Good afternoon. I'd like to welcome you to the conference of CCC to sum up the results in the second quarter of 2025. This time, we're meeting remotely. It's in the middle of the vacation season. We're not joined today by the CEO, and that's why we selected this form of communication with you. Today, we'll talk about the results of Q2 2025. At the same time, I'd like to emphasize what we're concentrating on is not the results of a given quarter or the subsequent quarter, but we want to achieve the five-year plan, which we agreed to follow with you at the beginning of this year. This plan assumes that over the five-year period, that is, by 2030, the revenue will be at least PLN 25 billion. We'll have an EBITDA result of at least 20%.
As we look at our expansion, the work on our products and the additional licenses, the Modivo Club, which was successfully launched, and we're starting to introduce it in subsequent venues, and we'll have it in all of our markets next year. These are things that we're doing with systematic cost discipline. That means within five years, we should have a 5 billion EBITDA result. This is the direction that we have defined. This is what we are trying to do, aspiring to do, on an unwavering basis as a company. Now let's look at the results of Q2, and w e'll begin by summing up the key factors which contributed to these results. First, we had the development of commercial space above the ambitious plan. Number two, sales like-for-like in the group in a very difficult business environment.
Having in mind the results from last year, we had a record-breaking second quarter. We've had the highest EBITDA result in the group in a given quarter. We have the LTM EBITDA profitability of 17%, which is an increase of 5% year on year. Another thing that's become part of the DNA of the group is cost discipline. That means that for the eighth quarter in a row, we've been able to reduce our cost ratio. The most recent quarter, in terms of weather, was one of the least favorable periods. We had a very cold May, w e had a rainy July, and only June enabled us to really sell the summer wears. As I said, we have a very demanding base effect from last year, so we had a high level of like-for-like sales figures in the previous year, which were double-digit.
If we look at the most recent quarter, we believe that the results were satisfactory in the last quarter, having in mind what happened across the industry and also looking at the five-year plan. We have expansion, the utilization of our own brands, our own production, improving quality, and all of this is being done while, of course, pursuing a very rigorous cost discipline approach. Now let's go on to look at the sales growth in the group. In PLN, we had an increase of 11%, but if we add local currencies, it was a little higher, and it was 12% in terms of the pace of sales growth. It was 4% like-for-like sales in local currencies. This was all done even though the weather was not fostering or was not conducive. We had the strength and resistance of our business model and a good product offering.
This all contributed to that, and so t he fact that we had a flat e-commerce was the reason why we had differences in terms of... We were focusing not so much on the volume of sales in e-commerce, but back to the sales through our commercial space. In Q2, the group was able to deliver the record-breaking EBITDA result, which was PLN 481 million. The second quarter was a quarter in which we were able to improve our profitability. It was up by 1 percentage point. Over the last 12 months, it's up by some 5 percentage points. We can say that for the last two years, we have been gradually moving towards our five-year target of a 20% EBITDA ratio at the end of this five-year period. We're moving closer in every period.
Having in mind the regular growth in sales, 11% in PLN of growth, we have high margins of nearly 50%, which is a very high level having in mind the industry. We're reducing cost ratio clearly below the 40% watermark. This is a phenomenon that is long-term. Do we see room for improvement? Of course. We have operating leverage. Then, of course, having lower fixed expenses and then the licensing brands across all of our brands and t his will improve our gross profit on sales. Maybe a few more words about the last subject in terms of cost discipline. If we look at the financial results, sales and margin are the most important, but you also need to have cost discipline. This is something that we can influence. This is our shield in terms of unfavorable market conditions.
During the most recent quarter, this was a quarter in which the eighth quarter in a row in which we've improved our cost ratio. In the red circle, we see how much we've been able to reduce cost year on year. We're down below 40%, t his was our goal. We want to go even lower with cost discipline because cost discipline is part of the group's DNA. Let's take a look at what's happened in the individual brands. Let's begin with CCC, which is the biggest brand. It's responsible for 44% of the group's business, so w e have a record high level of profitability, even though we've had a very difficult second quarter in terms of the overall business environment, which is driven primarily by the weather. For the last two years, we've been able to deliver EBITDA above 20%.
