I missed that.
Yeah. I was wondering what happened to your marketing budget in Q4 year-on-year?
It is still slightly elevated compared to the year before, but not to the extent as previous in the year. We had big launches of new concepts Move and other things throughout the year. That drove marketing earlier in the year, and it's still on a slightly elevated level, but not to the extent of previous quarters.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question goes to Hannah Boland of Telegraph Media Group Limited. Hannah, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi there. Thanks for doing this. Just it would be good to get a bit more color on what you're seeing among customers at the moment. Whether you are seeing people kind of choose cheaper items, whether kind of people are trading down at all? Then it just be good to get a bit more detail on pricing as well. I think you kind of mentioned that you might have to raise prices further. What could that look like for customers, and when should they expect potential further increases?
Thank you. Well, we're of course trying to follow customer sentiments as close as we can. As usual, we see that, I mean, also now when we bring in new and more high fashion spring garments, that is very well received. Of course, doing that for great value of money is really, really important. That's why we try to be even clearer also with the customer offer and the customer proposition also from a price point of view. We follow competition very closely to secure that we are competitive. Moreover, we also see an increased awareness of course, when it comes to sustainability.
We do believe we have a great position when it comes to value for money and also offering products, that are more sustainable. Of course, this is something we have been following really closely, since we have also increased prices on certain product types a little bit differently on different markets. Since we also see that the external effects will gradually improve, we don't wanna raise too much prices to then lower them again because we have a promise that we've made to the customers that we should deliver the best value for money. We do think that we have managed this in a wise way, and we follow continuously the customer feedback on that.
Just to add on what Helena said, also what we see is again, it's not just the price, it's always the value proposition. I think that the success of COS and ARKET also shows that which are in higher price levels than the H&M brand.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question goes to Simon Irwin of Credit Suisse. Simon, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi there. couple of questions for you. Could you just talk about the going back to external factors, if you X out the FX, can you just talk through the moving parts that you're seeing in terms of raw materials, labor and freight?
As to kind of, are you seeing local dollar costs coming down on a landed basis FX? Which parts of that equation you're seeing the movement in? Then if I can just ask a question on the 2020 to the 10-year ambition to double sales. Where's that gonna come from? I mean, sales have been... sorry, store numbers have been falling for the last three years or so. Are you basically kind of going to achieve this ambition by doubling the share oe-f e-com? Or will you get back to growing store numbers at some point in the not too distant future?
If we start with the sort of moving parts and excluding FX then, we have been seeing a raw material price increase over the last couple of years and on the backdrop of COVID with high demand and disturbances in the supply chain. Since sort of mid-autumn or late autumn, we've seen that the raw material prices and particularly around the cotton prices have started to come down on a year-on-year basis, which is kind of course, which should be favorable going forward. From a sequential point of view, this will affect on the orders we will place during the spring. As Helena mentioned, we already start to see the year-on-year effects coming down.
Other than that, we also see that international freight and transport costs are likely to come down. That has also a somewhat a delayed effect. We expect if these spot rates are consistent with the current levels to be positively affecting us from end of second quarter into third quarter. Of course, we do see some salary cost inflation in some markets, but we believe that that is a lesser negative effect than the positive other effects that we've been speaking about, the raw material costs coming down and the international freight costs also potentially coming down going forward.
Right,
Then. Yes, sorry.
No, Helena, you go ahead.
Okay, I was just gonna comment on the 2030 growth targets. You're correct, we are keeping that even though of course it was set in a different context before the war. We do think that it's possible and that's what we're going for. We are driving growth plans within three areas then. The first one and the most important is H&M. The second one, portfolio brands and business ventures, and the third one is growing through investments and partnerships. For example, then we have our investment arm, CoLab, that has been investing very strategically with creating a lot of value. Of course, the biggest part is from H&M, so I will talk more around that.
come from our focus areas linked to improving customer offer, customer experience and also digitizing the supply chain. This will help us also to grow in comparable stores and also of course, digitally, because that will of course help us also to be more accurate, more precise, and meet customer demands to an even greater extent. There's a lot of improvements going on in store portfolio and within the assortment strategies also linked to tech and supply chain. Other than that, we're also broadening our offering. You have probably also seen that even though it's been turbulent during 2022, we've been able to invest in broadening our offer.
