Hello everyone, welcome to the Ermenegildo Zegna Group Full Year 2022 Results. My name is Bruno, and I'll be the operator of today. During this presentation, you can register to ask a question by pressing Star followed by one on your telephone keypad. I will now hand over to your host, Francesca Di Pasquantonio. Please go ahead.
Hello everyone, thank you for joining us as we share our full year results for 2022. I'm here today with Gildo Zegna, Group Chairman and CEO, as well as our CEO and Rodrigo Bazan, CEO of Thom Browne. We have filed today our 20-F form, we've also filed form, which is the customary conversion from the previous F-1 form. 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, of course, this call will be covered by that language.
I'm pleased to now hand over to Gildo.
Thank you, Francesca. Hello to everyone. I'm very happy to share that we ended another strong year, and our results for 2022 reflect a strong momentum and desirability of the ZEGNA and Thom Browne brands, as well as the soundness and success of our strategy and execution. Last year, we kicked off the rebranding of ZEGNA, unveiling the ZEGNA One Brand and strategy, which has seen excellent success with customers so far around the world. We are still early in the rebranding journey, and we just launched our second season. However, we have a number of initiatives to continue building on ZEGNA success and reinforce its position as one of the world's top luxury brand and a leader in menswear. Thom Browne continues to show strong performance also.
Besides the numbers, we are very proud of the great reaction Thom Browne Paris and New York shows that has been received last year as well as this year from customers, the media, and influencers. No discussion of our 22 is complete without mentioning our very exciting partnership with The Estée Lauder Companies for the TOM FORD FASHION business. We expect the deal to close in a few weeks, at which time we'll be able to share more about our plans for these top brands. 23 has been off to a very encouraging start, with very solid double-digit performance across our retail network for both ZEGNA and Thom Browne.
I'm optimistic that the reopening of the Greater China region, combined with the positive response we are seeing from customers to our collection across our global network, and in particular European and American customers, will continue to drive our growth this year. We are particularly excited by the progress of our Made-to-Measure business, which is up double digits when compared with 2019, that was already a top year. We expect that our results for 2023 will comfortably show that we are on the trajectory to meet our goal of annual revenues exceeding EUR 2 billion and Adjusted EBIT margin of at least 13% by the end of fiscal 2025, excluding the TOM FORD FASHION business. We will continue to execute on our strategy that aims at strengthening our market-leading position and pioneering new high-potential markets as Saudi, as Central Asia, as Southeast Asia and India.
We are also, as always, working to strengthen our Made in Italy manufacturing platform with projects aiming at expanding our production capacity in footwear as well as in clothing manufacturing plant, adding up to 300 people to our Italian workforce by the midterm. Made in Italy manufacturing excellence remains a priority for us today, 113 years after the foundation of the company. In this regard, I am also proud to remark that we have launched Accademia dei Mestieri, our vocational training project. Accademia will focus on skills and expertise in textile, clothing, and leather goods within the group, and is part of our sustainable growth strategy to ensure excellence and innovation in our manufacturing.
If you now please turn to page four, I think that I'd like to turn to some financial highlights of 2022, while Gianluca will go more into depth later in this call. As we disclosed in January, our revenue for the year were almost EUR 1.5 billion. An 11% increase in constant currency and a 50.5% increase over 2021. In line with the mid-teen guidance we have shared. Excluding the Greater China region, which was heavily affected by COVID-19 related restrictions in the second and in particular fourth quarters, our revenue grew 42% in 2022 over 2021, with strong performances by U.S. and European customer as well as consumer from the Middle East.
Our profit for 2022 ended at EUR 65.3 million and adjusted EBIT at EUR 157.7 million, up 6% from the previous year, in line with our guidance of moderate improvement. Adjusted EBIT margin came in at 10.6%, down 90 basis points from 2021 due to increased costs and the negative impact of COVID-19 disruption in Greater China, which Gianluca will discuss in more detail, which were partially offset by healthy profitability improvement in other geographies. Our cash surplus at year-end was EUR 122.2 million, down 16% from 2021. Reflecting cash generation in the second half of last year in line with guidance. Gianluca will give you more details on this point later on as well. Now please turn to page number five.
