Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Under Armour, Inc. 4th Quarter Earnings Webcast and Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. Later, we will As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would like to introduce your host for today's conference, Mr.
Tom Shaw, Director of Investor Relations. Sir, please begin.
Thanks, and good morning to everyone joining us for today's Q4 conference call. During the course of this call, we'll be making projections or other forward looking statements regarding future events or the future financial performance of the company. We wish to caution that such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events or results to differ materially. These risks and uncertainties are described in our press release and in the Risk Factors section of our filings with the SEC. The company assumes no obligation to update forward looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date on which the statement is made or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.
In addition, as required by Regulation G, we need to make you aware that during the call, we will reference certain non GAAP financial information, specifically currency neutral net revenue growth. We provide a reconciliation of this non GAAP financial information in our earnings release, a copy of which is available on our website at uabiz.com. Joining us on today's call will be Kevin Plank, Chairman and CEO Chip Malloy, our new CFO and Brad Dickerson, who just handed over the CFO range to Chip and is assisting with the transition before he leaves UA next month. Following Kevin's remarks, Chip will briefly introduce himself, and Brad will take us through the company's financial performance for the Q4 and full year 2015 followed by an update to our 2016 outlook. After the prepared remarks, Kevin and Brad will be available for Q and A session that will end at approximately 9:30 a.
M. Finally, a replay of this teleconference will be available at our website at approximately 11 am Eastern Time today. And with that, I'll turn it over to Kevin Plank.
Thank you, Tom, and good morning, everyone. I want to wish you all a belated Happy New Year and wish those in China an early While this earnings call is to report on our 2015 Q4 and the past year as a whole, I want to focus for a moment on the year ahead. This year, 2016, is Under Armour's 20th year in business. It's an incredible milestone for any company. And for us, it means a few things.
It means that the next generation entering the workforce doesn't know a world where Under Armour didn't exist. This generation doesn't recognize us as the underdogs, but as he always was. It means that we are not a passing fad or a flavor of the month. The interlocking UA logo has become a globally recognized symbol for being aggressive, young and fearless. It means we are a brand that resonates with athletes, all athletes, and we will continue to thrive because we remain as humble and hungry as we were 20 years ago with plenty of room left to grow.
And with that, our scoreboard remains strong. We are entering this milestone position for success, capping off the past year with yet another solid finish. Total net revenues for the Q4 were up 31%, marking our 23rd consecutive quarter of 20 plus percent net revenue growth. And since this call is about our most recent Q4, let me throw out a few more numbers for you that are 4th quarter related. 36%, 34%, 26%, 35% 31%.
Those are the percentages we have grown in each of the previous 5 4th quarters. Each year around this time, weather inevitably plays part of the conversation. And each year, we answer those who doubt us with extremely strong growth numbers in the Q4. Was it 72 degrees on the East Coast this past Christmas? It was.
Did it affect our business the way some thought it would? No, it did not. Because here in the U. S, where we currently do the majority of our business, we know that football will be played in the fall, basketball will be played in the winter, baseball will be played in the spring and like soccer, personal health and fitness is a year round all weather interest. Our business is more diversified than it's ever been.
We do not let weather play decisive role in dictating our success. As we move into 2016, we have become a global brand capable of meeting athletes' needs from head to toe. In the Q4, we posted strong gains across our business, illustrating the broad based strength and demand for our brand, with apparel growing 22%, direct to consumer growing 25%, international growing 70% and footwear growing a whopping 95%. While our growth drivers have not changed since we went public more than 10 years ago, These numbers show how diverse our portfolio has become and reinforces the continued success of our largest category, apparel. 10 years ago, we were a $281,000,000 company with apparel representing 93% of our revenues and compression representing 64% of the entire business.
Today, our apparel business represents 71% of our revenues and compression is less than 10%. We closed 2015 with more balance and breadth of product across our businesses, men's, women's and youth, driving our apparel business over $2,800,000,000 from just the $260,000,000 it was a decade ago. In the Q4, apparel growth of 22% showcases that our brand has products for all seasons and temperatures. And perhaps more importantly, that today athletes have the complete head to toe assortment available to them in more channels globally than ever before. 10 years ago, our direct to consumer business represented 6% of our net revenues, consisting of a single website and just 4 domestic factory house doors.
Today, our direct to consumer business represents 30% of net revenues, made up of 25 global websites and nearly 400 Under Armour owned and partner retail doors around the world. It's impossible to not talk about the strength of e commerce when we look at our direct to consumer business. This business continues to be on fire, not only in the United States, but also around the world. In China, on Singles Day this past November, we had our first $1,000,000 revenue day online, while in the U. S, mobile has grown to almost 50% of traffic to our site and represented 23% of e commerce revenues in the Q4.
Consumers continue to look for us in multiple places, and we will be wherever they are, whether it's on a device or in physical doors. Globally, we continue to drive both awareness and revenue growth as we expand our retail footprint outside the United States, closing out 2015 with almost 3 times as many doors in total from just a year ago. 10 years ago, we just entered Europe and our international business was $6,000,000 primarily driven by our partners in Japan. Today, international has become almost a $500,000,000 business with our brand being sold in more than 60 countries. Last week, I visited our Amsterdam office that has served as our European headquarters for the past 10 years located in the historic Olympic stadium where the energy and enthusiasm has me more confident in our team and their ability than ever before.
In 2015, every region, every category and every channel exceeded our plans for our international business, driving 70% growth in the 4th quarter and 69% growth year over year. 2 years ago, our international business was 6% of revenues. Today, it is 11%. And by 2018, as we said at our Investor Day, we expect it to be 18%. Our brand certainly translates.
