Hello, welcome to the Ermenegildo Zegna Group first half of 2023 preliminary revenues. My name is Elliot, I'll be coordinating your call today. If you would like to register a question during today's event, please press Star followed by one on your telephone keypad. I'd like to hand over to Francesca, Director of Investor Relations. The floor is yours. Please go ahead.
Hello, everyone, and thank you, Elliot. Thank you all for joining us as we share our revenues for the second quarter and first half of 2023. I'm here with Gildo Zegna, Group Chairman and CEO, our CEO and CFO, Gianluca Tagliabue, and Rodrigo Bazan, the CEO of Thom Browne. Before we begin, I need to point out that we may make certain forward-looking statements during the call. Our actual results may be different from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. All such statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including those discussed in our SEC filings. I refer 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. I'm pleased now to hand over to Gildo Zegna.
Hello to everybody. Thank you, Francesca, and thank you all for joining us today from wherever you are in the world. I'm very pleased to share that we had yet another excellent quarter, continuing the successful performance we have experienced since the beginning of the year as we continue to execute the group strategy. In fact, let me tell you that our growth has been really strong for a number of years now, and we stand at 50% growth on a two-year stack with a very well-balanced mix of growth drivers by regions and the strong outperformance of DTC. Successful design and product collection, coupled with strong retail execution, which leverages our unique CRM skills, are driving the strong momentum. We see menswear as a growing segment in the luxury sector. Our brand resonates with customers around the world are supporting healthy market share gains.
We are particularly proud of the progress that Zegna has made since the rebranding. Our exposure to womenswear, through Thom Browne, and now from, now on, also with Tom Ford, will contribute to our strong trends. The group growth progress reflects our unique ability to understand our customer base as we continue to offer them appealing luxury products, styles, and service. We have experienced healthy double-digit growth in all geographies, and direct-to-consumer has been even accelerating. The U.S., in particular, is an area of notable strength, and the Chinese consumer are rebounding nicely. We are also happy to welcome the return of Chinese tourists in many regions, including Europe. We have seen a notable increase in customer visiting our stores and in all relevant retail KPI, delivering a significant step up in store productivity.
This quarter, we also complete the acquisition of Tom Ford International. We are now a long-term licensee of The Estée Lauder Companies for the Tom Ford Fashion business, for both men's and women's fashion, as well as accessories and underwear, fine jewelry, childrenwear, textiles, and home design products. I'm happy with how the integration is going so far, and especially the world-class leadership team we are assembling to lead this iconic luxury brand, including the recent appointment of Lelio Gavazza as the new CEO of Tom Ford Fashion, and Peter Copping, who has been appointed as the Brand Creative Director in April. We look forward to working with all of them and the partnerships with Guillaume Jesel and The Estée Lauder Companies to build on Tom Ford's legacy and to make it one of the top 10 luxury fashion names in the world.
If you can please turn to page four, in order to take you through a few key highlights from this period before handing over to Gianluca to discuss financially in more details. As you can see, the group saw first half revenue, EUR 903 million, a 23.9% year-on-year increase. 21.5% of the growth is what we are considering organic growth, which is a newly defined non-GAAP measure the group uses to analyze revenue independent of the effects of changing scope and currency impact. Of that EUR 903 million, EUR 475 million came in the second quarter, a 35.1% year-on-year increase on an actual product basis, and an extremely robust 24.5% organic growth.
A look at our performance on a two-year period shows a solid 20% compounded average growth for about the first half of 2023, for both the Zegna brand and the Thom Browne brand. Our performance so far shows that we are on track to meet our medium-term ambition by 2025. We are comfortable that our full year results and our forthcoming first half results should confirm this guidance and our trajectory towards this goal. If you please, can turn to page five, in order to give you some business highlights and recent events. As a group, we continue to strengthen our brand by executing our strategy, which translates the great financial performance that we have seen so far this year. Zegna updates.