In looking at our journey over the last two years, 2022 showed continued sales growth and healthy profitability even as the global environment continued to be uncertain. As Greater China was hit with temporary store closure and a COVID-19 related restriction. As I said earlier, we are seeing the reopening in the Greater China already have a positive impact on 2023, which we believe will continue for the rest of the year. Please turn to slide number six. I'd like to talk to some highlights for last year. As I mentioned, the ZEGNA One Brand has proven successful with our customers since we launched it in July of last year.
We're seeing increased demand for our iconic product, especially footwear and our luxury leisure wear that continued to perform very well, growing the soundness of our decision to focus on luxury leisure wear as a pillar of our ZEGNA business. We are also seeing a continued rebound in formal wear in line with the return to offices and the upswing in demand for menswear for social and special occasions, in particular evening wear. Our relationship with our customer is one of the strongest drivers for our success. We have always prided ourselves on providing excellent customization in the product and service. Our CRM is becoming more sophisticated. Last year our direct customer engagement was responsible for driving 35% of the revenue of our boutique worldwide.
Our proprietary clienteling application, which we have renamed ZEGNA X, is continuing to see an accelerated rollout. This provides an exciting new channel for us to build on strengthening this relationship. As of today, the business generated through this outreach approach reached 50% of our boutique revenue ahead two years to the target. Outreach represent a powerful tool to intercept demand and capitalize on the increasing popularity of our collection and iconic product. Thom Browne also had a number of milestones last year. The brand added 11 net new directly operated stores around the world, bringing the total to 63 doors and 105 outdoor sales. Rodrigo will now give you some color on Thom Browne now. Thank you. Rodrigo, go ahead.
Thank you. Thank you, Gil. Similar to the world of ZEGNA, although we come from different histories and different backgrounds and different amount of years in the market, we have an equally important customer centricity at Thom Browne. We continue to strengthen our client value management program, which is the key tool and the key program that we're looking into expanding, not only the exceptional high level clients that we have, the addition of new visitors to the brand that have very significant initial purchases, as well as they're working in the initial transactions. We're very focused on this. Our main goals going forward are two. One is big expansion of brand awareness and secondly, a big significant expansion on clients.
In order to support that, we do believe that we have an exceptional product, an exceptional client, and we have to have exceptional tool suite. We are completing at the end of this month, the rollout of a Salesforce tool for clienteling, marketing, and customer service. We'll be having a similar solution for China later in the year as well as for Korea as soon as we take over the business in July. As the brand continues to grow and consolidate its presence, we're also keeping our marketing investment to expand significantly our customer base. We have been extremely pleased with the reception of our shows, both in New York and Paris over the past nine months.
Starting from this summer, we'll be celebrating 20 years of Thom Browne, which allows us to have a fantastic opportunity to celebrate globally with events including Thom in different parts of the world over the following 12 months. With this, I would like to pass back the words to Gildo.
Yeah. Thank you, Rodrigo. I must add that 22 also saw us continue our journey of caring for our employees, the environment, and the world around us. People was a key theme during 22. In keeping up with the commitments we announced at our Capital Markets Day in May, we developed a number of DE&I and talent management strategies, including hiring our first DE&I officer. During the year, we have also launched a welfare initiative for our most vulnerable employees. As I anticipated earlier, we are also investing in our Accademia dei Mestieri as part of our approach to preserve and valorize our tradition of manufacture excellence and our Italian know-how while extending professional opportunities to young people. When it comes to care for the environment, we met a number of our commitment last year.
We submitted our net-zero target to the Science Based Targets initiative, a big step in ensuring that we are fulfilling our role to combat the climate crisis. We launched Oasi Cashmere, we are committed to having all cashmere used in Oasi Cashmere collection be fully traceable by next year, as certified by the Sustainable Fibre Alliance. This is one of many steps on our road to traceability, leading to our long-term commitment of having at least 50% of our raw materials traced to a geography policy and coming from lower impact sources by 2026. We know that having sustainability at the core of everything we do is not just about what we do as a group, but about what the fashion industry does collectively. It is why we joined a number of partners to spearhead, among others, two industry sustainability projects last year.
