Thank you, Bethany. Very welcome to the 2021 Q1 report, and for the exciting times we are in. Very happy to say that we have not only a fantastic start to the year, but that we've also today, this morning, announced our new long-term targets, which I will also walk you through in this presentation, although there is a more full-blown presentation on that available on our homepage as well. Let's go to the first slide and look at the executive summary first of the quarter we have just closed. As I said, we can clearly say that it was a very strong start to the year. We had a 56% growth in currency-adjusted numbers, so a phenomenal continuation of the very strong second half of the year, and now three quarters in a row with around 50% growth.
Very positive to note the fantastic results in Region Americas with 83% growth, also very strong then in Region Europe and rest of the world with 49% growth. We also continue to show a strong gross margin where we are, despite challenges as any company has these days with logistics and the supply for the increased demand. We have been able to ensure a strong gross margin performance thanks to a good absorption in our supply chain. That all results in a fantastic EBIT margin, where we in the quarter have an EBIT margin of 23.4% versus the 18.7% we had last year. A strong EBIT result of 594 million SEK versus the 326 SEK we had the first quarter of last year. Meaning that we on a rolling 12 months basis have an EBIT margin of 21.6%.
As always, the operational cash flow is small in this quarter because it is a part where we are building and manufacturing a lot, but we still was positive and more positive than last year with 69 million SEK. As I just mentioned at the beginning of the call, exciting also to be presenting our new long-term targets. If we go to the next page and look at then very briefly once again the pickup and the numbers, because they are worth mentioning. It is maybe easy these days to take for granted that a company should be able to achieve over 50% growth, and there are many companies presenting fantastic growth numbers.
I can assure you in presenting three quarters in a row with this type of organic growth as this is, it's a testament to how well our supply chain has been built up over the years to be able to handle this type of increase. A 91% currency-adjusted EBIT increase shows that it materializes in true profits. We go to the next slide, I also want to remind you that we do know that we have a comparative reality which was relatively weak in quarter one last year. Looking at the four quarters and looking a little bit to the history as well, I think it's important to remind ourselves what we are comparing with. First quarter last year, we had a decline versus 2019, and that was all caused by the mid-March lockdowns that took place around most markets around the world.
What that meant was a performance that was solid for 2020 until all of a sudden, the market went out under our feet, so to speak, in the second half of March. Our fantastic results in the best quarter we've ever had in the history of the company, we do need to remind ourselves that this is the highest sales we've ever had, quarter one, was also in terms of percentual growth compared to a relatively seen then weaker 2020 due to that mid-March onwards pandemic situation. That mid-March onwards pandemic situation, as you remember, greatly affected also April in 2020 and halfway into May, until we towards the end of the May period, started once again to see markets opening up, lockdowns being eased, and people wanting to pursue activities in and around their closed homes.
That means that when we look at the second quarter, we know we have a very weak comparable quarter. Therefore, it is no doubt that we will continue to significantly outperform the second quarter because our trends are very positive as we speak. Both the long-term trends that have been enabling us as a company to grow for many years actually, and mostly to grow in the first half of the year when a lot of people normally would buy our product. A return to a traditional seasonality and a return to a positive underlying trend, and then comparing that to an abnormally weak second quarter last year means, of course, that we will have a strong result. On top of that, we do see a clear boosted momentum with more staycation. Very strong second quarter will be the case.
If you look at the third and fourth quarters, you realize that as we did mention several times during last year when we presented those quarters, that we did have a delayed season in, boosting significantly, especially quarter three, but also in some early parts of quarter four, making those quarters bigger than normal because they were actually taking some of the volumes moved out from the first half. Therefore, the second half we have extremely difficult comps because as you know, quarter three was 52% growth versus 2019 last year, and quarter four was 45%. We do need to be significantly ahead of last year by the first two quarters, and I can assure you that we will be. If you look at the long trends behind, those are still very positive.
Overall, I feel very confident on the total year with the first half of the year as the great outperformance. Therefore, if we look at the quarter that we have passed and a little bit what's going on, can we turn to the next page to talk a bit about the biggest Region Europe and the rest of world first. If you look at Region Europe and rest of world with 49% growth, we have to remember once again that we did have a slight decline, 6% down in quarter one 2020 versus the previous year. There is a comp effect in it, but still this of course then tells you that we have had fantastic growth, and that has been across all markets.
If you look at what has happened is that our very clear market leading portfolio in all the bike related categories, both the big bike rack category, but also bicycle trailers, child bike seats, and bike pannier bags and other bike related products have been gaining strong traction in a generally, for years, positive European biking trend that is further now than boosted as a bike trend with the pandemic situation. On top of that, I am very happy to say that both roof racks and roof boxes category grew in the quarter, which is very positive note, especially as we had mentioned, and it was the fact that some of the Alp countries had very strict lockdowns in place, what is normally a strong season for those types of products for us when people go on their classical winter skiing holidays in those big markets.
That did not materialize this year. Despite that, thanks to a strong performance in the Nordic region, where a lot of people did drive to go to ski resorts and a start of the spring season where other people maybe didn't go to their winter ski resorts, but did go on other close body vacations, meant that we still grew in both these categories. We also continue to grow very strong in our stroller category, and this is of course a combination of a number of factors. One of the factors being that we have now, over a few years, taken space in retail and are becoming more of a household name for that young mum and dad or to-be that are thinking about which stroller they should buy.