10 years ago, we've not sold a single pair of shoes. Today, footwear represents 17% of our business, closing in on $700,000,000 in revenues. This past quarter, our footwear revenues grew 95%, driven in part by the success of our expanded running lines, which will feature 8 different offerings all over the $100 price point compared to the 4 lines offered in the previous year. Also driving our growth and more importantly, creating an incredible connection with our young consumer is our Stephen Curry signature basketball shoe line that launched almost a year ago today. The sell through on the Curry 2 was like nothing we've ever seen before.
The same words that people tend to say after watching Step and Play live. We're just beginning to see what partnering with the right athletes like Stephen Curry can do for our business. It's difficult to underestimate the power of having the best sell through of any Signature Basketball shoe this past season. It clearly lifted our brand in the mall channel and positioned us for aggressive growth, not only in Signature, but overall with this most important consumer base. Footwear.
And to be clear, premium footwear continues to be an accelerator to our top line and a huge part of our growth story. With our sights set on building a $1,000,000,000 plus footwear brand, it is becoming a bigger and more important component of our business and the result will be a more balanced blend of apparel and footwear within UA. Posting a 57 percent growth in footwear for the full year in 2015 is evidence of our ability to resonate with the consumer and provide them with a breadth of products unmatched in years past. The strength of our footwear product coming from our expanding team of designers and developers helped us elevate our business above $100@retailby1000% this past year. And we're even more excited and proud of the product that is coming out in 2016.
We are seeing what Stefan has done for our basketball business, what basketball has done for our footwear business and from there, what footwear has done for our brand. This story is being told in our numbers, but is also being told on the courts, fields and pitches around the world. Show up at any Golden State Warriors game, home or away, it doesn't matter. And you will see the thousands of people who show up early just to see Stephen Curry's warm up routine. That as I have described to you before is the power of sport.
Speaking of our MVPs, we are continuing on last year's theme of UA ambassadors dominating their respective sport, thanks to our roster of athletes who continue to win on the world's biggest stages. Since the last time we've spoken in baseball, Bryce Harper of the Washington Nationals was named the Major League Baseball MVP in the National League. In Tennis, Andy Murray won the Davis Cup for the first time in 79 years. And in boxing, Canelo Alvarez became the WBC Middleweight Champion of the World with his victory over Miguel Cotto. They joined Stefan, Jordan, Misty and others in our year of champions, solidifying UA as the home for winners.
Now with the Super Bowl just over a week away, we will see yet another UA MVP, Cam Newton, compete at the highest level of the sport while representing our brand. Cam has been a critical driver of our footwear success with the Hi Lite cleat, and the Super Bowl will introduce him to a brand new set of consumers. It is a platform where companies pay $5,000,000 to air 32nd TV spot during the broadcast, while our guy will wear his UA cleats throughout the entire 3 plus hours of the game. And finally, we ended 2015 with a key personnel announcement. Last month, we announced Brad Dickerson's successor as CFO will be Chip Malloy.
Chip comes to us with significant financial executive experience in the consumer retail sector, having served as EVP and CFO for PetSmart from 2,007 until 2013. And where in 2011, he was named Institutional Investors CFO of the Year for Specialty Retail. Chip is a Maryland native and a graduate of one of our partner schools, the United States Naval Academy. He also graduated from Navy Fighter Weapons School or TOPGUN as it is known, where he served for 15 years in the United States Navy. With my new partner in place, Chip will work together with Brad over the next month to ensure a smooth transition.
So that's how we closed 2015. Now let's talk about how we kicked off 2016. We started this year off with a bang at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, unveiling a suite of products that will change the way athletes live. Many of you have heard me talk about Connected Fitness on these calls or at our Investor Day. In the past 3 weeks, we've seen the vision of this platform truly come to life.
First, we announced the launch of UA Record, one of our 4 mobile app platforms that collectively are earning more than 130,000 new users a day since just beginning of the year. UA Record is the digital dashboard that displays everything you need to know about your health in 4 quadrants: sleep, fitness, activity and nutrition. Combined with your body weight and our own cognitive measurement of how do you feel, it collects and displays a complete picture of your health in the easiest, most simple way possible. 2nd, we introduced the Under Armour Healthbox, the world's 1st complete connected fitness system, which consists of a band, a heart rate strap and a smart scale, all in one package. Built in partnership with HTC, these tools work together to capture data pertaining to your health and fitness, and again doing it in the easiest, most simple way possible.
Because music is such an important part of how people exercise, also partnered with Harman Kardon JBL to launch Bluetooth enabled wireless headphones, including an updated version to be released later this year that will also read heart rate in lieu of a strap. Finally, we launched our first smart shoe with the Gemini 2RE, which stands for Record Equipped. This shoe tracks every step and uploads data, including time, date, duration and distance directly into our platforms. This cutting edge footwear provides an untethered experience and allows the athlete to run device free. There is no start or stop button.
When the shoes are on your feet, it's ready and tracking. And one of the coolest features of the shoe is that it tracks its own lifespan and will send a notification when it's time for a new pair. All of these products feed into UA Record as well as more than 400 different connected devices to create the ultimate open platform destination to measure your health and fitness. Additionally, we announced our partnership with IBM and their Watson platform to help build the insights capability for Under Armour Record. Wearables have been effective in telling you how many steps you took or the hours you slept, but they haven't been effective in giving you proactive information on how to utilize that data to make your life better.
Put simply, there was no call to action until now. IBM's Watson, a platform that executes cognitive thinking, will provide personalized insights in real time to the user based on the information we collect through UA Record, and it will take the experience and service to a whole new level. By adding Watson's insights to UA Record, we deliver direction to help you reach your personal goals, whether you want to lose 10 pounds or simply just feel better. This is what differentiates UA Record from the rest of the fitness tracking apps and what gives us confidence in the consumer experience we are building to help change the way athletes live. Now let me complete the vision for Connected Fitness.
