We're gonna get started. We are very, very grateful to have Celsius Holdings with us at the conference this year. We have the company's CEO, John Fieldly, and EVP, Toby David. We're gonna just jump right in. There are a bunch of questions prepared. I'm excited to have a chance to sit down with you both and kinda pick your brains a bit about the company and, and the category at large. Maybe to start, it'd be helpful if you could offer a bit of an overview of the Celsius brand, and what you think are the key differentiators of the brand equity versus traditional energy.
Yeah. No, thanks for having us. We're excited to be here. You know, it's fascinating where the Celsius portfolio and brand is today. When you look at it, when you look at some of the category, that part of the category we're going after, and some of really most importantly, the consumer trends. You know, three of the biggest trends in consumer, all consumer beverages and products, when you look at it, and what we're capitalizing on, is Celsius is capitalizing on the better for you trend, right? Everyone wants better for you, but they don't wanna sacrifice flavor and taste. So we take pride in our flavors and taste. We have over seven essential vitamins, no aspartame, no high fructose corn syrup, and our flavor profiles are amazing. So that's the one mega trend that's out there as well.
The second mega trend is we want more function in the food and beverages. We want more out of our water. We want more out of our energy drink, and we deliver on that. We have over six clinical studies on our product. It is truly a thermogenic that helps you burn calories and body fat. It really helps you achieve your health and wellness goals. And, the third mega trend that's out there is fitness. Fitness is a lifestyle. It's hip, cool, sexy, premium. The brand was born in fitness, Vitamin Shoppe, GNC. You go to Gold's Gym, 24 Hour Fitness, and that is our DNA today.
If you look at what has happened in the apparel category with athleisure wear, Lululemon, Gymshark, and many others, that whole category is formed, and it's forming right now in the energy category, with Celsius being a leader on the mainstream opportunity that we see in the category. The other opportunity, because of we're hitting on those three of those fastest growing trends in food and beverage, we are more than energy. We're seeing a lot of consumers come in for the first time, seeing Celsius, as we're much more inviteable. You know, we don't have an aggressive tone, great flavor profiles like I talked about. I'm drinking a Green Apple Cherry right now. You have your Oasis Vibe, which is a prickly pear. We launched that at Coachella. It was really cool.
Then Toby has a brand new Cosmic Vibe we launched at Circle K. So, it's out of this world, great flavor profile, Sparkling Fruit Punch. So those are some of the at the high level there that we're capitalizing on. And wanna add anything else, Toby?
Yeah, I would just add, you know, what differentiates us as well, not only the health and wellness benefits, but just the usage occasion. You know, we, we obviously fit the traditional energy when someone's just looking for that pick me up. We're also seeing people, you know, trade out their coffee in the morning and afternoon. One of the big differentiators is you actually see people consuming Celsius with their meals, lunch in particular. That's not something you traditionally see with the two big players, the Monsters, the Red Bulls. You just know it's more of an appetite suppressor that don't really pair with food. Whereas, you know, we have some very inviting flavors, a Lemon Lime, you know, some other fruit forward, Orange flavors that pair well with meals, and almost acts as a functional soda for these folks.
So at lunch, they're getting their soda, their healthier soda. They're also getting that pick me up energy for the remainder of the day. So that's an area... You know, food service is a big component of our growth right now. About 11% of our sales through Pepsi have been through the food service division. We just rolled out to Jersey Mike's nationally, which is over 2,000 locations.
Really gonna be an excellent opportunity for to prove out our thesis, that this is a brand that actually isn't just energy pr-- It kind of... The, the lines are blurring a little bit between CSDs and energy, when you're seeing the price increases that some of the, the CSDs have taken. The delta in price now between a 16-ounce soda, it's, you know, it's $0.50-$0.60. A lot of consumers are maybe looking to, you know, purchase up $0.50. They'd be able to get some functionality and an energy drink that can also act as maybe a CSD for them.
I think what we see is, like with Celsius, the usage occasion expanding. So we see it as Energy 2.0, or we're beyond energy. You know, I don't think we really thought about that before the Pepsi partnership. We've spoken to a lot of investors while we're here. And Celsius sold their, or Pepsi sold their first case to Celsius in October 1st last year. So really on that one year anniversary date with them. And I think when we look back, the biggest opportunity we saw with Celsius is closing the gap within convenience and gas, where we're sitting at a 60% ACV, and that was really the last frontier on opportunities that we saw. We didn't even know about this really food service opportunity.
