Good morning, everyone, and welcome to today's Thule Group Interim Report, Q3 July to September 20 24. My name is Drew, and I'll be your operator today. During today's call, there will be a Q&A session. To register a question, please press Star followed by one on your telephone keypad. And if you wish to withdraw your question, then it is star followed by two. I'll now turn the call over to Mattias Ankarberg, CEO and President, to begin. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much, and welcome everybody to this quarterly call. I am also joined here, well, as usual, by Toby Lawton, our CFO, and we will speak to the presentation also available on our website. I'll start off on page two. The third quarter of the year is a good quarter for us, despite the continued tough consumer market. We grow by 4% organically in the year, more in region Europe and the rest of the world, 6% and 1% in Americas. We'll get back to market conditions, but we continue to see a better market in Europe than in North America, and we continue to see the growth coming from new Thule products, driving growth, even though the market is tough, and also from bike-related products, where the market is better.
We have a strong gross margin of, close to 43% in the quarter, and we have a EBIT margin of 17.6%, which is the highest ever EBIT margin for a third quarter for Thule Group, excluding the pandemic period, years. And the total EBIT in absolute terms was SEK 413 million, and Toby will get back to that as well. Cash flow remains strong as for the last couple of quarters, and we have cash flow from operations of almost SEK 1 billion in the quarter. A couple of highlights for the quarter. And the first one is actually after the quarter finished.
Yesterday, the semiannual consumer test results from Europe's most important car seat test was announced, and Thule was the winner in the so-called ADAC car seat consumer test. That's the big one in Europe, so we are very pleased and proud to win that. We have also continued to launch products in our second new category for the year, dog transportation, so we launched Thule Bexey, and we have also continued to grow our D2C business and have so far now opened six new countries for trading with on Thule.com, with two more opened in the third quarter. On the next slide, page three, we'll summarize the long-term development for Thule Group and for those of you who know us well, you know we've had a good, profitable growth for many years.
The graph shows the development since the IPO in twenty fourteen, and following two years with a sales decline after the pandemic peak, we now continue to see another quarter adding to growth in twenty twenty-four. Good to see that this year is back to good, profitable organic growth. On a twelve-month basis, net sales is SEK 9.4 billion for the group, SEK 1.6 billion of EBIT and an EBIT margin of 17.1%. Turning to page four and going a little bit deeper into the trading in the quarter by category. We can see that several of the trends we've been seeing for the year continued in the third quarter, with some nuances and some updates also related to us launching new products.
Starting with our biggest product category, Sport and Cargo Carriers, the category grew by 5%, currency adjusted in the quarter, 6% year- to- date, and we continue to see that bike-related drives the growth. Particularly, we see premium bike-related products doing really well. We have launched two new products in the quarter. One niche product, which is shown on the picture, which is a so-called vertical hanging bike carrier, mainly for the Americas market, which has done well, and we've sold everything we've been able to produce so far. We continue to see very good sales of our most premium bike carrier, Thule Epos, that was launched last year. And we've also, at the end of the quarter, upgraded our best-selling Thule EasyFold bike carrier, which also has a really nice start. Good growth in the premium bike-related products.
Overall, the market for sport and cargo carriers continues to be tough with both cautious consumers and retailers, more so in North America than in Europe, but also in Europe. But we, as we've seen now for several quarters, do see more healthy inventory levels in the bike sector, particularly around premium products and particularly in Europe, which helps us. Packs, bags, and luggage declined by 4% in the quarter and 1% for the year so far. We continue to see good growth in Thule-branded luggage and duffels. For example, the updates we've done this year to the Thule Aion and Thule Subterra products, and we also continue to see good growth in bike-related bags products. We also, as previous quarters, see decline in legacy products, as the exit of those categories continues.
If we move forward to page five, we'll cover the last two product categories. The strongest growth in any product category in the quarter was in juvenile and pet, which where net sales increased by 15% to 9% for the year. And this is the category we've had a lot of newness this year. We in the quarter launched an updated generation of our multisport and bike trailer, Thule Chariot, which has been really well received by the market and the consumers, and driven very nice sales growth for us in the quarter. We did a big update to our new generation Thule Urban Glide 3 during earlier part of the year, which continues to perform really well, and we see good growth in strollers also in the third quarter. Dog transportation is a new category for the year.
