Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the year end report for 2020 and what a weird year 2020 has to be. So if we turn to the first slide of the presentation and look a little bit on the Q4 results. Of course, the Q4 then sums up a fantastic second half of the year. When we looked at the 3rd quarter report, we Told you that we were expecting a season pickup to come and actually even slip into the Q4 and that was exactly what happened. So for the Q4, we reported a 45% currency adjusted growth.
And it was very similar in the two regions that with region Americas growing 48% and region Europe and rest of world growing 43%, So a very strong result. As we said many times, we are very convinced about our capability of When we see top line growth, we have a very slim and still very much scale in our business operations in the back end. And that economies of scale really was helping us to achieve a strong EBIT margin in what normally is a small quarter, meaning that we delivered an EBIT margin in the quarter of 15% compared to the close to 6% that we normally would have in this period. Strong cash flow also from the strong sales in Q3 3. And that meant that overall, we delivered a very strong result.
Based on that strong result, there is also a Board proposal for a dividend that then means that the dividend we will present to the AGM is built on 2 parts. In practice, you could say we then pass on the dividend that was planned for 2019 as an extraordinary dividend in 2020 instead. And we, on top of that, increased the ordinary dividends in SEK 8. So in total, that means a SEK 15, 50 dividend in the year. If we turn to the next page and look a little bit of some key things that have happened in the last few months, I'm extremely proud of the fact that although it wasn't to the big hoopla you would normally do when you An inaugurated building where you've invested SEK 100,000,000, which is what we've done in our new R and D center.
It was mostly myself and the Head of Global Product Development, Calle Meinersen, that walked around there. But I'm still very positive about the fact of having opened that building. That building is a piece of a big puzzle of a continued strong focus on making sure that we continue to have the best product in the market, because product is king in this company and we will continue to develop great products. In 2020, we spent 5.1% of sales on product development. And as you know, that means that it was a decrease versus the 6% we had previous year.
The logic for that is, of course, a fantastic top line growth for the full year of 13% and also the fact that we did not push as hard on some of planned like its project. In general, we will still travel slightly above 5% in the coming years as previously indicated. The great new facility that is open up will enable us to even more efficiently bring out more products to come. And what is also very positive To note is that after Board approval in December, we've already kicked off the building works of a further expansion of our world leading to the test center. In that test center, we will expand with more testing equipment, more space and some new areas of testing for future product categories.
And that test center expansion will be opened early Q2 in 2022. So a big continued effort there. And those new developments bring loads of great new products out there. In 2021, we will be bringing several new bike carrier models, Several new tax packs and luggage, updating our refreshed strollers and bike trailers for our kids, But also what is nice to see in our recently entered category rooftop fence that our brand new Tepui Foothill Tents will come to market in spring and it's already won the prestigious ISPO Gold Award as a innovative way of ensuring that you can't only sleep on the car, you can also bring the gear with you at the same time. So Continuing success will be key and I'm confident of that in product development.
If we look at the full year on next page of the presentation because I think it's easy to get focusing too much on specific quarters. And we Said already in after a week or Q2 that we expected the year to see a very strong second half when the season that normally is the spring and early summer became a summer, early autumn and evening to late autumn season. So it's more important to look at the full year. But for the full year, we delivered a 13% currency adjusted top line growth and a 27% EBIT growth. And what that means is I'm very happy To say that once again, as a company, we have proven that we don't only set targets, we actually achieve our targets because that means that we have now for 2020 an EBIT margin of 20.3%.
So better than the target that we set in the Capital Markets Day in 2017. I now then know that a lot of you will be Keen to know what is the next financial targets, especially as the 15% target was reached in 2015, the 17% target was reached in 2017 and a 20% target in 2020. I'm sure some analysts are very optimistically waiting for the next target. I can tell you that we're not doing any financial target setting at this time, but that we will later on in this year or early next Here come back at a Capital Markets Day talking more about our financial targets as a whole. And then of course talking more about the business as well, which is even more interesting.
If we go to the next page, I'm presenting the quarterly sales in past years. And the reason I'm doing that is to ensure that we don't get carried away on comparative numbers because the reality is, of course, But when we will look at 2021 due to the exceptional 2020, we will start the year well in comparability versus previous year. I have no doubt that we will have a strong first half of the year. We should because 2020 was very weak due to the pandemic lockdowns. So subject to that, we do not see the same type of aggressive lockdown measures, which I do not believe, we will be seeing a strong performance versus the very weak 2020.
But then in the second half the year. We will, of course, be exposed to some very, very tough comps because the season was weird and it was compressed in a different period than normally consumers would buy our product. So the reality is, when we are looking at our business for 2021, We are expecting, 1, that the seasonality will be more normal, meaning much more Q2, much less Q3, Q4, But also that it might even be slightly more pushed that way into Q2 due to that some retailers Missed out a little bit on opportunities early in the summer as the business started coming back. I think we did, as a company, a fantastic job being able to do 52% more business in Q3 and 45% Q4. But still there were retailers that would have liked to sell even more, but we're caught off guard on the demand.
Some of those retailers most likely will therefore try to anticipate believing as we do that the Trend will continue with staycation and biking boots going on also in 2021. So if anything, there might be slightly even bigger SKU than historically to the Q2 and late Q1. If we look at The results by the regions on next page, you can see that I'm also very happy to be able to say that both regions fared very well in the year and in the quarter. So for a full year, we saw a 10% currency adjusted growth in the Americas region. And we saw a 14% currency adjusted growth in Europe and rest of the world.