They are now walking around in their cities and seeing many, many more impressions of Thule products with kids associated with them. As that happens, we would get considered as one of the brands they potentially could buy, and that is one of the reasons that we are seeing a very good growth. The other one is the fact that we have been getting into more and more stores, and the third one is that we continue to now have a solid and broader portfolio. We are in year two of our third model, and we continue to see that the models help each other, so to speak, to sell more as well. Within the RV product category, which is big in this region, where we out of the total RV product sales, this represents more than 95% in this region.
If you look at RV Products in this region, there has been a number of the companies, manufacturers that have already announced their results ahead of our quarter one results. I think you all expected that we would have seen some very good performance because there has been a positive momentum from the RV manufacturers in region Europe. The reason for that has been that they have, after a difficult period in 2020 when they struggled with complex supply chains to get those going in the second quarter after lockdown measures were in place. They took almost to the end of quarter three and really was only in quarter four where we see strong momentum in higher capacity, higher output from the manufacturers to meet the clear demand that is out there in the community.
There's a lot of people wanting to travel in their own private sphere, wanting to have that small van, that small motor home, that mobile home to travel around with. Now in also quarter one, it's clear that the manufacturers are much more capable of producing more units. We had a very strong growth as anybody in that industry had in quarter one. If you looked at the only category within the region that did not grow, it was our packs, bags, and luggage. That is not surprising because as you are all aware, international air travel has been severely limited, and that has of course grossly impacted our luggage category. Also the fact that the back to campus and back to work situation hasn't really materialized yet has also meant that those type of bags haven't been sold much.
We are seeing very strong growth, as you would also expect in the outdoor and sportier packs, because a lot of people have been out and about and gone to national parks or just the forest close where they live. We see very solid growth there, but we saw a small decline. Now we go in the coming quarters, we will, of course, face very much weaker comps. We also expect to see a better performance in like-for-like for those categories in Europe. We go to the next page and look at Region Americas that had such a strong start to the year. It's a fantastic result to achieve 83% growth because that means that we've also been doing a great job to meet from a capacity point of view, a lot of the increased demand.
We have to remember once again, that in the Q1, we had a 13% decline as the North American market saw some more restrictive lockdowns across the board, especially in the U.S., but also in Canada, in Q1 last year. It was a weaker comp, but still it is, of course, phenomenal growth, 83%. Also here, very positive to note that although it is clear that the most important markets, U.S. and Canada, did very well, it was also the fact that Brazil and all the other Latin Americans grew. We had growth across all markets also in this region. Especially if you take then North America and the Sport & Cargo Carriers, our biggest category, it was actually across all product categories we saw very strong growth.
If you compare to Europe, you could say that North America, it was an even clearer trend and more American consumers took the cars to do various types of vacationing. We saw a very strong performance across all our different subcategories within Sport & Cargo Carriers. You know that rooftop tents has been a success story since we acquired Thule, and now we've also launched a number of Thule-developed new rooftop tents and rebranded it. Timing was great here. We have to say luck a bit there as well because what it has meant here, similar to the motor home discussion I had in Europe, when people now have wanted to go on that short trip, what better than to bring your own reality of where to stay on your car? We've had a very strong performance on our rooftop tent biz.
Also in this region, we had a very strong result across the three subcategories within Active with Kids. That's both the bike-related categories of bike trailers and child bike seats, but it's also a phenomenal growth in strollers. Similar to what we said in Europe, I think it's a combination of a continuously becoming more of a household name, broadening our portfolio, having great products that are for active people, hitting right on the current, and we believe long going trends makes us a winner in Active with Kids. Also in region Americas, where the bags category is much bigger than in region Europe and rest world, we saw a clear pickup versus the very weak trend we had in 2020, but there was still a small decline in packed bags and luggage in the region.
Before I close the Region, we are today actually letting our Region Americas President celebrate his last days with the company. Fred Clark, who has been very successfully managing the Region, has that fantastic thing to end on a high because what could be higher than 83% growth? We have our new Region Americas President, Hilary Hartley, well on board, and I feel very comfortable with him now continuing a fantastic journey for the Region. If we move over to the financials on the next slide, I leave it to Jonas to walk you through some of that.
Thank you very much, Magnus. We are now on slide seven, the group income statement. As you have seen by now, we've had a very strong start to 2021, and as Magnus mentioned, the highest sales in a single quarter in the history of Thule. The sales amounted to SEK 2,538,000,000, and this is an increase excluding FX effects of 56%. The gross margin in the quarter was 41.3% compared to 40.9% for the same quarter last year. The higher volumes have led to higher absorption of production overhead costs, and this in combination with a favorable product mix, explain the higher gross margin compared to last year. The EBIT margin in the quarter was 23.4% compared with 18.7% in Q1 last year. Here we see the fall through of increased sales and gross margin to operating earnings.
The increase in selling expenses is driven by launches of direct-to-consumer sales and also some other variable sales costs. Administration expenses in the quarter are approximately on the same running level as for the past 12 months. The cost in the first quarter 2020, the comparison period, was lower than the average last year. The financial net of - SEK 9 million in the quarter is somewhat lower than last year and the quarterly average for the last 12 months, certainly. This is because of lower utilization of our credit facilities, which in turn was driven by the decision last year not to pay dividend. Tax cost in the quarter amounts to SEK 137 million, and the tax rate is approximately the same as for the full year 2020, that is 23.5%. If we move over to slide eight.