We continue to see good performance of the dog crate, Thule Allax, and continue to take market share. And we also launched Thule Bexey, our first bike trailer for dog transportation in the quarter, which also added new sales. And last but not least, we have entered into car seats. We moved into three markets: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, at the end of May, and then added Belgium and Netherlands and Luxembourg in September, which also, of course, adds new sales in this category. So good lot of newness and 15% sales growth in juvenile and pet in the quarter, which we are pleased about. RV products is a mixed picture. Net sales in total were flat compared to last year in RV products, and it's down 2% year- to- date so far.
As we've talked about several quarters earlier, the RV industry is going through a weaker period, and we do but we do see two opposite trends in the quarter, where we see a decline in sales to OE customers, so manufacturers and vehicle outfitters, but that sales decline is offset by return to growth in the dealer channel, the channel that is closer to the consumers, so overall resulting in a flat development. Particularly, we see in this RV category that the growth is mainly coming from bike-related products in the aftermarket channel. I'd like to then on page five, sorry, six, give you a bit of a further update on the car seats launch. First, just to let you know where we are, we have continued the launch.
With the first product was in the market in May, and we've continued the launch in the third quarter, and will continue in the fourth quarter. So before stepping into the timeline, maybe just to remind everybody that our... We are a product-oriented company. Our primary focus is to deliver a great product up to Thule standard, and we do feel we have launched innovative products in a fairly established product category. We clearly focus on safety. We clearly focus on ease to use, and we also think, at least by in our view, that we have produced a product which is well designed. So overall, three products launched to the market end of May: a base, an infant seat, and a toddler seat in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Good reception, six international product design awards, even before the product was launched.
And then the rollout continued with opening up Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg during September 2024. We've had just as in the German-speaking markets, a nice reception. We've had good placement with the most important premium retail partners that we are looking to enter with. We've had good, positive receptions with PR, both the more juvenile-focused media, but also broad media, and also with ambassadors. The rollout will continue across European markets and a few others connected to the European standard, so over 20 countries now in November 2024. And it's nice to see the good start and the good reception, and now the long-term work to build these market positions will continue.
As a last comment, also say that we do have more products in the pipeline, both for the European and the North American markets, and we will, in 2025, launch our first high-back booster seats for children of a little bit higher age. On the following page, page eight, I'll also take the opportunity to update you on the outcome of the so-called ADAC test, the most recognized car seat consumer test in Europe, and probably the world, which was announced yesterday. This is the big one, and we are very proud to say that Thule came out as the winner in the test. The test is based on three areas: its safety, its ease of use, and its ergonomics.
The products are scored on a scale from one to six, one being the best, and Thule received a 1.6 score for the combination of the Thule Maple and the Thule Alfi, the infant and the base bundle. This is the best score of any product tested in this October 2022 test, which, of course, makes us the winner. It's also the best score of any product ever tested of this product type. We are really proud of the team. I think it's a great testament to the product development capabilities of Thule Group. I think it's a milestone for us in the car seats category and as a brand. A good start and a good recognition for the car seats early on.
And with that, I hand over to Toby to cover financials in a bit more detail.
Thank you, Mattias. Good morning, everybody, and we can turn to the income statement, slide eight. And I'll start off showing you here the revenue in quarter three. We had a revenue of SEK 2.344 billion in the quarter, which was an organic growth or an FX-adjusted growth of 4%. Which means our year-to-date FX adjusted or organic growth is also at 4%. Moving down the table to the gross margin, you can see we had a gross margin in the quarter of 42.9%. This is 2.8% up versus last year. The positive trend in gross profit continues. We have effects from lower material costs, which is the biggest impact.
Also, some better mix, which is driven by the new product launches in premium price points, which Mattias has talked about, and also some better overhead absorption from better production levels this year. If you move down then to the EBIT margin, you can see the EBIT margin in Q3 improved by 2.1% versus last year. And this is driven by the higher gross margin. And finally, just on the right-hand side, you can see for the year-to-date numbers, if I move to the year-to-date column, net interest expense was SEK 59 million in so far this year. Taxes, SEK 339 million, which is an effective tax rate of 22.6%, so very stable effective tax rate.
And then net income year to date for the year is now 1.159 billion SEK. So well over SEK 1 billion in net income so far this year. If I flick onto the next slide, slide nine, sales by quarter, and the first thing to point out here is you see the seasonality of the Thule business. You can see quarter two is actually our biggest quarter, so quarter three, which we're reporting now, is the tail end of the season. And I can also point out, obviously, that Q4, the coming quarter, is clearly the smallest quarter of the year, and it's the summer season in the Northern Hemisphere, of course, which drives this for us.