We are very satisfied with Zegna rebranding and the timely speed and strong execution of the One Brand strategy, which is translating a growing market share, especially in the luxury leisure space. Zegna brand caters to an even stronger customer base, and the brand's appeal is reflected in successful entire collection, including our iconic products such as the Zegna Suit Prestige, luxury sneaker, and other luxury leisurewear item. After a few years consolidating its footprint and performing store right-sizing, the Zegna brand is now ready to leverage this new positioning by resuming a gradual expansion of its store network, with seven new net DTC stores in the first half of the year. In select locations, including the Saks New York concession, stores in Southampton, Kuwait City, Copenhagen, Jinan, Fuzhou, Lanzhou in China.
The bulk of our growth comes from the substantial increases in our store productivity, making every square foot of store space even more valuable. For Zegna in particular, we are seeing a nice sequential trajectory in terms of increasing footfall, increasing the number of tickets, and average spend. The higher sales, together with our dynamic management of the store footprint, is translating to a nice step up in productivity. As a reminder, this is one of the key metrics we monitor on our journey to deliver our medium-term financial goals, as we stated in May 2022, that we were looking for at least 50% increase in Zegna sales per square meter. Our deep dive on retail KPI and analysis of consumer demographics through our CRM system enables us to continue to identify strengths and opportunities, and we are very satisfied with the current progress.
We are particularly happy about the trends we are seeing in new customer acquisition and in the retention and the spending of these new clients, as well as the loyalty of our consolidated customer portfolio, and how the shopping profile of our customers is shaping up following the repositioning of the Zegna brand in the pinnacle of luxury menswear. We believe we are scratching the surface. We see many opportunities ahead as we still have long hanging fruits, such as, for example, continuing to drive footfall conversion and/or focusing on the increase in the UPT.
Of course, all of this grounded in great design, as we saw at our Milan Men's Fashion Show last month, which brought all Zegna to the city of Milan in Piazza San Fedele, for a summer collection that leaned on our commitment to using traceable materials, including our goal to use 100% traceable linens in L'Oro del Lino product by 2024, all led by our creative designer, Alessandro Sartori. A few Thom Browne updates. Moving to Thom, he showed his first couture collection at Paris Couture Week in July, receiving an immense amount of positive feedback from across the industry. Another important update is that on July 1st, the Thom Browne business in Korea will be directly operated by the company, including 17 stores in the network.
We are also growing the brand store footprint strategically with three net new stores added in the first half of the year, two in China and one in Japan. The uniqueness of Thom Browne style continues to garner the interest of new and old customers seeking unique product offerings, and we believe that our pursuit of doubled revenue of Thom Browne this year is well on track. Textile platform. The textile platform of the group Made in Italy system is a fundamental component to our strategy and continues to be integral to our business, supplying the world's best materials to our own brand, as well as all other luxury names, while protecting Italy's world-famous luxury products and our own supply chain.
Our commitment to Made in Italy met a new milestone in June, when, along with the Prada Group, we acquired a 30% stake in Luigi Fedeli e Figlio to expand our Made in Italy platform and strengthen our supply chain access to knitwear and yarns. A few words on Tom Ford Fashion. Tom Ford Fashion has been consolidated as a third segment of our group as of April 29th, when the transaction closed. Since then, we have started putting together an incredible leadership team to lead this iconic brand in partnership with The Estée Lauder Companies. As already mentioned, the new CEO of Tom Ford Fashion, Lelio Gavazza, who brings a wealth of experience in the luxury industry, will join effective 18th of September, and we can't wait to have him on board.
Peter assumed creative director in April, and we are very excited about the summer 2024 womenswear collection that will debut at Milan Fashion Week in September. Please turn to page number six . I think that it's worth mentioning some of our ongoing efforts to build on our century-long legacy of sustainable growth, so that in May, the Science Based Targets initiative approved our greenhouse gas emission reduction target, which we had submitted last year. We are targeting net zero greenhouse gas emissions across our value chain by 2050, from a 2021 base year. In May 17th, we have adopted a new animal welfare policy to uphold our commitment to using high-quality materials that are produced in a way that is mindful of the natural environment and its inhabitants.