We've done it both in, for example, ladies, but also in lifestyle brands, such as H&M Move, the sports assortment. Also beauty, we're broadening and also H&M Home. Then we have other businesses such as Sellpy that we spoke about before, which is another example. Besides that, we also see, of course, the opportunity to grow geographically. First of all, we focus on region Americas, especially Latin America. There's also great potentials in India, for example. As you saw in the report, we will have a net closure of 100 stores. That's the best estimate for 2023. Gradually that is coming down. Of course we also see great opportunities to grow in number of stores there.
Great. Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question goes to Anne Critchlow of Société Générale. Anne, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thank you. Hello all. I've got three questions, please. The first one is about the trial you've been running for online returns and charging for those. Are you considering rolling that out?
Yes. We have decided to roll that out, so we had good results from that test. If I remember correctly, it's roughly 10-15 markets in the next step, we will take it from there.
Thank you. The second question is about the marketplace sales that you have on H&M. Please could you give an update about the number of brands and countries and how that's going?
Right. We have that now on six markets. We are collaborating with around 70 external brands, and of course, we also have our own portfolio brands in there. Really interesting to see the cross-shopping since many customers want to mix and match from different brands. We are partnering up with other brands that are also strengthening the pure offer from an H&M perspective. It's still in trial, so I would say, and we're assessing it as we go, but positive response from customers, I would say.
Thank you. Then finally, just a reminder, please, on the H&M incentive program and whether we need to budget for, you know, 10% of the PBT increase being awarded to staff in the fourth quarter.
Hopefully, yes.
Okay, cool. It's still running. Right. Thank you very much.
Yes.
Thank you. The next question goes to Georg Weishaupt of TextilWirtschaft. Georg, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question. Well, actually, some of them have already been asked, but I have a few more. First of all, the first quick follow-up on Sellpy. The turnover target you're giving out for Sellpy, is that net or gross, meaning before or after returns? The SEK 1 billion.
It's gross. Meaning that it's actually only 50% of that is the actual turnover considering the return rates.
Oh, no. Okay. If that's what you mean, it's the gross merchandise value, but it's after returns. It's the in that sense, then the net effect on selling after returns.
It's the net. I don't understand.
It's the net, yeah.
Net.
It's the net revenue. Absolutely. Yes.
Okay. Okay. All right. The second one would be, how happy are you with the development of your biggest market, Germany?
Overall, we have seen in Germany also from customer sentiments, that to some extent, it's been challenging. However, we see when looking at our performance, it's according to the market as a whole or slightly above.
Okay. Meaning did, in Germany, did you reach the level of 2019 already?
We'll have to check that and come back. I don't have that in, at the top of my head.
Okay. Okay. All right. Next one would be China, which was a big thing during the last, telephone conference we had. How is everything going there at the moment?
Yeah. Roughly same answer as last quarter. Still challenging, but slowly it's going in the right direction. We keep on working hard with making sure that the customer offer and experience is really relevant. Of course, we're still in dialogue with multiple stakeholders. Slowly we're taking steps in the right direction.
all the stores are open and you... Are you back on the big platform as well?
All stores are open. There's some restrictions to opening hours due to COVID. Other than that, it's open and you can also find the offer on Tmall.
Okay. All right. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question today, please register via the link in the confirmation email, Dial in and press star followed by one on your telephone keypads. Our next question today goes to Chloe, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thank you. I just wondered if you could give any more detail on the performance in the U.K.. Sort of did you see more, you know, return to stores in the U.K. over Christmas than last year?
We have seen a strong development in many markets and particularly in Northern Europe over the last quarter, and U.K. is one of them where we have had strong trading. Don't have the specific numbers for the last month here, but it's been a generally strong trend.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question goes to Nicolas Champ of Barclays. Nicolas, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yes. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. I have two. The first one is, you plan to close down a further net 100 stores this year. When do you expect to resume a net positive store opening program? In other words, when do you expect to complete the rationalization of your store network? The second question is, would you consider that you are currently growing market shares in the different markets? I mean, based on recent performances, compared to some of your listed competitors, it tends to suggest that you underperform some of these listed players, but perhaps you have more accurate data to share with us. Which are the markets where you are performing and are considering you are gaining market share? Thank you.