We knew people were having it in the office with lunch and different areas, but the massive opportunity we have with Pepsi now, with this food service opportunity, could be really big and incremental to the overall revenue growth, as well as a lot of opportunity in convenience for us.
If we're thinking about Energy 2.0, and with meals and so on, I mean, is there a scope for, might sound crazy, but like a lower caffeine version? You know, is there... I don't know, if this brand has shoulders that are broader than traditional energy.
Yeah, I think so. I mean, we have a cross-functional team that meets. We have a variety. We have a three to five-year strategy on the portfolio. You know, timing and sequencing is really important with the teams. We've doubled the size of the organization in the last 12 months. We have a lot of new team members. There's a lot of coaching that's required, a lot of mentoring to get them back, get everyone on the Celsius train. Everyone's excited. We're getting some great talent from some of the top companies in the world joining our team, so we're really excited about that. But when you look at, you know, within the portfolio, I think we can play there. We can, you know, actually could-
... potentially Celsius, we want to build Celsius as a global iconic brand. It could be just like the Gatorade portfolio, you know, is able to go in a variety of adjacent categories. Today we're really focused on the energy. We're seeing the usage occasionally expands, but, you know, it could be functional seltzers, it could be hydration products offering, it could be also additional functionality for health and wellness within our overall portfolio that we could potentially leverage down the road.
Okay, great. Sort of related, but a little bit different way of coming at it. Do you see a different value proposition and a lifetime value of a Celsius consumer versus what's been the case in the category, the traditional category, legacy category?
Well, I think what you've seen for Celsius over the years is, you know, we grew up in this fitness environment, so we were aging up within the category. When we were still kind of a dietary product until we repositioned it in 2017 into more of a better for you, you know, better for you essential energy type of product that also had these functional characteristics with it. So I think there are some opportunities. I think there are some opportunities there for sure. But I think when you look at the lifetime value of a consumer, so, you know, when you look at Celsius, you know, with that fitness component, we have a Live Fit mantra. So that Celsius Live Fit, it's that essential energy for life. It's for inside, outside the gym.
So I do think we have a higher value on our consumer. I think, you know, you can have a Celsius before your workout in the morning, and then you're having it with lunch or an afternoon pickup. So, you know, you're getting multiple usage occasions. We also see the latest Mintel data showed that, you know, what was it? 44% of our new rate, 34% of our consumption is new to category, so incremental to category. So what we're seeing is these. We have two different demos within that new to category. We have that new to category, which is very, let's call it an 18-year-old that's entering the category for the first time.
But we're also seeing this 40, 50-year-old consumer that traditionally was not willing to enter the category for whatever reason, maybe Red Bull and Monster and what for them. But for whatever reason, Celsius is a more inviting, you know, opportunity for them to enter that category. So it's really about even in terms of that new to category, we're getting both that younger consumer and this older consumer. And that's what the, I guess, earlier, the point I was gonna get to is, you have that 25 to 45, where we used to be, where we've really aged down in the last, without losing that, that, that older demographic, we've aged down. You go to any college campus these days, you ask them what the most popular energy drink is, Celsius is gonna be one of the first ones that come out of their mouth.
We're competitive with Red Bull, we're competitive with Monster. So when you talk about that lifetime consumer, there's a lot of stickiness in this category, especially with the high usage people. It's incredibly difficult to get people to switch from brands if they're a heavy user. We have seen, you know, some opportunities where we've been able to poach, consumers from, you know, the two big players in the category as people try to shift then, you know, from this, to this health and wellness, and that's usually a lot of those older, consumers. But the ones entering the category, that's where the big opportunity is for Celsius. That compounding effect, year after year, bringing in these 18, 19, 20-year-olds and creating that lifetime consumer.
That's how you're actually gonna be able to compete with the Red Bulls and the Monsters of the world, and nobody's been able to do that. I mean, there hasn't been a brand that's reached 10% market share in the last decade. You know, we're, you know, right there at, at the moment. So I think there's an opportunity there, and I think people are beginning to realize that Celsius can play with those two players. And one of the big data points we wanted to reference today, we just put out our investor deck, updated. You know, John cited in the Q1 earnings that our market share in South Florida was 21.7% as of April.
