Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Levi Strauss & Co. Q4 earnings conference call for the period ending November 28th, 2021. All parties will be in a listen-only mode until the question and answer session, at which time instructions will follow. This conference is being recorded and may not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the company. A telephone replay will be available 2 hours after the completion of this call through February 2nd, 2022, one week after call for telephone replay. Please use the conference ID 4676203.
This conference call also is being broadcast over the Internet and the replay of the webcast will be accessible for one quarter on the company's website, levistrauss.com. I would now like to turn the call over to Aida Orphan, Vice President of Investor Relations.
Thank you for joining us on the call today to discuss the results for our 4th fiscal quarter of 2021. Joining me on today's call are Chip Bergh, President and CEO of Levi Strauss, and Harmit Singh, CFO. We've posted complete Q4 financial results in our earnings release section of our IR website, investors.levistrauss.com. The link to the webcast of today's conference call can also be found on our site. We'd like to remind everyone that we will be making forward-looking statements on this call, which involve risks and uncertainties.
Actual results could differ materially from those contemplated by our forward-looking statements. Please review our filings with the SEC, in particular, the Risk Factors section of the annual report on Form 10-K that we filed today for the factors that could cause our results to differ.
Also note that forward-looking statements on this call are based on information available to us as of today, and we assume no obligation to update any of these statements. During this call, we will discuss non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are provided in today's earnings release on our IR website. These non-GAAP measures are not intended to be a substitute for our GAAP results. Finally, this call in its entirety is being webcast on our IR website, and a replay of this call will be available on the website shortly.
Today's call is scheduled for one hour, so please limit yourself to one question at a time to give others the opportunity to have their questions addressed. Now I'd like to turn over the call to Chip.
Good afternoon, and thanks for joining us today. At the beginning of the pandemic, we declared that we would emerge stronger from the crisis, and I can confidently say that we are now indeed a better, stronger company than ever before. After returning to pre-COVID revenue levels in Q3, momentum accelerated through Q4, and today's results reflect robust financial performance across the board. Our Q4 revenues were $1.7 billion, up 22% to 2020 and 7% to 2019, led by continued strength in the Americas and Europe, with Asia seeing a strong recovery despite COVID headwinds across the region.
Consumer demand remained very strong and outstripped supply by approximately $50 million in the quarter or 3% of revenue due to supply chain constraints.
The quarter punctuated a very strong fiscal 2021 performance, delivering our highest revenues since 1998 and achieving a 12.4% adjusted EBIT margin above our 12%+ target while continuing to reinvest at a higher and accelerated level. We have been able to deliver these results despite well-known headwinds as our diversified and agile supply chain is a source of competitive strength, enabling us to mitigate risk and outperform. Our performance demonstrates the strength and resilience of our brands and the increasing authentic connections we have with consumers on the foundation of trust and loyalty built over the past 170 years.
The results we delivered this year are proof points that our strategies are working, and we have greater conviction than ever in our future with several multi-year tailwinds.
1st, the total addressable market for denim is large and growing, and consumer preferences continue to shift towards casualization. As the global denim market leader, we are well positioned to take advantage of and drive growth. In the most recent quarter, the U.S. jeans growth outpaced apparel, with both categories surpassing 2019 levels. For the year, the U.S. jeans category was up 8% versus 2019. We also continued to increase share in women's in the U.S., and we have achieved significant traction engaging Gen Z consumers through programs like Levi's 2nd Hand recommerce initiative and our Buy Better, Wear Longer campaign.
2nd, our strong brand equity is driving pricing power. 2021 pricing actions are sticking, best reflected by the company's 7% AUR increase over 2019, which is primarily driven by our pricing initiatives.
We have plans to take additional price increases in 2022 and beyond, helping us to offset inflationary pressures. Even as we take price, our products provide an exceptional value to consumers. 3rd, the direct engagement we are building through our DTC business is bringing us closer to the consumer and allows us to showcase the fullest expression of our iconic brand and drive category expansion. In 2021, we continued the rollout of NextGen doors around the world, including 16 in the U.S. as we premiumize this marketplace. These stores are built with a digital backbone that supports our omni-channel platform, delivering an elevated, engaging, and brand-centric experience for our fans.
We're also using AI to enhance and differentiate our loyalty programs and app, and both are seeing strong acquisition rates, meaningful growth in performance, and productivity of existing members. 4th, the continued diversification of our business represents significant growth opportunities. Our performance this year reflects the strength of our diversified portfolio, yet we remain under-penetrated in women's, tops, and international, as well as product expansion further outside of denim. The acquisition of Beyond Yoga also provides an entry into the fast-growing and high-margin premium activewear category. Let me now shift to some highlights from the Q4 .
Strength was broad-based across channels, brands, category, gender, and markets. The Levi's brand accelerated to 7% growth versus 2019, with even stronger growth in our top five markets. Men's bottoms were up 6% to 2019, reaching the highest revenue level since Q4 2015.