And if we look at the growth rates for quarter three, you can see in the box on the right that the reported currency growth was 1%, but FX adjusted, it's 4% in the quarter, so 4% organic growth again, and versus 2019, which is the pre-pandemic period, then it's 30% growth. If I move on then to the cash flow, slide 10. And here you can see that we had clearly a strong cash flow generation in the quarter. If you see the line cash flow from operations in the quarter, we had 955 million SEK in cash flow generation, and this was driven by reduction in accounts receivable and inventory.
And we continue to have a positive trend on reducing inventory this year, and we expect to beat our target that we've communicated of SEK 200 million inventory reduction for the year. On the right-hand side, you can see the year-to-date numbers as well, and so far, the CapEx this year, just to point out, the CapEx below cash flow from operations is SEK 183 million so far this year, which means when you sum those up, a free cash flow from the operations, it is SEK 1.741 billion, is what we've generated from the operations this year after CapEx.
All this has, of course, a strong deleveraging effect on our balance sheet, so the debt to EBITDA ratio at the end of quarter three 2024 has been further reduced and is now down to zero point five times. Net debt is zero point five times the last twelve months EBITDA. So with that, I will hand back to Mattias.
Thank you, Toby. On page 11, I want to summarize the product launch year in twenty twenty-four. As you probably are aware, this is the most intense product launch year we have ever had, and we have done several launches of three different types. Firstly, we have upgraded several versions of our existing best-selling product, and that's an area that gives quick sales effect and it delivers good growth for us, and it creates newness in the market, of course. In the quarter, to give an example, we have launched a new generation of Thule Chariot, our best child bike trailer. Of course, in our view, the market's best multi-sport and bike trailer, and which has done really well for us in the third quarter. We've also launched some new innovations in existing categories.
We have launched Thule Outset, the world's first tow bar-mounted tent in Q2, the world's first removable awning, Thule Sidehill, in this quarter, Q3, and as I mentioned earlier, Thule ReVert, the vertical hanging bike carrier that has actually self-assisting loading and unloading of bags, although you can have six bikes, sorry, not bags, on top, on the back of a car, so new innovations in existing categories also drives newness in sales, of course, and then thirdly, we have launched the two new categories in 2024, and as mentioned earlier, Thule Bexey, the dog bike trailer, has been launched now in Q3 to complement the Thule Allax, the dog crate for cars that we launched in Q1.
So we've talked a lot about new product launches, and it is an important learning for this year that newness really drives growth, even though the market is tough. And we will get back at the fourth quarter conference call with the plans for 2025. But given the strong reception of newness in 2024, we will of course keep a high pace also in 2025. On page 12, I would like to take the opportunity to talk a little bit more about updating our best sellers. We give a lot of attention, and rightfully so, to the new product categories, but we also see some really nice benefits from upgrading some of the existing products. And as an example, we launched an upgraded version of Thule EasyFold now generation 3 at the end of the third quarter.
It is the world's most sold bike carrier, and it just got better. Thule standard, we always try to strive to deliver the best product for the market and always improve, and this new generation has an intuitive click in, click out bike arm, makes it easier to one-handed load it on and unload bikes. It can easily, with an add-on, transform from a three-bike carrier to a four-bike carrier, and also has a larger wheelbase that accommodates larger bikes and also larger e-bikes. As you may be aware, we're also designing with sustainability in mind, and this is another great example where we've had good success in achieving our targets. So the new generation Thule EasyFold product has about a 50% lower CO2 emission versus the previous generation. It uses less aluminum.
The aluminum it does use is largely hydropower produced, and we also increased the share of recycled plastics as part of the plastics used. Well done to the development team also on that end. It is available through selected channels this year, and then more widely next year as we ramp up production volumes, and the price is about 100 EUR above the previous generation product. A good example of how we drive newness, upgrade the portfolio, add new features, and drive a more premium price point and premium portfolio in our product through our product development. Summarizing on page 13, and we've had a good quarter in a tough market in the third quarter, as we've talked about already.
As we look forward, both to the market and to our own priorities, a couple of comments from us. On the market side first, we expect the market trends largely to continue, so generally, a continued tough market, particularly in North America, and particularly around the RV, and even more specifically, the OE or the manufacturer side of the RV business. We do see a better market situation in Europe in general and particularly for bike-related products, which we also expect to continue, and we do importantly also clearly see that new Thule products drive growth, and we of course expect that to continue as well, so some nuances, but largely continuation of the market trends we are experiencing at the moment. Our own agenda stays the same.
We are very focused on delivering the priorities that we set out for this year, 2024, and we're there. There are four, which we have updated you on throughout the year so far. More product development is number one. More launches than ever. Talked about that already. Making sure we get a good start to the new categories, dog transportation and car seats. Talk about being more visible for the consumer and driving growth also through actions on that end, showing more to sell more and continue to grow on D2C, and also to improve further the efficiency in our supply chain, discontinuing some external warehouse services and reducing inventory levels.