This shows that our model is highly resistant and durable over time. This is something that's unheard of in the footwear industry. What's more, we're on our way to achieving a 50% share of high-margin licensed brands. In 2030, we want to move from the 832 that we have today while at the same time making sure that we have basically...so we had to have a slightly higher result in terms of discounts. This is something that you can see in terms of the margin. The rate of growth is much slower than the rate of growth of revenue. That means that we have a high level of profitability at a very fast pace of growth in the last 12 months. Level of profitability, and so t he pace of growth is very fast. We've increased the amount of space by some 40%, w e have 180 stores, w e have a large number of new stores at the end of the quarter. Some of these stores were only operating and generating sales only... something like swimsuits. We're not slowing down in terms of the half price development. We want to add another 16 new stores, of course. The pace of expansion will affect our costs because we have to incur certain costs upfront. We're not able to post these costs later. We have to post them on a timely basis. We're training people, staff. We're buying goods because the goods are being purchased and not just to be sold immediately. We're utilizing... should give us an additional percentage point of profitability in the HalfPrice concept. Having such a dynamic pace of growth means that we're generating recognition and new locations, but we're going to be able to utilize this operating leverage more and more.
We're basically refreshing our wares, our inventories. We're able then to... We've been able to grow things by 5% and i f we look per... Not all across the... In terms of the full price, we didn't do well everywhere. We're going to be able to utilize that opportunity in HalfPrice in order to give the best offer for the upcoming season. The Modivo Group is another brand which is making a positive contribution to improving the profitability. This was also the case in Q2. We've been able to improve EBITDA by 7 percentage points year on year. It's the sixth quarter in which we've been able to improve basically the EBITDA year on year. Our goal is for this to be the most profitable e-commerce in Europe, t hat's our goal. Along this path, we've made a major step on the cost side for eight quarters in a row.
We've been able to reduce the cost of Modivo on a year-on-year basis. In Q2, we reduced costs by 10% while revenue was growing by 2%. That means we've been able to improve the cost ratio by some 5 percentage points. If we look at the 12-month period, it's PLN 1,240,000,000, PLN 1.4 billion compared to PLN 1.6 billion where we had in the previous year. We were able to reduce costs by some PLN 300,000,000. We can say that we, in this way, have made savings in order to cover one quarter free of charge. I mean, of course, this is suggesting to some extent. Once again, we can say that the improvement of profitability was a result of improving the gross margin by 2.5 percentage points year on year. This means this is coming from having a higher percentage of licensed brands.
In the first half of the year, it's 13%. It's an increase of 4 percentage points year on year. This effect will continue to grow as we have a better segmentation of licensed brands. Having a higher margin and a lower cost ratio by 5 percentage points year on year has improved the EBITDA of Modivo Group by some 7 percentage points. Another important topic, our inventory. The inventories of the group have grown by some 12% and t his is above all because we have the new collections for 2025 being delivered. 46% of our orders are from two quarters already in the warehouse. Last year, we only had 30%. We've improved that. If we think about the inventories or the products that have already been delivered in July, these products will be on the way for two months.
97% of our collection for the new season are in our balance sheets. Last year, it was only 78%. That means we have nearly 20% more products available for sale. That means for the first time in the history of the company, we have all of the collection on a timely basis and will be able to begin the next season. In the past, we had some delays, which made a negative impact on the sales across the full period in terms of the full margin, the first margin. Optimizing the delivery dates was possible thanks to the refinancing we have, factoring, as well as guarantees and reducing the financial expenses as a result. We have timely deliveries, and that means we have at a very low cost or a zero cost. This is something that's totally uncomfortable to a situation in which we lose a margin.
