Hello and welcome to the Ermenegildo Zegna Full Year 2021 Financial Results Call. My name is Alex and I'll be coordinating the call today. If you'd like to ask a question at the end of the presentation, you can press star one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, you may press star two. I will now hand over to your host, Francesca Di Pasquantonio, to begin. Over to you, Francesca.
Thank you, Alex, and welcome to everyone joining us today to discuss the Zegna Group Full Year 2021 Financial Results and provide more details to the numbers shared in February. Today, we're going to discuss our full year revenues, the full year results as a publicly listed company for the first time. We will be using the presentation materials posted on our website earlier today. You can find the materials along with the related press release under the investor page of our group website. I am joined today by the Zegna Group Chairman and CEO, Gildo Zegna, our COO and CFO, Gianluca Tagliabue, and Rodrigo Bazán, the CEO of Thom Browne. Gildo will begin today walking you through the results at a high level and discussing the group's ongoing strategy and guidance.
Gianluca will spend time going through the numbers in more detail and at the end of the call, we'll be leaving time for Q&A, and Rodrigo will be happy to answer Thom Browne related questions. Before we begin, I need to point out that we may make certain forward-looking statements during today's call, our actual results may be materially different from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. All such statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including those discussed in our SEC filings. I refer you to the safe harbor statement, which is included on page two of today's presentation, and of course, this call will be governed by that language.
Before I turn the call over to Gildo, I also wanted to let you know that we will be holding an Investor Day at Arsenale on May 17th, and we will be providing further details on that after the call. Again, thank you for joining us today, and with that, I will turn the call over to Gildo.
Good afternoon to everybody, and thank you very much, Francesca. Back in February, we shared our preliminary revenue, and today I'm very happy to join you all and share our first set of full year results as a publicly traded company. 2021 was a milestone for us as a company and a year where we performed well, showing the strength of our strategy. I want to start with some of our top-level numbers before diving deeper into the year results, as you can see from the 2021 highlights. However, we can see from the slide that we surely outperformed 2020 by significant margin every metric. More importantly, however, we are approaching 2019 levels when it comes to revenue and outperforming 2019 in adjusted EBIT and adjusted basic EPS, both non-IFRS figures.
Our adjusted basic earnings in 2021 were up 65% from pre-pandemic levels, reaching 0.33 EUR per share. We also entered the year with a cash surplus of EUR 145 million, thanks to the cash proceeds from the business combination in December 2021. Let's move to the next slide. Before we dive into the financial and our strategy for the year, I'd like to review some of the highlights that made 2021 a special year for the family and for all of us. First and foremost was becoming the first Italian luxury house to list on the New York Stock Exchange and the first SPAC deal in the sector, adding EUR 139 million in net proceeds for the group.
Second was kicking off our One Brand strategy for Zegna, which is the foundation of our future growth. The continued growth in the luxury leisure wear and shoe segment, as well as our focus on iconic and recognizable product, have taken Zegna to the next level to meet our customer changing needs worldwide. The Zegna brand is iconic and we will continue to invest in the brand equity going forward along the lines with what we've crafted. Thom Browne also saw a milestone year, which increased brand awareness and strong growth in the number of stores around the world. Next slide. 2021 also saw the continuation of different initiatives and projects that are part of the Zegna core.
We continued the growth of our Made in Italy textile portfolio, producing some of the best fabrics and yarns in the world by acquiring 40% of cashmere yarn producer Biagioli to complement our expertise in textile. Taking advantage of the very important momentum of knitwear, as actually knitwear is becoming more and more the new accessory of Zegna. We also started rolling out the Zegna rebranding to our store, starting with the most important location worldwide, and we have all stores completed by the end of this year. As I shared in February, we are taking a number of lessons from Thom Browne's huge success with digital and applying that across the board, and we are seeing some traction in that sector as well. Finally, sustainability.
Sustainability is the heart of everything we do, as it has been for 112 years. We published our first sustainability report last year as a private company, and we'll be sharing our full sustainability strategy as well as new commitment at our Investor Day in May. Next slide, please. You can see in this 2021 was quite a good year for us. Most importantly, they've shown us time and time again that our strategy and we are investing our energy and focus are paying off. The shaping of our strategy remains the Zegna brand, the one of a kind Made in Italy luxury textile laboratory and Thom Browne. I'll take a few minutes now to talk about our road to tomorrow strategy, and then turn over to Gianluca to talk about the financials.
