Good morning and good afternoon, everyone. My name is Leo, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Coty's Q4 fiscal 2023 question and answer conference call. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded today, August 22, 2023. Please note that earlier this morning, Coty issued a press release and prepared remarks webcast, which can be found on its investor relations website.
On today's call are Sue Nabi, Chief Executive Officer, and Laurent Mercier, Chief Financial Officer. I would like to remind you that many of the comments today may contain forward-looking statements. Please refer to Coty's earnings release and the reports filed with the SEC, where the company lists factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements.
In addition, except where noted, the discussion of Coty's financial results and Coty's expectations reflect certain adjustments as specified in the non-GAAP financial measures section of the company's release. With that, we will now open the lines for questions. If you would like to ask a question today, please press star one now on your telephone keypad. Again, to ask a question, that is star one on your telephone keypad. One moment while we queue. We'll take our first question from Filippo Falorni of Citi. Your line is open.
Hey, good morning, everyone, congrats on a strong fiscal 2023 results. First question on kind of the assumptions embedded in your initial guidance for fiscal 2024. I know, Sue, you mentioned the category at the prestige level, particularly in, in fragrances, remains strong. Just what have you assumed in your guidance? Are you assuming a continuation of the momentum? Are you assuming a little bit of a slowdown with the more uncertainty in the macro environment? Just any color on that would be helpful.
Good morning, Filippo. Let me give the mic to Laurent for this part, I can complement.
Yeah, absolutely. Hello, Filippo. I mean, first of all, indeed, as you highlighted, what's important is really that we, we are positioning, you know, the fiscal 2024 guidance, I mean, at the top of the midterm guidance, and following, as you highlighted, I mean, a very, very good landing of our fiscal 2023.
To, make it short, I mean, really our assumptions is that, you know, the, the momentum is here to stay. Definitely, we are seeing the beauty categories are very resilient, and here I'm talking about both categories, prestige and consumer beauty. Definitely, and this is, you know, what is confirmed also by our retailers, that beauty, you know, is definitely the, the darling category of the, of the retailers.
Definitely both on prestige and consumer beauty, you know, we, we keep, you know, this great momentum for fiscal 24. This is amplified also by the strong initiatives that Coty is putting in place again on the on both divisions.
Great. Just a quick follow-up on pricing. I know you guys are planning for an additional price increase in Q1. Is it mainly in consumer beauty? It seemed like you, you, you mentioned closing the gap versus competition. Can you comment a bit on, like, responses from retailers, what you're seeing in the market from the conversation you're having? Thank you.
Indeed, I mean, pricing, as, as you know, we, we implemented, I mean, successfully pricing across fiscal 2023. I mean, this was, you know, this went very smoothly with retailers, but also with consumers, as there was definitely no elasticity impact. We, we share that we continue in Q1 fiscal 2024. We are implementing a mid-single-digit pricing, this is on both divisions.
This is really important. It's a place on prestige division and also on consumer beauty. We, we are doing this, number one, because, yes, inflation is here to stay in H1 fiscal 2024, this is really part of our, of our, of our plans. Number two is, is also because, you know, we, we are seeing, as I said, you know, very resilient categories.
Also we are making sure, as usual, and we keep the methodology, that this price increase is done in a very granular manner, in a very disciplined manner. We have a pricing office, and we have a lot of data based on, on the last two years, so we know exactly where we can increase price again, you know, without having any, any elasticity.
Last element I want to highlight is also that we are making sure that this, you know, price increase is combined with value creation, for retailers and also for consumers, and definitely we are investing money, you know, in sustainability agenda. This is something which is really well received by retailers and consumers, and also, you know, is here also to helping to accept price increase for this Q1 fiscal 2024.
Your next question is from Javier Escalante of Evercore ISI.
Good morning, everyone, and also congrats on terrific results. I have a couple of questions, one on the consumer side and the other on prestige. On the consumer side, You made comments on CoverGirl, and it feels as if, in your view, it's an issue of, you know, tapping digital marketing through TikTok.