I'm not going to go into the details about the product categories because we're dealing with that in the coming pages. But what it's nice to be able to say is that This growth isn't just from a regional perspective. There are very few markets where we didn't grow. There are some Latin American countries where we struggled due to both the setup of distributor setup in a COVID reality with concerns in the market makes the distributors More cautious, makes them sell down their stock before they order from us, plus that some of the Latin American markets have been more depressed from an economic financial situation. But aside from that, we generally grow globally around the world in most of the markets, which is very promising.
If we go and look at next page and look what it has meant in terms of which brands we sell in, The journey that we have been passing through for the last few years continues. The Thule brand is truly successful, 1, by us broadening ourselves into new categories, but also, of course, thanks to the fact that we're growing in the categories where the Tullib Brand is the undisputed market leader for more than 25 years. So within sports and cargo carriers, we grow very fast. And on top of that, we're adding successfully to the into new arenas like the multi sport and jogging strollers and bike trailers, etcetera. So that meant that in 2020, the Thunde brand stood for 86% of our sales.
The tough market for the PaxBags luggage sector meant that the 2nd biggest brand, the KA's Logic brand, It now represents 4% of sales. And in total, the smaller brands of the Thule Group represented 6%. And also that the private label sales and OEM sales to the large manufacturers of motor homes as well as cars remained actually flat and that meant as a percentage of sales they declined. So it is Thule brand that is dominating. And the Thule brand is constantly being strengthened by the fantastic job that our marketing team is doing and by the breadth on what the sales teams are able to open new doors and new opportunities to meet consumers in different ways, But in the end, mostly because the products are brilliant.
If we go to the next page and look a little bit on how we have fared in the different product categories. I would love to say that it was all green. I have told people that many times, You cannot be fully satisfied until you show green numbers and everything. And unfortunately, you realize that with what has been going on in the travel sector sir. And what has been going on with people working from home, university students studying from home, it has meant, and I'm sure you've read that, Tremendous challenges for anybody in the tax backs of luggage agreement.
So let's start there, where we did not see growth. We declined 21% quite evenly between the two regions as a share of development. And if you look at that, that I am sure when you will compare to bigger luggage players when their quarterly reports come out, you will be Positively surprised how much better than many others we are faring. And that is, of course, that we have a less exposure being a new player in the luggage business. Players that are doing most of their volumes in cabin, petrolleys and suitcases will see much, much worse numbers.
So far, most of them has indicated sales drops around 70%. But also in what we do very well, which is Smaller laptop backpacks, laptop bags, sleeves, there has been challenges because as I mentioned, when students don't go back to university, They don't buy a cool new backpack. When office workers do work from home, they don't buy the new laptop bag. So there has been clearly some decline in those sales. We have won some additional contracts, but retail stores have been very closed.
We also do a lot of sports specific and text bags. And in sports specific, we do a bike transport cases when somebody flies with their bike. We do ski roller bags, etcetera, when somebody flies with their skis. Those categories have also been exposed to their drastically reduced sales. While other categories like smaller hiking packs and bike peneer bags have done very well in the pier.
If we look at the other end of the scale of where we truly outperform, it is within the Act 2 with Kids category with 37% growth. So that is a fantastic result on a global scale. And in Region Americas, even more so with 50 the 7% growth for the year. 33% in Europe and rest of the world is not to be underestimated either. And what we're seeing here is a Tremendous performance across the world in all the categories.
In RA Products, we grew 9% and in Sport and Cargo Carriers, 2017. So let's turn to the next page and look at sports and cargo carriers in a little bit more detail. If you look at what we're talking about here in a category, which many times I've got the question and there's been analysts And others that have said this must be very dependent on car sales. I think we can now this year kill that myth because as you all know, car sales have been dramatically down, while we show the biggest growth ever since I joined the company with 17 In Europe and rest of the world, we grew 18%, in region Americas, 13%. And the drivers has been clearly bike racks.
And we know and as you've read and you've seen about all the bike sales and bike Going up that of course has helped us, but we also need to remember we've been doing very well with bike rack sales for many years before driven by the trend that E bikes are heavier and therefore more difficult to transport. They're also more expensive. So somebody who has bought an e bike and wants to bring it with them has a much higher likelihood to levitate towards the best brand even if that product is more expensive because compared to the high price you pay for the bike, It doesn't stand out so much. And honestly, we're also the brand in a recent study done by the German Test Institute and Communicated in German media, there were many other brands that simply failed in their tests of carrying those heavier e bikes, while our products succeeded as a test win. So the e bike trend is helping us.
The increased sales of bike is, of course, helping us and that is a strong driver. We had a very strong second half of the year of roof racks after a very tough first half, and I feel that that growth in the year is great sign of what we have been able to do in how we have offered our new roof rack generation. In the box Business and the Roof Box business, we see differences between the two regions with actually in Roof Boxes, the North American market performing better. And the main reason for that is that although you also in the North American market see some of the ski resources with limitations and less people and partial close downs. The big aggressive close downs at the very end of the Ski season in the spring of 2020 and even more so aggressive ones now entering into the winter season in the ALP region does hurt the Roof Box sales in this period.