Please turn to page number seven. First, Zegna brand. Our roots in custom-made and formal wear continue to be strong, and our made-to-measure offering is still a key competitive advantage as suit business is gradually coming back. However, we are also priding ourselves on evolving along with our customers and the continued casualization trend is strengthening demand for our growing luxury leisure segment. The One Brand strategy which we kicked off last year and which will be completely completed this year is already driving growth and profitability. Our iconic products are appealing to existing and new customer alike. Keeping up with our spirit and creativity, we continue to look for unique opportunities for collaboration. The name and brand recognition of Zegna in our campaigns will lead to even more interesting creative endeavors. Please, go to slide number eight.
Second, after having highlighted Zegna brand is our one of a kind textile laboratory platform. The platform has brought together some of Italy's best top textile manufacturer, and is of a particular pride for us, especially given our genesis as a textile company. Our roots, if you want. They come from Biella region where the wool and textile has originated more than 100 years ago. It is also the foundation of our strong vertical integration, what we call in Italian, filiera tessile, which is key to ensuring the quality of our production as well as keeping sustainability at the heart of what we do. The platform is highly scalable, and when we have been intentional about how to grow it and provide great cost leverage for our brand, we also provide top quality textile to some of the world's major luxury players.
We will continue to focus on strengthening our competencies in this field, increasing the breadth of our offering, and ensuring the continued legacy of the made in Italy made for textiles. Please turn to slide nine, where I show the third pillar of our strategy, Thom Browne, which has been part of our family since 2018. Thom's creativity really elevates. Thom has elevated the Thom Browne brand to a level apart, and demand for men's and women's wear has been growing across all channels around the world. I think we have been also selective with our wholesale strategy for Thom Browne, and we've seen particular strength in digital and wholesale and direct to consumer sales.
Last but not least, the synergies between Thom Browne and Zegna have been hugely beneficial to both brands, with Zegna learning a lot about digital from Thom Browne and about focusing and about icons, and Thom Browne taking advantage of the full sales platform and our long retail success together with our made-to-measure business. Please turn to slide 10. Finally, our vision for growth across the board is to double down on our high-performing markets. You see significant growth in the U.S. and the Middle East, and have seen Europe rebound strongly. Our brand elevation and the focus on luxury leisurewear are changing how the Zegna brand is perceived and bringing it more in line with what customers are looking for, driving our B2C performance. There are also significant potential within China, with room for a bigger footprint for Thom Browne in particular.
With all this strength, we are uniquely positioned for growth in the luxury space, which is itself a growing and diversifying market. As always, we do it all while keeping our values at the heart of what we do. Sustainability has been a part of Zegna DNA from day one, and we are being even more intentional about specific goals that we will share it at our Investor Day tomorrow in Zegna on May 17th. With that's all for me. Let me turn over to Gianluca, who can dive deeper into the numbers for the year. Thank you.
Thank you, Gildo. Good morning. Good afternoon, everybody. I'll take it from slide number 11. Today I will be discussing our revenues, profitability, cash position, followed by a breakdown of results by segment, the Zegna segment and Thom Browne segment.
Highlights of our income statement, then I will hand it over back to Gildo, who will close with guidance for 2022. First, as shared back in February, our revenues for 2021 were up 27% at actual rates compared to 2020, reaching almost EUR 1.3 billion. This is down 2% from 2019. The Zegna segment was up 23% compared to 2020, bringing in just over EUR 1 billion in 2021. This was 11% below 2019 performance, driven by unfavorable expected trends in formal wear. Thom Browne saw even more significant growth, growing 47% from 2020 levels to EUR 664 million, with a two-year stack of 64%. We continue to see strong retail performance reflecting our goal of gaining more control of our distribution channel.
The direct to consumer channel represents in 2021 around two-thirds of our consolidated revenues, while in 2019 and 2020 it was at around 60%. We have been observing solid growth versus 2020 in North America, Europe and, as Gildo pointed out, in the Middle East. Finally, as Gildo shared, luxury leisure wear continues to be a strong driver of growth along with shoes, especially in the Zegna brand. Together, they represent about 60% of our 2021 Zegna brand revenues. Moving now to page 12, we can appreciate our excellent progress over the prior year and compare to the plan that we presented in July while we were in the middle of the de-SPAC and listing process. When we label plan, it means that plan that we presented in July as our business plan through 2023.