If you can comment on the, you know, the situation more on the, on the stores, right? Whether your, your shelf space going into the fall, and also in consumer beauty, your clients in Brazil is a, is a massive, mass programs market. I would love to hear your views on that. Lastly, on any update on the skincare launches in Asia will be awesome. Okay? Thank you.
Of course. Good morning, Javier. Thank you for the questions. Indeed, you're right to mention these two elements, which I believe are the two next white space opportunities for our consumer beauty business. The first one is indeed, you know, makeup opportunity. We believe we have done, let's say, 70% of the job, if I may say.
As you look at CoverGirl, we've fixed the lip category. Today, our lip category under CoverGirl is among the fastest growings on the market. We've done the same thing, you know, with the eye category. The two most recent launches from CoverGirl, which are, you know, Yummy Gloss, which is this viral product that is today going to sell something like 6 or 7x higher than what we had expected.
The upcoming launch, which started in July, which is Cleantopia Mascara, that you saw the advertising during the earnings presentations. These are, in a way, going to consolidate this 2/3 of the work that we have done.
Of course, we are doing, you know, all the necessary effort to really use the 70% to 75% of A&CP we are spending on this brand, that are mainly digital A&CP, towards Gen Z, towards, you know, advocacy, towards creating viral moments as we've been able to achieve it with Yummy Gloss, to take one example. The next phase is to fix the face category, which I believe is a category that has been driving the growth of some of our-- one of our competitors, to be very, very, very direct.
It should be the face category, this is, you know, inside the cooking right now. Hopefully, once we have the face category joining lip and eyes, the 90%-95% of CoverGirl will be positioned for the future the way I want this brand to be positioned, using modern marketing, of course, mastering advocacy, mastering marketing on TikTok, all this kind of digital ecosystem that was missing until recently, that we started to master, I have to say.
To answer your part around the shelves, which is an important one, we can confirm that the shelf space of CoverGirl has been stable post spring 2023 resets, is confirmed to be stable for the fall 2023 resets. Any net space that other brands may be discussing is coming from other brands and not from CoverGirl. This is number one.
Number two, this is a fundamental information that I shared with you already, and it's important to share it again and again, is that there are two brands gaining penetration in the U.S.: It's CoverGirl and e.l.f.. CoverGirl frequency, I have to say, is, I would say 2.5x higher in terms of purchase frequency versus the category and versus key competitors.
This, for me, confirms that this brand's positioning, the new communication, the new innovations, are strongly resonating with today's consumers. Last but not least, it's very important to say that, in fact, we are doing two things, while most of our competitors are focusing on one target. CoverGirl is not a Gen Z brand.
It's a Gen Z, millennials, Gen X, and boomers brand. We are going to play with these two key targets, you know, the right way, adapting the right marketing per target. It's very important for us to also continue to remain as relevant as ever with Gen X, who are more loyal and who are more spending on this category.
That's what I will give you in terms of answer when it comes to how we see CoverGirl, you know, brand recontract that started two years ago. I move to the second part of your question, which is around Brazil, if I'm not wrong. This indeed is something we started to discuss during our Investor Day, back in July. You know, we have strong capabilities.
We have great capabilities in fragrances, and I'll say a word about this probably later, given the super strong start of some of the new innovation in our prestige, that we are applying the playbook of creating winning fragrances on both divisions, and we are also applying this in Brazil. We have also a top-notch fragrance portfolio in mass market, and you're right to mention that Brazil is a big market.
It's a $4 billion opportunity. We started the journey over there in April. We are entering in retailers where traditionally we used to sell our prestige portfolio, but at the same time, we are also opening opportunities in drugstores, putting our fragrances in the shelves of this kind of channel, which is very new for the Brazilian market, I have to say.
In total, we started with 2,000 doors, with the potential to ramp up up to 15,000 doors. We are still at very early stages of this rollout, but you can imagine that we are super excited about how much this opportunity represents for the consumer beauty portfolio, especially given, you know, our mass fragrances are highly reductive to our mass portfolio. Last part is very quickly, probably on skincare and in Asia. Again, you know, the launch that happened in Asia was the Lancaster Ligne Princière that started in March.