Beyond enriching lives, it will propel our business forward. This is not a tech initiative. This is a digital transformation and therefore a business transformation for Under Armour. Before Connected Fitness, we only had retail transaction information for less than 10,000,000 people, that stores and e commerce combined. Now we have daily activity level data from our community members who logged nearly 8,000,000,000 foods and 2,000,000,000 activities last year alone.
Not only do we have people going into our stores and visiting our e commerce sites, but we also have a deeper understanding of our consumer based on information collected using connected fitness, including sleep, fitness, activity, nutrition, weight and how do you feel. This gives us an unparalleled view of their life and needs. I referred to it as our mouth house during our last call, but we're also calling it the single view of the consumer. All of this is possible because of the near 10 year partnership we have established with SAP. The single view of the consumer is something we're building with the team at SAP that combines global point of sale, e commerce and transactional information through a single sign on capability together with our connected fitness business to create an insight engine that will inform and guide our decisions to help grow and scale our brand.
This will build on our existing SAP platform as we double down and continue to make big bets with big partners. We believe that this unique technological advancement will position UA as a best in class real time digital enterprise. At Under Armour, we focus on creating products you don't know you need yet, but once you have it, you won't remember how you live without it, just like our very first T shirt. Some great examples of this are the types of innovation we will bring to the market that will further elevate and diversify our product and continue to distinguish Under Armour. For example, this year we will launch MicroThread, a new cooling technology comprised of elastomeric thread that drives 30% faster and is 70% more breathable than similar Lycra constructions.
Then on the heating side, there's Reactor, an insulation that combines warmth and breathability to keep you comfortable with out overheating. This is an addition to many other new innovations like Cool Switch and on the footwear side Slingshot. New innovations like the ones I just mentioned bring new opportunities for growth, which lead to revenue driving platforms. Our goal is that these new innovations will develop as strongly as some of our key revenue driving platforms from prior years, like Coldgear Infrared and armor in apparel and the signature Curry line in footwear. Our relentless pursuit of innovation is just that, relentless.
It never stops. When I first began Under Armour 20 years ago, I didn't set out to make just another T shirt. I set out to make a better T shirt, one that solves a problem and gives whoever wears it an advantage. With our connected fitness business, we're not releasing just another fitness app or tracking device. We're building a complete ecosystem to manage your health and fitness with actionable insights to make you better.
Finding a better way has been a running theme for us over the past 20 years, whether it's through the products we offer or the way we operate our business. And we'll keep finding a better way for another 20 years, because we are just getting started. So now, I'd like to introduce Chip Molloy before Brad takes us through the numbers. Chip?
Thanks, Kevin, and I appreciate the kind words. While I've only been on the job for about 10 days now, it is already abundantly clear that this company has a tremendous runway of growth ahead. I'm also extremely privileged to follow a leader like Brad and inherit a great team that he has been instrumental in building over his time with the company. In the near term, I'll be focused on living and learning the business and look forward to meeting many of you beginning late spring. Now I'll turn it over to Brad to run through the numbers.
Thanks, Kevin and Chip. I would now like to spend some time reviewing our Q4 and full year 2015 financial results, followed by our updated outlook for 2016. Our net revenues for the Q4 of 2015 increased 31% to $1,170,000,000 On a currency neutral basis, 4th quarter net revenues increased 33 percent. For the full year, net revenues increased 28 percent to $3,960,000,000 which compared to our most recent full year guidance of $3,910,000,000 On a currency neutral basis, full year net revenues increased 31%. Focusing on the 4th quarter, we grew apparel net revenues 22 percent to $865,000,000 compared to $708,000,000 in the prior year's quarter.
With our efforts to build a more diversified business, we posted impressive growth across channels and categories despite well documented weather challenges. Our focus on building brand equity around the globe through elevated product and experiences was evident in the strong growth of international and direct to consumer in the quarter. We also saw success around our continued expansion in key product categories like training, running, golf, team sports and basketball. 4th quarter footwear net revenues increased 95 percent to $167,000,000 from $86,000,000 in the prior year. Broad based footwear strength has been the consistent theme in 2015, though the exceptional performance of our Curry 2 Signature Basketball line was clearly the 4th quarter standout.
Our accessories net revenues during the 4th quarter increased 23% to $97,000,000 from $79,000,000 last year, primarily driven by continued strong demand for our line of bags. Our global direct to consumer net revenues increased 25% for the quarter, representing approximately 36 percent of net revenues. In global retail, we ended the 4th quarter with 191 owned stores, including 161 Factory House stores and 30 Brand House Stores. With our retail business still heavily weighted to North America Factory House Stores, we did experience some of the similar weather related challenges as our overall apparel business. However, our strong e commerce business continues to diversify how we reach global consumers, and we continue to capitalize on our investments in mobile and international, where we more than doubled our in country websites during 2015.
Looking at our regions, North America net revenues increased 26 percent to $1,020,000,000 in the 4th quarter compared to $808,000,000 in the prior year's quarter. On a currency neutral basis, North American net revenues increased 27%, accelerating from the growth rate posted last quarter despite the warm weather backdrop. This strength demonstrates the diversity of our product mix, including accelerated footwear growth and consistent apparel performance as well as channel mix between our wholesale partners and our direct to consumer businesses. International net revenues increased 70% to 139,000,000 dollars in the 4th quarter and represented 12% of total net revenues. On a currency neutral basis, international net revenues increased 85% for the period.