Our adjusted EBIT in 2021 was EUR 149 million, with an accelerated margin expansion of over 7x compared to 2020, which was EUR 20 million, and 39% increase over 2019, which was EUR 107 million. When we announced our preliminary earnings earlier this year in February, the adjusted EBIT as a percentage of revenue was anticipated to land at around 10%. The group is today pleased to have surpassed that guidance with an adjusted EBIT accounting for 11.5% of revenues, exceeding the 8.1% seen in 2019, in large part due to healthy full price sales and realized cost efficiencies. I remarked that 11.5% was the margin expected between 2022 and 2023 in the plan that we presented in the listing process. We are well one year ahead of the plan.
Zegna segment specifically saw EUR 111 million adjusted EBIT exceeding the EUR 80 million projection of the business plan of July and exceeding EUR 91 million of 2019 figures. We saw similar trend for Thom Browne, which has recorded an adjusted EBIT of EUR 38 million in excess of the 29 in the 2019 and above EUR 31 million from the July business plan. Zegna Group had EUR 75 million adjusted profit, a significant uptick at a 75% rate compared to 2019 figure, which was EUR 43 million. We will see later how the adjusted profit and the adjusted EBIT reconcile to the reported figures. From a cash perspective, our cash surplus intended as the cash net of the financial indebtedness was strong at EUR 145 million net cash, of which EUR 139 million were net proceeds from the business combination finalized in December 2021.
Now moving to page 14, we focus on the Zegna egment. The Zegna segment was particularly outstanding in terms of performance, reaching above EUR one billion mark in sales amid costs normalizing versus the lows seen in 2020. It is worth noting that all corporate costs are at the moment fully allocated to the Zegna segment. In this respect, 2022 will include a full year impact of this cost. The segment benefited from good cost leverage, both in the structures and in the factories, both for the clothing supply chain and the textile supply chain, and lower D&A. Adjusted EBIT for the Zegna segment was 10.7%, again exceeding the July business which was set at 8%.
We see, turning to page 16, Thom Browne segment met the plan at 14.4% in revenues, while the plan was set at 14%. Again, also Thom Browne, as you can notice and appreciate, is one year ahead of the July plan in terms of sales because they delivered in 2021 the sales expected for 2022. In terms of bottom line. It has been affected, as expected, by the growth in costs due to the network expansion of stores. They had 20 stores at the end of 2019, and they finished the year with 52 directly operated stores. It has been affected also by the strengthening in-headquarter function personnel and processes. Nothing different than what expected. Page 18.
This slide is important as it shows how we reconcile the bottom line from reported figure of EUR -127 million to the adjusted profit of EUR 75 million. The bulk, the big number which comes out is the cost related to the business combination, which altogether amount to EUR 205 million. The bulk of this cost, 72% of this cost to be precise, are non-cash transaction adjustments. In short, the bulk of this cost is related to the accounting impact of the valorization of the promoted shares and warrants effectively given to the sponsors and to the SPAC shareholders.
The rest is mainly coming from the P&L charge of transaction expenses and other items like EUR 1,500 to all employees of the Zegna Group, which is reported as a cost, but it's financially neutral to the company since it is covered by an equivalent equity contribution by the family holders. One word on the other adjustments, they were equal to EUR 17 million before taxes and are related mostly to impairment, severance payments. There has been one factory that has been closed in Spain, and these are the costs related to that severance and early termination of few leases. For 2022, we expect as guidance overall adjustments at low teens in millions of EUR.
If we go to page 19, capital expenditure in 2021 amounted to EUR 48 million, net of EUR 46 million for the purchase of a building in London that was subsequently part of the disposition of HER before the IPO in November 2021. This 48 million in 2021 is related to new store openings, relocation, renewals, and some key IT projects, particularly in relation to the change of point of sale system and distribution ERP. We note also that there has been a minor shift in payments between 2021 and 2022, and we expect CapEx to step up in terms of guidance for 2022 to around EUR 80 million. Investments for 2022 will be dedicated for two-thirds to retail. Again, renewals, relocation, new openings, and the Zegna rebranding in line with the One Brand strategy and IT and digital projects.
