Ralph Lauren Corporation

while driving resilience in our business. Turning to our third key initiative, winning key cities with our consumer ecosystem. Our teams continue to set the standard for innovative consumer lifestyle experiences, bringing Ralph Lauren to life in our top 30 cities around the world while also laying the groundwork for long-term growth in our next 20 cities. Within DTC, which comprises the majority of our business, we delivered another quarter of healthy comp growth across regions. Global comps increased 12%, led by our Ralph Lauren stores and digital commerce. By region, Asia again led our growth, with sales up 25%, driven by all key markets. China's sales remained strong, increasing more than 40%. as we continue to build our brand. Our China performance was supported by local activations such as our Polo Cup, along with further expansion across our top six city clusters and on digital. Europe delivered mid single digit growth this quarter on top of last year's strong compares, and we continue to drive results ahead of expectations in our largest region, North America, with retail and wholesale both contributing to this quarter's 13% growth. As we deepen our presence in our top cities, we opened 22 new owned and partner stores globally this quarter. New stores included The Grove in Los Angeles, Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto, our second store in the Bay Area ecosystem, and first in Silicon Valley, including a Ralph's Coffee, Istanbul, New Polo Stores in Sydney and Perth, and we renovated our highly elevated Bistro outlet outside of London, which also now includes a Ralph's Coffee. In addition, we expanded our RL mobile app to Korea, our first market to have the app outside of North America, with strong early performance that exceeded our expectations. And finally, touching on our enablers. Our business continues to be supported by our five key enablers. Recent highlights include, first, as part of our focus on advanced technology, AI, and analytics, we continue to drive progress in enhancing our creativity, productivity, and customer engagement. This quarter, we improved user experiences on our digital commerce sites and expanded brand discoverability across key LLMs. We are also participating in select AI tests to understand evolving consumer behavior on these newer platforms. In addition, we were proud to be named one of Time Magazine's world's 100 most influential businesses of 2026, recognizing our company's legacy of style, impactful storytelling, and the unique way we transcend generations. We were also named one of the Wall Street Journal's Best Companies for the Future for 2026, highlighting S&P 500 companies that are best positioned to thrive in a rapidly evolving global landscape. In closing, Ralph and I are encouraged by our brand's continued momentum through the start of fiscal 27. With our diversified drivers of growth and increasingly elevated consumer base, our business model is resilient, and delivering consistent performance. We want to thank our teams who are navigating the ever-evolving operating landscape with care and agility, and to our customers, thank you for your loyalty and trust. Looking ahead, we will continue to invest in our key strategic priorities to deliver the sustainable growth, including harnessing the power of our iconic brand to drive desirability and lifetime value, creating timeless products with a strong value proposition that consumers love and trust, and investing in brand experiences that inspire our consumers and immerse them in the world of Ralph Lauren. With that, I'll hand it over to Justin, and I'll join him at the end to answer your questions.

