Thank you very much. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. As was announced, it is a trading update, and what we're talking about here in this trading update is what has been happening in the bike retail sector as the third quarter has initiated. As you all will remember that when we did our 2022 Q2 report in July, we announced the fact that we saw some trends in the bike retailers with too much inventory of some low entry-level and mid-level products in general, both specifically on the bikes themselves, but also on various forms of bike gear. We said that could potentially impact the situation for the Thule product sales.
This situation has clearly amplified as the quarter has started, and we have seen markedly reduced sales versus the exceptionally strong record year in 2021, which is why we do this trading update now. Logically, what is key for us is of course then to look at the situation, what it means short-term, and what we believe it potentially impact in a mid and longer term. First of all, I think what is key to repeat is that we do believe very much so that the long ongoing positive trends for bike as a means of transport for commuting and as a means for having fun and recreation is definitely positive long-term trends. There is more investments being done in infrastructure for bike commuting than ever. There are more investments being done in mountain bike parks, mountain bike trails, and other activities than ever.
There is a strong interest in activities and events, and general consumer participation is high in these categories. What we are seeing is a combination, in our view, of two very obvious bullwhip effects hitting at different times and therefore creating an extreme comparative per-period. As you will most likely remember, we communicated throughout 2021 that we saw a very positive boosted effect of the pandemic on our sales. With biking being a key part of what the Thule Group does, the bike sector's fast growth and the bike demand was a key contributor to our fantastic record year in 2021. In fact, in 2021, we ended the year with half of our sales being bike-related products. We sell bike-related products in all our 4 product categories that we present. In reality, it of course helped all four.
If you look at the share of sales, it is clearly the case that the two big categories of Sport & Cargo Carriers and Juvenile & Pet, we previously called Juvenile & Pet Active with Kids. Both those two categories, which are our by far best high gross margin categories, have the highest share of bike-related products. In fact, in Juvenile & Pet, roughly a bit more than 2/3 of our sales is bike-related as we are the global market leader in bike trailers and one of the biggest players in child bike seats. In Sport & Cargo Carriers, bike-related products, the bike carriers for your cars stand for more than half of our sales in 2021.
As an undisputed market leader in these categories and with a very high share and with a very extreme growth in 2021, we noted already in our quarterly reports in 2021 that the second half of 2021 was helped significantly by the fact that retail were restocking after long lead times had caused a lack of availability and the huge demand driving retailers to bring in more products. We also communicated throughout the second half of 2021 that we, having our plans close to the markets and a strong financial situation, were more capable than our competition in capturing that market demand upside by quicker ramping up. A show of strength in our flexibility in our operational model and our capability of ramping up fast and ramping down fast. Therefore, we had an extremely positive second half of the year.
We also started, as we noted after the first quarter report, on a very strong note in the bike retail sector sales in 2022 first quarter. Overall, we had three extreme quarters. If you looked at quarter three historically, bike-related products, which normally then are coming to their low season because bike-related products are mostly a spring and early summer sales product. Bike-related product for us was in pre-pandemic times, roughly 1/3 of our sales. In 2021, it rose to 1/2 of our sales, so a huge growth with finally catching up with some of the pent-up demand and with retailers being very optimistic of future consumer demand.
What was clear was that consumers were buying more product, but not as much more as what was happening for our sales, partly because we were winning market share and partly because retailers were stocking back up again. What we now expect in 2022 quarter three is that bike-related products will only make up a quarter of our sales. We are seeing a significant market drop in purchases of our bike-related products. The reason is now the bullwhip is hitting the other way. If you look at Google search trends or consumer visits to stores, there is a lower level than in the peak Q3 2021, but not that markedly as the purchases from the vertical bike retail sector is going down.
The reason is clearly the fact that after having them not being able to fully meet the demand during 2021, bike retailers were very optimistic about the 2022 season. With the bike retail sector as a whole having also seen extensive prolongation of lead times of their core product, the bikes themselves, they were now needing to speculate. Historically, bikes had lead times of anything up to six-nine months, but if you looked at it for a period, many bikes had all of a sudden lead times more than a year out, with the pure shipment time extending to more than three-four months, and then with demand issues in the supply chain from the manufacturers of the bikes leading to extremely long lead times.