Obviously, Rooftop Tams was a success. I could Wish I could say that I had forecasted that I knew that this would be. We were a little bit lucky in the timing of going into Rooftop TENS Because what has happened, of course, with people wanting to travel in their personal bubble, this was a brilliant way of doing it. There was an underlying strong trend. We jumped on that.
And of course, that and has got some boost. So we have performed very well in group top 10. For 'twenty one, it is really a Slightly boring, it might seem a mantra. It's just doing the same, but even more. We will continue to build on our core strength.
We have proven in the way we could handle rapid decline of demand in the spring and stream ramp up in the autumn. And we are better than any of our competitors in terms of having a flexible supply chain with own plants close to the main markets. And in a season like this one that we see ahead of us, it will be extremely difficult for anybody, including us, to truly forecast what will go on. There will be limited lockdowns in certain countries. There will be wavering situations and peaks and troughs coming.
Somebody like us that are close to the market, have the capabilities, have the financial strength to handle that will do better. So I feel very good about that. We also, not due to COVID, but because of earlier decisions long before, already had planned and are bringing to market in 20 21, several new bike related products, one among them being a new trunk mounted bike carrier range in 2 models, but also 2 new roof mounted by carrier models and some new towbar market for the North American market. So or hitch mounted as it's called there. So a fantastic new portfolio on top of the already award winning towbar mounted bike carrier portfolio we have.
In roof racks, we continue to use our market leading portfolio and the new fresh generation of racks we have. In boxes, we will try to capture what we believe will be a strong vacation trend in the summer. It will be challenges in the beginning of the year in the ALK countries because there will be less ski travels and therefore people going less to those resorts. In some markets, we believe it will be strong still like the Nordics and others where people are expected to still drive up and maybe do more cross country and other things when they're at their ski cabins. But in the pure out countries, there will be clearly a challenging start of the year.
And of course, in rooftop tents, you saw our cool new rooftop tent, but in general, we will with the products we have continue to see growth with that staycation Sure. If we look at the next category, RV products, this is, of course, a category that has There are several stock listed companies that present and talk about that category. You have the French trigger now. You have the big U. S.
Store industries. You have The Swedish domestic and if you look at it, it all depends on a bit where you stand in the supply chain in how you talk about the business. We've mentioned many times that most of our products are easily assembled on the outside of the vehicle, the dominant of what we do. That means that we have a higher share of sales to the dealerships, but we do have a significant share of sales more than 40% also to the manufacturers when they manufacture vehicles. What happened in 2020 was Lockdowns closed down not only those RV manufacturers, but actually the suppliers of the chassis for a few months.
So when consumers, especially in Central Europe, were very keen to have an RV to be able to do some vacationing in the summer, There simply wasn't the capabilities of the manufacturers to come up with many new vehicles. That meant a very good for the long term cleanup of older vehicles that have been standing a few years at the various dealerships. Many of those dealerships had already in attempts to try to sell off failed vehicles, equip them with many tele products, etcetera, to try to get them more So that meant that we saw in some markets more sell out of existing vehicles that were already equipped with Tesla products and not as much the push with the new ones coming. As we saw in the second half of the year, more or less from September, A very rapid ramp up of that very complex supply chain because the RV manufacturers really are similar to what you've been hearing from the Truck industry and car industry, it took some while to get their very complex supply chains up and running. But once they started doing that from September onwards, we had a fantastic to Q4.
And that was the reason why we ended the year with 7% growth in the main region we do business, which is Europe and the rest of the world. You then see a very high number, 73 percent from a very, very low base on those niche products we do for the U. S. Markets, which are mostly van related products. When I therefore look at 2021 and this is the category where we have the longest order book because as I mentioned a big chunk of the business Does it go to the manufacturers?
We know that there will be a very good start to the year as long as there is not new lockdowns in those various plants that are making the vehicles. There is a very good order book because now those manufacturers are wanting to fill up those dealership lots where there was a clean out due to inability to deliver last year. So that will be continuing. And I feel very good about how we will be able, as we have done once again in 2020, capture market share. The team based on Mainland in Belgium has done a fantastic job in how they worked closely both with the main dealership channel, but also with the main manufacturers in ensuring that our market leading, award winning products are the ones that are chosen for those vehicles.
If we go to the Fastest growing category, as I mentioned, active with kids on next page. It's clear that we were helped by the fact that 2 out of the 3 subcategories are related to using a bike. It is bike trailers and it is bike seats. And they were clearly in different ways, as I've already mentioned when we did the Q3 summary, helped by the bike. The one that was helped the most was the less costly bike seat around €100, because when many of those consumers went out and rushed out to buy a cheaper bike, They didn't all of a sudden have too much money, so to speak, in their world of maybe €1000,000 to €1200 on a fantastic bike trailer because they were not into the biking.
They were not sure they would bike for many years to come with their children. That trend was there anyway. We have been for the last few years growing very strongly with bike trailers And we grew with our bike trailers also this year, mostly driven by a long ongoing e bike trend and more people using bike as a community. Child bike seats specifically got a big boost, thanks to more bikes being sold. And I'm very happy to say that we did a very strong results also in the growing Strela category.