Thanks, Patrice, and good morning, everyone. Our first quarter performance exceeded our expectations on both the top and bottom line, reinforcing the strength of the Ralph Lauren brand and the resilience of our diversified global growth drivers. In the midst of a dynamic operating environment, these results underscore our disciplined operating approach and the quality of execution by our teams around the world. Revenues were up double digits ahead of our mid to high single digit outlook for the quarter, driven by broad-based performance across regions and channels and supported by healthy consumer demand. We continued on our brand elevation journey with stronger full price selling and reduced promotional activity, driving gross and operating margins above our expectations. At the same time, we reinvested behind our key strategic priorities to support sustainable growth and long-term value creation. As Patrice mentioned, Our strong first quarter results and underlying brand momentum give us confidence to raise our full year outlook, even as we maintain an appropriately prudent view on Europe due to the macroeconomic uncertainty. But first, let me walk you through our financial highlights from the first quarter, which, as a reminder, are provided on a constant currency basis. Total company first quarter revenue grew 13%, reflecting better than expected performance in both our direct-to-consumer and wholesale channels. By region, Asia led our performance, increasing 25%, followed by North America up 13% and Europe up 5%. Total company retail comps were strong, increasing 12%, with balanced contributions from our own digital and brick-and-mortar channels. Total digital ecosystem sales, including our own sites and wholesale digital accounts, grew mid-teens, driven by all regions. Total company adjusted gross margin expanded 130 basis points to 73.6%, underscoring the continued elevation of our business and investments in quality of sales. This resulted in strong AUR growth and favorable mix shift towards our full-price businesses, which more than offset incremental tariff costs and higher labor and non-cotton material costs in the quarter. AUR increased 15% supported by healthy new customer acquisition and disciplined inventory management enabling strong full price selling, reduced discounting, and selective pricing actions along with favorable product, channel, and geographic mix. We currently expect mid to high single digit AUR growth in the second quarter of fiscal 27, reflecting our ongoing brand elevation strategy. Additionally, we now anticipate mid to high single digit AUR growth for the full year, with contributions from all regions. We expect this continued AUR growth to more than offset modest pressure from higher freight and tariff costs. Adjusted operating expenses increased 13%, but declined 10 basis points as a percentage of sales to last year, driven by 90 basis points of leverage in non-marketing expenses. Marketing increased to 8.2% of sales compared to 7.5% last year, supported by our investments in key brand building activations around the world this quarter, including our Spring Global Campaign and Men's Fashion Show. We continue to view these marketing investments as critical drivers of long-term brand desirability, customer acquisition, and lifetime value. And with compelling ROI behind these activities, we still expect marketing as a percentage of sales to step up to approximately 8% in fiscal 27. First quarter adjusted operating margin expanded 150 basis points to 18.5% ahead of our plan. while operating income grew 23%. Turning to segment performance and starting with North America, first quarter revenue grew 13% above our expectations. In North America retail, first quarter comps increased 9% led by our full price channels. Digital comps increased 8%, reflecting solid traffic trends and benefiting from merchandising optimization and our investments in full funnel marketing activations. North America wholesale revenue grew 22%, driven by strong spring sellout trends and replenishment orders, resumed shipments to a luxury wholesale account, and a shift in timing of shipments from the fourth quarter of fiscal 26. Together, the timing shifts and resumed shipments contributed approximately 15 points of growth in the quarter, demonstrating healthy underlying growth. With stronger than expected trends in our full-price wholesale business, we plan to accelerate our strategic reduction of off-price sales and exit of lower-tier full-price stores in the back half of the year. As a result, we continue to expect stronger North America wholesale performance in the first half, followed by a more pronounced impact from the strategic reductions in the second half, which we expect to more than offset underlying full price growth and result in modest growth for full year fiscal 27. Turning to Europe, first quarter revenue increased 5%. By market, Germany, Italy, and Spain led our performance in the region. Europe retail comps were up 1% on top of a double digit compare last year. with stronger growth in our own digital business. While store traffic was impacted by the broader macro environment, we continued to outperform market trends with increased conversion rates and basket sizes through our ongoing brand elevation and targeted consumer engagement initiatives. Europe wholesale increased 8%, also on top of a double digit compare last year. Results included a roughly five point benefit from earlier timing of shipments from the second quarter. While underlying wholesale sellout trends remain in line with our full-year outlook, we are proactively managing our sell-in to maintain healthy inventories in the channel, as we continue to take a prudent view of the broader consumer environment. Moving to Asia. First quarter revenue increased 25%, driven by growth across all key markets. Retail comps grew 23%, with double-digit growth in every channel. Asia Digital Ecosystem Sales also increased double digits, with strong contributions from both our own digital commerce sites as well as pure plays. Our full funnel marketing activations continue to strengthen brand affinity across the region, with consumers increasingly drawn to our core values, notably authenticity, quality, and timeless style. By market, China continues to lead our growth, with sales up over 40% in the quarter. driven by healthy comps and high quality new customer recruitment. Japan and Korea also delivered double digit growth supported by localized brand activations and strong consumer engagement. Moving to the balance sheet. Our