Finally, just days ago, as a family, we celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Zegna Founder Scholarship, out of a 25 years commitment that we made, reaffirming our commitment to supporting, with grants of EUR 1 million a year, Italian students who study abroad, to contribute to making sure they come back to Italy. All this project makes me particularly proud to prepare the Italian talents for the future. I will now turn over to Gianluca Tagliabue, our CFO, who will share with you a deeper look at the quarter and the first half revenue. Please, Gianluca.
Thank you, Gildo. Good afternoon, everybody. First, page seven, before entering into our usual revenue breakdown views. Let me explain, go back to the new measure that we introduced, which is organic growth, which will help us looking at the real underlying business trends, especially from a geographic breakdown, because just organic growth neutralizes not only the impact of effects, so it's a constant currency metric, but also the change in scope, which is mostly related to the Tom Ford business. Let's remember the change in scope. On Tom Ford, last year, we still had a production and wholesale worldwide distribution license for men's apparel until fall/winter 2022. Started with spring/summer 2023, we moved to a supply agreement for certain Tom Ford products on men's tailoring.
Finally, late April this year, we started consolidated on a line-by-line, all the business of Tom Ford Fashion, men, women, wholesale, and retail. In order to neutralize for all this change in scope, we introduced this organic metric, which I will refer when we look at the numbers. In annex, you will find the reconciliation tables of organic revenues versus reported revenues. Back to the numbers of page seven, as Gildo Zegna mentioned earlier, revenues for the first half of the year are slightly over EUR 900 million, 23.9% year-on-year growth in actual currency, 24.7% in constant, 21.5% in terms of organic growth. We saw a double-digit growth across Zegna and Thom Browne segments.
The Zegna One Brand strategy continues to drive market share gains, and the Zegna segment grew 23.8% year-on-year in organic growth in the first half. Thom Browne segment grew 13.6% in constant compared to the first half of last year, following further internationalization and the strategic expansion of the brand store footprint. Tom Ford Fashion, for the first time we show this number, reported EUR 64 million, starting from April 29th, where again, we started to do a full line-by-line consolidation. The addition of Tom Ford brings into the picture, 121 monobrand stores, 51 of which are directly operated as of the end of June. Moving to page eight, we have the view on the second quarter.
The revenues came in at EUR 475 million, up 35% from last year, 37.4% in constant currency and 24.5% on an organic basis. You see here the discrepancy between organic and reported because we brought in Tom Ford line by line. The second quarter revenues for Zegna segment grew 28%, and for Thom Browne, it was 10.8%, when compared to the same quarter of last year. Those numbers are both in organic terms. As we will see, each brand has experienced an incredible strong direct-to-consumer performance at mid 30% in the second quarter, testifying our steady performance on the retail side. Here I call out, especially the particularly strong performance of Zegna DTC in the strategic U.S. market.
There was a sequential year-on-year acceleration in second quarter, since you will recall that we had close to 19% growth organic in Q1, and now we see a 24.5% organic growth in the second quarter. The overall number of Q2 it shows the acceleration. Looking at page nine, on a two-year horizon, first half 2023 versus first half of 2021, for each of the two brands, we delivered a solid and encouraging 20% CAGR in constant currency for both the brands. Moving to page 11, here we have the breakdown by segment. Looking at the Zegna segment, we saw double-digit growth, thanks to the strength of Zegna brand, and in particular, to, as I said before, a remarkable direct-to-consumer performance. There was also a positive contribution from the textile product line, which falls into the Zegna segment.
In the first half of 2023, Zegna segment saw EUR 652 million in revenues, 17.9% up, and an even larger growth for the second quarter, as we have seen a growth of 23.4% year-over-year, totaling EUR 333 million in the second quarter. Thom Browne also saw steady double-digit growth of 11.9% year-over-year, for a total of EUR 208 million during the first half. The segment grew 8% in the second quarter, for a total of EUR 95 million. The strong DTC performance of Thom Browne was mitigated by muted development on the wholesale channel, which was slightly down in the second quarter, due to soft deliveries to the Korean market, which I remember we transitioned from wholesale to retail, starting from July 1st.