Women's bottoms continue to outperform, up an exceptional 21% to 2019 as the trend towards high rise and looser fashion fits drove significant growth. Demand remained robust for our iconic 501, which was up 23% to 2019, driven by strong gains with both men and women. Overall, looser fits continue to increase in penetration, representing roughly half of both our women's and men's bottoms assortments, including for the year. Consumers can expect to see us iterate on this trend in future seasons. We're diversifying our tops offering, and we're pleased to see the Levi's tops business return to growth versus 2019, driven by solid performance in men's wovens and sweatshirts, while women saw momentum across wovens, dresses, and outerwear.
Direct-to-consumer momentum accelerated across the globe and saw significant growth with the channel up 20% versus 2019 levels.
Global brick-and-mortar also grew well above pre-pandemic levels, up 14% to 2019, driven by both our mainline and outlet stores. Higher conversion and a mid-single-digit increase in AUR, driven by the pricing power of the Levi's brand, have offset lower store traffic. We continue to roll out and enhance our in-store and omni-channel capabilities globally so that consumers can shop these physical points seamlessly, feeling the ease and convenience of our complete offering across all channels. Our owned and operated e-commerce saw continued strength despite the recovery in our stores and was up 22% year-over-year on top of 38% growth last year. In order to drive growth in this marketplace, we have accelerated investments to evolve our distribution network with plans to open 2 new distribution centers.
As we shared earlier in the year, we successfully migrated the U.S. West Coast e-commerce fulfillment to our owned and operated DC in Nevada, and now have plans to build a new DC for digital on the East Coast. We are also building a highly automated, highly sustainable, owned and operated omni facility in Germany. This multi-year project, scheduled to open in 2024, will allow us to realize our strong long-term opportunity in Europe, consolidate the region's DC operations, and deliver significant efficiencies. The global wholesale business grew 1% versus 2019 and is importantly a healthier business versus pre-pandemic. This reflects 2% growth in the U.S. for the quarter.
For the year, U.S. wholesale was up 4% versus 2019 and is notably a more elevated, digitally oriented, and profitable market. I'll now provide highlights on Signature, Dockers, and Beyond Yoga.
Signature saw continued momentum with another quarter of above 30% growth versus 2019, led by women's. The brand saw strong gains in AURs and continued success in digital wholesale. Dockers had a good year, and sales improved sequentially each quarter in 2021. The brand has a healthier, more diverse sales mix, and its updated California casual aesthetic is winning new and younger consumers, increasingly via DTC, digital, and international markets. For the full year, international comprised nearly 50% of Dockers sales and grew at a higher rate than in the U.S.
Nearly 30% of Dockers sales also now come from digital channels. What had been an almost entirely wholesale business just a few years ago now has almost 30% of its business in DTC and growing.
In the quarter, Beyond Yoga launched a men's pilot, and based on the positive response, we will be expanding that collection in 2022. Overall, we are entering fiscal 2022 with great momentum around the world. We are a stronger company than ever before, with an agile supply chain enabling us to outperform as Levi's drives increasingly more direct consumer engagement and denim category expansion while making meaningful gains with women and Gen Z. Longer term, our entry into the activewear market represents another strong runway for growth in addition to the category diversification opportunities in our existing portfolio. Our company's potential has never been greater.
I credit all of our teams around the world for delivering an outstanding year for the company and positioning us for an even better 2022. Let me now turn it over to Harmeet.
Thanks, Chip. Good afternoon, everyone. We delivered another really strong quarter to end the year against a continuing challenging macro backdrop with several key metrics significantly exceeding 2019 levels. Net revenue growth improved sequentially from the 3rd quarter, driven by broad-based consumer demand for the Levi's brand. The strong top line growth, together with the measures we took to substantially improve the structural economics of our business, enable us to achieve an adjusted EBIT margin of 12%, all while increasing our investments.
Looking ahead to 2022, we're excited about our momentum and expect our top-line growth to exceed our pre-pandemic growth algorithm and adjusted EBIT margin to expand beyond the 12.4% we delivered for full year 2021. I'll share more details when I provide our outlook following our holiday update.
I'll now walk you through our Q4 results, for which my comments will reference constant currency comparisons to 2019, unless I indicate otherwise. Compared to Q4 , 2019, constant currency and reported revenues were both up 7%, largely driven by higher AUR. The benefit of Black Friday and the acquisition of Beyond Yoga contributed approximately 3% to growth. This was offset by supply chain constraints, which limited further revenue opportunity by approximately $50 million or 3%. In the quarter, our direct-to-consumer channel increased 18% versus 2019 due to higher AURs, increased conversion, and store expansion.
Our e-commerce business was up 64%, delivering strong results across several key metrics, including AURs, traffic, and conversion. Profitability in our e-commerce business continues to improve.