In terms of trade working capital, we have seen improvement, and we see the incidence of trade working capital going back almost to the pre-COVID-19 levels. We expect 2022 to make a further step in terms of improvement. Now, I think I can turn it back to Gildo to talk about goals and guidance for 2022.
Yeah. Thank you, Gianluca. Please turn to page 20, and I want to focus again on our key priorities. As Gildo said, we are encouraged by our strong performance in 2021 fiscal year, exceeding key aspects of the business plan presented in July 2021, many of which have been discussed today. Our growth focus in 2022 will take place against the execution of our brand, One Brand strategy to create value for shareholders. The Zegna Group will be focused on enhancing the business by capitalizing on luxury leisure wear and enhancing the customer experience to make Zegna Group the model for retail excellence across regions and generations. Please finally turn to page 21. Of course, we are keeping an eye on the geopolitical environment in 2022, which creates volatility alongside developments related to the pandemic, especially in China.
2022 has started with solid order collection and positive pricing related to our Fall 2022 collection. Our fiscal year 2022 guidance has been confirmed in low teens% revenue growth at actual rates compared to 2021. As for the profitability, we still expect a nice advancement in 2022. However, in 2021 we delivered an adjusted EBIT and margin ahead of our own expectations and in excess of the original plan for 2022. While this higher bar may limit our margin upside for this year, we see a nice adjusted EBIT growth in absolute terms, despite the expected increase in investment costs and logistics and the step-up in leasing-related overheads and rebranding costs. However, we also expect a higher cash flow in 2022. Overall, I would say a positive picture, and we thank you again for joining us.
With that, I'll hand back to Francesca.
Thank you, Gildo Zegna. Thank you, Gianluca Tagliabue. We are ready to take your questions. Alex, if you want to manage the Q&A, we are ready to deal with the questions. Thank you.
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, you can press star one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, you may press star two. Please ensure you're unmuted locally when asking your question. Our first question for today comes from Louise Singlehurst of Goldman Sachs. Louise, your line is now open.
Thank you, and congratulations on the results this morning. I have a few questions, if you don't mind. The first one, given I'm kicking off, I'll start with the obvious one in terms of the question that's on all luxury investors' minds at the moment, just in terms of the situation given current COVID-19 developments recently, particularly in China. Could you just give us some color and help us understand the situation in China at the moment and just more broadly, you know, regional trends in general that you're seeing right now? My next question relates to the margin. At Zegna brand, you saw a nice rebound in your adjusted EBIT margin in the second half of the year, despite the relaunch of the One Brand strategy.
I appreciate that was, you know, fairly close to the end of the year. As we think about this year and about the investments in the program and the associated marketing, how do you think that will impact the Zegna brand margin in 2022? Then my final question is quickly on Thom Browne. That one saw, you know, dilution in the margin slightly this year relating to expansion of the store network and admin processes. Should we view these costs and particularly on the admin side as more, you know, one-off in nature and how should we think about the margin for 2022? Thank you.
Yeah. Okay. I take China, as you know, Greater China is our key market, and it represents about 46% of our sales. I can tell you that we surely are closely monitoring the ongoing development of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis there. I must say that the start of the year was good in China. However, the recent increase in COVID cases and lockdowns is continuing to disrupt some trends. We have now some stores closed, being a good number of cities in lockdown, and we have seen traffic take a significant hit that we have to be realistic about it.
However, I wish to express a positive point of view in that in my career in China, we have seen the business in China is resilient and tends to be very quick to come back. In the meantime, our e-commerce business continues to operate normally. I believe that our guidance gives us some room to navigate development in China and the current situation there is in line with the zero-COVID policy. That's what I can tell you. On margin and then-
On margin. On margin, let's set the scene on the Zegna brand. We declared in the business plan a target for 2021. At that time, we were in July, 8%. We delivered at 10.7%, which is higher than the plan set at 9%. Let's dissect why we came in ahead of the plan. Revenues came out higher than we expected, so there is definitely a scale effect. Scale effect also since we are vertically integrated, there is part of the cost of the production, cost of product, which is fixed for us, and so there is a positive trickle-down effect on that. In addition, we have benefited from price increases that has been activated along 2021, is going to be intensified in spring 2022 and fall 2022.