The story for the period regarding working capital and operational cash flow is that the strong sales drove both a big increase in accounts receivables in the quarter, and also, as we've seen, an increased profit. The cash flow effect from the increased profit compensated for the increase in net working capital in the quarter. Overall, the level of working capital as a percentage of sales is continuing down and is now on 21%, to be compared with 23% last year and 24% the year before that. If we adjust for exchange rate effects, the reduction is somewhat smaller, and I show the impact for each of the categories to working capital in the slide. As you can see, the story doesn't change.
Despite our current high production level, we are still somewhat on the low side when it comes to inventory because of the high demand and the high level of activity. This activity level is also reflected in the increase in accounts payables in the quarter. Finally, capital expenditure in the quarter amounts to SEK 56 million, which is slightly higher than last year when it was SEK 50 million in the first quarter. Thank you.
Thank you, Jonas. If we conclude the first quarter before we talk about the long-term financial targets and turn to next page on what we're looking at for the rest of this year. I think there was a good quote from the CEO of Volvo, Martin Lundstedt, this morning. He took an old Mario Andretti Formula One quote and turned it into a good spin on what's going on with supply chain, which was simply this, that if you're 100% in control, you're not driving fast enough. What Martin Lundstedt was alluding to then is something I think most CEOs of all companies that are growing fast, as we are at the moment, it is clear that when you grow that fast, you will have significant challenges in your supply chain on a daily basis.
You will need to do a lot of extra efforts because, as you all know, there is logistics nightmares out there in terms of how many weeks longer certain shipments take. Not only have there been ongoing issues, then you have blockages of the Suez Canal, et cetera. Reality is that our supply chain team is working very successfully, as you can see on our numbers, but there is constant challenges to handle those type of demands and the capacity ramp-up that we're doing. That applies both for the very short term, but also, as we've already announced previously, we are going into our biggest CapEx year ever. That will not be smaller now if you look at what we're doing in terms of capacity increases for the future.
We're doing extension and big plant expansions in Poland and in Belgium to handle that volume growth very successfully, managing those projects on time, as you would expect from this company, and we're doing it really well. There will continuously be a number of smaller issues, and we will surely struggle to meet the demand at times for the trend that we are seeing that is very positive. On top of that, I think what is obvious is also that there are some big cost increases coming, and therefore, you see that those effects will be starting to come in. Logistics will remain high, and we will, as we've always done as a company, to make sure that we ensure that we are as profitable as we should be, implement the correct price increases as they should be implemented throughout the system.
We're also pursuing, as we always do, a very aggressive product development path that is both in the existing categories with new award-winning products being launched all the time in our traditional categories. We just won two Red Dot awards for our premium roof-mounted new bike carrier, Thule TopRide, as well as for our Thule RoundTrip Bike Duffel. We will continue to out-innovate our competition. We, of course, are also spending money on the new categories, which we will be entering in the near future. If I conclude, I would agree with Martin Lundstedt, that anybody claiming that when they're pushing that aggressively forward that they are 100% in control and can say that they won't have any supply issues, they are probably lying, and I don't want to lie. I'm sure we will have some short-term challenges as well, doing fantastic growth numbers as we speak.
Therefore, it's good to conclude with a summary of our new long-term targets. If we go to the long-term targets presentation, and you can actually click two slides forward to slide 11 immediately, where we present the four long-term ambitions. We, this morning, the board has approved, as we've said, our targets of ensuring a doubling of sales by 2030, maintaining a higher than 20% EBIT margin, and increasing our net cash dividend to 75% of annual net income. We're combining that with our strong commitment to the ambitious science-based targets for 2030 for a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. An ambitious long-term plan to continue to do more of the same. That might sound boring, but I don't think it's boring when it's at the level of what we're doing.
If we look at the sustainability part, and you can actually move to slide 13. You can see that our ambition of meeting those high levels of Scope one, two, and three sustainability targets is built on a historical factor of always looking at sustainability as a totality. We look at sustainability in all aspects, and we start with the base platform created by fantastic products designed with a life cycle approach that are focusing on enabling active lives. Since they are high quality, they will last a long time and therefore have a positive impact on sustainability. We then look at the environmental targets across the board, inside and outside our factory.
We work with all the aspects of supply chain ethics in our supply chain. As a company, we've always engaged in a strong community engagement focusing on children. We do that together with our ambassadors and together with our Thule crew members and our staff. You turn to the next page, we can see those new long-term targets in terms of science-based targets. I do want to reiterate that we, of course, have a lot of other targets, as we do, by the way, on financials as well. It's not just our science-based targets on the environment within sustainability. It's all presented in more depth in our annual report and on our homepage, you can look more at them there.
If you look at those three targets of greenhouse gas emission reductions in Scope one or -46%, in Scope two, to use 100% renewable electricity, and in Scope three, which is then outside our direct control with all the logistics and materials around that, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 28%. They are all very ambitious targets that have been audited externally and will be kept on looking at and targeting in a continuous updating as we go. We're not inventing these from scratch. We are, of course, basing it on what we have performed and done over the last decade and even before that. We did have 2020 targets on sustainability that we can summarize by saying we met them, almost all of them. We have reduced inside them what you would claim Scope one, our greenhouse gas emissions significantly already.
We're down 76% versus our 2014 level. We have increased our recycling rate to well above 98%. We have reduced our water consumption despite selling much more than ever. I think we have a long-proven track record, and this is just one further step into that. If we then look at, you can move to slide 16, where we show the sales growth and our doubling of sales ambition, and where we can first look at the reported net sales growth that we have had. Because I think it's always important to say that we've already, as a company, performed with a 7% compounded annual growth rate since the stock exchange listing. When we now say that we will double by 2030, you can really say we're extrapolating a minimum 7% compounded annual growth rate also in the coming decade.