Of course, one reason being that we now have 3 models. We're starting to be a more complete player because We did launch the 3rd new model to the spring in the spring. Not the brilliant year to launch a Strelverb and everybody is In pandemic mode and stores are closed, but still it did well and
it picked up past the
year went. What's also important for Starless, many times I mentioned during 2019, my surprise that our main competitor, actually the market leading brand for jogging strollers in the U. S, Had an extremely aggressive cost reduction rebating scheme going for the full year, which meant that we actually lost market share in 2019. As they finally decided to be realistic about pricing and came with a price back to the old level, we've regained that market share, which one of the main reasons why we now see a 57% growth in region Americas. I am convinced that we will continue to take market share.
We have a broadened offer. We have a broadened distribution that is growing every day. And we have revamped and rejigged all the products with cool new colors, small extra new features and a general improvement. We're also leaning forward in terms of having availability. We are definitely very ambitiously looking at being able to serve the demand as we are convinced it will come during the spring in category.
So feel very good about the active with kids category. If we then look at the challenge category of packs, packs and luggage, As I mentioned, it's obvious that it was the one hurt clearly by the pandemic. And it's also obvious that you will see some abysmal results from many players in the tax pricing We need to be realistic about how quick the travel world will recuperate. You see a lot of different data. Many people are claiming that it will take until 2025 until travel is back to the 2019 level.
I think you have to be realistic to say there will be 2 types. There will be the people that are so desperate to go on any trip when they finally allowed to. So there are a lot of vacationing trips might be picking up. But that will still be compared to people traveling several times a year for some vacation. And more importantly, in terms of Cabin carry on luggage, I think we have to be realistic looking only at myself that there will be less business travel than there's been in to pass, which means it will be quite a depressed market.
The only good with that is we're going to compare with a pretty depressed 2020 already. And the other good thing is that we still believe in the long term of the market because we are actually tiny players. So we can still take share even if it will to be a depressed market. And we have both the financial strength, the brand and the product offer to be able to do that. But we have to be realistic that it will be a quite challenged category also for 2021.
So with all of that and that information a bit more about the products, I'll leave it over to Jonas to talk about a little bit more about the financials. Over to you, Jonas.
Thanks, Magnus. We are now on Slide 13. As Magnus mentioned, we've had another very good quarter. And that's the Q4 quite exceptional because the seasonality for the Tula business usually leads to that the Q4, which is a small quarter, has an EBIT margin of about 5% to 6%, Whereas we now, as you can see, have 15% in the Q4 of 2020. The main reason for the high EBIT in the quarter is, of course, a quarter with very high sales.
The gross margin reached 40% in the quarter compared to 38% in the same quarter last here. The high volumes, as I said, and also favorable product mix are the main reasons for the high EBIT. There is not much difference on the SG and A costs. The finance net increased to a net Cost of SEK 80,000,000 in the quarter compared with SEK 14,000,000 last year in the same quarter. And the difference lies in revaluations of the cash pool now that the Swedish krona has strengthened.
The interest cost has gone down since we utilized Our bank facilities less than last year, much of it, of course, thanks to the fact that we did not pay dividends in 2020. The tax rate for the full year was 23.7%, which is well within our guidance of 22% to 25%. The tax in the 4th quarter was somewhat higher because we wrote down deferred tax assets in our bags business, but there is no cash flow effect from that. And now a few words about working capital and operational cash flow. If we turn to Slide 14 in presentation.
We see that the working capital has decreased to SEK 1171,000,000 by the end of the Q4, which is €100,000,000 lower than at year end last year. However, if we take the strengthening of the Swedish krona into account and compare using the same exchange rates as at year end 2020. We will have to lower last year's working capital by about €100,000,000 This means that the working capital at comparable exchange rates is on the same level as last year. Actually, this is quite satisfying as we've grown the business by 13% this year. We have had lower inventory than we would have wished for, for most So the second half of the year, and we are now building it up in preparation for the coming season.
And the increase in inventory from last Quarter that is Q3 2020 is SEK240,000,000. And this means that we are now back to last year's level going into the new season. Regarding operational cash flow, We have had a strong Q4, mainly coming from profits and accounts receivables being paid. Accounts receivable were on a high level at the end of Q3, and this has more than offset the increase in stock that we've made during Q4. Finally, capital expenditure In the quarter was SEK 54,000,000, which is almost on the same level as last year's SEK 58,000,000.
Thank you. Thanks, Ignaz. If we then look at the financial targets on next slide, it is of course very Satisfying to be able to say that 13% growth is, of course, clearly higher than our organic growth target. 20.3% EBIT margin is higher than our ambitious $0.20 EBIT margin goal. And then we have the 2 other targets that we, of course, need to touch upon because it does look weird with a 0.2 times leverage when you have a leverage target of 1.5 times to 2.5 times.
And we also need to a little bit clarify that, yes, it looks superficially like it's 138% of net income. But in reality, I think it's more fair to look at it as a 78% for the 2 years that have passed that we pay out the dividend. And we already last year ahead of proposing the $7.50 share dividend that was then withheld. That was already stated that that was the type of levels you could be expected going forward around that 80% mark. So the obvious question is that net debt to EBITDA leverage target doesn't seem to make a lot of sense and we have the Board has Agree that we will be coming back later this year or early next year at the latest with a update where we will have a capital embark today talking about some of the longer term ambitions from a business perspective as well as also discussing the right financial targets going forward.