We are seeing the legitimacy of the Zegna brand in terms of carrying higher margin, higher prices, sorry, higher prices by consumers and also by wholesale customers. We have been continuing to adjust prices, and this will generate also a positive effect on 2022. We are benefiting from improved full price sell-through and lower bargains and markdowns at the end of the season. This is going to continue. On the cost side, we are managing costs pretty well. Of course, there will be a step up, as I declared, by being a full year listed company in 2022, but we are ready to absorb that. We are seeing improvements across the P&L, all of which should translate also some nice effects on 2022. I think probably looking backwards, our
We were probably somehow prudent when we delivered our plan on the Zegna brand, margins. We have proven ourselves and the stakeholders that the exit speed from 2021 is solid and is promising for 2022.
Let's move on Thom Browne.
From a Thom Browne point of view.
To your question about the margins, it is indeed largely an effect of 2021. We had the full support of the board in 2020 to continue to accelerate the openings that took place in 2021. We also took a stock accrual that is cautious for 2021, and we believe that we are nicely accrued for that line. Certainly a one-off moment of the very strong growth in top line, one year ahead of the plan. There's still a very good bottom line for margin for the company looking to the long term growth for the company. From a China point of view, similarly to Gildo's comments, it's obvious that there is an impact in certain capitals, but we can say compared to 2020, that's a reality.
The stores at some point closed down and reopened, and in 2020 at least we can continue with SPAC. We continue to support all our teams in China through association, and we continue to reopen as quickly as the cities open after lockdowns.
Thanks, Karina. Do you have any follow up or we move to the next question?
No, that's perfect. Thank you so much for the comprehensive answers.
Thank you. Next question, please.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, that's star one on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from John Dye of Jefferies. John, your line is now open.
Yeah, thanks very much. Good afternoon, everybody. Thanks for taking my questions. Maybe just first one to Gildo. You know, it's pretty impressive to keep your guidance unchanged, you know, given what you're seeing in China at the moment. You talked about some flexibility in that guidance and seeing stronger growth in Europe in terms of rebounding UAE and also the U.S. Could you talk a little bit about the order books that you're seeing for spring, summer, fall, winter, just to give us an idea of how they're progressing as you move to obviously to new products with new labels and a change in the mix? That's my first question. My second question is to Gianluca around the margin, just elaborating on the previous set of questions.
Gianluca, can you provide a little bit more detail, please, around the cost efficiencies that you've seen, the scale of the increase around full price sell-through year-on-year, or against 2019, and what we can expect going forward into 2022? And then finally, maybe. Well, in addition to that, if you could also flag the really strong working capital and cash flow, I think was much, much better than expected. You talk about lean inventories. If you could maybe expand on that going into 2022 as well, how you're gonna keep the very good cash flow running.
Finally, thinking about M&A bolt-ons, Gildo, if you can provide any sort of further details as to how you're thinking about M&A, whether it's more in the manufacturing space or a combination of manufacturing assets plus, you know, smaller brands that don't cannibalize your existing ones. Thank you.
Yeah, I start with the last one. M&A. Listen, it's, you know, we surely are considering several opportunities, but I think that our first priority is right now focusing, you know, on what's going on around the world and doing even better than we did in 2021, our target in terms of brand repositioning, in terms of product mix, in terms of margin, in terms of pricing, in terms of marketing. It's. I would say that we are focusing right now on organic growth. As I said previously, if something come along, we surely will, you know, consider it seriously.
I can tell you know, that probably right now we are thinking more about the small fishes than the large ones because we do believe that this Italian know-how is to be preserved, in particular in a moment in which the small enterprises are suffering because of the energy cost, because of the logistics issues and so if we can give them a hand, we surely will do it. I can tell you that our supply chain is working at full speed. As a matter of fact, we are hiring people and you saw from the press release, we're very proud to say that we are hiring.
We're trying to hire some Ukrainian fellows to help them out in our factories in Italy in particular. So that's for M&A. Summer and for winter, I must say that I'm extremely positive on how the checkout of the new product are doing in the store. We have been quick to renovate several stores, and we see the impact of that renovation in terms of lighting, in terms of shelf space, in terms of visual, in terms of how the product are put together, colors. And this, it helps the cross-selling of the product immensely. To be honest with you, we are seeing some comeback of the tailoring business.