As presented during the earnings presentation, you know, this launch is achieving every milestone we are looking for, be it in terms of ability to create buzz on social media, its ability to meet consumers' highly demanding taste in terms of efficacy, in terms of textures, in terms of scenting, in terms of look and feel.
All of these, we have, you know, advocacy ratings that are very, very high. As we said during the speech and the script of the earnings call, now our job is really to increase the traffic towards the brand.
This has a lot to do with mastering the ecosystem between Xiaohongshu, Douyin, WeChat, and all this ecosystem with, you know, of course, you know, creating content and creating the fantastic story behind the brand on Xiaohongshu, taking people to do live streamings on Douyin, and of course, creating community management into WeChat. Everything is on track when it comes to our skincare agenda, and we are entering a new phase today, mastering much better than in the past, our Chinese digital ecosystem.
I have to say that the fact that this is a skincare brand, and that's a skincare brand that we own in a way, helped us also to have the possibility to play with 360 degrees of the Chinese ecosystem, which has never been the case up to now, because makeup and fragrances are not as sophisticated categories as skincare is in this market. That's also a fantastic school for Coty China, but also for Coty overall, globally.
We'll take your next question from Anna Lizzul of Bank of America.
Hi, good morning, and thank you for the question. Yesterday, you announced the expansion of the Marc Jacobs license with the build-out of the beauty side. I was wondering, how should we think about that build-out versus your initiatives with own brands in your portfolio, like Infiniment Coty in fragrance and Lancaster in skincare? Thanks.
Good morning, Anna. In fact, this announcement we have made yesterday is, first of all, a continuity of a 20 years long-standing relation with Marc Jacobs Fragrances. You know, we've been together, married together since 20 years, and the outcome of this collaboration is, I have to say, fantastic, you know.
During fiscal 2023, the second fastest growing brand of prestige at Coty was indeed Marc Jacobs, you know, high double-digit growth, and this is really something that is, you know, the result of this long-standing collaboration. We've decided to extend this collaboration in the coming decades, also we've decided to bring back the highly coveted and, and, and, and cult, Marc Jacobs makeup, you know?
If you've seen the some of the titles of people who have already published around this, this new collaboration around makeup, there is a lot of, you know, cult following for this brand, and this brand is fantastically positioned to do makeup in the area of, you know, indie meets couture, which is really where the market is heading to and where you can really find the biggest part of the growth of the market.
If you talk about our own brands, it's, you know, a parallel story. You know, this company is the go-to destination for licensors, very long-term licensors. In this case, we are adding a new category, which will strengthen our portfolio for color cosmetics, specifically in prestige. All our other color cosmetics brands, especially in mass market, are own brands.
Think of CoverGirl, Max Factor, Bourjois, or Rimmel, to name the four most important ones. This, it's really, it's an and, you know? You know how I love to work. I love to do and rather than either or rather. It's really this and this at the same time. Infiniment Coty is on track.
The launch, the PR launch is going to be in October, and we'll hit the first stores, including a global DTC in January 2024. Lancaster, again, I've made the comments around Lancaster. Last but not least, we are opening today the sales of what we do believe in skincare, is probably one of the most potent serum of all time behind the Orveda skincare line.
This serum is called Omnipotent Concentrate, and it's open to be sold to a long queue of consumers waiting for this since May, today at the end of the day.
Great. Thank you.
Your next question comes from Korinne Wolfmeyer of Piper Sandler.
Hey, good morning, team. Thanks for the question, and congrats on a great quarter. First, I'd like to touch a little bit more on the, the guidance for, for next fiscal year and really the, the quarterly cadence that you alluded to.
It looks like there is a bit of a slowdown that's maybe implied in the back half of the year, and I know you're coming up like against some more challenging comps in the back half. I was wondering if you could touch on if there's anything else that you're factoring into guidance for the year beyond that in regards to the cadence. Thank you.