First question, number of stores and when start to increase again. We don't have that kind of date because we kind of continuously assess when it comes to consolidations and also opportunities to open new stores. As you have seen throughout the past few years, minus or a net minus of 100 stores is much less than the past few years. We're coming to a place when our store portfolio becomes more and more optimized. Of course, our aim is to start to grow with opening new stores also again and come to a plus. We don't have a date for that yet.
Sorry. In which market do you plan to close down more stores, I would say, and in which market do you plan to open new stores this year?
Yeah, I would say it's mostly then on the mature markets. Looking region-wise, it's more in Europe than other places in the world where we still have some closures to do. Again, important then to look at the integration of physical stores and digital channels. We have the question on market share.
When it comes to market share, it's always difficult to, you know, how you define the market and so on. Of course, it varies from market to market because there are different competitors and so on. Overall, we see that we are performing according to the market or above in most markets, especially the most important markets for us, like in U.S. and Germany.
Okay, thanks.
Thank you. We have a follow-up question from Georgina Johanan of J.P. Morgan Chase. Georgina, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yeah, thank you. Two follow-ups, actually, please. The first one, I think you just touched on it, but I just wanted to ask about your overall performance, in the U.S. more recently, given that I know you've made some sort of meaningful changes in that market, but also the backdrop has been a little bit more mixed there than in Europe. Any color would be helpful.
Yes.
And then-
We continue to do well in the U.S., and the U.S. is now the biggest market for us, which is interesting. Of course, driven also by the strong U.S. dollar. I just spoke to our country manager yesterday. He was quite pleased about the performance. There is still a lot of potential. Very positive sign is that we get in the customer surveys that more and more, especially women who prefer H&M more compared to other competitors.
Thank you very much. My second question was just a follow-up to what's been asked around the nearshoring. Just to understand, because my understanding had always been, of course, sourcing from Europe on a kind of like-for-like basis was more expensive than sourcing from Asia, and particularly now that freight rates have normalized somewhat. I mean, should we be building in a kind of an incremental cost for that as you bring more sourcing sort of close by, or would you expect that to be offset by better markdown trends, for example?
The last bit of your question there is referring sort of to the potential we see. Helena mentioned the higher relevance, the shorter decision lead times and the more accuracy in our buying will offset the potential higher purchase cost. In a year like this, of course, with the fluctuations of the currencies and also transport costs being very, very high, the negative impact is very, very limited. In a more normal sort of external environment, we believe the closeness to the customer and the shorter decision lead times will clearly lead to higher selling, more relevance and lower markdown levels.
Great. That's very helpful. Thank you very much.
Thank you. As a final reminder, if you would like to ask a question today, please register via the link in the confirmation email, then dial in and press star followed by one on your telephone keypads. We have a follow-up question from Simon Irwin of Credit Suisse. Simon, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yes. Could I just ask about the dividend? You have a stated policy of a 50% payout. Obviously, the payout for 2022 is well above earnings. From what you're guiding, it doesn't sound as though you're going to deliver SEK 6 of EPS in the current year. Can you just kind of talk us through the decision to, you know, to keep paying the dividend, you know, despite your supposed policy of paying out 50%?
Well, we have during the last year been very, very consistent and disciplined regarding our capital allocation strategy. When making this assessment, we always consider that. We always consider the capital structure targets that we then communicate as net debt in relationship to EBITDA, where we have a sort of a ceiling level that we are well below. We also consider, of course, the investment needs, and we are now guiding for investment levels on similar levels to pre-pandemic levels. It also needs to be considered that we don't have the store expansion as we did pre-pandemic. We believe that we have sufficient funds to invest.
Last but not least, of course, we have a responsibility to ensure that we manage the owner's money in a responsible way, and then dividend is a natural part of that. We believe we have a strong capital allocation strategy that we follow and sort of stand behind the recommendations from the board.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you. We have no further questions. I'll now hand back to Helena Helmersson for any closing remarks.
Thank you everyone for participating in this conference call, and we wish you all a great weekend.
Thank you. This now concludes today's call. Thank you so much for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.