We joined the Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana and a number of other Italian luxury brands to launch the Re.Crea consortium to manage product at end of life. We also joined The Fashion Pact and a number of global fashion brands in the collective virtual power purchase agreement, which is accelerating the adoption of renewable energy electricity across the fashion industry. Please now turn to page seven. Before I hand over to Luca for a deeper dive in the numbers, I want to share just a few recent events that we announced over the past two months. In February, we completed the redemption for group warrants outstanding as of February 27, 2023, resulting in a total number of outstanding shares of about 248 million and a minimized dilution of around 2.3%.
On January 23rd, we announced the agreement to purchase a minority stake in Canadian technical trail- running shoe company, Norda, with an option to gradually increase our stake over the next nine years. Luxury outdoor as a part of luxury leisurewear continues to be an area of focus for us. Norda uses the finest material to produce all-weather footwear of the highest quality, which aligns perfectly with our value of creating the best product from the best material. The agreement also provides us with a strong industrial and commercial partner and exciting potential for the future. I must tell you that since the shoe has been launched a few months ago, we so far really had good market reaction across the board. The ZEGNA Fall/Winter 23 collection also had two very exciting features.
First, 70% of the collection was created using Oasi Cashmere, which, besides being a center of development of all our road to traceability, also reflects our focus on quality and using the best material available to create our products. Second, we presented a full collection in partnership with Los Angeles-based The Elder Statesman, which was based on the strong relationship between our very own artistic Sartori and Greg Chait, the brand's founder. Finally, the launch of ZEGNA X a couple weeks ago, which set another milestone in our road to digital, adding a powerful made-to-measure configurator, which will further enhance our customized level. Thank you. Now I will go over the recent events of Thom Browne, led by Rodrigo.
Rodrigo? Rodrigo?
Yes, I'm here. Sorry. Yes, we saw the return of Thom Browne to New York Fashion Week. We saw an exceptional Fall/Winter 2023 collection, both in the showroom, and in the show itself, which had a great opportunity, with the show having a very significant coverage in terms of attendance and also of press. We would like also to use this opportunity to congratulate Thom on this great collection and the return to New York Fashion Week, supporting it, being right now the chairman of the CFDA. In respect to the lawsuit filed by adidas in the U.S., Thom Browne faced a jury trial in January in New York. Whose outcome was that Thom Browne does not infringe on any of the trademarks of adidas America.
This was a jury decision that came out within a very short amount of time, right after almost a couple of weeks of trial. Another exciting development in Thom Browne, in line with the continued worldwide growth, is the agreement with a Korean partner of two years, which is Samsung C&T Corporation, through which Thom Browne will directly operate the Korean business. As of July 1, Thom Browne Korea will assume directly responsibility of all activities in Korea, which is 17 directly operated stores, turning to 18 directly operated stores later this year. We'll be fully owning the business in Korea, and we'll continue the partnership with Samsung, which is a very innovative, we believe, retail management agreement with Samsung. They have never had such an agreement.
In a nutshell, this is having one of the most exciting markets in the planet, which is South Korea today, run by one of the most, one of the strongest talent teams in Korea, which is the Samsung C&T team running the business. They have done an exceptional job running our business. Right now we fully own it. With that, I'll pass the word to Gianluca to go through the financials this year.
Thank you, Rodrigo. Thank you all for joining us today. Page eight, let me start by reminding briefly where we stand in terms of revenues. As we disclosed in January, revenues for the year were slightly under one and a half billion EUR, an increase of 15.5% over 2021 in actual terms and 11% in constant currency. Both ZEGNA and Thom Browne segments continue to show good momentum despite the COVID well-known disruption in China of the second and fourth quarter. This disruption has generated a kind of two-speed world in our business last year. We want to point out our pleased 42% growth year-over-year out of Greater China, which has benefited from the success of the brands and the expansion of the footprint, especially on the Thom Browne side.
We remind you also that the fourth quarter of 2022 saw the impact of the termination of the distribution license on menswear with TOM FORD, which also affects part of 2023 until the integration of the TOM FORD FASHION business will take place with the closing, which, as Gildo was mentioning before, is expected to happen in the second quarter of this year. At that point, this decline of the termination of distribution will be compensated by the by the line-by-line integration of TOM FORD. Moving to page nine, profitability. The adjusted EBIT for the year was up 5.8% from 2021 to reach EUR 157.7 million, compared to an adjusted EBIT of last year that was 90 basis points higher. This year, we get to a 10.6%.