Good morning, Korinne. I mean, first of all, indeed, the fiscal year 2024 guidance top line is really at the top of, you know, our midterm guidance, 6% to 8%. What we, we shared is that H1, you know, we are positioning H1, you know, from 8% to 10%. Indeed, and this is definitely based, you know, on the strong start on the fiscal year 2024 that we are currently contemplating.
This is, you know, really giving us full confidence, and again, as I shared before, because the categories, both categories are really, you know, growing fast. Coty really brings, you know, some very successful initiatives on both divisions.
On top of what, you know, Sue Nabi has just explained, you know, which are really, you know, the, the momentum, you know, of the initiatives that we kicked off last year, such as, you know, skincare, consumer beauty, restart. We have also some, you know, great initiatives in prestige.
Prestige fragrance, I want to name, and you, you saw during the presentation on the Burberry Goddess, which, you know, currently, I mean, what the data we receive from retailers and consumers, I mean, are really stellar. Again, this is really giving, you know, a very strong start of the year. Consumer beauty also, we are seeing, you know, very good momentum. Yummy Gloss that we launched recently, sales are 8x, you know, higher than our initial forecast.
You, you really need to see as a combination of very dynamic market growth, again, on prestige and consumer beauty, and amplified by definitely all the initiatives and, you know, the work that Coty has implemented and has built over the last few years. There, there is nothing, you know, structural implying slowing down in H2. You know, we have, we have good visibility to, to the strong momentum in H1. At this stage, you know, this is really what I can tell you.
Very helpful. Thanks for all the color. Then if I could just touch a little bit on the, the segment margins. I believe there was a bit of a contraction in consumer beauty. Can you just touch on, as we think about going forward over the next couple quarters and years, how to think about the proper run rate for margins for each of the, the segments, and where will we really see the most expansion from? Thank you.
Definitely, I just want to remind that, you know, when, when you look at, you know, the, the EBIT margin, fiscal year for, for consumer beauty, I mean, the, the EBIT, you know, grew 21% and, you know, by 70 basis points. It's, it's, it's growing, and definitely all the work that, you know, we kicked off three years ago, which really the revamp of the brands and Sue, you know, shared the example of CoverGirl.
This is, you know, we are also doing this work on, on gross margin. Definitely, in our midterm algorithm, is really that gross margin expansion and EBIT margin expansion is definitely on both segments, consumer beauty and prestige.
What, what I can add to, to, to your question is that, I would say consumer beauty was most, was more impacted by COVID inflation, during fiscal 2023. Then that's why, we implemented some price increase, and we continue, as I said, in Q1 fiscal 2024, and we are continuing definitely on our innovations.
I can definitely tell you that, the, the innovations that we are currently launching, and we launched even, you know, second half of last year, have a gross margin in some cases, which is equivalent to prestige. We have really all, you know, the elements in our hands, really to, build, you know, sustainable, profitable growth for prestige and also consumer beauty. We have also some productivity actions on consumer beauty.
One big one is we, we shared a few times with concrete example, is about platforming. It's really to have, you know, standard platform on all our brands, and definitely this is going to create really some optimization. Of course, we, we will see some expansion, you know, in both businesses, consumer beauty in the coming years.
Your next question is from Olivia Tong of Raymond James.
Great, thanks. Good morning. Congrats on a very strong year. My first question is around the pricing actions in consumer beauty. If you could just elaborate a little bit on the range of price plans that you have, you know, key categories where you see the biggest gaps, then whether it's coming with new product plans along with that.
Thanks. Thank you, Olivia. Pricing on CB, as I usually repeat, is very granular. There is not, you know, the simple answer is really that we are, you know, reviewing brand by brand, segment by segment, market by market, and really making sure that our pricing, you know, is really matching consumer needs and also you know, what retailers are working on.