In the EMEA region, our heightened focus on the UK and Germany continues to drive momentum in these 2 core markets. While growth remains strong across all channels, our e commerce strategy, including 9 new in country sites launched in 2015, is playing a key role in broadening our reach and awareness in the region. In Asia Pacific, we continue to see tremendous demand for the brand driving triple digit growth across Greater China and our Southeast Asia distributor, led by the success and expansion of our BrandHouse stores. And in Latin America, we are building momentum with many of our recent country expansions like Chile, more than offsetting the well documented macro challenges in Brazil. Moving on to margins.
4th quarter gross margins contracted 190 basis points to 48% compared to 49.9% in the prior year's period. The following factors were the primary drivers during the quarter. First, sales mix negatively impacted gross margin by approximately 90 basis points in the 4th quarter versus the prior year, primarily driven by the continued strong performance of our footwear business. 2nd, the continued strength of the U. S.
Dollar negatively impacted gross margin by approximately 80 basis points versus the prior year. 3rd, higher inventory liquidations negatively impacted gross margin by approximately 30 basis points. Before I move on with other elements of the quarter, I wanted to provide a quick snapshot of our gross margin performance for the full year. Our full year rate in 2015 declined 90 basis points to 48.1% compared to 49% in the prior year's period. Of this 90 basis point decline, 70 basis points resulted from the continued strength of the U.
S. Dollar. While we also faced additional gross margin headwinds from adverse sales mix impact given the strong growth of our international footwear businesses, higher inventory liquidation specifically in the Q4 and higher freight expenses from port disruptions and efforts to better service our business, we were able to offset most of the non currency related pressure through more favorable product margins in both our North America and international businesses. Selling, general and administrative expenses as a percentage of net revenues leveraged 80 basis points to 32.8 percent in the Q4 of 2015 from 33.6% in the prior year's period. SG and A details for the 4th quarter are follows.
Marketing costs decreased to 7.9% of net revenues for the quarter from 8.4% in the prior year period, primarily reflecting the timing of our global marketing campaigns. Other SG and A costs decreased to 24.9 percent of net revenues for the quarter from 25.2% in the prior year, driven primarily by lower incentive compensation expense. Operating income for the 4th quarter increased 21% to $178,000,000 compared with $146,000,000 in the prior year period. For the full year, operating income increased 15% to $409,000,000 compared to our most recent guidance of $408,000,000 The 2 Connected Fitness acquisitions we made in 2015 negatively impacted full year operating income by approximately $23,000,000 Interest and other expense in the 4th quarter increased to $6,000,000 compared with $4,000,000 in the prior year period, primarily reflecting increased interest expense associated with the financing of our Connected Fitness acquisitions. Our 4th quarter tax rate of 38.4% was consistent with the prior year.
Our 4th quarter net income increased 21 percent to $106,000,000 compared to $88,000,000 in the prior year period, while our diluted earnings per share increased to $0.48 from $0.40 in the prior year's period. Full year diluted earnings per share increased 11% to $1.05 compared to $0.95 in 2014. The $1.05 earnings per share in 2015 is inclusive of a $0.10 impact from the 2 Connected Fitness acquisitions we made in 2015. On the balance sheet, total cash and cash equivalents for the quarter decreased to $130,000,000 compared with $593,000,000 at December 31, 2014. Accounts receivable increased 55 percent to $434,000,000 compared with $280,000,000 at December 31, 20 14, primarily related to the timing of shipments within the quarter.
Inventory for the quarter increased 46% to $783,000,000 compared to $537,000,000 at December 31, 2014. Back at our Investor Day in September and again our Q3 earnings call, we discussed elevated inventory growth from the 36% rate posted in the 3rd quarter. This growth is largely a result of our strategy to focus on delivering our products to our consumers in a more timely manner and thus drive higher fill rates. This strategy includes flowing product to our customers earlier to meet key seasonal floor set dates as well as strategic investments in auto replenishment products. While these efforts are driving much of the elevated inventory growth rates in the near term, they are also delivering meaningful improvements in our service levels year over year in support of our revenue growth.
In addition, the recent weather trends have led to some excess inventory creation, which we will continue to work through across our normal liquidation channels during the first half of twenty sixteen. Total debt increased to $669,000,000 as compared to $284,000,000 at December 31, 2014, primarily reflecting the financing of our 2 Fitness acquisitions. Looking at our cash flows. Our investment in capital expenditures was $85,000,000 for the Q4 compared to $59,000,000 in the prior year's period, driven primarily by our investments in our global headquarters in Baltimore and our SAP platform. Full year capital expenditures were $325,000,000 compared to our prior guidance range of $350,000,000 to $360,000,000 primarily due to timing of our investments.
Now moving on to 2016. Based on our current visibility, we expect 2016 net revenues of approximately 4,950,000,000 dollars representing growth of 25 percent and 2016 operating income of approximately $503,000,000 representing growth of 23%. These growth rates remain in line with the long term growth rates laid out at our Investor Day last September and are also consistent with our previous guidance on our Q3 earnings call. Below the operating line, we expect interest expense to increase to approximately $35,000,000 in 2016 as we expect to increase debt levels to support our business and look for opportunities to refinance our debt with more long term financing. In addition, we expect a full year tax rate of approximately 38.5% fully diluted weighted average shares outstanding of approximately 223,000,000.
Now I'd like to provide more color on our expected results for 2016. 1st, with net revenues, we currently anticipate the growth rate for the first half of the year to be above our expected full year growth rate. Specifically looking at the Q1, we expect the growth rate to be in the high 20s, led by many of the same factors from our Q4, including strength in footwear international, higher planned inventory liquidations and strategies to better service our customers year over year. As is typical at this point in the year, as we gain better visibility on orders, specifically for the Q4, we provide updates in our progress on future calls. Next on gross margin, we expect a quarter of 2016, we anticipate similar year over year dynamics as our just completed 4th quarter results, including higher liquidations to clear through excess inventory along with continued currency headwinds.