For full year 2021, its adjusted EBIT margin on a fully allocated basis expanded to mid-single digits versus the low single-digit margin shared a year ago. We expect adjusted EBIT margin in this channel to expand and track in parity with the company average as the business doubles in size in the coming years. Not only is our company-operated e-commerce profitability improving, but we also have a more highly penetrated total digital ecosystem. Net revenue through all digital channels grew nearly 60% versus 2019, representing 22% of total company net revenues for full year 2021 compared to 14% in 2019.
Adjusted gross margin of 58.1% expanded 380 basis points versus 2019, largely attributable to what we believe to be sustainable drivers such as higher mix of sales from DTC and women's businesses, as well as price increases and lower promotion.
This was partially offset by a 60 basis point incremental air freight impact. Moving to SG&A. Our approach continues to be managing expenses while also continuing to strategically invest in our long-term growth. Adjusted SG&A expenses in the quarter were $776 million or 46% of net revenue, compared to 45% of net revenue in quarter four of 2019. The approximately $70 million increase relative to quarter four, 2019 was primarily due to the investment spending in A&M as we amplified our Buy Better, Wear Longer campaign, higher DTC costs related to store expansion, as well as the impact of currency and the addition of Beyond Yoga.
While reinvesting significantly more in our brand, we still achieved an adjusted EBIT margin of 12%, expanding 270 basis points versus 2019. I'll now take you through key highlights by segment.
Be aware that given our recent reorganization and the acquisition of Beyond Yoga, we provided historic segment restatements. The regional segments include our Levi's brand, Levi's Signature, and Denizen, while the other brand segment includes Dockers and Beyond Yoga. In the Americas, revenues grew 12% in the fourth quarter, driven by a combination of increased price and higher unit volume, which has sequentially improved throughout the year. All channels were up, with continued strength in U.S. wholesale and accelerated growth in our owned and operated stores and our e-commerce businesses.
We saw growth across all markets, including the U.S., which was up 9% and nearly 40% growth in Latin America. Europe delivered strong results in the quarter, up 3% versus 2019, despite sporadic virus resurgences which impaired consumer mobility in some markets.
Excluding the impact of our footwear distributor becoming a licensee, Europe would have been up 6%. DTC was up 14%, reflecting growth across our company-operated mainline and outlet stores and e-commerce. Top market Germany and the U.K. were up double digits. Asia's revenues decreased 2%, representing double-digit sequential improvement versus Q3, driven by both DTC and wholesale, even as COVID continued to impact many markets. While COVID remains a drag to results, there were several bright spots that give us confidence that Asia should rebound in a more normalized 2022 environment.
Company-operated mainland stores contributed to growth, and our e-commerce remained robust, up 49%. In China, growth in wholesale and company-operated mainland stores was offset primarily by approximately 80 less doors as we rationalize our franchisee base. Several markets, including ANZ, India, Korea, and Malaysia, all delivered growth in the quarter.
Our other brands revenue grew 4% in the quarter, reflective of the inclusion of the acquisition to date results of Beyond Yoga, which saw sales of approximately $15 million in the roughly 2-month period. Dockers revenue continues to improve, and while still being down versus 2019, each quarter in 2021 was sequentially better. Despite lower sales and increased marketing investment, Dockers profits and margins were higher versus full-year 2019. Turning to balance sheet and cash flows. Inventories at the end of the quarter were 2% above Q4 2019. We plan to build core inventory through the first half of the year to better meet consumer demand. As a reminder, approximately 2/3 of our inventory is comprised of core non-seasonal product. Cash and liquidity remain strong with quarter-end net debt at $125 million and overall liquidity of $1.7 billion.
Our leverage ratio is now 1.2 times the lowest it has been since the mid-nineteenth. Adjusted free cash flow through the year was $230 million, nearly double the $116 million of 2019. Again, demonstrating how we are emerging stronger from the pandemic with higher profitability and improved cash management and working capital with a shorter cash conversion cycle. Our return on invested capital was 26%, a 10-year record, and we continue to invest behind high ROI growth initiatives.
Full-year CapEx was $167 million, 2/3 of which went towards technology spend to support our business growth and a 3rd to accelerate our DTC initiative. We expanded our store footprint, primarily with our new digitally enabled NextGen stores.
We opened 92 doors over the year, bringing our total company-operated store count at year-end to 1,083 doors. Touching next on our performance during the holiday, which we define as a combination of November and December. The momentum in our business extended through holiday. Despite earlier holiday shopping and COVID-related impact, both months saw results above our expectations. Overall, total company revenue was up 28% versus 2020, reflecting both our DTC and wholesale channels performing well. Revenue growth was led by strong results by the Levi's brands in the U.S., up 20% versus 2020 and 9% versus 2019.