The decrease in the margin was due to the following factors: First, the step-up in marketing costs for both the brands, which we anticipated in the Capital Markets Day, and which will slightly continue also this year. It's a, it's a journey. Second, an increase in what we call, and you will see in the new approach of segment reporting, corporate costs, which have been allocated to a new dimension of segment reporting, and we will discuss shortly. These are EUR 11 million of increase. Third, the cost related to the SOX, Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, which occur in both the ZEGNA segment and Thom Browne segment. Finally, which is the biggest impact, is the COVID-related disruption in Greater China in the second and fourth quarter of last year, which created an unfavorable geographical mix effect. This has created, as I said before, the largest impact.
If we want to turn it into 2023, becomes an important tailwind for us heading into this new year. It becomes like a credit from the recovery of China. This has been all partially offset by an important improvement in the profitability of the business everywhere else, in the other geographies and in the other product lines. Adjusted profit at the end landed at EUR 73.6 million, down slightly from EUR 75 million of last year, despite the improvement at the operating level that I mentioned before, due to financial items and financial charges.
I will mention, and I will call out especially because they are peculiar, the increase of put option liability and warrant liabilities for a total charge of EUR 23 million in 2022 P&L, as well as financial charges related to portfolio results in 2022 compared to a profit in prior year. We note that after the redemption, the ups and downs of warrant liability will get out from our P&L, but only from 2024, while in 2023, we expect the redemption of warrants that occurred in the last month to have a negative one-off impact that we estimate in the range of EUR 26 million. This is coming from the mark-to-market value of the warrants redemption compared to the fair value that was posted at the end of 2022.
Group profit for 2022 came in at EUR 65 million compared to a loss of EUR 127 million last year, which was primarily attributable to the cost incurred in. Now, moving to page 10. I don't want to go line by line into this income statement, but this is just to anticipate that this current shape of our income statement, as we had the chance also of talking with some of you along the way. We are preparing in 2023 the transition to a representation of cost by destination, which is much more common in the industry. This will allow us to report the gross margin, which in our current structure of the income statement is not visible.
This will happen with the first half results, and we hope to be able to provide you with a restated pro forma of prior years when we release our first half revenues at the end of July. Let's go into the profitability by segment, starting page 12 with the ZEGNA segment, which I remember includes both the ZEGNA brand, the textile business and third-party products. That is when we produce for other brands like Gucci, [Daniel], and before, and was also TOM FORD. We mentioned in prior announcement that we have traditionally allocated the corporate cost to the ZEGNA segment, thus affecting negatively this segment profitability. As I anticipated before, we have started to report corporate costs separately, and we will discuss this shortly.
Under this new approach to segment reporting, the adjusted EBIT for ZEGNA segment came in at EUR 141 million, up 7% from prior year with an EBIT margin of 12% compared to the 12.7% of the prior year. The ZEGNA One Brand strategy and our repositioning drove improvements for the segment that were partially offset by the country mix, namely the impact in China, the higher marketing costs together with the rebranding, higher personnel and compliance costs, mostly related to the SOX compliance, and higher depreciation and amortization. If you go to page 13, Thom Browne segment saw an improvement in both the absolute Adjusted EBIT as well as in the margin.
The adjusted EBIT for the segment was up a strong 26% to reach EUR 48 million, while the adjusted EBIT margin went up from 14.4% to 14.5% in 2022. We continue to invest in the growth of Thom Browne, scale benefits are contributing to the improvement. On the other side, they were partially offset by growth-related expenses, including the expansion of the store network of net 11 DOS, higher marketing costs, as for ZEGNA, and investments to include central processes within Thom Browne. Page 14. We come, as I said before, to the topic of corporate costs. These costs include activities and functions belonging to the holding that are not attributable to either ZEGNA or Thom Browne segment. These costs, as I said, were previously included in the ZEGNA segment.