Thus, we expect our largest gross margin headwind for the year during the Q1. We are planning an approximate 150 basis point decline year over year. Shifting to SG and A. We expect deleverage expenses in 2016 as our focus remains on making the right investments to drive our long term global success. Looking at the marketing portion of SG and A, we expect to continue to invest across our sports marketing assets, global brand campaigns and retail marketing.
In other SG and A, we are focused on key brand enhancing initiatives that we outlined at our Investor Day such as Connected Fitness and Global Retail as well as strategic investments strategic business areas including category management and innovation. With a higher top line growth rate currently expected in the front half of the year, we expect modest overall SG and A leverage in the front half of the year and modest deleverage in the second half of the year. Looking at capital expenditures in 2016, we are currently planning to invest at the midpoint of our 8% to 10% of net revenues target range outlined at our Investor Day. Our investments include our global headquarters as well as our expanding SAP platform that will serve as the architecture for our future growth, while also driving our insights engine to power our single view of the consumer that Kevin spoke about. Finally, inventory.
As we previously stated, our focus is on delivering our products to our consumers in a more timely manner and improving our customer service levels. As a result, we continue to expect inventory growth rates to be slightly elevated above revenue growth rates in the front half of twenty 16, with growth rates expected to level off and be in line with revenue growth in the back half of twenty sixteen. Before we turn it over to Q and A, I wanted to take just a moment to express my thanks to Kevin and the team. It has been a real privilege and honor over the last 11 plus years to work for Kevin and this great brand and have been part of such a strong leadership team and an amazing group of teammates that now tops more than 12,000. In addition, today marks the 37th UA earnings call I have participated And I would like to thank the analysts and investors on the call today, many of whom I spent time with over the years telling the Under Armour story.
I'm excited to pass the CFO range to Chip, a proven leader, and I am confident that Chip and the talented team supporting him will continue the strong growth for this great brand. Now I'd like to turn it over to your questions. Operator?
Thank Our first question is from Matt McClintock of Barclays. Your line is open, sir.
Yes. Good morning, everyone, and welcome, Chip. Best of luck, Brad. Hi. My question is, Kevin, there seems to be a lot of debate in the marketplace on several of your strategies and you kind of hit upon some of this in your prepared remarks.
But in particular, the competitive positioning of both your footwear and your women's business and then also the potential maturity of the domestic business. I was just wondering if you can give us your updated thoughts on those topics. Have there been any strategic changes that we should be thinking about? Thanks.
Hey, Matt, this is Brad.
I'm going to start that question and let Kevin follow-up. But I think one of the things that's important, there's a lot of noise this time of year with weather and so forth in the Q4. And I think it was important, especially in Kevin's prepared remarks around the track record we've had with 23 straight quarters above 20% growth. And then even in the Q4, in the last 6 years, a CAGR in the Q4 of about 32% growth. And then planning our business in 2016 at 25%.
There's a lot of growth in multitude of places. And I think there's we've talked about this in the past too. I think there's a little bit of a danger in looking at some of the data sets that are out there, specifically a data set like SportsCan. And it can be challenging looking at our business relative to something like SportsScan where that data is only is capturing actually less than 40% of our business specifically in the Q4. It's missing key data inputs like our direct to consumer business, our international business, and it's actually extrapolating some of our key accounts that are pretty large like a Dix and a Foot Locker.
And it obviously also includes accounts that we do not service. So utilizing that data as a proxy for our success, especially in the Q4, it can be a little bit challenged, as we've seen, obviously, because we posted another strong quarter and our apparel growing over 20%. So I just wanted to start that answer with just let's be careful on some of those data sets that are out there and understand how they relate to our business in particular.
Thanks, Brad. And I think it's important just to put some context. So let me just take a couple of minutes and address your questions. So let me begin with footwear, then I'll do North America and then I'll close with women. So I think the best place for us to start is about growth.
It goes without saying is that any of these questions come down to what does our growth look like. And in the 4th quarter with 31% growth and frankly marking our 23rd consecutive quarter of 20 plus percent top line revenue growth, our growth story is strong. We remain a growth company and none of that is wavered. But I also want to give you some context beginning with footwear about just how our business has changed since really just 2012 and evolving into a true footwear brand. Remember, 10 years ago, when we celebrated or we went public, we hadn't even launched our first shoe until we launched Football Cleats in June of 2,006.
So we've come a long way from there. So beginning with footwear, just going back to 2012 was 13% of our business. And since then, we've added, I don't know, over a couple of $1,000,000,000 of revenue. And today, footwear is nearly 17% of our business, representing a 42% CAGR over the last just few years. The diversity, again, back in 2012, our mix of product was 33% of footwear in 2012 was cleats.
Cleats today are down to 22% with plans of being the number one shoe in the market in football, and I'll get back that in just a second. In my prepared remarks, I mentioned us doubling our running styles over $100 And I just want to make for context, and I also talked about increasing over 1,000 percent. Across all of our footwear, we've more than tripled our footwear styles priced over $100 while quadrupling the volume. Like footwear for us couldn't be more and better positioned to be truly a premium footwear brand. And the best way for me to articulate that, let me just talk about basketball for a second.
First of all, we have the right athlete in Stephen Curry, and he is without question the number one basketball player on the planet today. We've got the right product that's led by the Curry 2. And to be clear, we launched the Curry 1 just a year ago at $120 price point. We then came back on a tour that we did with Stefan in the fall in September, and we launched the Curry II at $130 price point. And we've learned a tremendous amount over the last year of what we can do and primarily what we can do in signature basketball product and feel incredibly bullish about our ability to continue to raise ASPs going forward.