We were prudent in the shipment in order to then take over from July 1st as a retail business. Thom Browne growth was supported by our direct consumer strategy, which translated in solid comparable store growth in the first half, and then by the expansion of the brand store network, adding 13 net new stores versus the store network seen during the first half of 2023. Moving to page 13, this is the breakdown by product line. Zegna brand, the brand product line, outperformed, growing 27% in the first half when compared to last year, 28% organic in constant, with a 37%, strong 37% growth in the second quarter of 2023.
Growth for Zegna branded product was largely driven by made-to-measure offering, which continues to be a distinctive pillar of our positioning, as well as by the sneakers and luxury leisure wear items. Thom Browne grew 11.8% during the first half, 8.2% during the second quarter, thanks to the outperformance of women's over men, and kids product also saw dynamic growth for Thom Browne. Moving to the textile, we saw more conservative growth of 6% year-over-year in the first half. The positive momentum seen across all our textile brand portfolio helped to drive this increase.
The third-party brand product line experienced a reset, 67% during the first half and 71% during the second quarter, because of the end of the Tom Ford distributional license agreement with the fall/winter 2022 collection, and the shift of Tom Ford from a third-party player to an intercompany supply, which then becomes inter-eliminated, not shown anymore, third-party brand. It is, of course, worth reiterating that Tom Ford Fashion is becoming a new product line from April the 29th. Moving to page 15, we are pleased about our robust double-digit organic growth across all geographies during the first half and also during the second quarter.
When we look at the organic metric, neutralizing, so all the revenues related to the Tom Ford in and out, as we have seen 21.4% in EMEA, 16.3% in North America, 16% in Latin America, and 24% in Asia Pacific during the first half of 2023. In the first half, the growth in the Greater China region was recorded at 24% versus last year, 27% organic. Within the One Brand strategy, we have been creating the conditions to pursue quality growth in China since reopening. We have been rationalizing the store footprint by closing a few Zegna stores, which we still had in the first half of 2021, and we have been eliminating markdowns in line with the new global policy, which we still had in 2021.
Notably, China's consumers are now starting to move, along with that they are spending outside of the region, we see them mostly in the rest of Asia. We start to see them, especially in the second quarter in Europe. We saw especially strong growth in U.S. at 26% reported, equivalent to a 12.5% organic, which again means neutralizing Tom Ford business, with a second quarter organic growth accelerating to 13.9%. The region, on a reported basis, of course, benefited from Tom Ford Fashion addition. As well as from the solid performance of DTC from Zegna and from Thom Browne brands, which each grew in the double digits in the semester. In the EMEA and American regions, we reported respectively 23.8% and 25.6% during the first half.
We are witnessing, as I said before, a healthy progression of tourist spending, in particular with American and Chinese consumers outperforming their respective regional plans. Moving to page 17, the last breakdown is by channel. A remarkable improvement in our store productivity helped boost the double-digit direct-to-consumer growth I've seen across all the regions, for a total DTC revenues increase of 30% organic for the first half, with an acceleration of DTC to 36% organic growth for the quarter. Looking at our momentum in direct-to-consumer growth, Zegna and Thom Browne revenues were both up by around 30% organic in the first half, with Zegna DTC accelerating to 36% in the second quarter, and Thom Browne accelerating at 34% in the second quarter. Our wholesale channel grew by 6% during the first half and 16% during the second quarter.
On a organic basis, again, without the impact of Tom Ford, the growth in the second quarter is 6%. Looking at the store network, as of June, the group now has 633 stores, you see page a-18, of which 363 DTC to 70 monobrand wholesale. We have seen a growth for both Zegna and Thom Browne in line with their respective strategy, which is for Thom Browne to benefit from a significant white space globally, and fourthly, is pursuing a strategy of selective boutique ambition. Moving to page 19, before I turn things back to Gildo, I would like to highlight that the format of our consolidated P&L will change, starting from the financials of the first half 2023, which we will present in September.