These costs have increased significantly following the company's public listing in December. Primarily, they relate to the board, the cost of functions that are centrally managed on behalf of the entire group, such as group general counsel, internal audit, investor relations, central finance, the insurance coverage for directors and offices, and so on. For 2022, corporate costs came in at EUR 31.9 million, 2.1% of revenues. This compares to EUR 21 million, 1.6% in 2021, where all our structure was not up and running entirely. Other listing costs are posted directly in the ZEGNA and Thom Browne business, and these are related to the SOX compliance within the operating legal entities of the two segments. Going to page 15, some details on cash position and related cash situations like CapEx and working capital.
We ended 2022 with a cash surplus of EUR 122 million, up compared to the mid-year of EUR 103 million in line with the guidance and down from EUR 144 million at the end of the year. If you want to bridge end of 2022 compared to end of 2021, these are the driving factors. We paid within the year, EUR 26 million in dividends, not only the dividends to the N.V. shareholders, the N.V., but also to the minority shareholders of controlled entities. EUR 73 million in payments for CapEx, mostly related to store network. That is on the ZEGNA side, mostly remodeling, and on TOM FORD is mostly expansion. I would also like to have to flag IT investment, investments in manufacturing plants to expand capacity. A couple of examples here are expanding capacity on sleepwear units and outerwear.
Also to improve efficiency and sustainability, we are putting photovoltaic on several roofs of the plants. There has been another topic that is a factor affecting cash, is EUR 41 million higher trade working capital, which adds a flat percentage on revenues around 21%. EUR 33 million in real estate settlements on stores. This P&L charge had been already accrued prior to 2022, but saw the cash outflow for some settlements related to Madison Avenue, Ginza store or Roma Condotti taking place in 2022. We look at it, we believe that we have worked carefully on the optimization of our store networks, so most of the rationalization has happened at this point.
As we see a specific part of the trade working capital, it's important to understand what happened to the inventory in order to be not, let's say, concerned. A significant portion of the increase was planned. There is a part of the increase was related to our desire to secure precious raw materials availability during times of volatility. There has been an aware decision to build inventory in some specific raw materials like cashmere or fine wools. We also built solid availability of the Essentials. Essentials is the continuative part of our ZEGNA brand, which is aimed to be never out of stock. We made a step up one-off of the availability of ZEGNA Essentials.
Of course there has been the part that was unplanned related to the fourth quarter of China, which has left some stock, which we believe with the reopening of China now has become in Q1, an opportunity in order to capture an increase in demand. We don't see any problem on the inventory coming from China. We expect this excess at the end of 2022 to be quickly absorbed in this last month and next month. Now I give it back to Gildo to talk about dividends.
Thank you, Gianluca. It was a very clear explanation. Finally, let me share a quick update on our dividend. Subject to the required approvals, we intend to make a dividend distribution of 0.10 per share. It's EUR 0.10 per share to the holders of ordinary shares. A total of approximately EUR 25 million. This will be decided to our next AGM, which is currently expected to be held on June 27th. I'd like to talk briefly about our outlook for 2023 and beyond. At our Capital Markets Day last May, as you recall, we shared our medium-term target for the group, excluding the integration of TOM FORD FASHION, of course, which was mainly revenue of EUR 2 billion and an Adjusted EBIT margin of at least 50%.
As I shared at the top of the call, we now define medium-term as the end of fiscal year 2025. For 2023, we are encouraged by the start of the year, which is well above our expectation, with broad-based strength, a very dynamic Made-to-Measure business, which well exceeds the prior record level of both 2022 and 2019. The return of tourists to Europe and key Asian hubs like Hong Kong and Macau, which I think is very important. We expect that our 2023 results will show comfortably that we are on the trajectory to meet our ambitious goal by the end of 2025. Again, excluding the integration of TOM FORD. This is acknowledging the ever-changing environment with macro and financial markets volatility, assuming no further significant geopolitical, macroeconomic or financial market deterioration. No further disruption linked to the COVID-19 pandemic, no other unforeseen events.
With that, we are ready to answer any question you might have. Thank you.
Thank you, Gildo. Bruno, we are ready for the Q&A session, please.
Perfect. Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad now. That's star followed by one on your telephone keypad. We have our first question. It comes from Susy Tibaldi from UBS. Susy, your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Thank you so much for taking my question. Congratulations on another strong year. On your comments that you had a very good start of the year 2023, and that Q1 is expected to grow double-digits with a very broad-based strength, could you give a little bit more detail in terms of the growth that you're seeing by region, in China? I'm sure you're seeing a very strong rebound. If there is any way you can help us understand what kind of rebound you're seeing there, maybe give some numbers will be super helpful. Also you said this strength is really broad-based. We are hearing from some of your peers that in the U.S., there is a little bit of weakening in consumer sentiment. Is this something that you're seeing as well?