fortress balance sheet and strong cash flow generation remain important competitive advantages, providing us with the flexibility to make strategic investments, pursue growth opportunities, and continue delivering value to shareholders in a dynamic operating environment. During the first quarter, we returned more than $300 million to shareholders through our dividend and repurchases, ending the period with $1.9 billion in cash and short-term investments and $1.2 billion in total debt. First quarter net inventory decreased 3% in constant currency, driven by disciplined inventory management, the timing shift of receipts in Europe, and lapping higher inventory levels in the prior year as we mitigated the impact of tariffs in North America. Inventory remains healthy across regions and channels and well positioned relative to demand. Looking ahead. Our outlook for fiscal 27 remains based on our best assessment of the current operating environment, including the geopolitical backdrop, foreign currency dynamics, and broader macroeconomic trends. For fiscal 27, we expect constant currency revenue to increase mid-single digits the last year on a 52-week comparable basis, now centered around 5% to 6%, up from 4% to 5% previously. reflecting our better than expected first quarter results and continued brand momentum, despite a volatile global operating environment. Foreign currency is now expected to negatively impact revenue growth by approximately 50 to 100 basis points this year, based on current exchange rates. As a reminder, fiscal 27 includes a 53rd week, which is expected to add approximately one point to revenue growth and slightly benefit operating margin. While our core consumer base has remained resilient through the start of the year, our outlook maintains a prudent view of consumer demand in EMEA, as well as modest cost headwinds from energy pricing volatility and U.S. tariffs. By region for fiscal 27, we still expect North America revenue to grow approximately low single digits. We are encouraged by our strong first quarter performance with continued momentum in our direct-to-consumer channel and healthy wholesale sellout. We still expect this solid growth to be partly offset by accelerated strategic investments in quality of sales and lower tier door exits, notably in the back half of the year, as we further elevate our long-term position in the marketplace. We continue to expect Europe revenue to increase approximately low to mid-single digits, with underlying growth tempered by ongoing uncertainty in the consumer environment from elevated energy costs and disruption to Middle East partner sales and tourism, as well as lapping strong fiscal 26 compares. And we now expect Asia revenue to increase approximately high single to low double digits up from our prior outlook of high single digit growth, driven by our stronger than expected Q1 results and ongoing brand momentum and expansion opportunities across key markets in the region. We now expect full-year operating margin to expand approximately 60 to 80 basis points in constant currency, up from our prior guidance of 40 to 60 basis points, driven by our better-than-expected Q1 results. Despite the recent U.S. announcements on Section 301 tariffs, we are maintaining our assumption of approximately 10% tariff rates through the first half of this year, followed by a return to reciprocal rates in the high teens during the second half, in anticipation of additional tariffs. At the same time, we are raising our full year gross margin outlook to roughly 50 to 70 basis points of expansion, up from our prior expectation of modest expansion, reflecting our stronger than expected Q1 performance. We continue to expect both gross and operating margin expansion to be weighted toward the first half of the fiscal year, supported by the timing of key marketing activations relative to the prior year, as well as our current tariff assumptions, which remain subject to change. Foreign currency is still expected to have a roughly neutral impact on gross and operating margins in fiscal 27. Our guidance continues to exclude the impact of tariff refunds, which we are not planning to include in our adjusted non-GAAP results. Consistent with our long-term capital allocation approach, we expect to reinvest any related proceeds back into our business, as well as an initiative that advance our values and purpose. For the second quarter, We expect constant currency revenue to increase approximately mid-single digits, centered around 5% to 6%. Foreign currency is expected to negatively impact revenues by approximately 100 to 150 basis points. We expect operating margin to expand approximately 80 to 100 basis points in constant currency, led by gross margin expansion. Gross margin is expected to benefit from AUR growth as well as favorable product, geographic, and channel mix, all reflecting the output of our long-term brand elevation strategy. Foreign currency is expected to have a roughly neutral impact on gross and operating margins in the quarter. We expect our second quarter tax rate to be in the range of 19 to 20%, while the full year tax rate is still expected to be approximately 21 to 22%. In closing, Our teams continue to execute with focus and discipline across both our near and long-term strategic priorities. The enduring strength of our brand, rooted in Ralph's timeless vision, continues to resonate with consumers around the world, deepening engagement across geographies and cultures. As we navigate a highly dynamic macro environment, we remain focused on managing industry-wide pressures through our operating discipline, strong balance sheet, and organizational agility. At the same time, we are staying on offense and remain committed to investing in our brand, our products, our experiences, and our capabilities to better serve and create lasting connections with our customers while driving durable growth and long-term value creation. With that, let's open up the call for your questions.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please press star then one on your touch-tone phone. You will hear a tone indicating you have been placed in queue. You may remove yourself from queue at any time by pressing star two. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up the handset before pressing the numbers. We ask that you limit yourself to one question per caller. Once again, if you have a question, please press star one at this time. One moment please for the first question. The first question comes from Matt Boss with JP Morgan. Your line is open.