That means that what the bike retail sector has been receiving over the last four-five months have been products that they bought or ordered in the peak of the pandemic-boosted biking category. That means they have now, over a few months, been when consumer demand has more returned to a more normal level than in the extreme record year, 2021, they have been receiving very significant amount of stock. One of the problem with that inventory they've been receiving is a little bit during the pandemic, they could sell any bike they had in store because retailers were telling the consumer that came into store, "I only can offer you these bikes, but nobody else can offer any other bike either.
If you want a bike, grab this one." Consumers were okay with doing that in 2021, desiring to come out and do the biking and feeling that if they didn't buy the bikes that were in the shops, they wouldn't get the bike. Now, that feeling from consumers is different. As you're all aware, consumers are more cautious with their spending, and now a consumer entering into a bike shop wants the right product, the one they really wanted, the right setup, the right gears, the right look, the right whole package. They will therefore say no if somebody offers a mediocre B or C product. What happened was that when then the bike brands and the bike gear brands started to catch up with capacity, the retailers who were quite gung ho ordered many brands of products.
We found ourselves during the 2022 part of the first half of the year, seeing a significant increase in what we would consider B and C brand level of competitive products in store. The problem that we now face is that with retailers having far too much of B and C level things in store and being challenged with a cash flow situation, having received those products and with a more selective consumer entering the stores and more cautious consumer, they, the bike retailers are now trying to focus on selling out the B and C product rather than trying to serve at times the consumers with the best product. Therefore, we have an issue where we see, as I said, market reductions in orders of our products.
We believe that this will continue to impact throughout the rest of the year and into the first quarter and in 2023, and only really be possible to get a better inventory level out in the bike retail sector when the season of 2023 starts in the spring of 2023. Therefore, it will impact our sales. I know I will be getting a lot of follow-up question on exactly how much. This is early, too early to tell. As I said, in 2021, 50% of our sales in quarter three were bike-related. We believe it will be only a quarter in, 2022 quarter three. If you look at quarter four in historical terms, which is the lowest season for bike products, normally a fifth of our total sales is bike-related.
In 2021, it was a third. You realize that we're facing some extreme comps, and those comps we will not be able to measure up to. The impact means that we will see both a drop in sales and also a drop in profitability levels. Because as we have previously communicated, the two categories of Sport & Cargo Carriers and Juvenile & Pet Products are our highest average gross margin categories. Within those categories, the bike-related products are the highest margin performers. We will see an impact in two ways. What we have decided to do, and I think this is the most important message to you as analysts and investors. We are not changing our long-term plans.
As you are aware, after our capital markets day earlier this year in May, we have very ambitious plans to enter into new product categories and to drive growth as we've done with great new product innovation. We will not hold back on those. That also means we have the highest spend we've ever had on product development here in 2022, Q3, and we'll continue to have that in 2024 and beyond. It also means that we have hired and will continue to staff up in our sales channel and in our marketing channel for those new categories that we are about to enter. Because we are convinced that the bike sector will regain its momentum with a strong underlying long-term trends, and we are convinced that the growth that we will be able to achieve in these new categories are key for meeting the long-term financial targets.
We are therefore very calm in our long-term financial goals, and we are not changing our long-term strategy in any way. I'm also happy to announce that we were participating at the world's biggest children's fair or children's product fair, Kind + Jugend in Cologne, in Germany this week and weekend, where we introduced retail for real our new entry into car seats with very positive reception from the market. That means we are continuing to build out our plans to handle these new products. We are investing in our sales and marketing efforts, and we will continue to be pushing on our product development. As always, the Thule Group has proven to be very flexible, which means that we will, of course, not do things from a capacity need if we don't need to.
We have utilized the flexibility we have in our supply chain model with a partial fixed workforce for Thule, a temporary workforce of Thule staff and a temporary workforce of outside agency. By reducing the outside agency to zero, actually at the moment, to handle what is less demand at the short term. Overall, there will be impacts on our finances. It's too early to tell exactly how much. Our long-term strategy sits firm because we are convinced that what we are seeing now is a combination of two bullwhip effects in peak bike retail. With that, I open up the floor for questions.