Gross margin also continued to see robust expansion due to similar drivers as the Q4 . While we will provide updated long-term financial targets at an investor day later this year, I will now turn to our fiscal 2022 outlook. As a reminder, we provide annual guidance, and we'll update our annual guidance each quarter as necessary as we move through the year. Overall, we are confident that we'll be able to deliver an even better year in fiscal 2022. We expect net revenues between $6.4 billion and $6.5 billion, representing reported growth of 11% to 13% year-over-year, which reflects continuous strength in the U.S., with growth exceeding its pre-pandemic algorithm, Europe's growth accelerating as the region reopen and the strongest growth in Asia as the region recovers to more normalized levels. For gross margin, we anticipate expansion of around 15 to 30 basis points against last year.
This is driven by the accelerated shift of our business towards DTC, digital, women's, and international, combined with the benefit of price increases and operating with healthy inventory.
Our SG&A rate is expected to see leverage of approximately 10 basis points versus 2021. The increase in incremental dollars is targeted in areas accelerating and supporting our growth, including advertising, e-commerce, our store fleet, and technology. Overall, we expect adjusted EBIT margin expansion of around 20 to 40 basis points year-over-year. We're exceeding the 12%+ target we laid out in 2021. We anticipate a full year tax rate in the mid- to high-teens and adjusted diluted EPS in the range of $50 to$ 56, which is higher than 2021, despite the increase in tax rates to more normalized levels. We continue to invest behind high ROI growth initiatives and uses of capital in 2022 include full year CapEx of around $270 million.
Capital spending in fiscal 2022 is focused on initiatives that will drive significant returns across our business. The increase versus 2021 reflects increased investment in growth CapEx, largely behind our digital initiatives, including the continued rollout of our ERP, as well as new store openings and renovations in our fleet, in addition to the two distribution centers Chip spoke about. In terms of DTC brick and mortar, we anticipate opening more than 100 Levi's doors globally. In the U.S., we plan to open around 30 full-price NextGen doors in 2022, taking our mainline door count to approximately 50 by the end of the year as we progress towards our goal of opening 100 full-price doors in the U.S.
I'm also pleased to announce that we're increasing our quarterly dividend payment to $0.10 per share, exceeding pre-pandemic levels based on our strong balance sheet and cash flow, as well as our continued confidence in our structurally stronger business. Before we go to Q&A, I'd like to leave you with three key thoughts. 1st, we are pleased with what we accomplished in fiscal 2021, delivering our highest revenue and profitability in over two decades despite the pandemic continuing to impact consumer mobility, the disruption to the supply chain, and inflationary headwinds. 2nd, our improved structural economics helped us generate in 2021 a record gross margin and 12.4% adjusted EBIT margin.
We continue to have sustainable margin drivers as we grow DTC, digital, and women, while also optimizing margins via AI and machine learning.
The strength of our brand supports our pricing initiatives while continuing to provide great value to our consumers. 3rd, our free cash flows and balance sheet are strong, allowing us to increase capital deployment across our priorities while also producing our lowest leverage ratio in decades. Indeed, in 2021, we successfully allocated capital across investments to grow the business organically, return cash to our shareholders, and completed our first inorganic acquisition, all while generating the highest ROIC in a decade. In closing, we are pleased with our momentum and the strong outlook we have provided for 2022 is underpinned by the strength of our brand, discipline in allocating capital towards the right strategic priorities, and proven agility in managing through crises. With that, I will now open it up for questions.
Thank you. The floor is now open for questions. If you have a question, please press star then the number 1 on your telephone keypad. Due to time constraints, the company requests that you only ask 1 question. If you have an additional question, please queue up again. If at any point your question has been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing the pound sign. Our first question comes from Matthew Boss of JP Morgan. Your line is open.
Great, thanks, and congrats on another nice quarter, guys.
Thanks, Matt.
Chip, can you speak to larger picture trends in the denim category, your level of optimism into 2022 maybe based on what you're seeing today? Then Harmeet, what gives you confidence in 11%-13% revenue growth as the starting point for this year? If you could just help bridge this outlook relative to your mid-single-digit historical algorithm.
All right, I'll start, and Harmit, you can take the H2 of the question. I think there's every reason to be optimistic about denim and denim category growth as we go forward. There are 3, you know, kind of big things that are happening that are driving it. 1st is, you know, this continued acceleration of the casualization trend, which is not just a U.S. phenomenon. It's really happening around the world. Number 2 is we're still in what I would call the early innings of the new denim cycle. You know, the looser, baggier fits, really driving the category. Keep in mind that this is on both men's and women's. You know, the last big cycle was skinny jeans, which is a women's only thing. The new denim cycle drives apparel broadly.
It drives footwear, it drives tops as well. You know, I'm optimistic for that reason. Then the 3rd thing, we've mentioned this in the past, is, you know, here in the U.S., more than a 3rd of Americans, almost 40%, have had their waist size change during the pandemic, and that's, you know, driving the need for a closet upgrade or a closet refresh. You know, we see it in the results. Denim bottoms were up 11% in Q4. Levi's Men's was up 6%. Women's was up 21%. You know, the 501®, which is our most iconic item, was up 23% to 2019. All those are versus 2019.