It is something that we are feeling very confident in, that we have proven that with our organic focus, we will enable that growth. Looking at next slide to summarize a bit why we are so confident that we can achieve the double sales by 2030 on slide 17. It is because the strategy remains unchanged. We build it first and foremost on great products. We do better products than most, and in our core categories, we definitely do better than our competitors. We have shown over the last decade that Thule has become a lifestyle brand. We will now build on that fantastic platform created and make it an even greater and bigger lifestyle brand.
We will continue to grow at a faster pace in our direct-to-consumer sales than we will do in the other categories, and that will, of course, work other channels, and that will also boost our top line. We will do this by continuing the dogged work to really focus on great product development. We will continue to invest more than 5% of sales in product development. We have a fantastic state-of-the-art development center that is already up and operational. We are continuing with the expansion of our Thule test center. The first 100 million that we spent on the development center has now added another SEK 80 million to really expand the test center with capabilities that will be up and running early 2022. We will use that to truly drive growth, both in current categories, but also entering the new categories.
We also know that we have strong macro trends behind us, and it's always easier, and I've said this many times, always easier to sail with the wind in your back. We have a wind in our back. We had that wind in our back already before the pandemic, and we're getting some temporary boost by some gusts of wind. The overarching long trend is still a positive trend that will help our categories definitely for the coming years. We've also proven that we have the supply chain to meet that growing demand that can ramp up and handle capacity flexibility that is going to be necessary not only in a pandemic reality but in a demanding, ever-changing landscape of retail and consumer sales.
You need to have flexible and efficient supply chain, and we have that. We've also proven that our scalable back end of the organization can handle growth. We rolled out very smoothly and silently, and I refer this all the time as it's like the referee in a soccer game. He's best when you don't see him. Same thing with an ERP system. By us not having to mention me and Jonas about one-off costs or issues, it's a sign that we're very good and that the team there has done a phenomenal job in rolling out one global ERP system that we now can utilize. We're also rolling out a number of digital sales supporting tools to be able to be scalably handling that top-line growth. We will enter into new product categories.
If you look at what that means on our profit and capital efficiency or capital utilization ambition, you can go to page 19 where we talk about profit and capital efficiency. We have clearly done a great job there. We have grown our ambition level. We've raised our target. We are now holding on to the greater than 20% EBIT margin target. That's because we're focusing first and foremost on true absolute EBIT growth in monetary terms and ensuring we maintain that market leading above 20% EBIT margin. We will see growth in high profit categories.
We will drive growth faster in higher margin channels and go to markets, and we will ensure that we invest and spend the right money in the supply chain and in the back end to meet those demands and so that we can truly continue to perform over many years to come. When you do that mostly organically, which is what we still will do as a strategy, that will mean that we will generate significant cash. We have therefore, and the board has approved an increased level, a raised level of cash dividend ambition to now be more than 75% of our net income.
If you turn to the next page to look a little bit to the history and what that means, I want to remind when we came to the market, as an IPO in 2014, we had a goal of 15% EBIT margin, which we quickly met. We raised that level to 17%, which was quickly raised to 20%, We are now saying that we will maintain above that 20%. When we look at capital utilization and targets for that, you will have noticed in our communication that there is not any more any type of leverage target. That is because we are convinced that we've proven to the investment community that we are diligent in how we handle our cash, that we do invest our capital in the right ways.
If you look at how our operational cash flows, our operating working capital has performed and what we've done, I think you realize that with the very low leverage levels that we have today, there is no logic of having specific targets. We will, I can assure you, continue to be as diligent as we have been in terms of capital utilization as a company. In terms of cash dividend target, then minimum 75% of our net income. That is something I think most analysts already have speculated that we would be landing on, considering what we intended to do for 2019, and then due to the pandemic outbreak, really postponed to do as an extraordinary dividend now for 2020 instead.
We were already at those levels both for 2018, 2019, and 2020, and that's why we're now saying calmly that we will have that as an ambition. Should there ever be a significant M&A, et cetera, of course, we reserve the right to look at a cash dividend target. In reality, most of those M&A opportunities are smaller companies and will therefore be definitely handling within still meeting the more than 75% of net income target. Overall, I think you can say more of the same. More of the same sounds pretty boring, and I don't want to be boring, but when it's more of the same and it comes from the Thule Group, it's actually pretty fantastic. That's the way I leave it and open up for the questions. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. The first question comes from Daniel Schmidt of Danske Bank. Daniel, please go ahead.
Yes. Good day, Magnus and Jonas, very impressive start to 2021, of course. You're very optimistic, so don't get me wrong, but you do talk about supply chain and sort of availability quite a lot in your opening statement. Are you seeing that that is getting increasingly difficult as of March and into Q2? That's my sort of first question.
Morning, Daniel. No, I would just say it's reality already upon us because if you see the type of growth with more than 80% in Americas and close to 50% in Europe, it's clear that we are putting a lot of pressure on all our sub-suppliers, in getting those quantities in. Although we are not as complex as a supply chain as somebody making a truck, for example. Realistically, when you've been doing that for three quarters, you will see constant issues if there are then a Suez Canal block or it's a specific ship that doesn't come into harbor as soon as possible.
I'm more saying it because if you would go into any of the homepages of a number of our retailers or even our own homepage in those countries where we sell direct-to-consumer, you will see at times that we will say, "Not available." Reality is, as I have to even mention to my own marketing team at times, it's not like we're not producing at all. We're producing more than we've ever produced, but at times we still can't cope with the very good demand that is out there. It's not an issue that is in general holding growth back. We're going to grow very nicely, but we potentially could have grown even more if we wouldn't have had those challenges.