What's very important, as you know, is that price partition is quite expanded on consumer beauty. We are starting, you know, from $4 or $5, and we can go up, you know, to above $20. This is also what we are reviewing in detail. This is on the existing portfolio. What I want to add on top is, of course, about innovations.
We have, you know, a great pipeline of innovations, and we shared already some example, you know, as Yummy Gloss, you know, Mascara , cleantopia, Lash Blast. We are making sure that all these initiatives are really, you know, launched with at premium and definitely, so we are taking opportunity of these innovations to increase price.
T his is definitely a lever, but again, because these are high-quality products, and this is amplified, you know, by the Gen Z, and there is really strong appetite from this product. As I shared before, is also combined, you know, with a clean, vegan, sustainable product. Last, the third element I really want to bring to you is that we have now kicked off, you know, streams on strategic revenue management.
Definitely these are programs that we are going to amplify in all the key markets, and is really a way, of course, to increase value of our products and always to make sure that we share the value with retailers and consumer beauty. We, we have really a very detailed plan, very granular, and, and this is going to enable, of course, the improvement of the gross margin of consumer beauty in the coming years.
Great, thank you. Then, my follow-up question is just around the fragrances and the licenses, given that you've renewed a number of fragrances, fragrance licenses of late, and in some cases, are you renewing earlier or are they all just kind of coming up for expiration or, or for renewal around the same time? If you are renewing earlier, could you talk about, you know, terms, whether anything has changed in terms of length of partnership or, or terms around it, and if so, what's driving that? Thank you.
Let me take this part, Olivia. Indeed, fragrance licenses, some of them are renewed, you know, before the renewal period, if I may say, and some of them are renewed earlier, which is a great sign of confidence towards Coty as the leading destination for this, you know, fashion brands that are willing to go into beauty, not just fragrances, but also makeup.
We've seen this recently also with Marc Jacobs. That's very important in terms of, you know, mood. Again, let me remind the audience that we've renewed and extended and sometimes enriched in terms of categories, 4 contracts recently. This is really also something that I wanted to stress.
Second, it's very important that everyone hears also the fact that, you know, there is a momentum today in terms of fashion companies reaching out to Coty to create beauty businesses together. Again, it's very important that we have this, you know, ability to make new brands, new territories, new visions of beauty, part of the Coty portfolio.
That's something that's very important. There have not been any material changes in licensing terms. This is something I can confirm to you. Again, it's really a great occasion for me to say how much Coty is seen today as a partner of choice.
Again, I welcome, you know, any fashion brand willing to enter the beauty industry to partner with Coty, because the ecosystem we're proposing is unparalleled, in fact, in terms of reach, in terms of R&D, in terms of ability to operate multiple categories, and in terms of marketing.
This gives me the occasion to say a few words about one of the launches of the company that are all important for me, but one is very dear to my heart, which is the one of Dolce & Gabbana. Dolce & Gabbana, for me, have a look at this launch. This is the best of Coty know-how in terms of creating winning juices. I've been talking about this since many, many quarters. We are, we are there finally.
You know, it takes time to put in place this kind of methodologies, to craft a launch that is a five-star launch at this level. To execute it, we started to do this in travel retail in July, and now we are expanding globally. What we are seeing is, in a way, giving a direction or a flavor of what could be the upcoming innovations from Coty in this area, and therefore for our partners when it comes to fashion houses. This is really something I wanted to stress during this earnings call.
Your next question is from Chris Carey of Wells Fargo Securities.
Hi, everyone. I realize it's been asked, you know, several times, but just a couple quick follow-ups on, you know, pricing and impact. Number one, you know, with the high end of the 68% sales outlook, is it reasonable to assume that your full year sales expectations are exclusively price driven? Can you comment on what you expect for volumes this year?
The second question is, with the pricing round in Q3 and Q1, I guess I'm a little surprised that gross margins would be down in the front half of the year, even with the inflation, which doesn't sound like it's getting worse, it's just lingering.