Thanks and congrats on another nice quarter. Thanks Matt. So Patrice, what's your confidence in sustaining brand momentum through the fiscal year and beyond despite lapping some big moments including Olympics and Ralph Lauren Christmas? And with more luxury this year, does improvement in the broader luxury market Does that help or hurt your business? And do you need to keep expanding your marketing budget in order to compete? And then just to switch gears, Justin, could you help break down the drivers of more than 100 basis points of gross margin expansion in the first quarter and just any structural change in the drivers of your gross margin build as we think about the second quarter or the back half of the year?

Good morning, Matt. Thanks for your question. So as you know, We've been on a clear brand elevation journey for nearly a decade now, and our brand equity is stronger than ever across markets and across generations. Sustaining that momentum goes well beyond marketing. It's a multi-pronged effort across our three drive pillars. And if you step back, and I know you care deeply about total addressable markets, as an $8 billion business, in a more than $400 billion market, we still see significant opportunity to invest behind our brand and for long-term growth. Our three pillars remain central to that strategy to seize this opportunity. First is building brand desirability through our distinctive cinematic storytelling. We continue to amplify evergreen platforms like Wimbledon. You may have seen the grass court that we built in Central Park recently. and we continue to launch immersive campaigns that engage women, luxury and next-gen consumers. We continue to see strong ROI from this rolling thunder of activations and we remain comfortable with the 8% marketing investment guided for this year knowing that as we've talked, as we continue to expand margin in the future, we do expect to continue to further invest in marketing. Second is the unique breadth of our product portfolio. We're leveraging our lifestyle offering across core iconic products, which importantly are resonating across generations, including with the younger generations. And then we're continuing to lean into our high potential categories like women's apparel, outerwear, and handbags. We're just at the beginning of this journey across these three businesses. If you look at the market shares that we've achieved across all three, it's just the start of an exciting journey. And there we're delivering timeless value that transcends fashion cycles. and then third is our immersive channel experiences. We continue to build key city ecosystems with innovative shopping experiences that deepen consumer connection and we see that both in consumer recruiting and retention scores and support strong performance across the broad range of regions that we operate in. So all this requires disciplined execution and agility and while the macro environment remains dynamic, We've shown that we can advance this strategy, our three pillars, across many different operating environments successfully. Regarding your point on the luxury market, we've built strong luxury credentials across geographies, and I think that's reflected both in our consumer base and our performance, and the type of consumers that we're bringing into the Ralph Lauren family. We also occupy a very distinct space within luxury. what we call inclusive luxury spanning categories and price points across our lifestyle portfolio. And consumers continue to tell us that they see unique value in our offerings from handbags to outerwear and beyond. I will add that a healthier luxury market would be a tailwind for us supporting stronger traffic, consideration and alignment with our elevated positioning. So looking ahead, our brand is strong, we have multiple growth drivers, we continue to invest as we perform, and we remain confident in delivering growth and value creation this year and beyond. And I'll turn it over to Justin to cover your other questions.

Thanks Patrice. So Matt, on the drivers of the gross margin, so Q1 Gross margin was ahead of expectations driven by better than expected AUR growth and some favorable geo and channel mix and that more than offset incremental tariffs and some non-material cost pressure. Our gross margin expansion is really underpinned by structural durable drivers and that really gives us confidence in the continued progression from here. From a quarterly cadence perspective, we still are expecting gross margin expansion to be stronger in the first half. And that's largely due both to our Q1 outperformance and to that tariff assumption that we're making, which is the lower prevailing tariff rate of about 10% through that relief period end of July, and then back to the reciprocal rate assumptions for the balance of year. For Q2 specifically, we guided gross margin 80 to 100 basis points of expansion. That's really driven by AUR growth as well as favorable product, geo, and channel mix. On the full year, we did take up our gross margin expansion guide up from an expectation of modest expansion to 50 to 70 bps of expansion, and that's really based on that strong Q1 performance. So feel really good about the trajectory that we're on and the durability behind the drivers.

Thank you. Next question, please. Thank you. The next question comes from Jay Sol with UBS. Your line is open.

Great, thank you so much. Justin, AUR continues to exceed your expectations. How much farther do you think the Ralph Lauren brand has to go on the elevation journey from here, especially if the pricing environment becomes more challenging? And can you give us any color around recent performance or quarter-to-day trends given mixed industry reads over the past few months? And then, Patrice, I also want to just ask you if you can expand on China. You talked a lot about brand momentum, but 40% growth in China is really impressive.

How should we think about the possibility of that kind of demand and that kind of growth continuing as we go through the rest of the year and into next year?