So with that, let's look forward. Let's look at what we will focus on, on 2021 as a conclusion before Question time. It is really comically enough to say more of the same. We're not going to change anything in what we've been doing. We will continue to drive the growth oriented strategies that we've been so successful.
The growth focused strategy really hinges on profitable organic sales growth and that is driven by great products. We also have talked a lot about how the whole team in all aspects, our social media team, our online content and platform team, All the efforts we do in all those things to strengthening the TILDA brand and using the motto bring your life that is really showing results. We will continue to utilize our strong back end. We have a fantastic team that has been around for a long time in our finance space, etcetera, that can scale up and drive a good work effort there. And we will continue to do a steady rollout of our direct to consumer sales where we In 2020, added Germany in July, added Netherlands in December and earlier a few days ago, added France.
There will be more countries coming as well. In terms of the product portfolio and the push we do there, we will continue to spend above 5% of sales. Be. We will utilize the fantastic new development center and as I've said, very excited about that expansion of our Tuzu test center with already a world leading facility, but now with some new equipment and some further staffing be able to take on even more efforts there. The team led by Rick Radanderson in our supply chain has done a Tremendous job.
I have to give enormous kudos to all the blue collar workers and all the plant managers and operational a path that has ensured that we could handle those type of tremendous swings in our plans. We have not done that without and just forgot about the future. In the meantime, we've also kept on investing for future growth, planning and taking efforts. That also means that 2021 will be the highest CapEx year ever for the company. 1, because we have some of those costs associated with the finalization of the development center and the expansion of the Toulouse test center, but also because we are continuing to expand both our plants in Poland, both in Pilwa and Kuta.
And we are also expanding our Seymour facility with additional capacity and some new products to come in. We are continuing also what was an ongoing journey already for all brands, but a journey that was clearly sped up a lot by the realities that you weren't going to any international affairs and you weren't being able to meet your customers live. So we did a very big push. And as I said, the online content team and marketing teams did a brilliant job in extreme pressures come up with improved digital sales tools implementation in 2020 ahead of time schedule. We are now doing further enhancements on those.
We are continuing to do big upgrades to our homepage that already has seen some big improvements in 2020 And we are continuing a more increased and focused social media push. That will mean that we will have a very strong cash generation also in 2021. Of course, that means that, that will enable us to do M and A and we have several interesting objects that we're looking at. But you also know what I have been saying since we got stock listed, we're not going to buy a company just We have money. We will buy the right companies where we can perform fantastic things in the years to come, which we've proven with all the small entities we've bought so far.
So that means that we will continue to see an increased dividend stability as well. There are still many uncertainties around us. I think you read articles as much as we do every day about Some limited lockdowns here, some challenges there, some versions of the virus here, some question marks around vaccination rollouts. I also think you read every week about difficulties of getting containers out of China. There's already starting to Log up things on the big ports in Los Angeles and there are not going to be easy times.
It's going to be an extremely busy year where The proven flexibility that our team has shown will be key and we shouldn't get too bullish about this is going to be an easy ride. It won't. It will be a lot of challenges, but it will be challenges with a positive overarching trend and wind in our back. It's always easier When the staycation trend is there, when people are prepared to spend more money on sustainable high quality products than buying average products, That is always a favor for a company like ours. So we look forward to a positive 2021 and open the floor for questions.
To be. We have a question here from Gustav Haggis from SEB. Gustaf, your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Thanks, operator. Good morning, guys. Congrats on quite a stellar and to a good year. A few questions, if I may start with sort of your end note there, Magnus, on freight costs, Perhaps a little bit FX raw mats also heading upwards versus last year. You Typically, don't wiggle your price strategy too much based on external factors.
So I would assume your baseline is to raise prices by 1% or so this year. In a scenario where perhaps you grow slightly below your targets, your current targets this year given tough comps and a bit, I guess a little bit more growth in RB, which carries with the higher margins, I think. What do you recommend such Scenario your chances are of maintaining current EBIT margins around these levels.
I'm confident that we will stay above the 20% target we've set.
Okay. That's very direct. And On the I'm finding a little bit interested, you mentioned you had the direct to consumer sales, which has grown, I guess, globally in many companies. I would assume your best prospects of growing that materially would be in the Americas rather than Europe. So it'd be really interesting if you could share a little bit of numbers or Put some color on where you've come the furthest in this type of sales.
And if you see a longer term perspective, perhaps be a little bit positive margins if you pull a little bit more sales from your own sales rather than through retailers.
No. You're absolutely right. As all global brands, they have a higher share of sales direct consumer in the U. S. Due to the fact of the MSRP policy, the possibility for strong brands to Set the prices also for their customers.
So therefore, you are more price competitive as well as service competitive when you're selling your products on your own direct to consumer in the U. S. So you're right, U. S. Is the highest share.
We're close to double digits. And I think we will very soon pass double digit share of our sales in our own direct to consumer in the U. S. We have then been doing it for now 1.5 years, close to 2 years soon in the Nordics, and we're starting to see Sweden and Denmark growing. Realistically, you will see still low single digits in Europe for some years to come, but we are now, as I said, adding the biggest market, Germany, which is very competitive.