The current, so far, P&L presented cost by nature, which will be re-replaced by a P&L structure with cost by destination, which will allow us to show, among other things, also the growth margin, which was one of the requests that came from the conversations with all of you. The comparative P&L dated June will be reclassified, the comparative of 2022 will be reclassified, we will not present any longer the old structure. There will be no changes to the balance sheet. We also remind that in the first half and for the full year of 2023, below the operating profit, we will incur the cost of the warrant redemption occurred in February 2023, which we anticipate will be in the range of EUR 22 million, that we will see.
We see also the volatility coming from the mark-to-market reassessment of the put option liability stemming primarily from the Thom Browne put option on the receipt of 10% stake owned still by Mr. Thom Browne. Finally, we would like to remind you that at the closing of the Tom Ford deal, we said that the Tom Ford Fashion segment will be diluted in terms of adjusted EBIT margin in consideration of the royalties payable to ELC. In addition, Tom Ford segment profitability this year, which for the segment actually means eight months since April 29, if not 12 months, will be impacted by the purchase price allocation deal mainly in relation to part of the value allocated to inventory, part of the value that we paid, allocated to the order backlog for fall/winter 2023 orders.
I will pass on the rest of today remarks to Gildo, who will now speak around the outlook.
Yeah.
For the meeting.
Thank you. Thank you, Gianluca. You have now heard about our sound performance during the first half of the year, which we're very proud, as it demonstrates the soundness of our strategy as we lead our award and our brand through their growth periods. We anticipate that our end-of-year results will show that we are comfortably on our trajectory to meet the 2025 targets and financial goals that we outlined back in May during our Capital Markets Day. Our outlook for 2023 project growth to align with those goals, which includes annual revenue to exceed 2 billion EUR, and for adjusted EBIT margin to reach at least 15% of revenue by 2025. 2025 has been defined as a medium term for the group, as it is also worth noting that our previously disclosed financial goals do not reflect the Tom Ford Fashion deal.
That we maintain this outlook, assuming no further deterioration of the war in Ukraine, a continuing normalization of the COVID-19 pandemic in China, no significant microeconomic deterioration, the globalization or any other unforeseen events. Thank you. We are now ready for questions. Back to the moderator.
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star followed by two. When prepared to ask your question, please ensure your device is unmuted locally. Our first question today comes from Chris Huang with UBS. Your line is open.
Hi, thank you for taking my question. I have three, if I may. My first one would be on if you can comment on growth by nationality, if we exclude the impact from Tom Ford and how it evolved compared to Q1, and if there's anything that you would like to flag for the start of July and Q3. I'm particularly interested in knowing, you know, the trends by Chinese consumer on a two-year stack, so versus 2021, and also year-over-year for Americans and Europeans. That's my first question. Secondly, can you provide some incremental color on the sales breakdown of Tom Ford by region, just so we know the geographical exposure of the brand?
My last question would be on if you can provide a breakdown of the Q2 growth in terms of volume versus price mix. Thank you very much.
Go, Gianluca.
I lost the third, so I will ask you to rephrase the third. In terms of the by nationality, so we don't report the specific numbers by class, but I can give you later. The, I think that the outstanding result, especially if you look it on a two-year basis, is on the U.S. consumers, which we have been seeing are particularly strong in the region of doubling the business in the two years. In terms of Chinese, you, first, you need to consider, as I said before, in China, in 2021, we still had a meaningful network of Zegna brand, mono brand stores, which we closed. When you, when you look at the two years, you need to remember that in 2021, we still had a meaningful number of monobrand Zegna stores, and of course, this year, the Chinese are also out.