Thanks for the question, Jay. I'll kick us off. So for us, brand elevation is not a destination. It's an ongoing journey, and we're still in the early innings of unlocking the full potential of our lifestyle brand. An important context to remember here with AUR is that AUR is an outcome of our strategy. It's not an objective in and of itself. We're elevating across product, storytelling, the consumer experience to deliver more value to customers. And their response, together with our consistently strong brand metrics, really reinforces the strength and success of that approach we're taking. And that includes more than nine years of AUR growth. But a few points are worth reinforcing here. First, we continue to demonstrate that growth and elevation, they can go hand in hand. It's not an either-or proposition. and we saw this in the first quarter where we again delivered strong growth in revenue including both AUR and unit growth while at the same time improving our quality of sales. And second, we have multiple durable drivers of AUR growth, right? These include higher full price sell through and lower promotions, structural favorability from consumer, channel, geo and product category mix and targeted pricing always with a clear focus on value perception. Now on the potentially more challenging pricing environment, we're certainly mindful of the backdrop. At the same time, we built flexibility into our pricing architecture so we can make targeted, market-specific adjustments when and where appropriate without compromising our brand elevation strategy or our margin objectives. And to the question on recent performance, we typically don't comment on quarter-to-date trends. What I would say is that our second quarter guidance reflects the continued brand momentum we're seeing across channels and key markets with positive contributions from all three regions in the quarter. Led by, so for Q2, Asia's going to lead growing mid-teens followed by North America where we're expecting another solid quarter of mid-single digit growth and with modest growth coming from EMEA despite a more pressured to tumor environment and the strong compares in the prior year. Now, as we reflected in our initial outlook back in May, we do continue to expect revenue and profit growth to be more weighted to the first half of the year. And that reflects wholesale shipment timing, the compares overlapping, and our decision to accelerate strategic reductions in off-price sales and lower tier distribution in the back half of the year. So just taking a step back, we remain focused on executing our strategy. Investing in our brand, strengthening our quality of sales, expanding in our top city ecosystems, deepening our connections with customers around the world. But at the same time, you'll see us remain agile. We'll remain disciplined as we navigate this external environment, just as we have over time throughout the elevation journey. Over to Patrice.

So we're always excited to talk about China. And indeed, up 40% this last quarter. So a few things I would call out. First of all, our teams are doing an outstanding job across the market, engaging consumers, both new consumers and existing consumers. So across our three drive strategies, first on the marketing and storytelling front, we're leveraging our global campaigns very effectively and they're resonating in the market. And then we're complementing that with local activations. You heard us talk about the first ever polo match organized in Beijing that we did recently. 74 million people live streamed that polo match just to give you a sense of the scale that's possible when our teams really hit a nerve with consumers. And we're seeing our brand equity ratings go from strength to strength. We're very excited about the momentum that the teams are building there from a brand standpoint. From a product standpoint, our strategy is also playing out very well there. Our core is strong and we're seeing disproportionate performance from our women's business, our handbag business, continuing to to lean into that. And as I mentioned earlier, there's so much potential globally on these categories, and that applies also to the Chinese market. And then finally, as you know, we have a very focused, disciplined key city approach for China, focused on the six key cities that we activate, and we have a disciplined rollout plan for retail. So those strategies are evergreen for that market. As we look ahead for this fiscal year, We expect China to be around mid-teens. Remember, in the back half, we're going to be anniversarying some pretty high levels of performance. So I don't know that we can count on 40% every quarter. But I think mid-teens is still a very exciting number for us for this fiscal year. And then in the context of our drive strategy for the three-year period, we guided China to be low double digits and have confidence in our ability to deliver against that.

Thanks. Next question, please, Julie. Thank you. The next question comes from Brooke Roach with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Good morning, and thank you for taking our question. Patrice, can you provide a bit more detail on the engagement that you're seeing with the brand in Europe and dimensionalize the impacts of the macro pressures you're seeing? How have trends progressed throughout the summer months, and what actions do you have in place to drive resilient growth amidst the uncertainty? And then perhaps for Justin, a similar question, Is there any cadencing regarding revenues or margin delivery that we should be mindful of in this region for the rest of the year, given the comparisons and the macro? Thank you.