And he brought that up because historically, we brought up Amazon and how we had this close to 20% market share. We were outpacing Red Bull on Amazon. I think a lot of people were a little bit skeptical about whether that could translate into brick-and-mortar, traditional brick-and-mortar. So we cited that South Florida data, you know, one of the largest markets in the country, where we just updated the data, we're up to 23.5%, so almost 24%. We've picked up almost two full share points in four months in one of the largest markets in the country. That's a more mature market, where we're still gaining market share, and that's where we think we can take this brand nationally and potentially internationally.
Okay. Talk about the things that are driving incremental spend in the, in the category, you know, coming out of- In terms... I just want to go quickly on the, where you're sourcing the other 60% of volumes-
Yeah.
From?
Yeah. I mean, if you look at where we're sourcing, you know, the volumes from, we're seeing, you know, Toby mentioned new to category, so that 44% new to category. You know, we're sourcing from CSDs, we're sourcing from, you know, consumers that are being more curious about the energy and the functionality. We're all busier than ever before, you know, with phones and work and home. Everyone needs more energy as we continue to evolve, and the demands for each and every one of us, it becomes greater each and every day. The category is growing at 10%-15%, so we got great growth in the category. We're seeing retailers add more space for the energy category as well, which will further help the category out.
You know, when you look at this 18 to 24 is a big opportunity for new to category on those consumers. Also, you know, Toby mentioned the demographics. We're about 50/50 male, female. We did get latest data in the convenience channel, one of the largest convenience stores, and typically a 70/30 mix on energy, we're told by the major retailer, and we're running about a 60/40 within that retailer.
Male, female.
Male, female. Yeah, so 60%, male, 40% female. So still over-indexing on the female consumer, and that's new to category. So that's really good that we're that balanced. And then we're also seeing, you know, which is fascinating, the way the brand, and it's really going on those three of the fastest-growing trends in food and beverage that's affecting all of us.
... is you're seeing this blurring of the lines within the category. So you're seeing consumers age out of energy, you know, that maybe they went to teas or coffee, you know, and but they're staying in. We're seeing somewhat of an older demographic also seeing Celsius as more acceptable, maybe healthier with the vitamins and ingredients and the unique flavor profiles. And then we're also seeing consumers that are intrigued by energy, but the historical energy drink portfolios may have been too aggressive of tone, and maybe they didn't want to be associated with that type of stigma. And I can't tell you the number of—even here today at the conference, the number of people we ran into that are drinking a Celsius. They replaced their afternoon coffee with Celsius, but do not consider themselves energy drink consumers.
You know, it's really a mindset, the way we've been able to build the Celsius portfolio, focusing on the health and wellness, the vitamins, the great flavor profiles. Really, our main mission is to be the most refreshing energy drink in the market.
I would just add to that. So you referenced, you know, where we're sourcing a lot of these consumers from. You know, we've mentioned the 44% new to category per Numerator. You got that younger demographic that's probably entering it for the first time, who's probably drinking more CSDs, sodas, colas, and that's moving into energy for the first time. But that older demographic, they're moving from coffee to teas and for the first time into energy. But the second data point from Numerator was about 40% of our consumption additionally is incremental to the category from a term they use, it's user intensification, which means the users are actually drinking more energy drinks because they're consuming Celsius than they otherwise would have. So for retailers, that's incredibly important that that's incremental to the category. It's not just brand shifting.
Brand shifting is, you know, that doesn't really help a retailer out. But when you're bringing incrementality, that's critical. And then, you know, when you look who we're sourcing from within the category, it's gonna naturally be Red Bull and Monster because they're 70%+ of the category. So that's where an overwhelming amount of the brand shifting does occur from, but that's still a smaller percentage in total, as opposed to the incrementality that we're bringing to the brand.
You're seeing that in our data. If you look at the latest data as of August 13 on IRI, excluding coffee, Celsius is one of the top brands in the category that's driving not only dollar growth, but unit growth on both a 24-week and a 52-week. So that puts us in a really good position as we're the next couple of weeks, we're all preparing for buyer review meetings.
