Moncler Group 2022 Revenues Climb 27 Percent to 2.6 Billion Euros
MILAN — The Moncler Group closed a year of anniversaries on an upbeat mood, reporting a 27 percent gain in revenues to 2.6 billion euros, compared with just over 2 billion euros in 2021.
Moncler marked its 70th anniversary and Stone Island its 40th in 2022, and chairman and chief executive officer Remo Ruffini, while clearly pleased with the performance of the group, underscored during a conference call with analysts on Tuesday evening that “it’s not just about numbers,” pointing to the efforts in “empowering the collections, reinforcing their identity and DNA,” and noting that Stone Island is going through a transformation in a direct-to-consumer business model, which will help it “express its full potential.”
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Ruffini acknowledged “the uncertainties are very high in a never normal world, but we are taking up the challenge with passion and energy and [are] confident in the strength of the brands, with a long-term strategy and dynamic execution.”
At constant exchange rate, in 2022 the Moncler brand reported a 19 percent increase to 2.2 billion euros compared with 1.82 billion euros in 2021. Compared with 2019, sales rose 36 percent.
The brand registered a 16 percent increase in the fourth quarter to 949.3 million euros and compared with the same period in 2019, the increase was 52 percent. Like-for-like sales rose 15 percent from 2021.
The Stone Island brand saw a 28 percent uptick in revenues to 401.1 million euros, compared with the 12-month 2021 pro-forma, since the consolidation of Stone Island took place on April 1, 2021.
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Sales in the fourth quarter climbed 48 percent, driven by solid growth in all of the brand’s core markets.
Group net profit amounted to 606.7 million euros compared with 411.4 million euros in 2021, including also the extraordinary tax benefit of 92.3 million euros for the Stone Island brand tax value realignment.
Operating profit rose 28.4 percent to 774.5 million euros, with a margin on revenues of 29.8 percent.
Responding to an analyst’s question about margins, Luciano Santel, chief corporate and supply officer, said the company is “not obsessed by margins, but we want to protect them for many years, and we are aware we have to keep investing in product, design and marketing, infrastructure and execution, so our ambition is 30 percent.”
In 2022, Moncler brand revenues in Asia rose 14 percent to just over 1 billion euros, and in the fourth quarter, the region grew 12 percent year over year, and 56 percent from the fourth quarter in 2019, driven by the acceleration of Korea and a solid performance in Japan.
While sales in mainland China were hampered by COVID-19 restrictions, especially in October and November, Robert Eggs, chief business strategy and global market officer, said 2023 started “very well with very strong brand momentum,” with China also showing a good performance in January.
Sales in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region rose 29 percent to 804.4 million euros, while wholesale was impacted by the conversions of some shops-in-shop and e-tailers. Revenues in the fourth quarter accelerated sequentially, up 30 percent from the fourth quarter of 2021 and up 52 percent on 2019, driven by strong local demand. Italy, France and Germany contributed the most to the quarterly growth.
In the Americas, Moncler registered revenues of 368.1 million euros in 2022, up 12 percent and 35 percent from 2019. In the fourth quarter, the region grew 5 percent from 2021 and 38 percent from 2019.
In 2022, the direct-to-consumer channel achieved revenues of 1.77 billion euros, up 22 percent on 2021 and up 43 percent on 2019.
At wholesale, revenues grew 6 percent to 429.8 million euros, up 14 percent from 2019.
As of Dec. 31, there were 251 directly operated Moncler stores, nine more than the prior year. Included among the most important stores opened in the fourth quarter are Miami Design District, Shanghai Swire, Seoul Galleria, Chengdu SKP, Niigata Isetan, in addition to some important relocations and expansions including Macau Galaxy.
The brand operates 63 wholesale shops-in-shop.
Gino Fisanotti, Moncler chief brand officer, said the group is rebooting the Grenoble brand, “going back to the slopes and introducing high performance collections.” Footwear is showing promising results.
Moncler Genius held an event in London earlier in February “embracing co-creation, beyond fashion and luxury to inspire and invite a new generation of customers, influencing other industries, into art, entertainment, music and design,” said Fisanotti.
Speaking of potential product expansion, he said “we are putting the brand first, not one specific product, to make sure people understand what we stand for, making the brand more culturally relevant.”
Stone Island’s 401.1 million euros in sales compares to 310 million euros in the 12-month proforma of 2021 (of which 88.1 million euros generated in the first quarter 2021 and is not consolidated in the Group’s results), and up 63 percent from 2019.
The Europe, Middle East and Africa region reported a 16 percent increase in sales, which reached 278.7 million euros accelerating in the fourth quarter, up 21 percent. Italy, the U.K. and France led the growth of the region in the year.
Asia reached sales of 80.2 million euros, growing 101 percent, driven by the conversion into retail of South Korea and Japan, while the Asia Pacific region’s sales suffered in the fourth quarter due to the COVID-19 restrictions in Mainland China.
The Americas registered revenues of 42.3 million euros, up 34 percent with growth driven by a good performance of the collections in the wholesale channel.
The wholesale channel represented 63 percent of total sales, and rose 7 percent to 252 million euros.
The retail channel jumped up 93 percent to 149.2 million euros driven by the conversion of South Korea and Japan and the solid double-digit performance in EMEA and Americas.
As of Dec. 31, the network of monobrand Stone Island stores included 72 retail stores and 19 mono-brand wholesale stores. In the fourth quarter, Stone Island opened its first directly operated store under the new format in Chicago, designed by Rem Koolhaas and OMA.
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Pricing was up 10 percent for fall, with “no negative effect and well accepted,” Eggs said. The increase was due to increased production costs. The company plans to raise prices by 10 percent for spring, too.
Group marketing expenses amounted to 171.9 million euros, representing 6.6 percent of revenues.
Capital expenditure amounted to 167.1 million euros, compared with 124.7 million euros in 2021, related to the expansion of the retail network, IT projects and the enlargement of the production facility in Bacau, Romania.
As of Dec. 31, the net financial position was positive and equal to 818.2 million euros, compared to 729.6 million euros at the end of December 2021.
Santel said the company will distribute a dividend of 300 million euros.
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