In youth, we've heightened our focus to capture the next athlete, driving a nearly 50% CAGR just since 2012 in youth footwear. And again, building out these departments, building out the teams has never been more important. And speaking of teams, we've more than doubled the size of our footwear team to nearly 2 30 people, including the recent addition of a dedicated women's team. And I want to be clear, we didn't have a dedicated women's team in 2012, let alone 18 months ago. So we are certainly not done, and we continue to build that team out and growing our presence in Portland with our new headquarters that we'll be opening.
So these investments in our team, they all mean that these trends are expected to accelerate in 2016. And again, that's off a whopping 95% in the quarter and 57% for the full year. So some of the ways we expect to leverage that success. 1st, expanding Curry throughout the upcoming All Star Game, the playoffs, hopefully the finals and then the Olympics later this fall. And then ultimately, we'll elevate even further when we launch the Curry 3 later this year.
We're also this year going to be entering the golf category with the most exciting player on the planet as well as the number one player in the world in Jordan Spieth, where we have a new line of footwear that we'll be debuting around the Masters. In addition, we're going to be doubling our running styles priced over $100 led by Slingshot and SlingRide, the knit offerings that we have. In 2012, we had just 1. Today, we'll have more than $8 over $100 We're also going to be doing things like debuting our first smart shoe, the SpeedForm Gemini 2 RE, which means record equipped. And that's going to be at $150 price point, a $20 premium to the standard $130 Gemini price point.
And then as I mentioned a little bit earlier and back to our roots, the success of Cam Newton, who will be playing next week in the Super Bowl, wearing the highlight cleat that depending on where you look is the number one selling cleat in America at the highest price point, continue to drive us toward becoming the number one American football fleet in the market. And again, a goal thought to be impossible back in 2,006. So I want to say it's a small category, it's domestic only. Our brand, our presence, our ability to drive ASPs have never been stronger in North America. And I believe that footwear is the best example we have of how we are truly just getting started.
So let me take a second just talk about North America. I want to level set the context of how our distribution is aligned. So often, we're compared to our competition. Well, our largest competitor in North America has approximately 24,000 points of distribution just in North America. At Under Armour, we have 11,000.
And we have the ability to expand that, but we haven't. We've stayed committed to our sporting goods, to our mall, to our department stores channel. And again, this doesn't make going anywhere else impossible for us, but it certainly makes it an opportunity, particularly as we add things like a new merchandising team, which just joined and frankly were just input in Under Armour through 2015. To be clear, prior to 2015, we did not have a merchandising team. So our structure has changed and frankly it's evolved.
And we talk about North American growth. In the Q3 North America, we grew 25%. In the Q4 in North America, we grew 26%. I don't know if I'd call that accelerating, but I'd certainly call it strong. So the way this is happening, one simple word, one simple phrase, when we innovate, we win.
Bringing new technologies and styles in 2016, I mentioned in my prepared remarks things like CoolSwitch and MicroThread in cooling. In the heating side, we have products like Reactor, a new price point at around $200 that complements our current styles that we have. And also new product items like the Swacket, which will elevate our fleece assortment. You'll start to see us move away from things like the big logo hoodie that's been very important us. But again, you'll continue to see us learn and you'll continue to see us evolve to not just where the market is heading, but most importantly, where we're taking the market to.
As you think about North America, footwear is such an extraordinary opportunity for us. From the Signature Curry product to running to kids, we had more styles at higher price points than ever before in 2015 and that will absolutely be the case in 2016. We've also become the number one brand in many places. Most recently where we took that title was at Sport Chek in Canada. So across apparel, footwear and accessories, we are the number one vendor for Sport Chek, a very important sporting goods account.
And we're closing on that and the majority and many of our other distribution. So premium storytelling. This is not just lip service, that we are committed to our existing distribution, our existing base. And so whether it's storytelling in the way we show up at retail in places like the armory with our partners at Champs or the blue chip shops that we're building at Dick's Sporting Goods, we're going to continue to make investments in premium brand statements with our partners. And the way we can do this is that very well, the first handshake that we have with that consumer will more than likely be a digital handshake, because across the connected fitness platform that we've implemented over the last two and a half years, we now have more than 90,000,000 domestic athletes amplifying our message and driving access to the brand.
And finally, direct to consumer. Unfortunately, this is an area that the market doesn't have purview to until we're able to tell you our numbers. It's the place though that we typically have the ability to tell our Pinnacle brand stories. Beginning with e commerce, meeting the consumer where they want to be met, capitalizing on investments that we've made to leverage things like mobile trends, which now was 50% of our 4th quarter traffic. And in terms of retail, we added 5 new brand house stores in 2015.
Again, I want to emphasize, we are a wholesale manufacturer, but we do have this direct to consumer component that gives us, I think, a great complement to, again, meet the consumer where they want us. Adding 5 new Brannhaus stores in 2015 with roughly 5 to as many as 8 planned in 20 16. Including looking back at the year, we launched our 30,000 square foot flagship on the Magnificent Mile in Chicago that really I think is one of the best examples of our brand we've ever opened anywhere in the world. So to be clear about North America, we still see abundant opportunities across the continent. And as we said at our Investor Day in September, we believe that we will double this business by 2018.
And we say all of this recognizing and acknowledging, yes, we of course have places we can be better. We are certainly not perfect, but we are learning every day and we are putting the team in to make that happen. And so we say all of this about our confidence incredibly humbly as well is that we have work to be done. So finally, let me just address women's. This business, I want to be clear, is incredibly important to our accounts and it's important to us.