Really strong across both men's and women's. I guess the other thing I would say just to keep in mind, and I've got to hammer this point home, you know, we are by far the global market leader in denim. If you look at Euromonitor, we're number one in men's, we're number one in women's, we're number one overall, obviously. Importantly, we're bigger than the number 2, three, and four brands combined. There's a huge opportunity there, and we stand to benefit proportionally from this tailwind. We also grew more in 2021 versus 2020 than any other major brand measured, per Euromonitor. Then if you take a look at the U.S., which is, you know, still the biggest market, we have opportunities here.
We're still only number 2 in women's here in the U.S., but we were the only brand, only major brand, to grow women's share over the past 12 months. We added a full share point on our women's business in the U.S., and we added a full share point on the important 18 to 30 demographic. You know, we've got a great share story to tell on top of, I think, you know, a pretty robust category story. It's a big part of the reason why we're optimistic about the year ahead.
To your question, Matt, on the 11% to 13% guidance, a couple of things. You know, we have momentum as we step into the year. You've seen our holiday sales. Our businesses that are under-penetrated, women's has been growing really strongly. Digital is a bigger component of our business, and so it's growing strongly. As we talk to our customers, our orders are reflecting growth. The orders that we see, whether it's pre-book in Europe and other orders that is tracking in the U.S. Our direct-to-consumer, which was, you know, the bulk of the growth in quarter four, is coming back nicely, you know, despite traffic still being down. Beyond Yoga adds about 2% growth.
Dockers is turning around, and that should also be accretive to our business. I think as we think about the 11% to 13% guidance, you know, our view is, you know, we've got tailwind, as Chip talked about from a category perspective, but a lot of things we are doing are fairly strong. If you think about the growth algorithm regionally, I think the strength of the consumer in the U.S., and we've looked at it, you know, everywhere and twice on a Sunday, whether it's economic forecasts from banks, credit card data, you know, the consumer is pretty strong. We think Americas, you know, drives, you know, higher growth, high single-digit growth in 2022, which is higher than our growth algorithm.
Asia, you know, as things rebound, I think you'd see high growth there, higher than our growth algorithm. I'd say Europe, you know, because of Omicron and what different countries are dealing with is a high single-digit growth. You know, hopefully we're conservative and they prove us wrong. You know, the gross margins are fairly good. And they're, you know, largely a direct-to-consumer business, so that really helps. If you think about it, you know, by channel, a stronger growth in wholesale globally and, you know, outsized growth in direct-to-consumer, which is good because it helps our gross margin. If you think about categories, tops and bottoms, I'd say, you know, bottoms slightly higher because of the casualization trends than we've seen in the past.
Tops, we continue to be under-penetrated, so higher than what we've seen in the past. We will lay out our longer-term growth algorithm, Matt, when we have an investor day. Clearly, I think we seem to be headed towards a stronger growth algorithm than we had pre-pandemic.
It's great to hear. Great color. Congrats again.
Thanks, Matt.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Laurent Vasilescu of BNP Paribas Exane. Your line is open.
Oh, good afternoon. Thank you very much for taking my question. Harmit, you talked about $50 million in supply chain constraints. How do we think about that for the Q1 and H1 regarding these constraints? If you could give us any finer points on that, particularly with regards to 1Q performance year-over-year. How do we think about that in the context of the constraints, but also the European lockdowns from last winter?
Yeah, sure. You know, the good news is demand for our product and brands outstripping supply, but we can confidently say that we did. Everybody who wanted a pair of Levi's to place on their Christmas tree, as Chip likes to call it, got it. Demand outstripped supply. You know, we have had to book more shipping capacity because we had pegged capacity at a certain point and a certain rate. You know, because we needed more, you know, we had to book at higher rates. Generally speaking, I'd say demand higher than supply. We probably see that continue, you know, I'd say definitely for the first half of the year. You know, that's where you've seen a range in our numbers.
We're doing what we can. Our distribution teams, our retail store associates are really working around the clock to make sure we're able to service demand. The other thing that we are going be doing, Lauren, is we plan to build a little bit more of the core inventory, especially in the U.S., relative to sales, especially in the first half. Not a lot, but a little bit more because we do want to have inventory to service consumer needs. On a full year basis, it's difficult to predict how long this continues. I mean, economists and folks are talking about supply chain constraints dissipating or reducing in the second half. You know, we're taking what we call more of a conservative view.
should that really happen, it definitely bodes well for our brands and our business. You know, we're going to do what we can. Because core is the last piece of our inventory, I think building a little bit of inventory will probably work to our advantage and to our consumers' needs over time.
Very helpful. Thank you very much for all the color.
Yeah. Thanks, Lauren.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Omar Saad of Evercore. Your question please.
Thanks for taking my question. I'd like to ask actually about inflation, as well as pricing power. Kind of how are you seeing inflation develop for 2022 cost inflation? Maybe put into context, you know, the gross margin guidance that you gave, how much of that is kind proactive price increases, offsetting inflation as well as, you know, what's your expectation around the reduced promotional environment? Do you expect that to continue, or you expect that to rebound a little bit, versus how 2021 played out? Thanks.