Yeah. I think I got you there. I was just referring to the fact that you entered the high season in March and now you have a high season for entire quarter. Is that putting you in a different situation than the average for Q1, basically?
No, I don't think so. I feel that we are at a similar type of situation we've been for a while.
Yeah. Okay. Good. I have a couple of questions. Coming back to the new financial targets, again, don't get me wrong here, should we read you when you say in between the lines that you should grow by an average of slightly more than 7% over the coming 10 years and the historical average is around seven, it's slightly below. It's basically the same growth rate that you're implicitly targeting for the coming years. Should we read that more as that you will outperform that in the same way that you outperformed the old targets and the same spread? Do you see what I'm getting to?
I think the spread calculation is up to you. I think we have clearly made a point of saying we don't put up wishful targets as a company, as a management. We intend to meet our targets, no doubt. We are not inventing nice to have targets that we never hit. That's obvious that we are intending and hoping to beat our targets. How much is the future will tell.
Yeah. Okay. Good. Maybe finally, could you say anything about, because everything is up very strongly, of course, apart from bags, packs, and luggage, even though it sounded like it did a little bit better in Americas, and maybe that's an indication of what's going to happen for the entire category once Europe gets a little bit more out of this pandemic. Could you say how much it was down in Q1 and what trend you see for that category in Q2 so far?
If you look at it, we were significantly down. We were not as much down as the big packs, bags, and luggage companies. If you looked at Samsonite's report, they were down 65% last year. We were not nearly down as much, but we were down very significantly the second half of the year. We were at low double-digit decline at the beginning of this year, and it's getting better for every week we speak. The trend is positive that way.
Yeah. Okay. When you talk about being ahead, in H1 in order to cope with H2 and the quite dramatic shift in comps, of course, is it obvious that you need to be very much ahead in H1 in order to get a full year growth? If you look at the trends that you're seeing in Americas and the fact that Europe is lagging Americas, and if we assume that Europe will have the same development as Americas but a couple of months later, could that still compensate and make it into a very strong Q3 as well?
I think what you have to do is just a mathematical comparison. I don't have any doubt that Q3 and Q4 will be strong, but you just do the mathematical logic of what you're comparing with, and that's the difference. If you look at them as absolute performance and roll back versus a 2019 or 2018 and do a CAGR on them, I have no doubt that 2021 Q3 and Q4 will be exceptionally strong quarters. You're comparing them to absurd quarters with a seasonal shift, which is a big difference. That's why we're saying it.
Yeah. No, I understand that. You also have two markets in different gears, even though they're in a high gear, both of them. One of them is speeding ahead quite a lot, I assume that comes back to the pandemic and the fact that the U.S. is doing much better than Europe. I'm just referring to if we get the same situation in Europe, finally, that could be something that could compensate quite a lot during the summer as well.
Absolutely. I mean, we are optimistic about the year as a whole, no doubt.
Yeah. Thank you, Magnus. That's all for me.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Gustav Hagéus from SEB. Gustav, your line is open.
Thanks, Operator. Good day, guys. I'm curious about the 7% CAGR target. I'm sure there's more numbers below that figure that you've discussed. If you could share a little bit, first of all, if you believe that with the current and future products, the market mix, that the ambition is so that the 1% price increase per year that you've had, if I'm correct, is this still something that you expect to be true? If it's a higher or lower number? Also, if you could try to little bit rank in order of importance, sort of mix effect, entry to new categories, market share gains in existing categories and so forth, to build up to that 7% for you, that'd be interesting. Thank you.
Morning. If you look at it, yes, you're right on the pricing. Similar levels, slightly above 1% in average over that period, and there will be more certain years and less others maybe. As an average over time, I think more than 1% from pure price increases is a good guidance. If you look at what is going to be the biggest driver, it is, of course, the similar combination to what we have done, which means that Sport & Cargo Carriers being such a big share of the sales, will continue to grow at a very solid pace over the coming decade as well. We will see a faster growth pace in Active with Kids, as we have been seeing already. Maybe not as high if you look at that very high percentages, but definitely a higher growth pace than the average.
We will continue to see a solid growth pace in RV, with a clear momentum as we see at the beginning of this decade. For the next year, there will be a very strong positive momentum, we see. As we enter the new categories, they are small in the beginning, so as a %, they will be in their own sense, have a very fast growth pace. The impact on the Group's numbers is relatively small the first few years, and it's only towards the end of that decade that they start to impact a lot. Little bit similar to Active with Kids. It's really in the last two years that you've seen the fast growth pace being impacting the total number, when we're now up to 12% of the sales, then a 30% growth starts to truly impact the growth of a total business as well.
Thanks. That's helpful. Then also on the margin side, you have the ambition to have a 20%-plus margin. Do you plan then to have higher gross margins and reinvest some of that into OpEx to fuel the growth to reach that 7%? I guess your 5% R&D target doesn't really suggest that, but of course, there are other ways to drive growth through OpEx that is not R&D, or could you talk a little bit on how you break down the margin targets as well?
Yeah. I think it's very easy to always assume that you can always add a gross margin %. When you're in the traditional business of manufacturing a product and selling them in a lot of markets, and you're entering in lots of new categories, you always have some additional costs aside from the pure product development in setting up your business. What we're saying is that above 20 doesn't mean it has to be exactly 20, it just means that it will definitely have to be above 20. We will clearly be above 20 in this decade to come.