Can you perhaps expand a bit more on what's driving the gross margin down year-over-year, despite the incremental pricing and inflation, which doesn't seem to be building? You know, thanks for those two, just on, you know, price versus volume, I guess, for the full year and, and the gross margin question for the, the front half.
Sure, Chris. Let me, let me take, you know, these two elements. I want to make it very clear that, I mean, volume is, you know, absolutely key and, definitely, and this is what, you know, we are seeing already, in the second half of fiscal 2023, that the growth is driven by pricing, by mix, but also by volumes, okay?
Definitely the model we are building for fiscal 2024 and beyond is really a balanced growth algorithm, which is really the combination of pricing, mix, and volume. I'm really insisting on, on, on this, and we gave a, you know, very concrete examples, you know, just, you know, what we shared.
I mean, you know, Burberry Goddess, you know, all what we are doing in consumer beauty, in mid-gloss, all the launching. These are definitely, you know, volumes, additional volumes in our equation. Volumes are also very important because, you know, it's really showing, you know, penetration, increasing, you know, of market share.
Of course, for, you know, our factories, our footprint is also a positive way to absorb the fixed cost. T his is very, very clear in our, in, in our model. On, on your second point, which is gross margin. First of all, I really want to, to highlight, I mean, the, the, you know, the, the great landing that we are doing on gross margin.
We, we shared, you know, several times that there will be a modest gross margin expansion, fiscal year 2023, and, you know, this is exactly where we are landing. Even, you know, with a very good result in Q4. You see that all the work we are doing on gross margin, despite inflation, has, has delivered strong results. We, we confirm also that for fiscal 2024, you know, there will be also modest gross margin expansion, so gross margin will keep growing.
We also confirm to be in the mid-60s by fiscal 2025, exactly, you know, as per, you know, our midterm algorithm that we, we shared, you know, more, more than two years ago. Now, now to, to tell you, indeed, we, we highlighted that there will be some phasing H1 from H2.
Definitely H1, the big few elements. Number one is that we are, you know, expecting price inflation is here to stay in H1, as I said. We have also some, I explained a few times, you know, accounting treatment that inflation, you know, costs are capitalized, you know, during four months. Between, you know, the moment that we have inflation and the moment, you know, it's relieved in the P&L, there is a lag effect of four months.
That's why we still see this inflation in H1, but there will be some easing in H2, okay? That's number one. Number two, also, which is important for you to know, is that, last year, due to service level challenges, and also component shortage, we had to make decision really to reduce gift sets in prestige.
As you know, I mean, this year, in H1, now that we are, we have solved, all, you know, supply chain issues and component shortage, now we are really back towards a normal share of the gift sets in Q1 and Q2. As you know, gift sets, gross margin is a few points lower than the standard scale. This is also something, you know, which is explaining the phase, but it's absolutely in control.
It's also supported by, you know, business, decision and fully embedded in our fiscal year 2024 algorithm and midterm algorithm.
Your next question is from Andrea Teixeira of JP Morgan.
Thank you, everyone, good morning. I wanted to just take this opportunity, Laurent, you mentioned the phasing for gross margin. Can you talk about SG&A? Because you gave a sense of 30 basis points, EBITDA margin expansion. How we should be thinking of your long-term algorithm?
It seems to me that now would be the year where the inflation, just, you just closed inflation of 2%, you had pricing mix up stand. Isn't that like now, I understand all this footprint based on the phasing of those margins, but as we go into fiscal 2024, especially the second half, wouldn't you be able to trickle down more?
You're just having the cost save and all this gap between pricing and inflation be reinvested in, into, into greater SG&A or greater marketing investment, as you mentioned, she thought, and all the other influencers that you, you became more, I'll say, avant-garde of that. Is that, is that the way, or it's mostly the investment in prestige and especially skincare into China?
Okay. A ll, you know, all your points, remarks, I mean, you know, this is definitely the, the constant focus and work that we've been doing, you know, over the last three years. It's really focusing on productivity, focusing on gross margin expansion, and then definitely allocating, you know, these resources, this money to support all the strategic initiatives.