Lastly, as we now move into the fourth quarter, the high season is completed, as Toby mentioned, but we do have a quite exciting fourth quarter ahead of us. We move into this quarter now with two new product categories, where we have started to take market share, six new Thule.com markets on D2C to continue to add growth. We have a record number of international design awards and just won the most recognized car seat award, which of course, gives positive energy for us at Thule. We have, importantly, an intense period to launch car seats in over twenty countries in November. Very exciting, final quarter awaits as we wrap up the year. With that, we turn to operator to take questions and answers.
Thank you, Mattias. We will now start today's Q&A session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad, and if you wish to withdraw your question, then it is star followed by two. Our first question today comes from Danny Schmidt from Danske Bank. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning, Mattias and Toby. Hope you can hear me. Maybe starting off with where what you finished saying, Mattias, when it comes to the quite exciting new Q4, although it's the smallest quarter, and referring, of course, to the car seat launch in the rest of the EU, as I understand it, also, I guess, the U.K. and Norway. Could you tell us so far what you've seen and experienced? You had the DACH launch in May. You've had the Benelux launch in September, and I know that you were quite sort of deliberately cautious when it came to launching DACH, singling out a couple of sort of premium retailers and being sort of very strict about sort of getting it right and so on.
How has that been developing as you get into the latter part of this year?
Hi, Daniel. Thank you. Yeah, I can start, and Toby, you may add. I think a couple of points, Daniel, to your question. Firstly, of course, we're pleased to see, you know, the reception overall with the awards, the test winners, and to your point also, that we got very good placements with the most important sort of premium retailers. That's one. We've been really focused on getting a good start and getting that premium positioning right, rather than going for volume, as you're aware. Secondly, on sort of volumes themselves, they are as we have expected. We have had good volumes in DACH. The first couple of months, we've had a good sell-in, and the start in Belgium and Netherlands, that's good too.
Of course, Q4 with more markets is gonna add volumes to that. I mean, the DACH and the Benelux are big markets, but more than twenty new ones will of course add volumes too. And then, maybe last point is, you are completely right, we are doing this to get a great start rather than to get, you know, a massive volume from the get-go. We want to make sure we get both the start and the positioning right, but also, just as a reminder, we are producing these products ourselves in our own factories, and we want to make sure we get this production of high quality, with good efficiency, and trim all the sort of production lines and teams in.
So there is a limitation to how much both can and will produce for the first couple of months as we ramp this up. But overall, we are very pleased with the start. And yeah, really excited to launch in Q4, and very excited about 2025, when we have things more up and running, so to speak.
Okay. And the fact that you won this very prestigious test yesterday, I think it refers to the German market, which is, of course, probably the biggest market in Europe. Is that gonna be a sort of a major push for you guys in the market when it comes to marketing your product in continental Europe, especially Germany? Is this adding a lot, you think, or is it sort of very good to have and gradually it will be something that consumers will recognize, or is it recognized immediately?
Yeah. So, you know, this is the big one. If there's one you want to win, it's this. It's recognized immediately across the German market. If you would do a little bit of media run through yesterday of sort of all the major German newspapers, you'll probably find an article around this. It's also very quickly picked up in the industry among premium retailers and among sort of ambassadors in this space. It has carry over into other countries as well. We see it internally already in the Nordics and in the U.K., how sort of the buzz is building. So it is, it's very, very good. Now, of course, there's absolutely no guarantee that, you know, the sales numbers are a direct consequence of the consumer award, but this is a great help and a great start. And it's it...
We have to remind all of ourselves, this is the first product we launched, and we won already. So it's, it's a really good-
Yeah
... positive vibe for us, that, you know, this win.
Yeah. But clearly, just connecting that maybe then to the inventory levels, which are down a lot more than what you have aimed for. And of course, I appreciate that it swings a bit depending on what quarter you're in. But currently, we're at around close to SEK 700 million inventories being down versus the end of last year. And I guess you have some FX in that, and you have some raw material in that, but also on an underlying basis, it's a lot more down than I guess you anticipated. And with this launch that you have now in the rest of Europe, and of course, it's only one product, but it's a fairly big, and it's something you produce yourself, what's sort of reasonable?
Where should we end up when we close the year in terms of inventories?