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press Star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If for any reason you would like to remove this question, please press Star followed by two. Again, to ask a question, it will be Star followed by one. As a reminder, if you are using a speaker phone, please remember to pick up your handset before asking your question. Our first question today comes from the line of Mats Liss from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Yeah, hi. Thank you for taking my question. I just had a couple of them and, I mean, the inventory level set during the third quarter seems to have continued up. You mentioned you have a flexible production, and you mentioned that last year you had 50% bike-related products, this year is 25%. Should we expect a substantial increase in inventory, I guess, for this type of gear? And how will it sort of. Will it have any impact on your cash flow and maybe gearing going forward and potential to continue to distribute dividends as previously?
For first question, inventory build-up. As you will remember, Mats, we said during late last year and the beginning of this year that we had a plan to reduce our inventories during the summer. We will not see it increase, but the reduction that we had planned isn't taking place. You will not see an increase of inventory, because we have already acted and we were planning, as we had communicated, to actually reduce it quite significantly, but the reduction won't be taking place.
Great. Don't have to worry about that. The flexibility now and well, you mentioned that sales of bike-related product is about a quarter this year. That's a substantial sales decline, I guess. Could you say something about the fixed cost absorption in this quarter compared to last year? Maybe the leverage there in margin, should we be very concerned about this? I mean, last year you had a 24% margin, I guess, you have the 20% target. Should we expect you to sort of end up below 20% then again? I mean, it seems to be a reasonable guess.
That is definitely a reasonable guess. You're absolutely right, Mats. As we have communicated throughout the last few years that one of the key drivers for our successful margin improvement has been economies of scale, both economies of scale on our production overhead, of course, but also economies of scale of a very scalable back end of the business. If we then see significant revenue drops of our highest margin products, you will clearly see an impact both on our production overhead coverage and our SG&A coverage, especially as I said. Our belief is as a long-term company, been around for more than 80 years, I've been in the company for more than 17, we don't run this company on quarterly basis. We are convinced that the bike sector will regain momentum.
We won't be making stupid reductions or incorrect things that would hurt us in the long run. We are diligent, of course, with spend, so we're not gonna do, you know, things that we don't need to. Generally, we are not pulling back on all those efforts that we're doing to be a successful company for the future. That means that a top line drop of the highest margin product will have a clear effect, and we will go clearly below what we were in the past quarters, in the comp period.
Okay. Great. Just finally, about competition, do you experience or do you expect them to have a similar situation as you? I mean, having too high inventory levels and that you could see,
I think they have a worse situation, to be honest. We have seen the first bankruptcies came a few, just some weeks ago in one US competitor, where clearly they have less of flexibility and clearly lower margins normally, and they are now facing this situation with very long lead times to their suppliers that are making finished products in China. They are still seeing it arriving on their doorsteps while retailers are pulling the handbrake completely. If anything, our competition is more exposed to these very rapid movement effects. You know, it's never fun, but at least we're doing less badly than others are affected by it.
Just finally, I guess your financial position is strong going into this and you see opportunities to grow through well acquisition now when Well, competitors maybe are in a worse shape and you see opportunities there.
I would be honest to say within those categories where we are the undisputed global market leader, bike carriers and bike trailers, we have so much better product and so strong position that it doesn't make sense to actually acquire anybody. No, it won't open up in those sectors any specific acquisition thinking.
Okay, great. Thanks a lot.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question today comes from the line of Karri Rinta from SHB. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Thanks. Thank you very much. I missed the first part of the question, so apologies if I ask something that you already have commented. These references to bike retailers and their high inventories of low to mid-priced product, but what's your sense of their inventory of your products? What's the level compared to normal levels?
If you look at it, we have all the premium products in the Thule range. You talk about the more expensive Thule Chariot bike trailers, the more expensive Thule EasyFold, the bike carriers, et cetera. They have normal levels. Also of our product at the lower price points, they have which is the mid-price point market-wise, but our lowest ones, they have more of those than we would like and they would like.
Okay. Good. That's helpful. The comments that you made about bike related and how much of your sales got posted in Q3 compared to last year, that suggests that your sales in that category were down more than 50% year-on-year, and probably more so in volume. What's your sense of their sell out and what kind of sort of run rate are you seeing in your own direct to consumer channel, sort of trying to get a sense of what the consumer.