Good morning, Brooke. Similar to what we're seeing around the world, we continue to see strengthening of our brand equity in the European market across the key drivers of consideration, awareness, net promoter score, luxury perception. We feel good as a group that the campaigns that we're putting in the market, the activations we're doing locally across Europe, are resonating with the consumer. Now, we do know that this consumer is more pressured because of what's happening in the Middle East, because of consumer sentiment generally being depressed and because of inflationary pressures. But in that context, our brand is continuing to resonate very nicely across the key markets. The markets I would call on in terms of disproportionate strength are Germany, which is actually a number one market in Europe, and Southern Europe, Italy, and Spain. As you know, Brooke, we don't comment on the current quarter, so I can't give you any perspective yet on what's happening during the summer, but you've heard Justin talk earlier about the trends and the momentum that we expect continuing there. So we are continuing to invest. We are gaining market share in Europe. We see that very broadly and excited to see How the brand is just continuing to perform in line with what we expected and how we see strong returns from the different investments we have, whether that is marketing activations, Wimbledon being the latest highlight of that, or a men's fashion show in Milan, or a Salone del Mobile activation also in Milan. We're opening stores. We just recently opened a beautiful store in Saint-Tropez, which is a great brand statement that will continue to drive brand elevation in that market and Brand Energy. So continuing to run the play, but obviously keeping an eye on and being prudent on the general consumer context.

And on the cadence point, so as Pruduce mentioned, underlying business continues to show positive high quality growth and we continue to expect to deliver that high quality low to mid single digit growth for the full year and that includes the mid single growth we delivered in Q1 and expected growth in Q2. and again there is a bit of a first half second half dynamic there because we know we're up against some really strong comps in the first half of this year so we do expect improvement there as we move through the second half and on an operating margin perspective we expect expansion from all three of our regions for the full fiscal 27, driven by higher gross margin and quality of sales in EMEA. And I think the important thing to call out there is for Q1, you did see operating margin pressured, and that was really due to the timing and the increase behind marketing, where we continue to Patrice at the point to invest behind our brand and our business. And we had some one-time activations that were not there in the prior year, like our men showing in the bottom.

Next question, please.

Thank you. The next question comes from Laurent Veselescu with BNP Paribas. Your line is open.

Good morning. Thank you very much for taking my question. If I heard correctly, Patrice, I think you're still expecting China to grow big teams for the year. I'm curious to understand a little bit more what you're seeing in terms of Q2 trends. I know you don't talk about quarter of the age, but how do we think about the evolution of China overall as the year progresses and then I know there's a lot of focus on China, but it looks like, you know, overall, Asia is doing really well. So I'd love to get your perspective on what you're seeing in the key markets, Japan and Korea. Thank you so much.

Sure. Good morning, Laurent. So as I mentioned earlier, our strategies in China, I think, are not just for this year, but they're pretty evergreen. And clearly our teams are doing an excellent job executing across both marketing, product offering, and go-to-market. and it's a big market all right and similar to our high potential categories I think we're only at the very beginning of this journey now China before COVID was three percent greater China was three percent of the company today it's ten percent of the company so really nice consistent progress right if you look at the prior year performance we've been on a strong performance run for many many years now in China this isn't just a one-quarter story or a two-quarter story but again I think only at the beginning of it many of our luxury companies

competitors have much greater China penetration than our current 10%.

So we have a game plan that we're running that is working across the different vectors of our strategy. You are right that APAC as a whole is doing quite well for us, up 25% this last quarter. And you heard, I'm sure, from Justin's remark that we actually took our guidance up on APAC specifically for the year based on the strong momentum that we're seeing across the board. Korea has seen significant acceleration of our performance. Again, the same strategies at play here. Elevation of our brand, driving our core products and high potential categories, and also selective expansion of our footprint. For those of you who are tracking, BTS, who had a concert last week, I'm sure many of you were at their concert last week at Medlife, actually asked to be dressed in Polo. So the whole group was dressed in polo. We were excited about that opportunity to partner with them as they reached out to us. So that's Korea. Japan, performing quite strongly. We're seeing good sustained momentum in Japan. We're seeing particularly strengthened full price sales and then better than expected inbound tourist spending from China and other markets. Now we've got some exciting activations going on in Japan this year because we're celebrating our 50th anniversary. in this market this fiscal year. We're celebrating the 20th anniversary of our Omotesando flagship store. So good continued momentum there. And in general, we look at the energy that the brand has across China, because I didn't quote Southeast Asia, I didn't quote Australia, but the same dynamic is true across the board and strong confidence in the future.