So it's not the one where I think you will see the biggest share of ourselves. But we've also added Holland, France and soon U. K. And there are a few more markets coming late in the year. So low single digits in Europe still, but Of course, as you were saying, growing faster than anything else.
And if you look at margin, you have to do the very delicate thing of not Confusing gross margin to what it means to the profit level because it was easy to make money being an onliner, you would make see a lot of online retails being significantly more profitable. So gross margin pickup is, of course, very good, And also what why we're choosing the countries we're choosing and which order we're choosing them is to make sure that it also falls down on the bottom line. So there will be a margin enhancement also on the EBIT line as this share grows.
Great. And then I'm a bit interested in your recent acquisitions in Denver, Outdoor and CUI, it seems like you've taken some small strides to penetrate the U. S. Market for sort of wildlife enthusiasts, Fishing, rafting, hunting, that sort of thing. So first thing, I'm interested, do you find this sort of subcategory to be a good fit for Chile?
Do you feel that current combination of those two companies and with the roof racks and boxes you already have there is a good And broad enough portfolio to be sort of to capture that full opportunity and or would you benefit from a broader assortment going forward, do you think?
I think you're absolutely right. It's obvious that we are adding some of the products. We've been very clear. I've said that to you, Gustav, and many others that we're not doing something to just have one odd product, but we're not at the same time going to throw everything at something. It needs to be the right thing.
So the fact that we have entered this category, of course, means that we're looking more and more seriously and are hoping to broaden our assortments over time, but only if you can make money on it. We're not going to bring product for the sake of bringing product. We also have to be Realistic, that channel is often more challenging than product. So you need to make sure that if you look at it, you have the hook and bullet, as the Americans call it. The bullet part isn't for us.
There is more around the hook parts of the fishing and channel outdoors, which is for us. And in that work, it is about finding the right things where it's big enough to make sense and where the The incumbents haven't destroyed the margins so that you can play well there. So we will look at broadening there, but we're not going to rush after it.
Okay. Might I have one last question. I think it's finally interesting that you mentioned that you're expanding your Testing capacity in Sweden also for the new categories, which I assume you will talk a little bit more about on that capital markets that you mentioned today. But Am I wrong in thinking that since you're going to test them in Sweden, it might be products that to a lesser extent than, say, your baby so many baby strollers are Sort of sourced Croatia, but rather high extent produced, self produced in Poland or Sweden. Is that a fair assumption given those comments?
I wouldn't have any honestly, it wouldn't have
any logic due to that.
The reason for having one huge development center is that we have fantastic staff there. We have Brilliant testing engineers. We have the development center next door. If you have the development center next door, you get brilliant feedback from the test center. So no matter where we produce something, Where we source it from or if we produce ourselves all the test facilities focused to that 1 world class facility.
So that's 3.
Okay. Thank you, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Thank
you.
Our next question comes from Daniel Schmidt from Danske Bank. Daniel, your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning, guys. A couple of questions from me as well. And I guess starting off with a difficult one, so that the $1,000,000 question And so I guess how demand will be impacted as the world normalizes, which it hopefully does during 2021. Could you shed some light on what you think regarding that?
Or maybe you could say something if you could Give some sort of guesstimate what the COVID impact was last year with the 13% growth that you delivered.
Yes. You know me, Daniel, I will only say I feel confident that we will beat our organic sales target of minimum 5% also in 2021.
I'm a bit referring to because you also I think you also you actually mentioned So with Q3, most of this would have happened anyway, but you did see quite excessive demand when it comes to child bike Seats and I think maybe you also mentioned bike bags. Are you willing to repeat that? Or you want to extend that comment or widen it in terms of products or add anything to that?
Now, but you're right that there will be certain products that, of course, have very strong comps. But you also need to look at things that Trends don't change overnight. And I think we also have to be realistic that our products aren't necessarily an automatic If you take, for example, the bike for near bag, so the
bike bag that allows you
to throw your computer in and some few stuff when you bike back and forth to work. Let's be honest, There isn't that many people that did bike back and forth to work in 2020. Many bought a bike, but they didn't go back and forth to work with it because they still stayed at home with their jogging pants on and work from home. I think therefore that if we look at our type of product category, we did see a lot of boost, But it isn't like that has ended. There will be a lot of people actually using that bike in 2021 for bike commuting and therefore get interested in having some of our bike related product also in 2021.
So we didn't see the same huge effect if you look at it from a business point of view that maybe the pure bike manufacturers need. So I think from a business overall growth, I feel very confident with above 5%. When you look at your biggest challenge, Daniel and mine, in trying to talk to you guys every time is, Let's not make some mistake about seasonality shifts. We must lie clearly ahead after the first half because we will not be able to meet up to sales in second half. There is no doubt.
So we need to be well ahead of the 5% target when we summarize Q2 and the 1st 6 months. Otherwise, there will be no chance to meet that target when we summarize the full year.
Absolutely. But that's clear. Good. And then another difficult question maybe and sort of just to have a discussion And rounded and the margin target is, of course, reached earlier than expected. And you're not going to come back on that until maybe later this year.
But could you sort of what's your reasoning in terms of optimal value creation? Where do you think sort of the optimal value creation is in this company. And how should we view that?