Also comment on Europeans will be super helpful. My second question would be, when you're thinking about the investment that you're planning for 2023, is there any kind of step up in investment that we should think about? Is there any specific areas that you feel like, it's necessary to keep investing and, if there is any project that you have planned for 2023? Thank you.
Hi, Susy. Gianluca here. In terms of numbers, we cannot anticipate what we are going to disclose at the end of the month when we disclose Q1. Anyway, I give you the flavor. As we said, we are seeing a double-digit growth at a group level. If we isolate, since you were asking for a geographical split, if we isolate retail overall is solid double digits. Solid double- digit, of course, then becomes double- digit when you also take into consideration the TOM FORD effect, which slows down the number because last year we were still distributing TOM FORD in Q1. Looking at retail is solid double- digit across the regions. We are seeing solid performance everywhere, also in U.S., which I'm fully aware someone is not seeing.
We are not, we are not having this feeling. Our performance is solid throughout Q1 in retail for ZEGNA, mainly for ZEGNA , mostly for ZEGNA brand. That is the picture I'm going to give you. In terms of investment, we expect 2023 to be slightly higher than 2022 in terms of amount. This of course, becomes with the continuous footprint expansion of Thom Browne. We are seeing some perimeter opportunity in ZEGNA , which is a piece of news because so far we took advantage of rationalizing the network in ZEGNA , also with the discontinuation of Z ZEGNA . Now it's time for us, and we see the opportunity of expansion in North America, in parts of Europe, in some parts of Europe, in China, still some tactical growth.
We will make a step up in terms of CapEx in 2023. As I said before, also the investment in the supply chain. We believe that our supply chain is a strength for us. We are investing, we have been investing in 2022, but we continue investing in 2023 in expanding our internal capacity in some product lines. This will become a further driver of investment together with IT investments in the direction of digitalization. As we have anticipated ZEGNA X, the tool of configurator, which will be presented directly to the community in a few days. That will be also an era, a direction of investment for the group. I leave it to him.
You're all are well. We surely are, I would say positively surprised by the result of this first quarter that quite unexpectedly are strong across the board, as Gianluca said. I think there is a reason. It's just not organic growth. I think that all our strive to become a sophisticated retailer, in term of product merchandising, in term of marketing, in terms of personalization, in terms of digitalization, a new way to reach out the customer is bringing some good results. We are extremely pleased about the, this outreach, you know, new process we have, which has become the part of the culture of our retail method, which is quite extensive.
If last year we had some regions that were already pretty ahead and others that were behind, now we can see that they are very consistent across the board. The customer is reacting to the new branding, to the new merchandising offer of Zegna. We are getting really good traction by the loyal customer through Made-to-Measure, the Made-to-Measure is literally on fire. Being with Made-to-Measure at the level of 19, which were quite a defeat. I mean, it's quite positive both on the tailoring side and also on the leisure side. All the economy development is bringing the results. You, you just visit our store, and you see more and more of a difference.
I think that every season, this is the second season where branding adds a bit to it, and we are moving the direction. The engine is there. We just have to make the engine go faster. We are very pleased about the execution so far of what we have put together last year.
Great. Thank you.
Bruno? Susy, does that answer?
Yes, that's great. Thank you so much, and we look forward to the TOM FORD integration as well.
Yeah, we do as well.
We are a few weeks away, hopefully.
Bruno.
Yeah, just a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask any more questions, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. That's star followed by one on your telephone keypad. We'll just wait two moments. Okay, we do have two questions coming in. First question is from Louise Singlehurst from Goldman Sachs. Louise, your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for taking my questions. Just following up on the China question from earlier, I wondered if.
Can you raise your voice? Sorry, because we hear you very far away. Sorry.
Apologies. Is that a little bit better?
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Can you hear me now?
Thank you.
Great. Thank you.
Yes, better. Thank you.