Thank you. Next question, please. Thank you. The next question comes from Michael Panetti with Evercore. Your line is open.

Hey guys, congrats on a great quarter. Thanks, Michael. A couple for me real quick. On the near term, maybe just on the second quarter North America revenue guide composition, I think Justin, you said mid-singles. Can you just talk about how we get there a little? It sounded like maybe there's still a wholesale benefit in 2Q, and then we get into some quality of sales in the back half. So it seems like you're baking in a fairly conservative D2C comp in North America. Maybe just a comment on the composition there. and then a bit of a longer term question as we think back to the analyst day with the updated guidance today you know you're now tracking to probably to the high end of your fiscal 2028 revenue guidance this year the year ahead of time so congrats on that first of all but I wonder with you know some of those wins under your belt and a lot of leverage coming through this quarter on the operating expense line the non-marketing line you know is it right to is it smart to think maybe marketing towards the mid to high points of the 2028 guide. Do you think it makes sense to start targeting the high end of that range to continue this level of revenue performance? Any thought would be helpful.

Thanks, Michael. So on North America, listen, we're really encouraged by our growth in North America. So our largest region is on a really solid, high-quality growth trajectory. We saw strong Q1 results across channels, and we saw that broad-based brand momentum carry forward into Q2, where again, we're expecting another solid, another high-quality, balanced, mid-single-digit growth quarter, and we continue to have confidence in delivering that four-year sort of growth expectation of low single digits, with potential opportunity against this expectation as we continue to lean into strategic elevation investments and the brand continues to perform well really across the entire and the rest of the North American ecosystem. So we're seeing strong results in DTC, strong demand across channels, digital and in the stores. We're seeing strong results in wholesale, really solid sellout trends, enabling us, to your point, to be able to lean in and accelerate on some of our elevation initiatives. And as you've seen us do in the past, we're going to continue to leverage our ability and our agility to take advantage of incremental demand opportunities We know we have the ability to chase into incremental demand. So Q2, I would say, is more of a continuation story, a really balanced, high-quality growth story for North America. On the sort of longer-term outlook and the marketing, I mean, you've seen us steadily increase our marketing as we've moved through the course of our brand elevation journey. I think we started, it was 3.5%, right, roughly 8% up to this year. And we feel really good about the impact that our marketing investments have been having as we scale them and as we diversify them. and that's been part of the ROI and the impact has been the driving force behind us continuing to take this spend up. Now you can see that as we deliver on our commitments and in the case of recent quarters over deliver our sort of 1A area to put the over deliver that we don't flow through is really behind our brand and building our brand and strengthening our brand and that's what you see happening in marketing expense I think we feel good about the 7 1⁄2 to 8 1⁄2 three-year guide that we laid out back in September, but as Patrice always talks about, it's not a ceiling. So we know that as we continue to see the traction and impact behind our spend, this is an area that we're going to continue to focus on moving forward.

Yeah, our marketing teams are really doing a fantastic job around the world building brand desirability, recruiting new customers. You saw the number this quarter again, 1.5 million new customers. driving clienteling so we're strengthening value per customer. So we're getting really good returns on the increased marketing investments that we've been doing over the years. I think, Justin, as you mentioned, we're comfortable with the 8% guide for this year. The range we had provided for the three-year was 3.5% to 8.5%. Michael, I don't think there's a ceiling, right? So as we come up with new smart ideas to activate the brand to engage with consumers, we'll look at it through the lens of ROI. and if there's a smart option to lean in, then we will do that in parallel with continued expansion of our operating margins.

Next question please. Thank you. The next question comes from Dana Telsey with Telsey Group. Your line is open.

Hi, good morning everyone and congratulations. Two things, as you think about, I think Jason you mentioned you had 90 basis points of leverage and non-marketing expense. How should we think about that going forward? Is there more opportunity? And then the other question on the strength in wholesale with North America resuming some shipments, how do you think about that going forward? And given the more pronounced strategic reductions, where should wholesale be as a percentage of the business? How do you see the growth of DTC relative to wholesale, especially given the opportunity categories have so much room? Thank you.