Yeah
purchasing level
If you take our direct to consumer, we of course need to compare with only the markets where we have been doing it for a few years because it's easy to forget that 2021 was exceptional in many ways with a lack of demand and therefore selling more in Q3 catching up. As we always admit that you do not go to a bike retailer or you do not commit to bike trailer because you love bike trailers, you commit it because you love biking and you bought a bike or you bought bikes for the family and you intend to do something. When those bikes became available later in the year in Q3, that helped our sales also in a direct consumer. It's a little bit.
The best comparison is there for the markets where we were doing direct consumer already before the pandemic, the US. If you look at that, we're actually performing at a strong level. I think that partly is though due to the fact that we mostly sell premium products on thule.com, and we don't sell the lower end so much because you can find that in other more basic stores. I would say if you look at it, bike is better in sell out than in 2019. It is not as good as in 2021.
Okay. Then I mean, there's two parts to this story. One is this high inventories, but then there's of course this other part that you also referred to, the weak consumer confidence and the upcoming recession. First, can you remind us how your different categories performed in 2008 and 2009? Of course, it's never exactly the same as it was in previous cycles. Besides the inventories and besides the pandemic, how should we think about the pure impact from a weaker economy this time around?
Absolutely. We didn't do anything in Active with Kids, so that I cannot compare for you because we didn't do any product back then. If you take Sport & Cargo Carriers, which is still two-thirds of our business today, and it was a business I was running already back then, we grew those years. We had growth in Sport & Cargo Carriers, we had growth in bike carriers, we had growth in roof racks throughout that period. If we look at the only product category that we didn't grow in that period that we still have as part of our portfolio, it was the RV Products. At the moment, we're still growing very nicely in RV Products. Here it is because the bullwhip didn't happen.
As you are keenly aware, Kari, I know you look at also the RV manufacturers that are stock listed. They have struggled to ramp up the demand and meet demand, and they are still struggling. There's still this pent-up demand for motor homes, which has meant that, you know, we can see that it's been more comparable. Even if there was huge demand in 2021, they couldn't get the vehicles out. You didn't see these extremes in comp periods. It's more flattened out. The only category that did see, due to the financial situation of consumers, a decline in the downturn in 2008 and 2009 was RV Products. We always say that's because it's related to a very large purchase of a vehicle. Since the consumer won't be installing the product themselves, it gets more associated with the acquisition of a large vehicle.
Here, if we look at a tougher economy and you took the word, Kari, a recession, I didn't. If we would speculate in your word, Kari, that there is going to be a financially tougher time, it is clear that the category that we would be more concerned about in a situation like that is the RV Products due to the connection to the large financial commitment. At the moment, if you look at forecasts from the industry, they're still quite bullish. I was crying wolf long before the pandemic and was wrong all the time, but I felt that there might be a slowdown. We will have to see.
We believe that there is some challenges because if you don't get the vehicle now when you ordered it and your, in the meantime, your total financial situation changes, you might be considering, should I still be in this queue for getting a vehicle? That's the big question, I think, for us as well.
All right. Thank you. That's very helpful. Those were all my questions.
Thank you.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. Our next question today comes from the line of Andreas Lundberg from SEB. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Yeah, thank you so much. Good morning, Andreas Lundberg with SEB. You touched on RV-related products, but what about the other products you have in your portfolio? Can you give any comments on those ones?
Yes. If we take Sport & Cargo Carriers first, which is our biggest category and non-bike related, we're seeing growth in the quarter. We're performing well here. The big difference here why that is still happening is of course, we didn't see the same pandemic boosted growth in 2021. It was growing nicely but not nearly to the level of bikes. We have a more, let's say, fair comp, and it's a continuous strong performance we've had for a number of years in the rest of those Sport & Cargo Carriers at a normal growth rate. We have our best performing category at the moment, as you would assume, is Packs, Bags & Luggage, because here it's the opposite effect. In 2021, people were still not going back to universities, traveling and doing as much as they're doing at the moment.
That's the category where we have a very strong growth rate versus what then was a relatively weak comp in 2021. Within strollers we are growing because we're slowly but surely becoming a bigger player. There it's not so much about comps or trends because honestly people were buying strollers at the same pace throughout the pandemic as they were before. There our growth is related to the fact that we're just simply becoming a broader and better known player. Then in RV Products, as I mentioned, we do have bike related products in RV, and we can see that even there is a slowdown for the bike related because they're sitting on too many being a little bit too optimistic on that as well. The rest of our RV business continues to do well in the quarter.