So, puts us in a good position, getting close to that 10 share in the energy category with dollar growth and unit growth, which retailers are really focused on unit growth. You know, very difficult to cycle revenues when you're only driving that dollar growth because you're not building your base consumer, which is really critical and something that we're able to do with the Celsius portfolio. I think that's us attracting those new consumers, both young and old, all demographics.
In terms of buyer meetings, just one of my questions had been, just given the so many factors at play, right? In different vectors where you are participating, are there certain channels that you think are better situated to drive incremental sales versus others?
Well, I think when you're... Like, incremental sales, when we look at the portfolio, we just got to 95% ACV, so that's a major achievement. When we look at incrementality, tons of runway left, just activating the stores that we are currently in. If you look at the Q, our Q2 financials, we had great growth in our club channel on Amazon, which both of those have been, you know, historically, we've been in those channels. And then also saw great growth in our distribution. So, independent, there's a big opportunity. I think more importantly, is optimizing, getting second and third placements, getting better placements in coolers. Many nationwide retailers today, last year, we were selling in at a 3.4% share.
So, you know, your prioritization puts you in that area. Now we're coming in at a 10% share with dollar growth and revenue growth behind this. So that should put us higher on the prioritization so we can get better placements, secondary placements. Toby's working on initiatives, working with our sales team on cooler placements. We have a big initiative on cooler placements, secondary placements, and that's a huge opportunity. And then the food service is... We're just scratching the surface on food service. College and universities just went back. Many in your room, I don't know if you were at the sampling booth yesterday, but we had one of our college graduates of the Celsius U University. We graduated about 170 students just last month, where they're going back to their campuses.
They're really our CEOs on campus, working on activation, sales, marketing. We have a whole, whole leadership team and executive team presents. We teach them about business, operations, logistics, and sales, and it was great to have her here.
Awesome. Okay, so, so much momentum in the business right now, and that does come to question of supply. So, how do you feel about inventory levels in the system and your ability to keep up with all of this, this latent demand?
Yeah, I, that's, you know, I think we work with some of the largest suppliers in the world, so, we have secondary, supplier routes, working with the largest can manufacturers in the world. I, I think, you know, as an organization, we feel really good on our-- with our suppliers that we have, to be able to supply the product. It's... And then we're in over 17 co-packers, and total, we have about 22 for flex capacity. But, you know, it's really being able to-- I don't think it's on the supply chain side. It's really us managing the growth. You know, when you're growing 100%, some SKUs are growing 200%-300%, it's very difficult to manage, especially when we're trying to optimize our distribution, our supply network. We're trying to create orbits.
We want to produce an orbit, shipping an orbit to be as effective and efficient as possible. But when you have certain players running in certain parts of the country, you know, you're shipping outside orbits, so that increases costs, you know, more freight, more in-transit fees on warehouses, and those type of things. But I think we're good on the overall supply chain. Might have some inefficiencies as we grow. We'll be able to optimize that. We have plans in place to optimize that on a go-forward basis. To further drive margin and leverage as we scale.
Yeah, I would just add that, you know, two years ago, we brought in Paul Storey as our Head of Operations. He was the Head of Global Operations for Monster, previous to that, to Rockstar. Incredible background. So we've got someone who's actually been able to scale similar energy drinks over the years, and he has best-in-class relationships with all the top vendors globally. So we feel that we are very well situated at the moment. We are very fortunate to have Paul Storey. He's great.
Great. So let's switch gears to distribution. So as you mentioned, right, you launched with Pepsi, October first of 2022. And spent the first two quarters kind of working to optimize distribution, right? From ACV and location expansion and so on. So maybe just reflections on kind of the initial transition with Pepsi.
Yeah, I think it's going a lot better than everyone anticipated. I think there was a lot of individuals and, you know, within Pepsi and I think on our team, that thought it was gonna be a lot more difficult. When you look at some transitions in the past with other brands to both systems. So I think one advantage we had is we have a lot of team members on our team that actually have worked at Pepsi, so they knew wiring, who to call if there's an issue, versus Toby and I trying to figure out different names and who the roles and responsibilities, what division.