I mean, lots of business people going back to work, you know, or want to renew their wardrobe. They are buying again some clothing, in particular sport jacket. You know, it's an unstructured sport jacket. I must say that you know, the Oxford shirt that I'm wearing today, I mean, it's checking out together with the deepest blue sneaker extremely well. Even though we have not introduced the One Brand yet to our promo because the first delivery of the One Brand label will be in the store late May, June, the product transformation and the fact that the store is named Zegna, not Ermenegildo, truly has brought really some good results.
I can tell you the fall season in terms of wholesale, in terms of selling. I think we had some good reaction. I would say in the low double digits numbers. Even though, you know, we were affected by Russia, you know, that in Russia we have an embargo that we have to respect very diligently. I mean, those orders, you know, right now are stopped. That's the only minus of the fall season. I can tell you about we're working already on spring/summer 2023, and the collection looks really marvelous. I remain very positive on the outcome.
Thank God we did this transformation because that's what the market desires and, regardless of the country, regardless of the customer. Gianluca, you want to go on margins and-
Yes.
Maybe if you want to add on this, the wholesale and the current trading situation and then move to margin.
Well, the current trading year.
We will disclose Q1 sales in May. As Gildo was saying, we stay positive. We are hearing a big noise. Okay, fine. I thought you froze the line. We are seeing good momentum in terms of sales performance. Clearly, we stayed cautious and spent on the COVID situation in China, which was more active in March. Until February, we have seen good momentum, the same momentum that over-delivered sales at the end of the year. Going, John, to your questions about cost efficiency, full price performance, and working capital. In terms of efficiency, we see cost efficiency throughout the geography of our P&L. Starting from the cost of the product, as Gildo was saying, our order intake full winter 2022 has been very high.
Now the supply chain is running at full speed and full capacity. This generates fixed cost absorption that will be positive to the P&L in 2022. The full capacity we see it in shoes, over shirts, knitwear, over outerwear, and the constructed jacket. That is one driver of efficiency. Other driver of efficiency, the reduced and focused collection determines lower cost of prototypes, lower obsolescence in the stores because we have less broad collection, more narrow offering, more depth, and therefore fewer obsolescence accrual at the end of the year. We also translate a more focused collection in terms of more focused retail spaces. Our remodelings tend to go to smaller surfaces, more effective, so maybe the surfaces that were at 400 sq m, we don't need them anymore.
We can well stay in 250 sq m. Finally, the fact that with iconic products, we are moving more and more into items that we carry on for more than one season, the continuity products. This generates a positive effect in terms of markdown and lower obsolescence accruals. In terms of full price, we are seeing sell-through at full price every season going down by a few points. We have, at this point, reduced the bargaining at the end of the season to very few points in terms of incidence. We are not disclosing the specific numbers, but it's becoming marginal. Another important point is that, of course, the make to measure is gaining traction, not only in formal wear, which is a resilient part of our business, but also in casual wear.
This carries a premium price because we tend to present make to measure at 20+ compared to a ready-to-wear item. Having make to measure picking up also on the casual side of the offering is also as healthy for the margins. Your final question, John, was on inventory. We have been reducing and effectively managing our working capital as a whole. Our goal for 2022 is to make a further step and get as close as possible to the 2019 levels. We need to be aware that during the year, there will be the transition from the old three collections to the one. We probably will need probably some months to swallow that transition entirely. The goal is to narrow the gap to 2019 levels in terms of incidence of working capital.
Glad to hear, that's very clear. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Operator?
Thank you. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, that's star one on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from Rogerio Fujimori of Stifel. Rogerio, your line is now open.
Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. I have one about retail productivity for the Zegna brand. Could you give us an idea of the sales density for the Zegna brand in 2021? Looking ahead, what level of sales productivity the Zegna brand can achieve in three to five years, and which retail KPIs offer perhaps the greatest opportunity for improvement? If I may add a second quick one on Europe. Have you seen any change in Western European consumer behavior since the start of the war in Ukraine? Thank you.