Thank you. Then lastly on these bike related products, or are you concerned that there have been too much pre-buying, so say, when you enter the spring of 2023? Or you're so comfortable that you can continue to grow from that time? Or how do you view that?
I think it's always a definition what pre-buying is. We had this discussion of course also with the board. If a retailer says, "I want this product now, if you don't supply it, I will buy it from a B brand or a C brand that you're competing with." We will always prefer to sell it rather than. We said when we did the 2022 Q1 that we felt that bike retail, we communicated that in conjunction with our quarter one report, that bike retail unnecessarily so with our very good availability of next day deliveries and having ramped up our capabilities, we're ordering more than they need to. With that was a communication combined with a very strong Q1 result, which was significantly above what we've ever had before.
21 was, from that perspective, a pre-buy and not something that we needed actually, but it's better they buy from us than from somebody else. We were therefore, as we communicated at the time, expecting to see a slower Q2 and especially a slower Q3 as the season normally is mostly Q2. That was not a surprise. What is more amplified is how hard they are pulling on the handbrake now. That is clearly above and beyond what we expected.
Okay, cool. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next up, we have a follow-up question from Mats Liss of Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Yeah. I follow up there on, I mean, a lot of the raw material or the cost you use when you produce your products have come down quite a bit like aluminum. Do you expect to see some impact of that in the second half or maybe next year?
Yeah. Considering if you sell too little, which we honestly have to say we do within the bike retail, you're not gonna see those positive effects, right? It means that we are sitting, as you realize, when we talk about how much less staffed we are and the fact that we are not growing our inventory levels, that it means that in practice, we're not gonna see that positive effect. What it means, however, is that we will not need to increase prices in 2023 for January in the ways we've had to do to compensate. Our market-based pricing approach will allow us to be smart about what the price situation will be with a lower material cost. It will only, so to speak, start to pan out and roll out in 2023.
I didn't expect there to be a Russian invasion of Ukraine this year, so I have to say, I couldn't promise that material prices will continue to be good in 2023 and beyond. All indications at the moment, as you correctly point out, Mats, is that it will enable us not to need to raise prices in 2023.
Great. Just about pricing, I mean, you have announced quite substantial price increases this year. I thought it was some seven-8% that year or when the year started, and you also indicated that there would be price increases at mid-year. Have you sort of experienced pre-buying impact also that retailers try to stock up before the price increase that's affecting your situation as well?
No. I would say that it's actually not due to our price increases because they have been rather market-based and not surprised anybody. They have been very logical. What you can say is more that the reason that bike retailers now are seeing this extreme bullwhip effect is that they had these very much extended lead times. All of a sudden, lead times were twice as long as before. It was very difficult to forecast. I've never been so much wrong as I've been in the last two and a half, three years in forecasting. I think bike retailers have been even more wrong and have overreacted maybe a bit more. They're also buying from many brands. In some categories where they therefore were optimistic, they were needing to speculate maybe a year and a half out on some products.
They were doing that speculation when it was the hottest ever situation, and they therefore went a bit too aggressive. What then tends to happen with a bullwhip effect is you get an opposite effect. Now they are far too pessimistic. That's life when you supply to retail. They tend to do that, I have to say, retailers. Reality wasn't that it was triggered by ours or anybody else's price increase. It was triggered by their belief in the market.
Oh, yeah. Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you. As a final reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please do press star followed by one on your telephone keypad.
As there doesn't seem to be any further questions, I would therefore propose that we conclude. I want to remind you that we will have our normal quarterly report coming out, and that will be coming out on October 26th. We are available, of course, for any follow-up questions, etc. I also want to reiterate that our long-term belief on our strategy and our long-term financial goals holds very true. We have not changed our mind versus what we stated on reaching SEK 20 billion by 2030, and a long-term ambition of a 20% EBIT margin has not changed. We will see significant impact for the next three quarters to both sales and profitability.
We are a very strong, flexible company that will manage that well and will continue to invest heavily to the entry into new product categories and launches of new products in the existing product categories. With that, I thank you and wish you a great Monday.