If we look at, since I will guide you to understand the numbers, if we look at Greater China region, in 2021, it was basically Chinese all there. In the first half of this year, parts of Chinese were out. If you look at Greater China region, first half of this year, compared to the first half of 2021, we are up, despite the fact that some Chinese are out of Greater China region. Despite the fact that in 2021, we had stores of Zegna, also some quite important in Shanghai place, for instance, in open and that we closed.
Sorry.
Europeans?
Yes, I know. I was saying.
Europeans are an important addition to our growth. The growth in Europe is strongly supported by successful performance with domestic consumers that are positively welcoming the new direction of the collection. Especially, this is a, an answer, not from a nationality standpoint, but we are gaining significant ground with high-spending consumers across the board, whether it's European, Americans, or Chinese. This is also a driver of growth, which is not by nationality, but it's by call it class, spending cluster. The second question of Tom Ford, we are not representing the brand by region, but definitely the most important area for Tom Ford is U.S. Despite the fact that they have several stores in Asia, but the big part of the business comes from U.S.
The third was about volumes and the composition of the sales growth, correct? Increase the volumes and.
Yes, yes. Yes, correct.
In this, I answer for Zegna, and I leave Rodrigo to jump in for Thom Browne. For Zegna, it's a healthy mix of increased number of tickets and an increase of the average ticket value. The average ticket value is driven by the fact that we have elevated the quality of our collection while addressing the demand of our consumers, as I said before, the highest spending. It's a mix of average ticket and number of tickets, which is volume. We see, as Gildo was mentioning, an area of opportunity, which will become our key point of attention for the next future, is Gildo mentioned before, UPT, so the unit per transaction. We can list it, and we believe that will be our low-hanging fruit in the coming 12, 18 months.
Increase the number of units per transaction, driven by the new collection, we think that this is our next lever for the step up of revenues. I defer to Rodrigo to give a flavor of unit and value.
Thank you, Gianluca. From a Thom Browne point of view, the growth for us is certainly in DTC, focused on collection on client data. We are very focused on client value management, which are in a very high percentage right now, a very high level of repeat clients, and a significant growth also for clients to purchasing above $10,000, significantly above $10,000 a year. We have a very nicely balanced business in between new clients, between clients at the first year of significant clients, and then very committed clients at the very significant purchases per year. That's our focus. We are focused on additional clients, but at the same time, growth with current clients. That's a very, very solid growth. Our average ticket remains high, very committed on the first purchase and therefore after.
Okay, thank you. Maybe if I can just add a follow-up, if I may, please. It will be on Tom Ford. I just wanted to understand, how do you plan to position the brand? You know, within the luxury space, who do you see as the main competitors for Tom Ford please? Thank you.
Come vediamo il posizionamento?
The positioning, Gildo, how are you? The positioning surely is top luxury and is glamour luxury with surely an increment on the women's side and on the leather accessory side. Surely, the position is in the direction of the top luxury French brand, I would say, more than anything, that's where we see ourselves. Surely, we see ourselves more as a retailer than a wholesaler, and today, we still have a mix that is still, you know, not the one we wanted to have. As Gianluca said, you know, we are very strong in America, and we have big opportunity to expand in Asia and in Europe.
We can move to the next question.
As a reminder, if you'd like to ask any further questions, please press star one on your telephone keypad now. We now turn to Matthew Garland with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.
Hi, thank you for taking my questions. I just had a couple. Just around the US cluster, obviously 14% growth there, was that driven sort of by sort of your moves towards VIC customers, and sort of additional clienteling apps and things that you put in that market? Is that what's caused some of the outperformance there? I wonder if you can give any details around maybe what you're seeing in terms of, you know, more aspirational consumers, whether you're seeing any sort of softness there. Second of all, in terms of the Tom Ford acquisition, I wonder if you could go into a bit more detail around sort of the opportunity that attracted you to acquiring it in the first place, and obviously the choice of using Mr. Gavazza to be the CEO, given his obviously, background in jewelry.
Finally, just in terms of the point that you made around increasing unit per transaction, I wonder if you can go into a bit more detail around sort of the initiatives that you're putting in place to drive that. Thank you.