In some years, I think we can be clearly above that 20, but it will also differ between years depending on how much we dial up certain new entries and certain efforts to grow the top line, because that's why I'm talking about more important to grow true EBIT by growing top line than being fixated with a certain percentage.
Yeah. No, that makes sense. In terms of the semi-recent categories you have entered, I am not talking about luggage then, but perhaps Active with Kids, some of the Active Kids categories and the strollers and so forth. Is that a drag on EBIT margins today and the ambition is to be a driver to EBIT margins months give, the more ROI is it there in terms of efficiency?
I think you could say that if you look at the Active with Kids, it's now the size of business, as I mentioned, in two ways. Size of business enough that it can merit that senior management can focus on some other new things and allow the teams that are working with it to handling it, because the teams are big enough, we're proven enough. We're not looking away when our small child hurts itself by playing around, so to speak, a little bit harshly, because it needs a lot of senior management attention and focus when the category is in its early days. That category is now starting to become seriously big enough with proven track record, proven supply chain setup, proven sales organizations, marketing aspects, and therefore also proven profitability.
As it is, as we've mentioned a few times, market-wise, not only for the Thule Group, but in a market-wise, the premium juvenile categories has good gross margins. It is definitely a positive contributing factor to our EBIT already. What we do have already is obviously then the drag of some of the new categories we haven't even announced and started selling, where we already are spending money on them. We will have that in the future as well.
Yeah. No, that makes sense. Lastly, on the leverage target, I don't really get in mind why you won't say or indicate sort of corridor or why you leave it all up to us to have a view on. If you think of it philosophically, do you think Thule is a company that is well off with some debt than being optimized for balance sheet ? Or should you perhaps have a net cash position in terms of maybe cyclical end market for RVs and other key categories? Could you help us a little bit here? That'd be helpful.
We can help you a little bit by saying that you've seen what we've done over the years and how we've utilized our cash, and you can see our cash generation that even doing above 75% cash dividend, we will build cash in the company if we would do that because we're actually generating even more cash than that. Clearly the case is that we think to have cash is smart. To have too much cash is not useful when you, with our strength, can clearly access cash in a good way and have facilities. We're going to be having cash in there, and we're not going to necessarily leverage ourselves for any length of time of a logical reason.
We might choose to do it if the right specific M&A, which was larger, came up, for example, and that's why we're not setting a specific level to have over all the 10 years because it wouldn't make sense in our view.
Okay. Those were all my questions. Congrats on another good result, and good luck now.
Thank you, Gustav.
The next question comes from Fredrik Morgård from Pareto Securities. Fredrik, your line is open.
Thank you very much. Hello, Magnus. Hello, Jonas. First of all, on the margin, a few of the previous speakers have touched upon that, the new margin targets. I hear what you're saying with regards to absolute EBIT growth being the most important thing, and I completely agree with that statement. I fail to understand or fail to see how that sort of disqualifies raising a margin target as well. Perhaps if you could explain it from a different perspective.
Yeah, I can. I think the number one thing to do there, Fredrik, is always to look at how many consumer goods companies in the world has a higher EBIT margin target than 20%. If you look and really search around the world for large international proven product manufacturing, product selling companies with own sales organizations that have a target above 20% that are in the world, you will realize there is a logic why not a lot of people do that. It doesn't hold us back to over-deliver. If you look over a decade, which is what we're doing, because we're not saying next year or this year, because we just announced that our rolling 12 is already at 21.6%. It's clearly that we're not going to try to dilute that down to hit 20%, just to say we're just above 20%.
There will be performances over periods that are clearly higher than that target level. What we're saying is all the period will be above that level. That's, I think, why you see so few companies having a higher target than that.
Okay, fair enough. We'll have to see how that develops, simply. On the second thing that I was thinking about for the next 10-year plan up to 2030, Jonas touched upon some additional costs in the selling expense relating to D2C launches. How do you see that channel mix developing over the coming 10 years? There are some international companies in the outdoor space that have been really successful in getting consumer activity or getting consumer connection through the D2C channels as well as very nice mix improvements through that category. Could you just elaborate on how you're thinking about that strategically?
Absolutely. I think if you look at most of those that have been able to do that, they had a pretty low margin mix with their current retailers. The mix effect was more positive for them than it would be for us, as you can see on our current EBIT margin versus most of those companies to be true. Reality is you're right. Still for us, even having very good margins selling via retail, we will of course pick up margin the more we do direct-to-consumer. As I mentioned, clearly, we will outpace the growth in our direct-to-consumer significantly versus the rest of it. We are small today. We're not even in U.S., we are double-digit, just touching upon double digit of our sales in the U.S. We have just rolled out major markets during the last year.
Germany, France, Holland, U.K. rolled out only a few weeks ago. We've been in Sweden and Denmark, sorry, for a year and a half. We will be adding more markets. Clearly we see direct-to-consumer as a faster growth than anything else. We have to be a realistic company when you have already got 35,000 doors successfully selling your product at very high margins for yourself. You need to be smart about that. We're also not sending a T-shirt in a bag that anybody can drop off at their local ICA when they want to send it back. It's slightly more cumbersome product than that. The reality is it will grow at a much faster pace. It will become a bigger share, don't compare us with clothing companies in the outdoor sector, for example, because we won't be at their %.
Sure. Any ballpark figure what that portion of your sales could be by 2030?