Sure, Omar. Let me talk a little bit about, you know, how we're thinking about COGS, and then I'll talk to you about the puts and takes on the gross margin. On COGS, you know, last time when we reported Q3, we said we are in the process of locking in the H2 supply, and we're negotiating prices. You know, we locked in COGS slightly higher than the mid-single digit, which we think is still better than the market, but it is slightly higher. We are effectively pricing for it.
Our view is, you know, because we are locked in the first half at about 1% increase relative to 2020, the increase in COGS is, you know, for the year about mid-single digits%. So that's how we're thinking about it. We use about 15% to 20% of cotton. Cotton continues to be high, but because, you know, we effectively price for it, you know, we think we'll be able to, our gross margins will be able to offset that even as we think about H1 2023. Talking about gross margin and how we're thinking about gross margins, we did signal that gross margin for 2022 would be about 15-30 basis points higher than record gross margins in 2021.
The puts and takes on that is, you know, pricing probably helps gross margin between 200 and 250 basis points, but we think that will offset inflation, which is largely COGS and higher dilution. You know, we did reflect in the last few calls that, you know, the promotional environment probably doesn't continue, so we've kind of built that in. So that's one piece of it, pricing offsetting inflation and higher dilution. I think dilution probably stepping up, you know, sometime Q2 onwards, rather than quarter one because inventories continue to be tight. Our structural improvements in our business, whether it's DTC, women's, Beyond Yoga, you know, add 40 to 50 basis points, which is our growth algorithm. We had, you know, reasonable amount of air freight.
Because ocean freight has stepped up, you know, we think the combination of higher ocean freight and potential reduction in air freight is about a 20 to 30 basis points of headwind. That's what makes up the gross margin of different puts and takes leading to a 15 to 30 basis points of gross margin accretion year over year. That's our thinking. We think this probably, you know, kind of progresses evenly through the year, maybe gross margin slightly higher in the first half versus the second half, but that's how we're thinking about it.
Thanks for all the detail, Harmit. Best of luck.
Yeah. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Christopher Nardone of Bank of America. Your line is open.
Good afternoon, guys. Looks like you guys saw some nice recovery in Asia with revenues getting back to 2019 levels during the quarter. Full year EBIT margins in the region, still, pretty well below pre-pandemic levels. Can you discuss whether there are any structural differences today that will prevent you from returning to those pre-pandemic levels? If you could just generally provide some comments around your strategy in Asia, that would be great.
Yeah. I think, you know, the reason the operating margins in Asia, you know, were down really combination of two things. One was volumes being down. You know, Asia is about 15% to 16% of our business. Doesn't nearly leverage our operating costs, as much as some of the other regions. The 2nd is, we were investing in China. The good news is China in Q4 actually made money. It had lost money in quarter three, and, you know, earlier part of the year. That was why, you know, operating margins were impacted. I think as you think about, you know, Asia longer term. I'd say Asia, you know, coming back to pre-pandemic levels will make a sizable difference. Our gross margins, you know, around the company are higher.
Our costs around the company are lower. I think that impacts operating margins nicely over time. I think you know the way operating margin you know improve sustainably in Asia, it's all going to be driven by volume. As we reflected or I reflected in my script, there were markets that actually you know turned to growth in Asia. That was pleasing as we ended the quarter.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question comes from Bob Drbul of Guggenheim. Your question please.
Hi. Good afternoon. Just wondering, Chip, could you talk a little bit about the progress you made, you know, on the wholesale business? I think specifically in the U.S. piece of it, you know, just the profitability gains. I don't know if you could share, you know, the percentage for the fiscal year in terms of where that business ended up. Just curious on, you know, like the game plan on inventories and orders that you're seeing. I think Harmit mentioned it, but if you could maybe just address a little bit, around, you know, the game plan and what you see on inventory levels and inventory orders from your wholesale partners. Thanks.
You know, first of all, Happy New Year, Bob. We put a lot of effort, as you know, into kind of remapping our wholesale footprint to make it more premium and more digital over time, and that's really paid off. Our wholesale business today is much more profitable. I'm not going to give you a number, but it's a lot more profitable today than it was before. Certainly, you know, the lower promotional environment has been good for us, good for the brand and good for our customers as well. The pandemic definitely accelerated growth in the channel, and we had a good holiday as well here in the U.S. I think our success in U.S. wholesale is largely traced to the work that we did to premiumize our business and really get our footprint right.
You know, real elevation with customers like Nordstrom and Bloomingdale's. The addition of Target as one of our customers here has been really big for us. A very small, tight assortment, but really premium elevation of the brand, great in-store execution. Wholesale gross margin and profitability are the strongest they've been in a long, long time. Again, as I said, the lower promotional environment has helped that. When we do have this Analyst Day that we keep talking about, which is going to come later this year in the spring, late spring, we'll share a full growth algorithm about what we're expecting from wholesale over time.