I believe that it's always good to go back to what you've said and only if there's some dramatic Changes that actually has changed your opinion should you do it. Nothing has changed my opinion. I mentioned a few times that the EBIT percentage target was not per se the importance. It was a more a confirmation to you and investors that we were extremely confident in our fact that when top line growth happened, we would say an economies of scale. The most important is top line growth and pure true EBIT monetary growth.
It's not about percentage. So we are not going to be doing the mistake of under spending just to try to squeeze the percentage a 10th on a percent up. It's going to be all about driving true top line growth and true bottom line growth. That's where the value creation comes.
Good. Very clear. Thank you.
And maybe a final one as well. Selling Expenses and admin expenses were, of course, coming down during the year, especially in the second half and in On the back of travel restrictions, I assume, and you guys doing more launches, Italy and meeting your customers digitally. What's sort of What's the marching order for the company looking into 2021 when it comes to these lines?
I think my simple advice, do not invest in a travel related or a fair and event related company. We will We're traveling much less also in 2021 because there are still many restrictions ground. We will be utilizing even better tools on already very successful So digital sales event that we manage ourselves. We're lucky enough to be a strong brand. So I think the big challenge will be for smaller newcomers to take that share that they might have been getting in the past at some fairs while us as a leading brand in the category do get attention for retail to our specifically, purposely invited digital events.
So we will clearly, yes, travel more. That's my hope, definitely, but not nearly to the levels of 2019 and we will not close to 2019 in terms of what we spend on fairs and events, but we will spend more money on digital. So there will be some things spending more and some less overall a rather maintained cost level.
That's all
for me. Super. Thank you.
Thank you.
We now have a question from Karri Winter from SEB. Karri, your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. Karri in the Handelsbanken. I have a few questions. I think firstly, can you Remind us of how much of your sport and cargo carrier sales is directly bike related, I. E, bike carriers And so forth.
And then if you can share a similar figure also for the kids category, that would be very helpful to get started with.
So I can't remind you because we never disclosed it, but what we have disclosed as a total is that roughly half of the business almost this year is something that is related to bike. And we've also disclosed the fact that strollers used to be, not anymore because past child bikes. It's now, but it used to be our smallest category. It's the fastest growing. But so you can realize that Bike trailers is big.
So if you look at it, we clearly have a bike related exposure in active kids still.
All right. Then if we look at bicycle sales and what kind of indications we get from the Bike manufacturers and retailers, I think there are what we know is that there are still very long lead times when it comes to bicycles and bike components. But what do we actually know about the end user demand? Because maybe A lot of demand has shifted online. So what are the canyons of the world telling you about The actual end user demand at the moment for bicycles and what kind of sort of how can we then extrapolate that to demand for your product?
I would like to add some actual not the actual numbers, but some sort of tangible anecdotes at least for this market.
I think if we split up the anecdotes to help you, don't get too confused about Canyon being big. They're not they're still the old traditional brands that completely dominate bike sales, although Canyon is doing well as well. So it isn't the fact of also all the track specialized, Cannondales also sell directly online much more than a Canyon does total numbers. But if you look at all those big players, all the giants, etcetera, I think the easiest one is always look to Shimano because they produce to everyone of them and they're stock listed. Shimada's expectations are very positive for 2021 because there was, as we all know, a lack of bikes because the supply chain couldn't cope.
They're still struggling to cope by the way. I think you need to be careful in doing a direct relationship with Tesla sales ask if somebody day 1 when they happen to buy a bike automatically always buys a Tesla product. They don't. I wish it was that nice because then we would sell much, much more and I would be running a much, much bigger company. Some of those users, When depending on the way they will use that bike and that approach of how they will use it Might much later on, years after they bought a bike or maybe and sometimes as they bought a bike, think about, I'm going to start biking with my kids as well.
I need a bike trailer. It could be someone who already had a bike and later on got a kid. So it wasn't the bike, it was the kid that triggered them to buy the bike trailer. And therefore, you shouldn't confuse that direct relationship with our performance. Our general performance is much more associated with the fact that When major cities like Paris, London, every other major city have taken the opportunity to, in 5 months, do as many investments in infrastructure as they were planning to do for the next 5 years.
That has meant that they've created an ability for people to bike, commute and travel by bike in a completely different way than it only looked some time ago. That over time will help us because the more people use their bikes and bring bikes with them and get passionate about biking. Over time, they will migrate to buying also to LaCroix. So there isn't this we're not a sub supplier to the bike industry. We're not making bikes.
We're not a in bikes. We're not a bike retailer. So you can't see that very quick direct link that I fear that you might be looking at.
All right. Fair enough. And then a short term focused question. The Q1, we have now probably Germany extending lockdowns for Until the end of February, I believe. And then we as you mentioned, there are some lot of ski resorts that are closed.
So How much is sort of winter sports alpine related of your Q1 sales? And how concerned Should we be about this German lockdowns?
I think you shouldn't be concerned because you also have to remember that the end of quarter 1 was Quite dramatically hit in 2020 by a similar situation with very extreme, very sudden lockdowns. So from a if you're talking from a pure comp, we're logic, January, February were very strong last year, March was not. And we will therefore have to see what it means in terms of the performance. And you also have to say that if you look at it once again, People might not go directly to go to the ski resort to do downhill skiing, but if you look in many markets, they will go somewhere depending on the level of docked down maybe in March and do something in that period. So Combining that with what we believe and expect to see a strong earlier, more normal spring start, which we often say is From mid March, normally the spring starts with bike related products.