You are currently, I mean, seeing, you know, that this model works, you know, with really 17% growth in Q4, and also improving our margin and improving our profit. Again, as you see, we are improving, you know, our EBIT margin this year by 170 basis points, and we're improving our EBITDA margin by 40 basis points. The model is in place.
Now, looking forward, as I shared, I mean, definitely the midterm algorithm is fully in place, so it's really reaching the mid-60s gross margin by fiscal 25, and this is supported by all the actions I shared before in productivity. On SG&A, definitely, we have a, you know, strong focus, and it's fully included in our All-in to Win program.
We definitely here, we continue some productivity initiatives, but also we are making sure that when we are talking about resource allocation, indeed, we are allocating in ANCP to support the strategic initiatives, to support also all the wide space opportunities that we are seeing. Surya shared a few.
Of course, we continue China, you know, program plan is, is really, you know, midterm strategic, very, very important plan. We talked about Brazil, these are really, you know, fantastic opportunities. We are also improving in our capabilities. We shared, you know, the example of R&D. We are, you know, we have very strong footprint on R&D, but we keep investing.
We continue really to improve productivity, to allocate the resources, you know, which create profitable growth, and at the same time, we continue to improve our margin, and we just, you know, our midterm algorithm, which is a 6% to 8% net organic growth and a EBITDA improvement, 9% to 11%, doesn't change. Your question is, you know, definitely the daily work that we operate in.
Your next question is from Linda Bolton-Weiser of Davidson.
Yes, hello. I was wondering if the pressures in the Hainan region, with still waiting to have more travelers return to that area, if that impacted your ability to get shelf space for the Lancaster launch, could you have gotten more shelf space, but, but for the pressures in that region, did that affect things? Also, is that affecting Gucci and Burberry growth at all in the region? Thank you.
Good morning, Linda. Let me take this question. In fact, what we are seeing in Hainan is that the our shelf space for Lancaster has not at all been affected by all the pressures we are seeing. We are just doing the job is step-by-step. In fact, you know, we don't want to open a massive number of doors and, while at the same time, you know, creating the business model of success of this brand.
We are doing this very carefully in terms of investment, be it cap investment, media investment, et cetera. Therefore, in Hainan and also in Mainland China, we are, you know, making the productivity of the doors that we have opened so far as high as possible before starting to expand the number of doors and the expansion of the shelf space.
When it comes to the other brands that you have mentioned, which are Gucci and Burberry, there was no impact from what's happening in, in, in Hainan. Today, these two brands that were, you know, doing great on makeup, are recovering, thanks to the back of makeup consumption in the country.
They were growing very fast on the makeup area. This has been, you know, in a way limited during the lockdowns and, and the fact that since the opening of the country, beginning of calendar 2023, it's chasing step-by-step in this area.
I wouldn't say that the, what's happening behind, you know, I guess, that you are referring to, the Daigou, et cetera, et cetera, is affecting our brands because we are not exposed to this kind of phenomenon, given our small size, but also given how much we are willing to pay a very strong attention to preserving the brand equity of the brands we have in Kering.
Your next question is from Mark Astrachan of Stifel.
Thanks. Good morning, everybody. It's just a follow-up on one of the prior questions, back to price and volume assumptions. You know, we carry over the pricing in Q4, and I know there was some incremental pricing in Q4.
You know, it would certainly suggest that most, if not all, of the, at least the first half is pricing driven. I just wanted to, again, understand that, and if you could just give the specifics in terms of your underlying volume assumptions, and then maybe a bigger picture, how do you think about pricing and mix on a longer-term basis in terms of composition to overall sales growth within that 6-8 algorithm?
Sort of, you know, related to kind of both of them, how do you think about the A&P spend? What's the optimal level for the business over time, as gross margins sort of modestly increase relative to where we ended fiscal 2023? Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you, Mark. I mean, just to make it very clear, we are, you know, positioning our fiscal year 2024 top line, you know, at the top of the guidance and, and really, you know, with higher in H1, so it's 8% to 10%. I say, as I shared, you know, is absolutely confirmed by a strong start of fiscal 2024.