And while we believe we have huge opportunity to get better, we delivered yet another quarter of double digit growth in Women's, now approaching $0.75 of $1,000,000,000 in revenue. So 2014 was a year that we defined and we described as the year of the woman. We ignited this conversation on the marketing side with the female consumer that's really taken the brand to a new level of engagement and expectation. We did that through people, through personalities, personalities like Misty and Giselle. But we also recognize that our product has got to meet that expectation.
But what we learned is that she likes us and she wants to have a relationship with the Under Armour brand. And so you've seen our product evolve. And just as importantly, in 2015 for us, you watched our team evolve, as we've been investing in our foundation, as we've been investing in our team, and not just any one individual, but throughout our product creation engine, our merchandising teams and our new category management with our new leader in Pam Catlett who will be heading up our women's management who brings over 20 years experience in the business. This will all better enable us to create and deliver a 365 day a year experience for her. 2016 is about execution in both apparel and footwear.
And to be clear, we didn't even have a women's footwear team just a little more than a year ago. So building out these resources for us to really capitalize on the opportunity where she, just like the men, want to dress toe to head. So we expect to see improved merchandise assortments across our premium distribution, and we also expect to continue to elevate our brand where women want us in places like e commerce. And to be clear, on e commerce, women's was our number 1 and largest selling and fastest growing category that we had, faster than men's and faster than youth. So when we merchandise correctly, we believe we will win.
Listen, we understand that her expectations are incredibly high for us and that's exactly where we want them to be. We firmly believe that our women's business should be, as we've said for a very long time, at least as large, if not larger than our men's business. Thanks, Matt.
Operator, we'll take the next question, please.
Yes, sir. Our next question is from Jim Duffy of Stifel. Your line is open.
Brad, thanks for all the help over the years. Chip, I look forward to working with you. Couple of questions on the footwear business. First, as the business and key platforms gain scale, are you making progress on footwear margins? And what does the arc of that curve look like?
And then Kevin, can you maybe speak to the traction you're seeing with footwear in international markets? Perfect.
Yes, Jim, on the footwear margin side, yes, we are definitely seeing improvements in footwear margins in general. Now obviously, even with those improvements, footwear margins are well below our apparel margins, and we've talked about that consistently over the years. So we do anticipate still a lot of room on the footwear side. A lot of that will come from our ability to sell again more premium pricing points specifically in categories like running and basketball, which are historically more our higher margin products. So as they become a bigger part of our portfolio, that will help our margins from a mix perspective.
We put a lot of costing side. And I think as Kevin talked about too, the ability to utilize the strength of our brand in these categories too from a pricing low But again, just want to caution that they will continue to be lower than our overall apparel margins. That being said, though, as we've also talked about in the past that you got to keep in mind from an operating margin perspective, with the higher price points in footwear and higher ASPs in footwear compared to apparel, you do have the ability to leverage SG and A a little bit better. So we do see in the long run, even though gross margins will improve in footwear, but will be below apparel, that our operating margins in the longer run should look pretty similar to our apparel business.
And following up on that, we do see the ability to continue to drive ASPs and improve margin by through premium product. That's the way that we'll build it out. So the one thing we've learned is Malcolm Gladwell says 10 years or 10000 hours to perfect something. So I'm not sure that we perfected footwear, but we really feel strong about our position in the game right now. And that begins, of course, I think with the athletes that make it real and that are winning in our footwear out on field, out on pitch, out on court.
And whether it's Cam Newton, what hopefully he'll do in football in the Super Bowl next week, Jordan Spieth in golf or Stephen Curry in basketball, as you talk about international, we have no greater global ambassadors than the ones that we have there today. And as recent as this past week, we also launched Dwayne The Rock Johnson that will be sporting Under Armour as his official brand of choice. So what we've built in footwear is impressive, but again, we think we still have room to grow. But some of the franchises that we've built from Highlight to SpeedForm to Gemini, the Gemini Record, to the new Curry product, the Slingshot, the Bandit. I mean, we've I think we've done a great job of building, as I said, franchise business across the sports where we want to win.
And that typically begins in running and it begins in basketball. And so we love our positioning there. As I mentioned, 8 products above $100 and again, hitting some of those sweet spots for the right distribution that meets, again, the consumer where they want to be met. So I think we feel very bullish about what we're doing on the international front. And again, some of that evolution too, Jim, has been things like we'd launch a product in the United States and then it was 6 months or a year later that we'd launch on a global basis.
So the ability to truly with Charlie and the team that we have on the international side of building and launching those things the way we did it, we've done I think we've demonstrated our ability to do has really evolved our company. I mean, a great example again is last year when I mentioned going on the Curry tour, the purpose of that tour was launching the Curry 2 in China, almost 6 weeks ahead of when we launched it here in North America. So I think that truly becoming a global business means not being a North American company that sells things in other markets, but truly being a global business that has a global presence and a global position, that sells things at the same time equally. So we're evolving toward that, but we really like our progress and incredibly excited about where we're heading with it.
Thanks for that.
Thank you. Our next question is from Omar of Evercore ISI. Your line is open.
Thanks. Great quarter, guys.
Thanks, Omar.
Especially everything going on. You kept mentioning premiumization, I think specifically to footwear. Can you just dig a little bit deeper there and then talk about does this translate over to apparel at some point? We sort of see ASPs going up there. And then Brad, maybe you could comment on premiumization, maybe how it might flow through gross margin over time, especially if you look at gross margin excluding the mix shift drag and the FX drag?
What are the really underlying gross margins going to do over time? Thanks.