I'll kick it off and then Patrice and I will tag team on the wholesale strategy. On expenses, our long-term philosophy remains unchanged. That's to balance reinvestment and growth for the longer term with delivering on or exceeding, as we did in Q1, our operating margin commitment. You saw us deliver a little bit of leverage in Q1. You also saw us invest in marketing pretty meaningfully. year over year, so we're gonna continue that balance and we built out that muscle of operating expense leverage with our cost optimization discipline that we've created as a culture here at Ralph Lauren. And just on the trending on the wholesale before the strategy, I'll just say that for North America Wholesale, we feel really good about the health of the business. We're driving high quality growth while at the same time continuing to elevate are positioning in the channel. Underlying demand remains healthy, sell-through remains strong, and we continue to gain share across our family of brands and key accounts. So for us, driving growth while elevating in this channel is really the play here.

Then from a general strategy standpoint for go-to-market, Dana, as you know, we've got this key city approach that we're leveraging around the world, top 30 cities, and then the next tranche of 20 cities that we're starting to activate. Wholesale is an important role to play, and I would qualify that as saying quality wholesale has an important role to play in that strategy because we're finding that quality wholesale is a wonderful way for brand discovery and new consumer recruiting. So we rely on it in large part for that in the context of our key city ecosystems. Today the split is 70-30. If you look at just sheer geographical composition and mix, APAC is mostly DTC. So as APAC disproportionately grows, obviously that percentage is going to continue to increase towards DTC. But we're not obsessed with the split. Frankly, each part of that business has a role to play. What we're obsessed with is are we engaging the consumer in the right place? And are we engaging with them in an elevated way, in a way that we are proud and that is financially attractive? I have to say, having had a recent lunch with one of our key wholesale partners, it's so exciting to see the strategic alignment we now have with our key department store partners, both here in the U.S. and in Europe. And it's exciting to see the breadth of our performance as we look at market share gains, men's, women's, kids', core, High potential categories. So to Justin's point, we feel we have very strong momentum there. Most of the reset is complete, although we will continue to clear the bottom because there's always a bottom. But feel good about where we are from a wholesale standpoint, both in North America and Europe now. And I think back to the percentage question, probably a little more than 70% DTC moving forward.

We'll go with one more question, please, Julie. Thank you. Our final question will come from Blake Anderson with Jefferies. Your line is open.

Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my question. So I wanted to ask you about Europe. I know you've discussed it on the call already. I was wondering if you could unpack a little bit more what you're seeing in terms of local demand versus tourism and anything on units or AUR in that market or traffic to your stores. And in bigger picture, I wanted to ask, Has your perspective or strategy changed at all for this market in terms of your outlook given the recent environment? I know that you've had some quality of sales initiatives you implemented more on the last few quarters to maintain that high AUR. How are you thinking about kind of the strategy there and outlook going forward in the bigger picture as well?

Yeah, thanks. Thanks for the question. I'll start us off. So, you know, traffic, as you know, has been broadly pressured across EMEA, right? And that's really driven by the challenging macro backdrop trends varying by markets, and that includes that slow down in tourism from the Middle East. Now on the plus side, our brand positioning and our brand strength remains very strong. And we've been able to offset the soft traffic with higher conversion rates, increased basket sizes, as we continue to appeal to our core consumers. Our core consumer in the region remains resilient, and that's really what's driving our growth in the region. At the same time, we've put together our kind of established action plan to engage and convert those consumers that are more pressured by the macro. That for us is a smaller subset of our consumer base, but this is with targeted personalized marketing with very specific tactical product value propositions, clientele and reach out, et cetera. And we've seen that. that circumstance before, that environment before, and we've ran that play before, and we know that we can successfully talk to and engage these consumers during this time. We've reflected the macro challenges in our outlook for the year, and at the same time, we continue to deliver growth, we continue to invest, and continue to see the high-quality, full-price growth come through in our quality of sales and in our Grossmarge. So when we think about the outlook for the region, we're really confident in that low to mid single digit growth algorithm that we guided because our underlying European business continues to show that positive high quality growth.

For the longer term strategy, Blake, Europe is around 30% of the company. We've had a really nice run in Europe now for several years with strong growth across all the markets and A reset of our wholesale business there, so strong foundations. So our ambition and expectations from Europe are unchanged. We still expect to deliver mid-single digit for the full three-year period, to Justin's point. This year we're being a little more prudent given the consumer context, but our longer-term ambition relative to that market and our longer-term excitement about the opportunities that we have across EMEA are unchanged. All right, well, listen, thank you all for joining us today. We look forward to reconnecting with all of you in early November to share our second quarter results. And until then, take care and have a great day.

Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude your conference for today. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.