It's not hard to have a situation because there are very difficult situations on the major transport routes across the world. Having in mind the mega dynamic expansion and ensuring that we have the right amount of inventories per square meter of selling space, as we normalize the level of purchasing and making sure that we've reduced the overall size by some 30% and that we're expanding very clearly in the latter half of the year. If we calculate the inventory per square meter, it's down by some 16% across the board. This is inventory per square meter, so i f we look at CCC, we see a little bit of increase year on year, but this is because of the centralization process of licensing brands under CCC for our joint warehouse for all of the brands in the group.
We can say 30%, 32% of the inventories are high-margin licensed products and margins. We can see that we're working on improving the quality of our stock, and so we've been able to reduce the cost by half. We've been able to refresh the stock, and in the upcoming quarters, this should benefit us greatly. If you look at what's going to happen in the upcoming quarters, we're going to be able to move forward more quickly because we're not going to slow down on the expansion. We're going to, in the SS26, we're going to be able to do that and we're going to have a reduction of some nearly 30%, t hat's our plans for spring-summer 2026. As we said to you at one of our previous conferences, the major motor or driver of our five-year plan is to expand basically our offering.
We want to talk about our opening plan for 2026. This year, we'll be able to exceed the plan because we have some 350,000 square meters, HalfPrice is roughly 60% of that. Next year, the expansion plan has been secured in terms of 280,000 square meters in good locations and on good terms and conditions. The record-breaking expansion that's planned for this year, you don't see it yet in our results because these openings are spread across the year unevenly. Only 30% of the new openings are in the first half of the year, and the remaining 70% will be in the latter half of the year, and 40% of that will be in the fourth quarter because we're phasing that in and having in mind the low base from last year.
That means we should have a much faster expansion pace in the latter half of the year compared to the first half of the year. We should have 1.2 million square meters of achieving our ambitious targets for 2030. How do we want to achieve these targets? We want to increase basically the commercial space by 250,000 square meters per year. We want to have more licensed brands in all of our brands. Of course, this applies to the market segment served by each one of these brands. We want to have restrictive control of the head office costs. We've done that very strongly in the past quarter, and we'll continue doing that in upcoming quarters and at the end. Let's say the essence of our results. We're above our ambitious plan in terms of expanding commercial space. We're not slowing down.
The group's like-for-like sales rate is some 4% if we compare it to the previous year. As I mentioned, the pace of growth should be even higher in upcoming quarters, having in mind the relatively low base that we had in last year. Cost discipline, so our cost ratio is falling for the eighth quarter in a row. That means we're clearly below the 40% watermark, and we want to continue reducing costs. The EBITDA of the group, as a result, is growing by leaps and bounds, some by 5%. Ultimately, we want to achieve 20%. We had the highest EBITDA result in a given quarter and a single quarter in the history of the company. Thank you very much for your attention, t his is it in terms of the Q&A, t his is it in terms of the presentation. Now we'll begin the Q&A session in just a second.
[audio distortion]. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. We will kick off the Q&A session. We would like to thank you for all of the questions that you've posed during the course of the presentation. We've selected some of the most frequently appearing questions. Let's go into question number one. Would you uphold the assumption target for this year, having in mind what you have achieved in the first half there? Do we uphold the targets? There is no reason whatsoever for us to change those targets. As we said during the presentation, in the latter half of the year, we will have a major impulse linked to the openings of new stores. We will have an additional 240,000 square meters of commercial space, and so we'll have a major portion of the openings in the latter half of the year achieved.
We have more and more licenses in our offering, and that translates into a high margin. We are well prepared in terms of products. We have all of the stock in our warehouses. There will be no time lags in terms of having stores available for the new season. Today, we are starting the back-to-school season, so we are ahead of the competition. All of this taken together means that we can look with optimism at the latter half of the year. As I said, we do not see any reason whatsoever to alter the targets and the goals for this year. Question number two, the high pace of store openings, does this have a negative impact on your profitability as a business? Let me put it this way.