Hi, Rogerio. On your retail productivity question, we don't disclose the metric, I'm afraid. I can tell you that you have all the elements to calculate it yourself because we disclose the Zegna DTC revenues. You have the number of stores, and I think that you can reach a fairly accurate estimate with these elements. Gianluca and Gildo can elaborate about, you know, the metrics and the KPI that we look at. Clearly the growth in the Zegna brand is all going to be organic because we are not expecting any major changes to the footprint size. The growth that you are seeing and that we have projected in our plano futuro is all coming from productivity.
Gianluca can take you through the key drivers of these productivity improvements.
I'd like to.
Thanks. I'll let Gildo-
European consumption. We have not seen, to be honest with you, any slowdown in European consumption since the COVID crisis, which is good news. In America, a very strong trend. I must say that the new brand position surely has something to do with that. As I said before, the store renovation also. I must say that in particular, the U.K. trend has been extremely brilliant, in particular in the past two months. Probably more in the stronger market, you know, the bigger cities than in smaller cities. We have seen some visitors, I would say, in the past two months also, besides the locals. Overall, a positive trend and no slowdown for spring/summer in Europe.
That's besides Russia that, you know, unfortunately is what it is. Sorry, in the last part, I mean, I know this is not Europe, but we consider part of a big Europe, Dubai, the Emirates. The Emirates are unbelievable. I mean, they keep growing at an incredible speed and going beyond the good numbers that we had in 2021.
I just add one point to the driver productivity. Something I mentioned before, the sales, the sell-through for price. I think one important metric which is directly related to performance is also the average ticket. Average ticket is going up for several reasons. One, definitely is the like-for-like price increases that we have been applying starting from spring 2022, and also we started a bit in fall 2021, but it will come to full steam in spring 2022 and fall 2022. Like-for-like price increase has been one driver. Second, units per transaction is going up, moving from formal wear to casual wear. We are seeing people coming in, buying casual wear, more units for specific items. They buy two pairs of Triple Stitch, they buy two pairs of knitwear that they like in different colors.
We are seeing also the cross-selling, the numbers of units per transaction going up. Of course, the elevated level of offering because we decided definitely to focus on a luxury position. The move to the One Brand means that we are leaving behind some price points that were covered by Z Zegna. I think also this is an important factor to raise the store productivity and the euro per sq m. On the other side, the fact that any kind of renewal, we reconsider the need to have those surfaces, or rather we can make a small diet in terms of sq m needed because we carry a more focused collection.
Rodrigo, you want to say something on Thom Browne.
From a Thom Browne point of view, we obviously don't discuss the details, but what we can tell you is that we have extremely healthy KPIs both from a sales per square meter, both from the average ticket. We have to remember that we're still talking about a brand which is largely closing, but extremely healthy. We do compare ourselves to established designer and luxury brands, mostly European, and we are turning extremely positive numbers in comparison to them. Looking to the future, we'll continue to strengthen the growth in client value management and growth in quantity of clients, and not necessarily in size of the stores or the network, just to the point that it makes a lot of sense for Thom Browne.
We are always looking to grow with clients more than specifically opening new doors or expanding the size of the stores.
One positive trend, I don't know whether I said it at the beginning, is made to measure. We are seeing made to measure orders getting back close to 2019, which I think is important. It's a good indication that gradually tailoring is back. Since we are quite unique in offering the service, people are coming to us. You know, the wedding season has been blocked for a number of seasons, so people want to get dressed as they get married. That surely is very helpful, and usually it happens in the fabric season. We continue to see a good traction on that side worldwide.
Thank you very much for the comprehensive answer.
Thank you.
Thank you. I will now hand back to Francesca for any additional questions and any closing remarks.
Thank you, Alex. We have received a few questions through email. There is a question about marketing and whether what are our intentions in terms of the marketing spend going forward and if we plan to increase the spending in absolute terms and as a percentage of sales. There is a question on digital and what digital represents for us in terms of percentage of revenues and opportunities. There is a question on the U.S. inquiring about the trends that we're seeing in the U.S. What is the most successful business and what can we comment about U.S. performance in general, by customers and by channel?
Yeah. I start with U.S. Stellar performance. I haven't seen a trend in U.S. for years. I think that there are two reasons, both retail and wholesale. We know that in United States, we still have a good number of partners that are wholesalers, even though we are converting more and more door to door sessions in Austin. I think that, you know, they're coming out with low inventory, and so finally, they're going to get into some good traction with the new inventory that we've delivered. Good sell-through and good interest. Not only on the luxury sportswear, but I was saying before, also on the tailoring, because many of guy.