So let me start it and then I'll let Brad finish up. So first of all, on the apparel side is that, again, the majority of our business, 70 plus percent of our business is still in apparel. So it is our focus. It's our largest team here. And frankly, it's where we've built our brand as innovators.
And so some of the things that I mentioned on the call, Reactor, Swacket, Cool Switch, some of the product that we have and the apparel offerings, all that continue to support our existing Coldgear business. We effectively built the $25 price point for Heatgear and the $50 price point for Coldgear. And since then, we've been evolving those. So as we look, we are a premium brand. And one of the other things that I mentioned that maybe go into a little more depth on is just our ability now to have merchandising.
And you asked about ASPs and price points. Again, we didn't have a merchandising team in 2014. It was a category that we started building out for ourselves in 2015. And so 2015 for us is about building the team. In 2016, it's about segmenting and playing it out in the market.
And what that means is, again, having the right product at the right place at the right time. And truly having a team that isn't just selling the same styles to everyone on an equal basis, but being specific and differentiating between what we do in the mall versus what we do in the sporting goods, let alone what we do at Dick's Sporting Goods versus what we do in one of our other accounts. And so we want to be incredibly thoughtful about that in the way that we drive. As we look forward into 2017, we really see the ability to drive efficiency of really looking at pricing, really looking at the ability for us to maximize and optimize things like margin, but also again making sure that it's with the right product and that it sells through is because some of the things that we dealt with this year is bringing product in and having our floor set in time for January. And no one can predict things like what happened in this Q4.
But I think one of the things we're most proud of is that in spite of what happens with weather, we still have a post of 31 percent top line growth. So we'd love that to see continue to translate and drive margin. It's one of our key barometers that we use here in the company. And I think frankly as Brad will tell you right now, we're doing a good job and more importantly is the plan going forward. We continue to drive and demonstrate that premium position in the marketplace.
Yes. Omar, on the second part of your question on margins in general, yes, you're correct. In 2015, that was probably really evident relative to my prepared remarks. When you look at 2015 gross margins going backwards 90 basis points and the large majority of that 70 basis points coming from foreign currency impact. A lot of other things going on that rest of that 20 basis points, but the fact of the matter is, is we had some pretty strong headwinds in 2015 relative to airfreight as we're looking at servicing our customers during the year and the port disruption earlier in the year.
Mix, we talked about a lot during the year. Footwear International working against us from a gross margin perspective pretty significantly. And we were able to offset a lot of that just through our general increase and improvement in product margins, specifically on the apparel side. So as you look forward in 2016 and beyond, you should see continued improvement in places like our footwear product margins, like our apparel product margins. International even to some degree as we go forward should get better as the businesses in countries we do directly, whether it's through our DTC or through wholesale, become a larger part of our share versus some of the distributors we do today.
So I think in all aspects of our business, you will see that improve over time. Mix will definitely work against us because these businesses are still we're international, still lower margin businesses. But to your point, our ability to improve those margins is great and our ability to improve margins in apparel is not only possible, but it's happening right now as we speak.
Thanks, guys. Good luck to all.
Thanks, Omar.
Operator, we have time for one more question.
Yes, sir. Our next question is from Kate McShane of Citi Research. Your line is open.
Hi, thanks. Good morning and thanks for taking my question. Welcome to Chip and thanks to Brad. A quick question not to harp on weather, but I just wondered if you could give a little bit more detail about how you were able to mitigate some of the risk from the warmer weather, how you're going to be liquidating some of the inventory going into the first half? And if there are any plans going forward about how to better again mitigate inventory risk from adverse onetime type events?
Yes, Kate. This question has come up a lot over the last few years on the Q4, specifically on weather. We've had some warm 4th quarters and colder 4th quarters and so forth. So and our answer is pretty consistent. Over the last few years, there's obviously going to a little bit of an impact to weather.
There's no doubt about that. And it impacts our business, too. And we've said the last few years, there's probably a couple of percentage points of growth impact relative to weather specifically one way or the other, whether it's warm or cold. So there's no doubt in the Q4 this year, we had a little bit of that impact. And we talked about the fact of managing our way through that and liquidating some excess inventory and taking care of that also in the front half of next year, specifically in the Q1.
But overall, from a top line perspective, it's really only a couple of percentage points of growth one way or the other probably. And that and again, when you look at specifically this Q4, that was more of a North America dynamic and places where you'd see it probably impact us the most would be our North America wholesale apparel and our factory house business. But again, with the diversity of our product lines in apparel, with footwear strong growth, international strong growth, There's just much more going on in our business that offsets some of those weather impacts, which again are probably a couple of percentage points of growth one way or the other. So going forward, I think continuously being careful how we plan Q3 and specifically Q4 in years, not being overly optimistic on weather, but being prudent in putting ourselves in a position to be question, with the strong factory house channel we have.
Thank
you. Thank
you. At this time, I'd like to turn the call back to Kevin Plank for any closing
comments. Yes. Thank you all for your questions today and for the opportunity to tell our story. Again, we're incredibly proud of the company that's been built and most importantly, the people that have built it. So first of all, I want to welcome Chip, someone who went to high school less than 5 miles from here, so I want to welcome him home, and college less than 30 miles from here.
So it's great to have Chip back in Maryland. He's spent a long time on the other coast and getting him back to the east is going to be great and what we have going forward. And I also want to take him in. I want to thank Brad for 11 great years together, an incredible run that we've built as a company and most importantly as a team. And so you'll be missed here.
And again, we wish you the very best in next endeavor. So I want to thank the market for all the support of myself, Brad, our team and the future support we're counting on for Chip and we'll still be here running forward. So thank you all very much and we wish you all a great day.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation in today's conference.