If we would have had that, we would have announced it in the presentation. We will talk more about it as we tend to do when it starts to be significant enough to talk about it, like we've done with Active with Kids, et cetera. Clearly in the coming years, you will hear us talk much more and divulge much more about our intentions in direct-to-consumer.
All right. Thank you. Thank you very much. Just a final one for Jonas. I'm not really sure if you touched upon that, and sorry if I missed it, but could you give some indication of what the raw material headwind was in the quarter and what you might be looking at for the full year?
What we are seeing is that we will get higher raw material prices from our suppliers. Exactly where we're going to end up, we don't know at this point, and we haven't really been hit by any major changes so far. Actually, Magnus, I think you have maybe some more from the same point.
Yeah. I also think, as I said in my part of the presentation, it's clearly the case that we have proven over time that we will, of course, compensate with prices, what we see with costs, if they increase significantly. We had already anticipated in our price increases ahead of the season, some of those material increases. We will need to adjust in a number of cases additionally. I am very confident that although there is clearly a negative impact, we will be able to deliver a very strong EBIT result also in 2021.
All right. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Karri Rinta from SHB. Karri, your line is open.
Yes, thank you very much. Karri from Handelsbanken. I wanted to ask about the growth rates and that, because for some companies, the growth rates right now are boosted by a quite massive restocking. A lot of their customers destocking last year, now it's restocked. In your case, it's typically not that big of an issue with any. Can you confirm that the growth rates that you are seeing, and the growth rates that you are expecting for the second quarter are really sell-through sort of end customer driven, or is there any element of maybe some inventory buildup that you're seeing?
There is zero element of inventory buildup. This is pure consumer sales by selling out.
All right. I was right there. Secondly, these plans to enter into new product categories. When we look ahead, should we expect that you sort of use the same playbook that you used with Active with Kids, i.e., that you sort of acquire the first part of the portfolio, and then you start to sort of add to the portfolio by organically developing the product? Do you expect these expansions to have to be more organic in nature?
I would say the playbook is actually not exactly as you quoted it. The playbook is we will do only things that we organically could do. Sometimes there is an opportunity to pursue an M&A early in that, sometimes later. If you take the bike trailers, it was started by an acquisition. If you take bike seats, we started organically and then added an acquisition. If you take strollers, we've only done it organically. I would look at the subcategories from that logic, and therefore the combined playbook of saying, first and foremost, we only do it if we think we could be successful organically. If you start to bet on the M&A, it's a bit the great American hope or the great American hype that it can happen, that you'd go and say, "I'm needing to find and invest M&A.
I need to find an M&A." We don't want to be a company like that. We will always pursue it organically, and then we might, if we see the right opportunity, speed it up or add volume to it by an acquisition.
Right. It's safe to assume that the first step will be that you launch an organically developed product in a new category.
The new category that we will announce within a year's time? Yes, absolutely. It's organically very well underway since quite some time. Definitely.
All right. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Mats Liss from Kepler Cheuvreux. Mats, your line is open.
Hi. Thank you. Congrats on the very good numbers, of course. I just had a question regarding the financial targets. I guess the growth target 7% is impressive, even if you do more now. Is it in the product offering side, or is it in the sort of retail market? Is there any sort of area that you see that more of the organic growth will come from?
Yeah. I think if you summarize it simply, it is, of course, product-driven growth that is the key. Some combination of getting your product into more retail outlets is, of course, key. We see that within Active with Kids, that getting into more doors has been a key, and we will continue to open more doors there. If you take Sport & Cargo Carriers, we are already in all the doors we need to be. There, it's purely about more products being sold. If you take the newer categories, we need to get into new retail doors so we can sell them.
As we did mention and have talked a little bit about also on the questions that have come, as the channel of direct-to-consumer will grow more, that will, of course, boost because you have a higher revenue when you sell direct to a consumer the same product than if you sell it via retail. It's a combination, but it is a product-driven growth that sits at the core of it also in the coming decade.
Good. I just noticed that you see pretty good opportunities when Europe is opening up more slowly. Just from my point of view, I saw you as a winner of this sort of domestic holiday and so on. Do you still see yourself as a winner when things are opening up sort of?
I think it's always also a comparative reality. We have to realize that memory is short of people, but you might not remember how terrible your summer planning was for 2020. You didn't even know if you were going anywhere. That is not brilliant for us as a company. It is much better that you know you can go somewhere. I don't believe the trend will end in a day that people, actually, a lot of people, I'm sure when you ask your friends that have realized that that little hiking trip and that little mountain biking trip relatively close to Stockholm or Oslo or Helsingfors or wherever you're sitting, was actually much nicer than many people thought. Maybe it wasn't a necessity to fly to Bali and Thailand as many times as you thought. That trend, I'm not alone in thinking that, trust me.
A lot of people believe that that is a trend that will continue. If you compare that this summer, most people with a vaccination rollout are feeling, "I will do this type of vacation. I will bring my bikes, I will do things." That's why we believe in a continued positive momentum compared to then what was some challenges in the beginning of the summer last year. Towards the end of the summer, when people were feeling, "I need to do something," we saw a fantastic seasonality shift. We will see less of that seasonality shift, but we will see a general positive trend instead.
Yeah, great. Sounds convincing. Just to find the one there on the situation. You have lost the financial targets now, so that check and the product launches have been something that you have also indicated will come, and it's in a year of time, and it's organic, well, product you will launch, started to stop it.
Yeah, I'm not sure what the question was there, Mats. I have to admit.
No, I think the last conference call, you talked about this product launch that you were expected to be down during the second half.