I guess the last thing I would say is, you know, brick-and-mortar wholesale, so just the brick-and-mortar component of it, is only around 10% of our sales today. Which is down hugely from 10 years ago when I joined here. I mean, U.S. wholesale at the time was almost half of the company's total business. Today, brick-and-mortar U.S. wholesale is about 10% of our total revenue. It's a massive transformation for us over the last decade.
Got it. If I could just sneak in one more for you, Chip. Do you think the Niners are going to win this weekend, and are you guys planning for a big Levi's commercial in the Super Bowl at this point in time?
Well, here's what I will tell you. What Super Bowl is this? 56, right? What's 56 in Roman letters? It's LVI. The only thing that's missing is the letter E.
We'll see you in the Super Bowl. Good luck. Thank you.
Thanks a lot. Yep. Bye-bye.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Dana Telsey of Telsey Advisory Group. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, everyone, and Happy New Year. As you think about the CapEx budget for this year, is $270 million the new number, or is the new distribution centers adding to that? How do you break it down? Just following up on digital, what are you seeing on that digital margin? You mentioned the improvement. Where do you think that could go? Thank you.
Okay. Dana, Happy New Year to you, too. On CapEx, you know, CapEx is over time. You know, we have stepped up CapEx as the company generated a decent amount of cash. We've invested, I would say wisely because our return on invested capital as a company is at a 10-year high of about 26%. So there is discipline in how we allocate capital. Why is capital higher? It's about 4%, a little over 4% of revenue, depending on where you peg revenue. The increase is largely driven by a couple of things.
We did talk about you know the distribution centers in Europe and in the East Coast in the U.S., and that is to service higher demand and importantly you know drive more efficiency in how we fulfill because we can have visibility and inventory across our direct to consumer and drive the channel that is really growing, which is e-commerce. We are also during the pandemic we had scaled back on remodels and you know as I said you know we have 1,000-plus stores. We're trying to scale that back.
That's good ROI. You know now that we have a NextGen model that is working around the world, we have you know something we can retrofit to. Plus the 100-odd new stores that we talked about.
We're also spending more money on digital as we're trying to grow the e-commerce business, whether it's scaling our loyalty program, scaling our apps, you know, scaling BOPUS. You know, the basic things that today define what a good omnichannel retailer is all about. You know, we are also scaling AI and machine learning, and there is a wonderful ERP upgrade which is happening. I think a combination of factors, but you know, my view is 2/3 of the capital is still growth oriented. That's the 1st answer to your question on capital. I think your 2nd question, 2nd piece, Aida, sorry, your-
Digital margin
Dina, can you help me?
Yep. Digital margin.
On the digital margin is simple. The good news is it's mid-single-digit % from low-single-digit % at the end of last year, you know, numbers being in the red pre-pandemic. I think our view is if we can double our own e-commerce business, which will take a couple of years, you know, we think we can get to the 12% number. It's largely a volume game. Plus, as we build efficiencies through digital distribution, that also helps. I think that's what we're trying to do. I think the headwind is obviously distribution costs. You know, we've got enough factors, including volume leverage, that help offset that.
Great. Just, Chip, lastly, anything on Beyond Yoga, the early insights that you're gleaning there and what you're seeing?
Sure. I guess what I would say is a couple of things. 1st of all, you know, we're pretty much complete with the integration, and we are really, really happy. I mean, no big surprises. We kind of got what we thought we were going to get is, you know, one important headline. That's great. Beyond that, the team is terrific. We have already transplanted a couple of Levi's folks onto the Beyond Yoga team. A person in marketing, a person in IT who's going to help a lot with e-commerce and that area. We'll likely move a merchant down there as well. We're starting to populate some Levi's folks down there. It's still really, really early days.
We talked in the prepared remarks about the men's pilot that they had right before the holidays. That was really, really good. We will likely have a couple of stores before the end of this year. We're feeling really, really positive. As I've said many times, I think the future is really, really bright for this brand. It's amazing product, and it's a great team, and we're very, very optimistic right now.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Brooke Roach of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, and thank you so much for taking our question. Chip, Harmeet, AUR has been a strong contributor to Levi's growth versus 2019 levels this year, and it sounds like that has a lot of room to continue. Could you perhaps provide a bit of color on your outlook for sales volumes for the year, and maybe the categories or channels where you see the largest opportunity for Levi's share volume capture to increase in this next fiscal year? Thank you.
Hey, Brooke. You know, it's difficult to model with precision, but here's how we're thinking. If you look at the 11%-12%, you know, about 2% of that is thanks to the wonderful work that the Beyond Yoga team is doing. If you assume the rest is, you know, Levi's and maybe a point from Dockers, but let's just largely Levi's. Our view is pricing is about half that, and the other is largely being driven by, you know, what I call higher DTC as well as, you know, just volumes. So that's how we're thinking about it, you know, at this point of time. Overall, for the year, I think Chip referenced it, AURs were up 7%, most of it pricing.