So that gave us a little bit of a competitive advantage, and as soon as we started to get closer to a distribution agreement with Pepsi, we really started to find the prior Pepsi or Pepsi experience, each one of the divisions, so they can help us move extremely quickly on the wiring. You know, changing retailers over on distributors is very difficult. It's not easy. Changing distributors in general is not easy. One competitive—one advantage we had is we, our contracts, we, we transferred about 80% of the distribution at one point in time. I noticed a lot of examples of other companies when they transitioned, they had different cutoffs on dates. So you're changing kind of division versus division, and it gets really messy, especially with these national retailers.
In order to flip stores over, you need to make sure you have the whole store covered or zoned. And we dealt with that when we were in the ABI network, trying to flip over our direct customers to ABI. We had to make sure coverage of stores and lots of spreadsheets and a lot of difficulty there. But the transition with Pepsi has been so great. There's, it's been, you know, we had a couple of hiccups, but almost practically seamless.
Yeah, I, I would say it's, it's exceeded everyone's expectations. We have a great relationship with Pepsi. John was the, the only Allied brand person that was allowed to speak on stage at their national meeting in Dallas about a month ago. Very well-received. It's exciting for their network to have a brand like Celsius that's really a challenger.
Yeah. Okay, great. Like you mentioned, right, ACV, let's start with how much ACV has increased, you know? So, I guess, can you just elaborate on the drivers in club and e-commerce specifically, because those are accelerated, but it was already a very strong growth rate.
Yeah, I think, you know, that's surprised us by storm, because you think with the ACV increases, you know, the number of SKU items per store now have increased since last year as well. I think we're at 8.6.
We went from eight to 15, so it's our SKUs per store has doubled while driving our ACV from 65 to 95.
So you gained more availability, more opportunity, but yet the club business and online business continues to grow, and it's almost like all tides are rising at the same time. So, it's really fascinating, and I think that gets us really excited as well, because you would think there would be some type of cannibalization, either Amazon or the club business would be cannibalized by some of the new distribution gains we have. But going back to that Numerator data, you're seeing user intensification increase. So, you know, we're bringing on new consumers, and the Celsius consumers, you know, if you went back even prior to Pepsi and you go back to when we were with ABI, prior to them, all of our sales were really warm. The bulk of our sales were warm.
You either had to buy it on Amazon, you had to buy it at, you know, the grocery channel or mass, and we didn't really have—we had very little cold availability. So our consumers have been always loyal, buying it, taking it home, chilling it, and then having it as a part of a daily routine or a daily, you know, regimen that they had. And, and that's a lot when you ask a consumer to buy $20, $10 worth of Celsius to take it home, chill it, and then consume it. Very difficult to build a beverage company that way.
But we did, and then when we start gaining cold availability and further expansion, you're seeing the consumer, you know, take advantage of that, that almost that impulse purchasing that drives the energy category that we're able to take advantage on. So they might have had it in the morning before their workout because they chilled it, and then they're picking it up at lunch or in the afternoon usage occasion as well. So, you know, so I think that's some opportunities that we have there.
We have the club business. I mean, we're at about a $250 million run rate in club. Costco, Sam's on fire right now. And to not see any losses on Amazon, you would think of anywhere the loss would be because the case, you know, size, people buying 18 counts at club, maybe Amazon would struggle. Amazon was up over 100% last quarter. We have a strong number two, just literally a point or two behind Monster for number one on Amazon.
We had an amazing Prime Day on Amazon, so-
Yeah. You talk about e-commerce-
Really well.
Instacart, we're the number one brand on Instacart. You know, we outpace Red Bull and Monster there. So we have a lot of anecdotal evidence where we're number one or number two across the country in certain key big retailers. We haven't really cited those before, but it's, again, proof of concept that we can actually play with the two big players in the category.
Okay. So now with ACV having hit 95%, what are the key focus areas for you and for Pepsi in terms of driving growth in 2024?
... Well, I think when you look at 2024, so as we sat here last year at that 3.4% share, and Pepsi getting ready then, getting ready for them to sell their first case October first, we weren't included in this AOP process where they do their national programming and wiring. So we almost went. We're working with Pepsi this year, more of a, on a divisional level, creating our programs. So as Toby mentioned, we were included in the AOP meeting this year. So we're gonna have national programming and national wiring for national execution and, and specific events. So that'll allow us to be more, better execution on a variety of these key national retailers, and then be included in the whole process, included in a variety of their KPIs and, and, and goals and objectives for the year.