Yeah. Hi, Daniel. I can take this. Toby here. But yeah, we are ahead of our expectations when it comes to inventory reduction. It's been a really good job by the team in reducing inventory. You could say it's driven by good work in terms of optimizing inventory levels and also working through older inventory to reduce the aging of inventory. So it's definitely a clearly positive effect from the hard work put in. I think you could also say it's, you know, it is a tougher market than we, you know, we hoped for, you could say.
So if it was strong market growth, you know, and a bigger growth rate, we would have had to build inventory a bit more. So you could say our... In managing our expectations, yeah, we didn't expect this kind of level of reduction, but it's, no, it's clearly a positive effect. But what I would say, you have to bear in mind as well, in Q4, we normally build up inventory, so I think we're at the low point now for sure, in terms of inventory. So it will go up a bit-
Yeah, yeah
... in Q4, but not. We'll still be well ahead of our target.
Okay. You did well, of course, in this quarter, no doubt about it, compared to many others. But one area which is, of course, a concern in the market is the RV business, when it comes to the OEM side. And I think you did surprisingly well in this quarter, keeping it flat with the help of the aftermarket. If you look into Q4, could you update us or remind us of sort of the share of sales?
Mm-hmm
... that normally goes to the RV segment in the Q4? And on that, sort of, is that the same split as usual when it comes to the OE versus aftermarket, and how did that develop in Q4 last year? If you just want to remind us on that.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, so then I can start, and then Toby can add. I think you're right about the trends. And as a quick reminder, we are mainly almost exclusively in the European RV business. I think it's good to keep in mind. We did say at the previous quarter's call that we did see some positive signs in the aftermarket or sort of dealer wholesaler side, but starting to see some tougher signs on OE, and that's exactly what we've seen in Q3. With some of the major OE or the OE players decreasing production through various ways of doing it, with a clear decline in therefore our short sales to that channel, of course.
A good growth in the aftermarket business, where and you know a consumer pickup in terms of vehicles sold out as well. I mean, probably the industry is pushing it a little bit, but still good to see that growth. As a side comment, there is also the world's biggest RV fair in Germany, in Düsseldorf, at the end of August, which had same record high attendance as it had last year. The interest seemed to be remain quite high on the consumer side. On the fourth quarter, RV is. It is a small quarter for us in total. RV is a higher share of the quarter in general, and part of why it is a higher share is that the OE is typically producing sort of more flat volumes across the year.
That compared to our seasonal business around bike, which is more spring and summer. So, typically, that is, a higher share of RV and a higher share of RV OE in the fourth quarter, which we expect to be tough for a while longer.
Maybe I could just add there, but we-
Okay.
The OE manufacturers, I mean, they took downtime in the summer, which we talked about, which we've seen the effect of, and they're also talking about also downtime during quarter four and around the year-end break, Christmas break as well. It's clear that their volumes are gonna be a bit lower in Q4 as well.
Yeah, but we already saw that also in Q3 with longer production stops than normal, but that also is gonna come back in Q4.
Yeah.
Is it gonna be tougher to neutralize that impact with the aftermarket in Q4 than it was in Q3? Is there any reason, like, given that what Mattias said there in terms of more even production throughout the year and RV being a little bit bigger part of Q4 than it is in the other quarters?
Yeah, it's a higher share-
Or maybe not in versus Q3 at least.
Yeah, yeah, it's a higher share, so mathematically, that's correct, Daniel. But I think one of the many beauties of this company is that we are in several product categories and several regions. So you know, we will work, of course, long term to develop, you know, each category as best we can. But that specific space, as we also commented on, you know, we do see the toughest situations in all of our footprint within North America and in RV OE, and as I said previously, we don't expect that to change in the short term.
Thank you.
We will now take our next question from Gustav Hagéus from SEB. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Hi, I guess that's me, Gustav Hagéus with SEB. Thanks for taking my question. I'm looking at the results here. Quite amazing that you achieved 50% EBIT growth on basically flat top line. And it relates obviously to the gross margin improvement, 'cause sales and admin is up 6%. So on a twelve-month rolling basis, gross margins are now 41.4%, if I did my calculations right. So basically, back to the peak of where they were in 2021. Obviously, back then, you had almost 24% EBIT margins on a rolling twelve-month basis at some point, and now you're at 17%. So could you comment a bit on First of all, the higher selling and admin costs here in the quarter year- over- year?
Does the Thule we know today would like to see higher priced products in the mix, more categories, demanding higher OpEx, compared to previously, and the development going forward now that you actually started to launch these new products, will they sort of phase down? That'd be interesting to hear, and also the gross margin going forward, given that you, I guess, you're underabsorbed a bit here. Again, now, given inventory reductions would be interesting to hear. Thanks.