It didn't in 2020, but we expected to do that in 2021. I feel pretty confident also about Q1 performance. As I said to Daniel, we definitely need to be ahead on the first half because we will have extremely tough comps in the second half.
All right, fair enough. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Matt Lisle from Kepler Cheuvreux. Matt, your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi. Thank you for taking my questions. First, congratulations, of course, very solid finish there. But My first question regarding the active kids there.
I mean growth is picking up and You have increased the offering there. My question is if you still lack something there to boost sales even more.
We will be bringing new back to the kids products out later in the year and next year definitely. We will continue to broaden. We haven't stepped in this likely. We intend to become a big player, as we mentioned many times. And as we mentioned many times, that takes years because we're shooting it organically and we don't want to rush it with the wrong product?
We want to come with great products. So you're absolutely right. We will continue to broaden our assortment in the coming years in Active Kits.
Is it more related to your own offering? Or is it also that you have well, lack the retail exposure that you Mike, go ahead.
I think in general, as always, a channel is more difficult as I said. So We are continuously growing. We're adding retailers. We're adding space within the retailers, and that is as important as adding product for our growth. We are becoming a name and that is at different levels in different markets depending on success with different retailers, but Definitely, we're becoming a player.
And as we become an even bigger player, I'm sure that will help our sales.
Great.
Well, and this Port and Outdoor segment then, Two things I'd like to ask there. First, I mean, we have these electrification of all types of vehicles, including bicycles and Of course. And so do you see that these trends are sort of making different need of products from your side that you need to sort of adapt your bike carriers for an electric vehicle? Or is it the same?
Well, there's definitely we constantly that's one of the good things of working with all the major car manufacturers of the world for their future generation because We know how the next coming years cars will be looking, what demands there will be on them because we're working so close with all the leading brands of the world. And that means, of course, as always, even in the past days when it wasn't just between is it diesel, petrol or electric, always been a development in the car industry, and there is an ongoing development. And we're bringing some new products out this year that are more associated with the logic around how an electrical car might how an electric car might want to load and bring things. But there will be more of those coming because the trend is obvious. But we feel very confident that there is no other brand that have the insights, the competence and the monetary weight behind them in product development for meeting those new demands.
Okay, great. And this is more maybe M and A related, but I guess the Sports and Outdoor could be In the marine segment as well, could that be something I mean, you don't have I mean, maybe packs and bags and some other features All sort of marine related, but do you see an opportunity there to grow the business?
Yes. You need to look at it from the size of what we are good at. There is always you need to make sure that whatever you acquire, you have an insight and standing with otherwise, how could you claim that you will make it better than it's otherwise more of an arbitrage type of acquisition? And If you look at the marine part, there isn't that many logical things that would match our skill set competence. So I don't see for us marine being a promising big sector due to that.
All right. Let me check that box then. And well, you talked about the selling expenses But it seems that you make things more efficient now, and we shouldn't expect selling expenses to return to the previous levels In 2020, are you and the team invested in the utilization of the only
There is, of course, certain selling expenses that are directly associated with growth. So you have some in terms of pure monetary spend, as we grow, you will see some costs. But you're right, I don't expect us to See a negative shift on selling expenses as a share of sales. I don't expect that.
And 2 small final ones. First, the tax related things there. You had You're seeing out the tax assets in the tax bags area this quarter. What is the motor count?
No. Jonas here. I don't see any more of that coming. We've taken a pretty prudent view of We had a deferred tax assets in our Pax Packs business, but we have written down now looking into what we believe coming in the next years.
And finally, just about CapEx. I heard the CapEx will pick up somewhat, but It will pick up somewhat, but I didn't hear a number there. Could you give some indication?
We didn't give an exact indication, so you're correct not to But we've said over time, if you look at several years, we will run the 2.5% mark. And if we say it's higher this year, you realize we're going to be More above 3 as well this year specifically, but averaging it out, that is because we don't take CapEx decisions based on trying to make our numbers look We take them when we need it from a business point of view. So it becomes a bit bigger this year as we're anticipating actually one of the plant expansions with the strong volumes we've seen.
Okay, great. Thanks a lot.
Thank you.
We have another question here from Gustaf Haggis from SEB. Gustaf, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Thanks for taking my very short follow-up. I just realized your U. S. RV sales went from 1% to 3% of sales. So 3x growth year over year or somewhere around that.
Is that a prudent investment Magnus, going forward too, that you should grow this business 200%
I think yes, not as a percentage growth because now we took a this year. As we told you guys a few times, we don't want to do business in categories where for some reason all the leading brands aren't making any money because then it would be presumptuous to believe we can make a lot of money. And it's here on the niche products that we've now entered. And we're now starting to get some traction on those niche products. They will continue to grow nicely, not necessarily with the same percentage, but I'm sure that there will be strong growth, strong double digit growth in the coming years as well.
All right. Thank you.
We have no further questions from participants on the line. So then I
want to thank you all for listening in. As I've said, very proud of And the fact that we once again proved that we don't only set targets, we actually achieve targets, I'm very happy with and proud of what the team has been able to do in a difficult year in showing extreme flexibility and capability in handling ramping up and ramping down. And I'm looking forward to a very exciting 2021 and look forward to talking to you after the Q1. Thanks.