For the quarter, AURs were up 10%, 70% of that was pricing. That's how we're generally thinking about, you know, AURs, you know, growing, you know, what they are and where they're headed over time.
Thank you so much.
In terms of categories, it's primarily, you know, I think being driven by our bottoms business. You know, tops is under-penetrated as we add more of a portfolio, you know, a premium, as we add premium tops to our portfolio, that will help AURs over time.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Jay Sole of UBS. Your question, please.
Great. Thank you so much. Chip, my question is about the store rollout that you talked about earlier in the call with the NextGen stores. What are you seeing that makes you seem like the rollout is happening faster. It's increasing. What are you seeing that makes you want to do that? And then for Harmeet, you know, it should be an interesting year from a top line perspective just because, you know, you have a lapping fiscal stimulus in March in April in the U.S., and then there's a lot of easy compares in parts of the world where COVID was a big impact in 2021. So you can just give us an idea of the contours of the year from a quarterly perspective on where you expect the sales growth to be, like maybe higher than average or lower than average? Thank you.
Yeah. I'll hit the store thing real quickly. You know, as we've been rolling out these next gen stores, we've been really pleased with their performance and literally kind market by market when we go in with the next gen store. Remember, they're smaller. They tend to be smaller footprint, more efficient, tight assortment, digitally enabled, an easy store to shop, you know, and a little bit more consumer friendly, larger fitting rooms, better lighting. Almost market by market, they tend to outperform the old format stores. You know, take a look at our ROIC for this past year. You know, we're investing a lot of capital into retail, and it's returning. I won't say every single one of these stores has met or beaten our expectation, but we're really pleased with it.
We know, especially here in the U.S., we know we continue to have this opportunity to premiumize the marketplace. You know, just a couple of years ago, we only had 30 mainline doors. I'm not even sure if we've crossed 50 at this point. There's still a lot of opportunity for productive mainline doors here in the U.S., but in other parts of the world as well. You know, we think we're going to add about another 100 doors or so on a growth basis this year. We're optimistic about it. It's a good time to be looking for real estate too in many markets.
To your question about first half, second half or, you know, the quarterly puts and takes, I'd say, you know, last year, our H1 relative to 2019 was still down because we're dealing with store closures in Europe and in parts of Asia, et cetera. The way we think about it is Q1 is probably up in the mid- to high teens. It'll obviously vary by quarter. The second half is in the higher single digit. That's how we're thinking about, you know, revenue. U.S. generally strong through the year, but Europe and Asia, you know, helping, you know, drive the swings.
Got it. Okay. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Ike Boruchow of Wells Fargo. Your question please.
Hey, thank you. Happy New Year. Chip, 2 questions for you. Just, you know, there's a lot of investor trepidation in the space, clearly for a couple different reasons, but one is just the idea that demand is going to be moderating to a point where, you know, maybe it becomes uncomfortable. I mean, is there anything you can say about Q1 or quarter to date just from a demand perspective, whether it's your own DTC business or your talks with your wholesale partners, that would be helpful for us. Just to that point, on the wholesale side, any difference in those conversations within the mass channel versus the department store channel would be helpful.
Yeah. I won't get down to customer-level detail, but you know, part of the reason we sound optimistic is every signal we're looking at. I've got say, you know, I'm probably the one who gets most paranoid, and I'm always paranoid, and I'm always looking for something that's going to send us sideways. Every signal that we look at right now, the consumer still looks pretty bullish, and that's true on a global basis. We've got good visibility to the order book in Europe, where there's you know, this concept of pre-booking. The demand signal coming from there is very strong. We're still chasing here in the U.S. right now. You know, as you heard, we left demand on the table, if you will.
We left the 3 points of growth unfilled, and we're still chasing. You know, but the Fed, I think right about the same time we started this call, announced an interest rate hike and inflation is partially psychological, and I've been there. You know, I was in business back in the early 1980s. I remember it. You know, we're watching the consumer like a hawk. But right now every signal that we're seeing is positive. We know that we've been successful getting pricing passed through, you know, over the last 6 months. You see what's happened to our AUR. You know, but we'll keep an eye on it, and if we see the signal starting to change, we'll react quickly. Right now.
If you look at the economist reports, even from your own bank, they're all very, very optimistic right now about the consumer. That's why we're feeling pretty good, and everything we're seeing suggests that.
That's great. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. At this time, I'd like to turn the floor back over to the company for any closing remarks.
Okay. I think we may have left one or 2 or a couple of questions unanswered. I'm sorry about that. I know that Harmeet and Ida will be doing follow-up calls with everybody. We tried to be as quick as we could here. In the interest of time and respecting everybody's calendar, we'll call it here. Thanks very much for joining us and for being along for the ride, and we'll speak to you at the next earnings call in a couple of months. Bye-bye.
Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Please disconnect your lines at this time.