Let me start with the second one of Tom Ford and Lelio Gavazza. Now, yes, he comes from hard luxury, but he knows very well retail luxury, and he has very strong knowledge of the Chinese market. Today, I think, you need CEO that are on the market, and I think that his background comes from that know-how, plus Asian, plus international experience in luxury retail. He knows very well what the international luxury customer wants and how he moves around. Two, he knows how to deal with different classes of customer. Today, you have to be very flexible to understand where the customer shops and how to move and anticipate him.
I think that he is extremely experienced in all the experiencing and clienteling and servicing part of this customer. Third, he understands the industry. He has a background also in the industry and organization, and he can manage a team well. We will have to manage our relationship, which we are doing already, with the party of Estée Lauder corporation. We will share, you know, the creative director between Saint Laurent and them. It was key to find a man, a leader that knows how to manage a complex organization, and I think that he's the one, and we see already that would be off a good start.
I think that these are the key ingredients for him to be successful. The fact that, you know, I've known him more than 20 years, and I've seen him, how he led a complex organization and a luxury brand internationally, was very, very helpful. Back to the first question, if I understood how we see the aspirational consumer moving.
In the U.S. and if we are o n the VIC.
In U.S., yeah.
Listen, we are lucky, or we are brave to be in silent luxury. I think that every luxury price, you see, it's about that. I mean, you know, the future of luxury is more about silent and loud luxury. We are fortunate to be one of the few players in that. That helps to. I would say especially in America, and I think that this stellar growth in America is not surprising, but it's robust, and I think that will continue, is in that direction. I think that we are providing this unique silent luxury with the personalized service, with the strong outreach, I think, to our sophisticated CRM system. We are really continuing.
I, to be honest with you, I don't see a slow down on that. There could be some adjustment of the spending of America between the domestic and abroad. As a matter of fact, you know, we have seen in Europe, lots of luxury American spending, we benefit on one side, and maybe there will be a slightly slow down for a few months on the other side. Overall, we remain positive of the aspirational client in America, provided we keep doing what we've been doing, you know, from the rebranding period. The third question is?
The third, how we push up UPT?
Yeah, please.
I think that the levers are a couple. First, we are more and more structuring our product flow through the stores in a very scientific way, with drops every month based on a total look. That will help the sales advisor to facilitate the two, three, four pieces together for the client. As Guido was mentioning, the CRM engine, which is a general engine for growth, can be helpful also for the UPT because we are interacting on remote clienteling with clients, putting together a total look, which can be purchased either online or coming into the store. Definitely also the iconic categories that we are pushing, which is knitwear, overshirt, five-pocket pants, Triple Stitch, we are delivering to the store in multi colors.
Most of them are never out of stock, this allows the client to purchase maybe the same color in cashmere silk in three colors, four colors. This stimulates the multi purchase of the same item in several colors. There are different levers. Of course, all behind is the training to the sales advisors, the training in terms of styling pills, so that they can be a consultant to our PAC client, to dress up and put together multiple options for the wardrobe.
I would add one very important point that is related to a new, a new way to manage the merchandising system. We are creating a system which is more known in the womenswear market, in the men's market, of drops. That is, we will have collections, separate collection, if you want, delivered across four times a season, with specific storytelling, very strong. I would say, the Oasi Cashmere and the Oasi Lino is a good example. The fact that we will deliver those in several periods, helps us also to take care of no sale period.
I mean, the fact that we eliminated the sale entirely in 2022 really was a big step forward for the revenue, for the total productivity, it will be for the margin, and I think this is the way to move forward. Innovation, several drops, every season, only regular prices, outreach, which is our omnichannel way, and the strong support of made to measure. We have not talked about made to measure. Made to measure literally is on fire. We are superior to the level of 2019, which was a record, because our made to measure system is unique, and we offer the entire collection that we with that service.
I think that is an increasing factors, so it’s just a matter to execute those in a, in a faster way, and bear in mind that every new store, I mean, offers those opportunities. We still see growth within the stores and by opening new store with this new system. Thank you.