Yeah. Hi, Gustav. Maybe I can start on the, I mean, the gross margin point. I mean, you're right on a rolling twelve-month basis. We're now back up at, you know, the high point and, you know, so the development has been good the last twelve months on gross margin. You know, it did swing a lot during the pandemic, but we see, you know, we do see that we now have growth in the new categories, which is driving premium price points, but we also get the benefits of lower material costs.
You could say during the pandemic, there were big swings in material costs, but that situation has stabilized a lot now, and we're getting the benefits of the lower material cost trend for the last sort of 12 months coming through into production costs as well. I would say our production volumes are still not where they were in the pandemic because it was still very high production then, but we're, you know, the trend is successively improving as we grow. So it's absolutely back up to where it was during the pandemic. And then maybe I hand over to Mattias.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah. Now, on SG&A, to your point, Gustav, you know, it's higher than in previous periods, and there are... I mean, I guess one or two maybe reasons for that, but it's all related to investing in growth. We are been investing heavily in product development, for a long time, but particularly higher level the last two years, around there, as we're now entering more categories and, you know, have now launched car seats, which is a big thing for us. The other part of this is, you know, the products don't sell themselves, so to speak.
When you want to build up a new category with car seats in so far six markets and another 20, as an example, of course, activating that product means getting PR events, in-store presence, et cetera. So there's sales and marketing costs associated with launches as well. It's a fact that launching something in an existing product category where you have an established distribution and brand awareness, et cetera, is more cost-efficient than moving into new categories. So the consequence or I should say maybe rather the what you see in the numbers is a consequence of us entering new product categories and investing for future growth in the existing categories. But again, particularly related to the new categories.
Thanks. And the levers or the bridge going into next year on OpEx, where do you see in terms of launching costs? Will they be coming up next year, year over year, given that you have entered more markets year over year, or are we at the peak now? And I guess a more hypothetical question, where do you think you need to be in terms of gross margins to reach your financial targets as in a few years' time?
See if I can answer that in a structured way. I think, you know, the most important driver of us reaching the financial targets is sales growth. I think we've seen that throughout this year, but also throughout, you know, through the history, that we do get good operational leverage on sales growth. Now, in the short term, of course, we have to invest in new launches and building up new categories to get that sales growth off the ground, so to speak. You know, obviously, one of the other good things about Thule is that it's quite a lot of these decisions are discretionary. We could reduce development spend and reduce the sales and marketing investments if we wanted to. So we can manage this actively, which is good. Obviously, there's been some...
I shouldn't say one-off, that's the wrong word, but there's been some initial costs of getting to market with some of these new categories that you know won't repeat again next year. So the decision is really up to us around how much to continue to invest for growth versus you know focus on profitability for the next year. And we'll get back to you by Q4 about our view about the launch calendar for 2025. But as just an overall comment, you know it's clear that newness drives growth also in this market, and as commented on earlier, we don't see a major positive shift in market trends in the short term. So we will continue to invest for growth, and we will continue to sort of keep our foot on the gas pedal, so to speak.
It's—I know it's not a quantitative answer, Gustav, but that's the directions how we're thinking about this. And we are really focused on getting to that 20 billion SEK 2030 and 20% EBIT margin. And the key to do that is to have good, sustainable sales growth in many areas.
I appreciate that. Just one final nitty-gritty. Sorry for sticking with the growth or with the margin discussion, but since you took down inventory in the quarter, I appreciate you're also right, that you had lower costs related to having lower inventory, so less cost for external warehousing and so forth. But can you quantify a bit what was the impact to gross margins from under absorption versus lower cost for inventory? And how should that play out if you produce in line with sales into next year? What will the delta be on gross margins next year? That'd be interesting. That's my final question.
I would say the reduction of inventory drives cost reduction as well in terms of warehousing, in particular. And that is a cost benefit that we have, but that comes. That's shown in SG&A, primarily. In gross profit, it's basically the transport in and out the customer that. But in the warehousing cost reduction is not an impact in gross margin, basically. And that should stay next year.
Under absorption effects.
Sorry, on the first part, just we've reduced the warehousing capacity and warehousing costs following the inventory reduction. That impact will hold on to going forward as well. I'm sorry, Gustav, the second part of your question?
In the quarter, the under absorption effect, was that material, given that you reduced inventory in the production?
Yeah, it wasn't that. It was, yeah, in the quarter fell, yeah, not that material.
In line with the year, probably.
Yeah.
Thanks. Okay, thanks.