In the first half of the year and in Q2, we had a high pace of openings, and the profitability of the group continued to improve. This is hard evidence that new openings do not negatively affect our profitability. Of course, we are doing the openings in order to improve profitability, so w e are opening stores in CCC and HalfPrice. As I said, we are not opening just by force. It is not so much that we want to maximize the number of square meters. We want to have good locations on good terms and conditions. New openings do not lead to higher fixed expenses or costs. We keep costs under control. New openings mean that we have more operating leverage. We do not see any threat to our profitability. Quite to the contrary, it should improve our profitability.
Are you worried by the decline in profitability in half price? No, not at all. We are not worried at all. We look at HalfPrice in the strategic period and not over the period of a single quarter. Individual quarters are basically a section of the road along to achieving our ultimate goal, which is to have a highly profitable HalfPrice concept. We know why this happened in HalfPrice in this quarter, and we have tried to explain that in great detail with a lot of granularity today. As we were working on the stock, we had a stock that was much lower per square meter. We invested in the visibility of this brand in new markets. We're preparing ahead of the game for new openings. In July and June, we had some costs that were linked to openings in the subsequent period, so all of this has an impact on the cost base.
At the end of the day, HalfPrice is one of our key concepts in terms of the 12-month period. The most profitable off-price in the world, HalfPrice, has an EBITDA of 18%. No competitor in the industry has such a high level of profitability. We're looking at this over the strategic period, and we're doing everything we can to make sure that this would be as efficient and as effective as possible. Does the management board of the group feel comfortable with the current level of stock at the end of the quarter? What do we feel comfortable? Clearly suitable to where we are. We would draw your attention to the fact that the rate of growth of stock is, of course, slower than what's happening with the commercial space.
We should have 40% at the end of the year, but the stock we're talking about today, this is an increase of 12% per square meter. This is clearly falling. We've accelerated the deliveries of collections year on year, and this is one of the reasons why we have an increase of 12%. Of course, this will have an impact on sales and at full margin. Historically, in previous quarters, we were making some initial investments in licensing products. This period has come to an end, and we could normalize the level of purchasing. For spring and summer of 2026 and autumn and winter of 2026, we're able to reduce those purchases by 30%. Basically, by having new meters opened, we'll be able to absorb that stock.
Next question. What was the impact of your wholesale activity on the overall results of the group? If we talk about Q2 results, we can say this is a relatively small percentage of the results or of the revenue of the group, a couple of percentage points. We haven't given a larger commentary because of that reason. That's also true of ShopX or Woodbox. This is something that will be more visible in the latter half of the year as we pick up goods in the autumn, t his will be Q3. These are things that are going to be happening at the beginning of Q3. At the next conference, we'll probably say more about that subject. As the significance or materiality of this business grows, which we assume will happen, then, ofcourse we will propose you more granularity in terms of our results, and we'll share those results with you in the individual channels of sales.
Can you say something today about the beginning of Q3? Well wi th this caveat that we're only talking about seven days, it's only the 8th of August. I'm not sure what we can say after seven days. We started off pretty well. We can say that we finally have summer. It's better for summer to have showed up later than not at all. We have sales increases in the double digits. We're well prepared in terms of products, in terms of the new season. We have the back-to-school season getting started now. We have the full inventory stock in our warehouses, and we have products on display in our stores. We have purchased new collections at very good conditions, so we have high margins. We have a higher percentage of licensed brands, and that means this translates into better margins, higher margins, and better rotations. We feel very comfortable as we kick off Q3 and the autumn and winter season.
What else can we say? We have secured or hedged the dollar at very good conditions. We have much smaller or lower costs of transportation. This should also help us improve our margins. We could list all of these conditions and factors that will improve our results in Q3. That's why we're able to look at that with a lot of optimism. I think we can wrap up today's Q&A session with this optimism because we've basically exhausted all of the topics that were put forward in your questions. We'd like to thank you for your participation in the CCC's Earnings Conference for Q2 2025, and we would invite you to come to our next conference at the beginning of November. Thank you very much. Okay, thank you very much. Bye-bye.