Great. Thank you. If I could just.
Yeah.
That you haven't necessarily outlined too many details around the sort of long-term guidance, including Tom Ford. In terms of, I guess, structurally, should we view the Tom Ford business just because of, you know, the nature of it as a license, as always being dilutive? Are there certain aspects that you can put in place over the next couple of years to bring it back towards the group margin? Thank you.
In terms of Tom Ford, we will hold a Capital Markets Day. I think Francesca is setting up the date, whether it's end of November or beginning of December, where we will be more specific. Going back to that question that you put, of course, as a starting point, we pay royalties, so that is a structural element as a starting. During the three-year plan and midterm outlook, we will clarify if this structural gap in terms of profitability and incremental cost can be entirely or partially reduced. As a starting point, you start with a burden that the own brands are not carried. You think same thing on other Luxottica or other Ray-Ban and Oakley, they have an intrinsic higher performance because it's its own brand.
Perfect. Thank you.
Thank you, Elliot. Are there any other questions? Next question, please.
As a final reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad now. Our next question comes from Daria Naslaeva from Bank of America. Your line is open.
Hi, everyone. This is Daria from Bank of America. Congratulations on a strong set of results, thank you for taking my questions. I have some quick ones. Just wanted to follow up on the first question of this call. Is there any chance you can provide color around sequential development of the Chinese consumer? Has the cohort accelerated or decelerated, as we understand that Greater China might not be very representative of cohort trends anymore, as more spend is really shifting offshore? My next one would be, is there any more quantitative color that you can provide on sales densities versus your midterm targets?
Last one, I don't think I'll get an answer to this, is there any chance you can provide any more color around how we should think about Tom Ford profitability for the first half, given revenues already include Tom Ford? Just to help us with forecasting and modeling for the nearest future. Thank you very much.
I think these are.
On the last one, the profitability, I think it's early to answer because we are working technically on the PPA. I think it's really, we would shoot numbers, and we don't want to do that. Please be patient until September, and we'll please close it, because now on PPA, we are really working on the, on the opening balance sheet for Tom Ford, and we will report accordingly on September. In terms of sales density, that is the second question. In Zegna, all the growth is sales density, because so far, basically, we don't have any increase in number of stores. We see the opportunity to increase the network, but looking backwards, our growth is basically coming on a similar. We have been having DTC stores for Zegna around 240.
It's the growth is basically on the same number of stores. For Thom Browne, it's not the case because if you see, we have been increasing so far, part of the growth comes also from the addition. Last year, we had 53 directly reported stores, and now we have 66. There is a solid double-digit comp, which means unit per productivity, and there is also the addition of these 13 stores, which boosts the number, as we said, in the second quarter, above 30% in DTC. In terms of nationality of Chinese, I think we cannot be more specific than what I said before. We are not totally different, Q1 and Q2, we don't see acceleration, we don't see major deceleration. There are ups and downs in different weeks and months.
Definitely, we are seeing more and more intensity of Chinese outside. Put together the things, we have seen mainland China softer, offset by Hong Kong, Macau, and offset by Japan, Thailand, Singapore. Now we start seeing Chinese also in Paris and Milan. I think the comment that we did on the first half basically holds, is true for the two quarters, where, as I said before, Greater China is on a two-year basis up versus first half 2021, Greater China. We have some Chinese starting to show up outside in the second quarter, in the first half, especially in the second quarter.
I remember something that you need to keep in mind in the first half of 2021, we had a meaningful representation of the Zegna monobrand in China, which was basically the only area where we had a retail network of Zegna before we did the One Brand strategy.
Perfect. Thank you very, very much.
This concludes our Q&A. I'll now hand back to Francesca Di Pasquantonio , Director of Investor Relations, for closing remarks.
Thank you, everyone, for being with us today. The next appointment is with the release of our first half results on the 13th of September. Thanks again, have a good summer holiday.
Ladies and gentlemen, today's call is now concluded. We'd like to thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.