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Moncler Group sales grew 26 per cent in the second quarter compared to the year prior, the brand said in a statement on Wednesday, as customers in China returned in force.
The Moncler brand revenue was up 32 per cent, turbocharged by Asia (up 55 per cent), “favoured by an easy comparable base in the Chinese mainland whose performance in 2022 was negatively impacted by the lockdowns that caused the closure of around a third of the local stores in April and May”, according to the company’s statement. Sales in EMEA increased by 30 per cent.
Sales in the Americas declined by 5 per cent as luxury brands overall feel a spending pinch in the US. The company attributes the decrease to the impact of conversion of Nordstrom from a wholesale to a hybrid business model. “Excluding the impact of the Nordstrom conversion, growth in the Americas would have been positive in the second quarter,” the company said. Sales of Stone Island, the Italian sportswear brand that Moncler took over in April 2021, led by CEO Robert Triefus as of 1 June, rose 5 per cent.
In the first six months of the year, Moncler Group revenues rose 24 per cent to €1.14 billion. This is above sell-side consensus expectations by 1.4 per cent and “confirms strong momentum”, says Bernstein analyst Luca Solca. Moncler brand revenue in the first half rose 29 per cent to €935 million, driven by Asia (up 39 per cent) and EMEA (up 29 per cent), while sales in the Americas were up 3 per cent. Revenues at Stone Island rose 5 per cent to €201.6 million in the first half.
Remo Ruffini, chairman and CEO of Moncler, stressed during the earnings call that it’s the first time in the group’s history that revenues exceeded €1 billion in the first half of the year. Asked what the key priorities are for Triefus and his team at Stone Island, Ruffini mentioned a shift in the company’s culture from wholesale to direct-to-consumer, focusing on a brand approach and taking “the company more in the premium world”.
“We have a clear project in front of us,” he said. On the brand approach, Roberto Eggs, chief business strategy and global market officer of the Moncler Group, stressed increasing the brand visibility and engagement with customers. Online integration is also a key focus, he added.
Q2 is typically a small quarter for the puffer jacket maker (Q2 accounted for only around 10 per cent of the Moncler brand sales in 2022), but part of the brand’s strategy has been to expand its offer beyond outerwear to categories like knitwear and footwear, which has paid off. “We are satisfied,” said Gino Fisanotti, Moncler’s chief brand officer, about the initial performance of the footwear category driven by the success of the Trailgrip sneakers. The executive who joined Moncler in June 2021 from Nike noted that the categories also allow them to recruit new customers.
Asked if the company has seen an impact from the heatwave across the globe, Eggs replied: “Studies also report that there’s an increasing variability in the extreme weather as we have seen this winter. We had very cold weather in North America and Asia. What is important is that we have now for spring/summer and winter collections, both warm and light offerings. We are working on multilayering, which is adding functionality to our outerwear — we can wear three different types of pieces. It’s also increasing the price average of the outerwear. It’s one of the assets and elements that we have been developing to counterbalance these extreme weather conditions.”
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