Our next question comes from Adela Dashian from Jefferies. Your line is now open. Please proceed with your question.
Thank you, and good morning. Just to follow up on the previous RV exposure discussion in Q4, my understanding is that you have or are continuing to launch-
... the new products, even now in Q4? So, and if that is the case, should the, I guess, the share of different product categories be more tilted away from RVs in the coming quarter? Or, do you still think that the, you know, the RV weakness is gonna be that pronounced for it to have as big of an impact as it did in Q3? What's the view on that?
Good morning. No, you are right. I think we were just trying to comment on history before, but as we've seen this year, you know, RV has been year-to-date small minus, and other categories are growing. And given, you know, all the dynamics we talked about and that you also described, we expect the RV share to, you know, not swing back to a higher share, rather the opposite in the fourth quarter. So that's correct.
Makes sense. Thanks a lot.
As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question on today's call, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. And if you wish to withdraw your question, then it is star followed by two. Our next question comes from Mats Liss from Kepler Cheuvreux. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi, thank you for taking my question. A couple of them. Sorry. Yeah, just coming back to the launch cost there for the car seat, and congrats on the awards there. But will they continue to increase in the fourth quarter, or is it sort of a peak here in the third quarter for products? I mean, since Q4 is a smaller quarter, it could be more sort of having a larger relative impact.
Yeah. No, very specific now, but let's see. On the car seat SG&A related costs in Q4, there's not the peak in development cost if we start there, because we have launched these first products. Now, there are more in the pipeline, but there's not a peak in Q4. There will be more sales and marketing costs because we are now live in six countries, and we're adding over 20 countries in Q4. So there we will for sure see increased costs in Q4.
Should we expect those to be material compared... I mean, it's the smallest quarter. I mean, you barely break even in the fourth quarter. Is it sort of, well, in terms of money, in money terms, is it sort of-
Well, it matters for sure, but if it would have been a very big effect, we would have commented on it proactively.
Yeah. Sure. And then I guess the awards are sort of impressive and so on, and it seems that you're moving well here in Europe, but does this to an extent sort of well make you more sort of likely to continue in the U.S. market as well? Or is it something that is not affecting that decision?
We are moving forward with the developing products, and they are well underway for the US market, so we would have done that anyways, to be honest. So I think in all honesty, not a direct impact on the decision to, on the US portfolio or the entry timing. Of course, it does, on a sort of more wider, in a wider picture kind of way, give more confidence to, you know, our ability to deliver the best product to the market, also in car seats. So, increased confidence, I guess, a little bit.
Great. And well, coming also back to pricing, I mean, the product launch is improved pricing in general terms, I guess. But do you expect to be able to make or do you need to make any price adjustments? I mean, normally, you make the price adjustments, well, early next year. Is it sort of something that you plan to do?
Yes, we are. We have historically, exactly as you commented, done, and the industry is doing price increases on a January 1 basis. During pandemic, it was a bit different, but this year, in twenty twenty-four, we decided to keep basically prices flat on comparable or existing products, and the increase we have seen is due to new products. For twenty twenty-five, we will go back to the historical approach. We will have price increases as of January 1. So on the sort of existing products, we will see a price increase in line with where we have been throughout the history before the pandemic, which is in total of around 1.5%-2% in that span.
Okay, thank you, and finally, just about, I mean, the upcoming election in the U.S. put some focus on potential tariffs to, well, European-produced products entering the U.S. market. Could you just update me on the balance there between sales and product local production, or if you're affected by any potential tariffs?
Yep, absolutely.
Yeah.
We will be affected by tariffs, but we do have, I think, quite fortunate situation that we have two sites, two factories in the U.S. locally. So we have one factory in the Chicago area that does rooftop boxes, among other things, and we have one factory in on the East Coast, in Connecticut, that does aluminum and plastic products in production terms, bike carriers, for example, which is a big product for the North American market. So some product we import from our European facilities, some raw materials and some parts we of course import, but we do have two manufacturing sites in the U.S. and quite established network of local and regional suppliers as well.
Okay, great. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Benjamin Wahlstedt from ABG. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Hello, guys. This is Benjamin Wahlstedt stepping in for Fredrik Ivarsson today. I'll try to sneak a question in as well. Could you share what part of growth in Americas juvenile that is directly attributable to model ranges that did not exist a year ago, please? Or at least give us a guidance on that figure.
Hi, Benjamin. We have decided this year to give quarterly sales growth numbers per product category, but we're not going in more detail than that, so I guess the only comment we'd make is that it's a combination. It's a combination of you know upgraded existing products. We talked about the Thule Chariot already and the strollers, and there are sort of new categories, dog transportation and car seats, so it's both.