So we're really excited about that. That should help us have seamless, better execution. And then as we're sitting here with our key accounts team and the Pepsi key accounts team, we're getting in that full cycle of selling cycle, getting into buyer resets, revised planograms. And so I think that's the relationship has been phenomenal. I think we're gonna have a really good season coming up on working on these resets with with a lot of our key retailers. We have best-in-class partnerships at 7-Eleven. We are one of the only vendors at the Vendor Summit that was able to present on stage as well. So we're really building these, forging these great relationships with retailers, and the brand's exciting. We got great momentum. It's gonna be a great year.
We have more marketing dollars than we ever had before, so we're going after new communities. We just signed a deal with MLS. We signed it first with Inter Miami, and then Messi shows up a couple of weeks later. That was a great win. Timing and sequencing sometimes is everything in life, but that was a great win, having Messi join the MLS team and we're the official energy drink of the team, and we just signed a national deal for the overall league, as well as in Chicago for the team. We've got some great programs there. Partnering with PFL. We got our Live Fit Tour, going coast to coast, really activating our vibe activation. Have some great programs and building out our marketing team.
It's gonna be an exciting year. So, 2024 is gonna be a great year for us.
You mentioned the market share data in South Florida, which is great in terms of, you know, the proof point that there's still growth ahead in a more mature market. How does your approach vary, if at all, there versus more up-and-coming markets?
I think you see similar growth rates.
Yeah.
It's more about what, where, where you started and where you've been in these markets. You know, we had our jewel deep markets when John and I started, kind of, started with the company 11, 12 years ago. We only had five markets that we could focus on because we'd find resources, and South Florida was one of those. The New England area was another, Tampa Bay, Dallas, Southern California, and all those markets over index quite a bit versus our, our national average, because those are kind of a legacy, more mature markets at this point. We've taken that playbook, and we're, we're replicating it across the country now. You know, when you go into Portland or Houston or Chicago, some of these non-legacy markets for us, they're starting at a different basis point, or starting point, than where South Florida is today.
But they're growing, so they grow maybe a little bit quicker because they have more room for rapid growth to get that, that first up to 5%-10%. But now we're still seeing similar growth rates in those markets once they hit those thresholds. We're seeing growth in every market in the country right now. It's really exciting to see, and it's all about, to John's point, we have more marketing dollars at our disposal than ever before, and we have an incredible marketing team, digital team, that's able to geo-target and put fences up around markets. We have events going on in markets around the country, so we're able to increase the brand awareness, and that's something that's important because I know a lot of people want to say, "Well, you're at 95% share.
What's next?" What's next is, outside of getting all these new placements and these retailer meetings, getting better placements in stores, I can go on about that for 20 minutes, but it's increasing the brand awareness. We're, we're near where Monster and Red Bull is, and that's a great thing because that's room for growth. That's room for when that velocity is gonna start spinning off the shelf, and that's how you actually become that competitive number one or two brand in the category here in the U.S.
In 2024, we're gonna be expanding the number of our focus markets. We're all creatures of habit, right? We go to the same grocery store, the same gym, same gas station, likely the same restaurant every other week, or, you know, and, and so we really need to be part of a daily lifestyle, a daily routine, and that takes some time to build those daily consumers.
But to Toby's point, with Pepsi, we're able to touch consumers to get that distribution set up properly in the right channels, at the right placements, with the right displays, with the right marketing overlay, and our overall playbook on strategy, where we bring sales to marketing together within specific markets. We can activate these markets much quicker and start to see really good share gains and returns within our investment. So for 2024, we will be expanding into additional markets outside of our core 2023 today, as we look to leverage this 95% ACV that we currently have in all these stores.
Okay, great. So I also wanted to ask a question, longer term, just as the business matures. So the second quarter Adjusted EBITDA margin expanded, and it was just under 24%, along with a 1,000 basis point increase in gross margin. So if we look ahead, to when sales growth, I guess, normalizes closer to, like, a category average, how do you think about the longer-term run rate for operating margins? You know, does it migrate towards that of one of the large incumbent players? Am I getting back in this, the years without conversation?
Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, we have a peer group that we watch very closely. They're another large public company. And, you know, I think, you know, when you look at it, the overall, you know, sales and sales and marketing percentage of revenues and our G&A, you know, the other company does put outbound freight in their sales expense versus COGS. We put it in COGS, so you just got to make that adjustment. But I think we can get very close, if not similar to, you know, that comp, and and it's, I don't want to cheat.
... I don't see why we can't. We've had great leverage on the second quarter. Sales and marketing came in around a little over 19%. You know, probably wanted to spend a little bit more, in like the 21%-22% range is probably where we wanted to be, but revenues grew really high. We have a detailed process in order to make investments, and we're not just gonna spend to spend. I wanna make sure we got the ROI. We're leveraging sales. We have a whole playbook that has to be required in order to make investments. So, you know, we went over our budget, internal budget, and we did make some additional investments, but we weren't gonna overinvest just to hit a percentage number or not.
We do see opportunities in 2024, you know, probably to get back down in that 2021, 2022, somewhere around there range, maybe 2021, 2020, because we, we wanna leverage the new distribution we just gained. So I don't think right now is the time to pull back. Let's continue to drive share and new consumers to the category. If what we're doing is working with the dollar growth and the unit growth, and let's see how far we can take it and continue to keep running.
Okay, great. We only have a few minutes, so I just wanted to close out touching on international ambitions. I guess, and having Messi now, you have like international ambassador, because we see Miami kits all over the world all of a sudden.
Sure.
It's crazy. So, just, you know, how should investors think about your appetite for expansion internationally, the timeline to do so, and not plenty of runway domestically, but yeah, priorities in terms of new markets, timeline, and how investors should be thinking about that?
Yeah, we get a lot of questions on international expansion. You know, I, I think in, in general, to your point, there's a massive amount of runway left in the U.S., and we do see opportunities in other markets. We do currently have distribution. We're a little bit over a 10% share in Sweden. We're doing extremely well in Finland, although single digit share, but starting to see great growth there. It's a smaller market. We've also just launched with a partner in South Korea and in Taiwan.
But some of the larger markets, when you look at the U.K., you know, potentially Canada, Australia, and Japan, those are markets that we're currently looking at, working with other partners, trying to figure out, you know, what's the best route to market, what's the best value chain, working through some of the strategies, roles, and responsibilities. We do have a team now of about four people that are working on international expansion within playbooks. We wanna be very methodical in our approach. Once again, I go back to, we're all creatures of habit. So yes, that we're, we're touching and, and we're capitalizing on three of the fastest growing trends, including beverage. We wanna be very methodical in our approach, so you will see us in two countries.
Right now we're working on, you know, finalizing the opportunities with two countries. We're looking at Canada as number one, and we'll announce another one, sometime soon. But Canada should be a big opportunity for us in next year, and there's a lot of synergies with the U.S. that we can leverage as well. So, you know, it's gonna take investments. We're not gonna overinvest and really overinvest to try to get turns. We wanna be methodical. We wanna create that daily consumer. If we can't create that daily consumer, we'll be in and out in six months, and we're cognizant of that.
We don't wanna be like these other brands that have gone in and gone out. And there's been a ton of them. So, we're gonna get focused on the fitness, health, and wellness. We're gonna focus on a couple of key retailers. We're gonna build a loyal consumer, and then we're gonna continue to add resources to continue to scale, and we're gonna make sure we're driving profitable growth. The company's been stewed on profitable growth, board of directors committed on profitable growth, and ultimately return shareholder value as best we can.
I think just the way to look at it is more of a three to five way and then beyond. You know, 2024, we're gonna get into a few countries, and, you know, we're gonna develop that playbook and that we're gonna be able to input into other markets. And then you'll probably see a larger rollout in 2025. But it's, you know, listen, our priority is gonna be U.S. There's so much room for growth. The state of Ohio is probably the size of some other major markets around the world. So we're gonna, you know, we have our priorities set, but we also are very interested in the international landscape.
Absolutely.
Okay, great. We're out of time. Please join me in thanking Toby David for being here. Thank you so much.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.