Many guys, you know, have been buying for the past two years, and they do need a wardrobe. That's a factor. I must say that the new sneaker, Triple Stitch, is doing extremely well across the world, also in the United States. We have no resistance to price. We increased prices in the middle of the season and in certain items, in particular in the iconic items and in certain categories, and we've seen a good response. No resistance to price. In our retail stores, we have a few new stores.
Boston is one for instance, and we started well the journey and now we see a good bounce in traffic both in New York and in Los Angeles. I would say it's good numbers across United States and Canada. If we want to talk about Latin America, I haven't seen Latin America as healthy as in the past six months. Good performance both in Brazil and in Mexico, where we have a very strong brand awareness. In terms of marketing spending, I talk about Zegna, then Rodrigo can talk about Thom Browne. Yes, in absolute terms, we decided to increase our spending.
The spending goes, I would say to rebranding, for sure, goes into visual, goes into pop-in project that we have, goes into social media, and I would say that these are the area. I think it is pretty well spread, you know, across the regions. We want to highlight the strong products of the season, which are the one we talked about, the luxury leisure wear, in particular the knitwear, the overshirt, the Triple Stitch. We're going to go, you know, for fall also to support the new outdoor collection, which we tested last fall and reacted pretty well. In terms of Thom Browne.
From a Thom Browne point of view, the marketing questions, we traditionally have always invested in PR, in fashion shows.
In the work that we do with celebrities, which is all organic and branding. What we have presented to the board last year, and the board truly supported and passionately approved last year is an increase on pure marketing. In marketing, we talk about an increase in absolute value as well as percentage, is a significant increase. Marketing is defined for us as going after a specific story to communicate product and communicate to our clients. Thankfully, our board and our shareholders supported that last year. We continue to plan that type of significant investment.
We have a question on digital.
Digital, yes. In digital, we see an extremely positive trend. The trend is across thombrowne.com, across platforms such as Farfetch and across new localized platforms such as Tmall that we launched last year in China. We are looking to further localize to certain markets and continue to serve our clients extremely well with a very rapid response. We continue to see a very full price, non-promotional trend for us, and we are extremely pleased with this because the total omni-channel strategy we have across DTC, which for us became the majority of our business last year.
Zegna?
On Zegna, we see digital holistically, not only looking at e-commerce per se, but also looking at sales that are digitally enabled. We have what we call internally D2C, so Zegna to consumer outreach. All customer advisors are now enabled to outreach their customer portfolio and invite them to either visit the store or to select through, you know, WhatsApp, WeChat in China, a proposal of a total look or category items of the new Zegna collection, and then the customers can either buy it online or come into the stores. This outreach helps us greatly to activate traffic into the stores. In the last months, we have seen this activity, digital activity as enablers of sales that are percentage-wise solidly double digits, in terms of representation of our peak sales.
That is a big component, especially for waking up sleeping customers that we would like to make aware of the new collection. Every single customer advisor is making this activity of proactively reaching out through digital to customers, and then ultimately and eventually this becomes a brick-and-mortar, but is native as a digital activation. The fact of pure e-commerce sales, I think that some brand is likely ahead of us because they have more iconic and recognizable pieces, but the move of Zegna to Triple Stitch or iconic pieces will favor this journey of stepping up. And today we are probably in the mid-single digit percentage in terms of DTC sales coming from pure e-commerce through our zegna.com or e-commerce platform.
Another part that is nicely growing up is the sales, not DTC, but through retailers, which is becoming more and more successful, especially with the new collection that was presented in Fall 2022.
Thank you. Operator, I think, are there any more questions on the line? Otherwise, I think we need to wrap up.
We currently have no further questions.
Okay. I think it's now 3:00 P.M. and we can close this conference call. Thank you very much, everyone, for participating. As said, we will be hosting our Investor Day on the 17th of May at Oasi Zegna, and we will be reaching out with other details and a fully detailed and comprehensive agenda for the day. Thank you.
Thank you, bye. Thank you.
Thank you for joining today's call. You may now disconnect.