This is built, yes, with the pricing carryover. We continue, you know, so mix improvement, and it also includes, you know, volumes, volume growth. You know, we shared again, some very concrete example, you know, Burberry Goddess. Goddess is a, is a very obvious case. This is really a part of it.
Now, looking, looking ahead, and, and I said it, is we are really making sure that starting H2 fiscal 2024, definitely that our growth algorithm is really well balanced between pricing, mix, and volume. This is really the combination of three. Once we are out, you know, of this really high inflation period, you know, with high pricing, we enter more, you know, a normalized model in terms of those.
Second part of your question, again, our, you know, our algorithm, our methodology doesn't change. It's really definitely, and as I, I shared, we continue to use this All-in to Win program. We know that next year we will deliver $100 million savings, and in fiscal 2025, $75 million.
The, the objective of this productivity plan is really to continue to improve our gross margin, to optimize our G&A, and then to reinvest, to support all our strategic initiatives. Concretely, what does it mean? It means that in terms of ANCP, we are, you know, now we are at the level of, you know, high twenties, and this is really a level that we are going to keep and really allocate in a very, you know, perfect manner, always focusing on ROI, so, you know, on, on both divisions and on all, all the new initiatives that we, we are launching.
Your next question is from Ashley Helgans of Jefferies.
Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking our questions. Just first on the pricing action, I'm just curious if you could talk a little bit about the key indicators you're using to gauge consumers' willingness to spend more on clean beauty. Then maybe you can just give us a little bit more color on planned investments in the first half that's offsetting some of the pricing benefits. Thanks.
Definitely on the key indicators, I mean, what I can, I mean, you know, we have a strong, powerful team, you know, CMI team. Again, when we say that over the last three years, we rebuilt, you know, strong capabilities. Of course, we talked about ANCP, we just talked also about R&D, but indeed, I can add that, you know, all these consumer research, in terms of teams, we have, you know, very good teams, and we have also tools, okay.
It's really that we can really capture data from consumers, and we have, you know, thanks to CRM and so on, we are really expanding, and, you know, we have very good understanding. Of course, also, you know, listening, you know, all what's going on on social network and so on.
We get also some, you know, good indications and data from our retailers, which are, which are very precious. It means that, again, all the action, all the work we are doing on clean beauty is, is really based on, very, and, and I would say, you know, scientific data. I want also to add that, you know, in fact, these data, they don't come as a surprise. Sue was referring to CoverGirl.
Clean beauty in CoverGirl is not something new. It, it started at the beginning, you know, when the brand was, when the brand was launched. You know, it's also reigniting, you know, things and, you know, which are obvious for the brand.
Again, this is, and again, on this, you know, clean beauty, this is really well accepted, and this is the case on consumer beauty, and this is also the case on, on prestige.
Laurent, if you allow me, you know, clean beauty is the only area where consumers, in all the studies that are published by us, but also by, you know, any, any company studying consumers' mood, et cetera, is the only category where people clean and sustainable beauty, where people are ready to spend more money on.
That's very important because they believe they are doing the right choice for the planet and for them, and for their skin health, by the way, yeah. Voilà. I think we can close the call after the, this question. If you allow me, Laurent, everyone, I would like to do some closing remarks. The first one is also to clarify again, if needed, how we see the white space opportunities phasing.
It's very important that you see that the immediate white space opportunities for this company are females fragrances, ultra premium fragrances, prestige cosmetics, travel retail, to name a few, Brazil, if you want. Then there are the midterm opportunities, which are skincare and China.
It's very important that this is, in a way, understood by all of us who, and all of you who are watching Coty. Last but not least, I wanted to say that we are very proud for this second year of double-digit growth. I have to say that this is really a great reason for pride for all Coty teams around the world, and we are very, very happy to see Q1 starting very strongly. Thank you very much.
This does conclude today's conference. You may now disconnect your lines, and everyone, have a great day.