All right. Thank you. It was worth a shot.
Our next question comes from Carl Deijenberg from Carnegie. Your line is now open. Please proceed.
Thank you very much. Good morning, guys. So, just one question from me. I think, it would be helpful if you could share a little bit, what you're seeing in the market development here. I mean, I guess, quite impressive to see that you're growing organically, both in Europe, rest of the world, but also, I guess, predominantly in region Americas, given that there's been quite some discussion around, you know, promotions and maybe consumer sentiment having a little bit weaker, since the summer. So I just wanted to, ask there, if you can allude a little bit what you're seeing in the U.S. Is this promotion pressure easing a little bit here while we go into Q4, or has there been any, let's say, material difference there throughout the quarter?
I think the trends are very much the same. Thank you, Carl, for the question. It's very much the same as the previous quarters. It's a tough market in the U.S. It's been quite cautious on the consumer side. We don't see consumer sentiment picking up, really. There was a hope, I guess, during spring, but that sort of turned down, and now it's sort of flat. On the retail side, quite promotional, cautious on inventory and orders. Last couple of promotional periods, I don't think any major retailer has been really happy about sort of the effect to drive volume through discounts either. So it's quite stable at the. It may be improving slightly, but that would be an optimistic view, I think, of the North American market.
So, quite, quite stable at the-
Yeah
...cautious and, yeah, level as we've seen before.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And the discussions around promotions, I mean, is that having any material effect on, let's say, your operation performance? Or can you still keep your selling prices fairly, you know, much in line with what your planning and anticipation has been going into this period?
Yeah, no, we managed quite well, and I think one key sort of distinguishing factor about the U.S. market is that, you know, the promotions are set in windows, and then there is a recommended retail price. So, it's quite structured in that way, and that we see that. We haven't seen any negative impact per se, of sort of discounting or any price impact of us. It's just that the consumer, you know, demand is low, if you like. What we do see, though, still, is that, and which continues to play to our favor, is that newness works. New products sell well to that premium consumer, also in the U.S., also in a tough market.
And I think that's the important message, and that's why we may be able to yeah get above that zero line for region Americas in Q3-2024.
Mm. Mm. Okay. Thank you very much.
We have time for one final question, a follow-up from Daniel Schmidt from Danske Bank. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Yes, Daniel here again. Hope you can hear me, Mattias. Just a follow-up maybe on the SG&A discussion, that we just recently had when it comes to marketing spend and all that. But if you look at production development cost, which you have guided for it to be sort of flattish in 2024 versus 2023, do you see it panning out that way, or where are we?
Yeah. No, I think we're in 2024, so we can add, but in 2024 versus 2023, that's where we will land, as, as you know, guided.
It's not gonna be higher, simply, rather sort of in line or lower?
Yeah, we think it's in line. 2024 will be in line with 2023, just as we've been saying all year.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And you don't wanna come to twenty-five now, or could you give any sort of indication for twenty-five?
... I think let's get back to that in Q4. I think the main message, I think, from us is that, obviously, there's been some pushes that creates, you know, initial costs in car seats, both in development and in launching. The beautiful thing is that we can decide, you know, what investments to make in growth for the future. We clearly see this year that newness is driving growth, and we will continue to focus on growth and focus on launches. It's not so much about the input as the output, but it is about continuing to keep the foot on the gas pedal and more specific, you know, launch calendars and discussions on cost levels. Let's wait with that until Q4.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, we might just add-
Maybe just a final one. Yeah.
Sorry, but kind of to state the obvious in a way, but as we drive growth, we drive the leverage of those costs as well on development and SG&A. So it's the right thing to do to improve the margins through leverage of those costs as well.
Yeah, sure, and maybe a tiny question that we used to talk about a lot before. You mentioned legacy products continuing to decline. How much of sales is that now?
Yeah.
In fact-
In packs, bags, and luggage. No, it continues to decline, and now packs, bags, and luggage is the majority is Thule branded business. So it's, if you like, the effect from the kind of steady decline in legacy products is getting smaller over time.
Well, that's quite-
But you don't want to give a number 'cause it... Yeah.
No, maybe we will give a number, but let's do it in a structured way, maybe then, and Q4 or something.
Yeah, that's fine.
But the majority is Thule.
Thank you.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yeah, that's cool.
That concludes the Q&A session on today's call. I'll now hand back over to Mattias for some closing remarks.
Thank you very much, everybody, for joining this quarter's call. Thank you, operator, and look forward to talking to all of you again in a quarter's time.