I want to be clear because Mats, I always remember what I said. We will announce it to trade, when we announce it to trade, it isn't like just because you announce something to trade, it becomes significant in your revenue day one. You have to announce it to trade some time before it is sold to consumers. We will definitely announce to trade before the end of this year, a new category to enter into, you will then, as analysts and investors, know what that new category is, that category will be tiny in the beginning. Like we've proven with Active with Kids, after a few years, it will be a significant growth boost for the company.
It's a different animal.
It's a new product category that we don't do today. Correct.
Okay, great. Sounds interesting. Okay, thanks a lot.
Thank you.
We have one follow-up question from Daniel Schmidt from Danske Bank. Daniel, your line is open.
Yeah. Hello again, guys. Just to follow up on what you said, Magnus, and you just talked about when it comes to new product categories, plural. Of course, we know that you will say something in the second half of this year, and it will be in the market the year after in 2022. When you look at this 10-year horizon that you gave us today, how many legs do you think that Thule could stand on and basically be relevant in?
I think realistically, you need to give every leg you add, as I said, the time to actually grow out and be steady and muscular so you don't wobble like a small deer just coming out of the tummy and wobble around. You want it to be firming up. When you've done that a few times, it goes quicker because the organization learns and understands how you handle a new category when you get into it. Realistically, I would be disappointed that if within 10 years' time, we don't have at least three new product categories that we don't do today established in the marketplace.
Do you mean by that, do you mean three new business areas, or are they a mix between line extension and a new area? Could you just be more-?
We don't run business areas even today. That's why I don't call them that name, because it's actually that we do sales by regions, and then we develop product categories that open up opportunities to sell in those business regions we have. It's not that they are run like separate business areas in our company. We take an approach of having joint development, joint supply chain, joint marketing, and regional sales. If you look at it from a point of view, it's things we absolutely don't do today. It's things that are significant enough because we've launched small new things. I don't call rooftop tents a new category. You haven't heard me call it a new category, right
That will be pretty significant part of what we do. It's growing nicely, but it's too small as a sizable chunk of business for a few years out. To be allowed, so to speak, in our mind, to be called a category, we need to be seeing it as a significant potential of volume out there, and it needs to be distinctly different. There will be line extensions within strollers, line extensions within bike trailers, et cetera. They will not be called as new categories, but they will happen as they have happened within Sport & Cargo Carriers and within RV Products as well. These are defined clearly market-wise as different product categories with significant size in the marketplace.
What you're saying is that there will be, even though you don't call it business areas, there will be a new line in the reporting that we can see at the start of next year will be sort of five lines instead of four, and you feel that it could be a couple of more years out. If I get you right, is it more important now than it has been, or is it similar that these new product categories that you might be thinking about are more global than Western-oriented?
I don't think we've underestimated the global situation ever historically either. You just come from a past. We have a heritage, a strength, and a position, and some of our products, therefore, are more sought after in certain geographies. We have added additional categories because we take logical steps on what we do that maybe are considered more Western. To give you an example, the country we grew most in in quarter one was South Korea. It's not only Western, if you consider geographies Western, but behavior-wise, we are doing products for families mostly, or enthusiasts that want to live an active, outdoors-oriented life in markets where people have the money, have the time, and have the inclination to do that, we will always do better. Historically, that has been geographically exposed mostly to Western Europe and North America.
You have a few countries on the southern hemisphere, and you have Japan and Korea. I can assure you that growth is happening as we speak in Latin America and Southeast Asia as well, and slowly but surely, also in a market like China. The reality is, I am sure our global exposure will become more global, but not necessarily so much because of what we do, more because of what the consumers want to pursue as an activity.
Yeah. No, I get you. I didn't mean that you underestimated the global sort of possibilities, it's more turned out that way, I guess. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Magnus. That's all for me.
Thanks, Daniel Schmidt.
We have another follow-up question from Karri Rinta of Handelsbanken. Karri, your line is open.
Yeah, thank you very much for taking my follow-up. I actually want to take the sort of the flip side of that Thule is entering new product categories and just ask about whether this sort of significantly increased interest in your existing product categories has attracted new competition, if you have seen any new entrants in bike carriers, or if you expect to see such, and what are your sort of countermeasures in that respect?
Within Sport & Cargo Carriers, there hasn't come up any new company of size or importance in the last few years. I think there's always going to be interest in any category where there is growth. I don't underestimate that in any sense or any shape. There's a lot of small, very successful, small local competitors that are doing excellent job, and we see them as also very keen local competitors, and we don't underestimate them either. The reality is that simply the best way to ensure is you can't put up boundaries or create walls. What you can do is you can create a situation where consumers will prefer you and retailers will prefer you because you have better products, better service and better offer and a stronger brand.
That's the way we're going to make sure that we keep on growing in these categories by doing fantastic work with new innovation, patent protection, IP, doing all of that efforts that we do very successfully, then serving retailers with fantastic service above and beyond great products, and then building a brand for the future that attaches to the lifestyle so that we are allowed in, so to speak, with the consumer when they want to enjoy their life more than just a product provider. That's the best way to try to protect that position that we're in.
All right. That's very helpful. Thank you very much.
Yep.
We have no further questions registered, so I'll hand it back to yourself, Magnus.
Thank you. A new record then, but what else when we have so many fantastic things to talk about, new long-term targets and a tremendous quarter. Thank you for all your interest and listening in and all the good questions, and looking forward to a super active spring and a great call when we speak again after the second quarter. Thank you.