I was just gonna follow up with a question with regards to China, and thank you for the information so far. Can you help us think about the attitude of the Chinese customers that you know, which are already shoppers at the brand, you know, their appetite for spending? I suppose what we're all trying to think about is the reopening and the appetite of the consumer to spend versus save in terms of a luxury environment. I wonder if there's any color that you can give us on the customers that you know well at ZEGNA . Secondly, just on the broader, you know, the rebranding and the new initiatives, can you help us think about the number of like new customers that you think that you're getting to your customer base from, you know, the customized...
The digitalization initiative that we're seeing in the store? Presumably, that's being a very big driver of new customers to the brand. Thank you.
Yeah. Okay, I'll start with China since I've been twice already, probably I'm going to be there the third time probably before the summer. Listen, the biggest surprise is Hong Kong and Macau, which it was not a given, to be honest with you, during the first visit, but it was after second, where I got to understand the Chinese were finally free to move around, also outside their boundaries, and that Hong Kong and Macau would have been the first destination for sure. Remember on the list, Japan was, Tokyo was top on the list, Bangkok and Singapore. We see this happening. This is literally, it's what's going on now.
Predicting whether this trend will hold on for the rest of the year, whether they will be traveling also abroad, outside their boundaries, even more so, of Asian territory, I don't know. We played that they would stay in Asia. We think that we will see them more for sure 2024, and we are ready for that. Right now, we are eye the results in the greater China region and in some territories in Asia. In terms of more color, listen, I think they liked our color. They like the new color of the brand, they go for newness.
I mean, I just can tell, you know, we just came out with a limited short collection, and it's landing these days on the market. You know, they just go for that. We just shipped the first shot of all the shoes, and they just are on fire. Whatever newness you send to them, they respond. I tell you, I mean, this, we're talking not only about loyal ZEGNA customer, we're talking about newness. I can tell you in the iconic product, I would say at least between 30% and 50% of the purchases are with new customers.
We have a lot to, you know, do in the next months and season to make sure to surprise them. I think that they What we Remember we talked last year quite often about collaboration. I think that this collaboration route, I think it's a very smart move in terms of marketing, in terms to allure them to come back and to make sure that whenever they come back and they visit often the store, I think that one of the characteristics of the Chinese, they visit the store more often than any other consumer. We see this happening again.
As a matter of fact, traffic is up, not yet to where it was at the peak of 2021, but surely, nicely up around, you know, I would say, low- double- digits. I think that the important thing is to make sure that they are surprised every time they visit the store. I think that all this, new, characteristic and innovative factor of Sartori, with the marketing, led by Edoardo Zegna, I think it's produced some good results. The other thing is Made-to-Measure. As I said, I just want to repeat, Made-to-Measure is our Formula One, and we are, you know, surely leader in that and, it's coming back and, that's a very good news.
That's why, as Gianluca was saying, we are strengthening our tailoring supply chain, increasing literally the production because we just are, you know, we just want to keep up, you know. We have a two to four weeks delivery cycle there, according to the speed we want to give, and we just want to make sure that, you know, that we keep being on top of that. I think that overall, I mean, pretty good news and there is no reason why it should slow down in the rest of the year. We remain upbeat, in particular in regards to China.
An area where we see, Louise, Gianluca, an area where we see, of course, the new clients coming into the brand are definitely the new iconic products. Triple Stitch is definitely an entry door. Knitwear is becoming an important entry door to the brand. Knitwear, whether it's cashmere or cashmere and silk, or the new linen, knitwear, it's becoming an important entry door, and overshirts are the new deconstructed, whether it's a shirt or a jacket, you decide. Those new items are becoming an attractive hook for new clients to explore ZEGNA as a new brand for them.
Does it answer, Louise?
That's perfect. Thank you very much for the color. Very helpful.
Thank you. Bruno, can we move to the next question, please?
Okay. We currently have no further questions. I would like to hand over back to you.
Thank you very much, everyone for listening to the call. Our next reporting is going to be the first quarter results on the 20th of April, and there will not be a conference call because we have just given you the freshest update. I will be available to discuss the press release of the first quarter results, together with the management should you need to ask questions. Happy holidays, and we'll speak soon. Bye.
Happy Easter to everybody. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.
Thank you, Bruno. Thank you.
Thank you. Bye.