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spk01: Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Skechers' fourth quarter 2021 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in a listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press star then 1 on your telephone keypad. Skechers requests that analysts limit themselves to one question and one follow-up question only to allow all analysts to have the opportunity to ask a question. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star and then zero. I would now like to turn this conference over to Skechers. Please go ahead. You may begin your presentation.
spk05: Thank you, everyone, for joining us on Skechers' conference call today. I will now read the Safe Harbor Statement. Certain statements contained herein, including without limitation statements addressing the beliefs, plans, objectives, estimates, or expectations of the company or future results or events, They constitute forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Specifically, the COVID-19 pandemic has and is currently having a significant impact on the company's business, financial conditions, cash flow, and results of operations. Such forward-looking statements with respect to the COVID-19 pandemic include, without limitation, the company's plans in response to this pandemic. At this time, there is significant uncertainty about the duration and extent of impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The dynamic nature of these circumstances means that what is said on this call could change at any time, and as a result, actual results could differ materially from those contemplated by such forward-looking statements. Additional forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, including but not limited to global, national, and economic business and market conditions, including supply chain delays and disruptions in general and specifically as they apply to the retail industry and the company. There can be no assurance that the actual future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by any of our forward-looking statements will occur. Users of forward-looking statements are encouraged to review the company's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including the most recent annual report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, and all other reports filed with SEC as required by federal securities law for a description of all other significant facts that may affect the company's business, financial conditions, cash flow, and results of operations. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Skechers Chief Operating Officer, David Weinberg, and Chief Financial Officer, John Vandermoer. David?
spk07: Thank you for joining us today for our fourth quarter and year-end 2021 conference call. I hope you, your colleagues, and loved ones are doing well. As we mark our 30th year in business, we remain focused on the well-being of our teams worldwide and are extremely proud and grateful that the entire organization continues to operate with flexibility, resiliency, efficiency, and above all, safely. Skechers achieved a new fourth quarter sales record of 1.65 billion, the second highest quarterly sales in a company's history, and gross margins of 48.6%. This is a remarkable achievement given the challenges we faced as the global pandemic continued to impact our business. For the full year, Skechers achieved record sales of 6.29 billion with strong gross margins of 49.3%. These exceptional results brings us closer to our goal of 10 in 5, or 10 billion by 2026. While the disruptions and costs remained a challenge in the global supply chain for the fourth quarter, our logistics team worked diligently to navigate around them. We saw improvements in December with more goods moving through our distribution centers than in the previous months. The improvement continued through January as port congestion eased and more containers reached our distribution center. However, we believe these challenges will remain through the first half of 2022. but we are optimistic they will ebb in the latter half of the year. We continually monitor the developments within the supply chain to deliver our products as efficiently as possible. The fourth quarter sales gain of 24% was the result of a 10% increase in our domestic sales and a 34% increase on our international sales. International represented 65% of our total sales for the fourth quarter. All our affordable segments achieved growth for the quarter and full year, with international wholesale registering the highest gains for both periods. We attribute this exceptional global growth to the ongoing broad-based demand for the Skechers brand and products. Consumers continue to embrace the outdoors for exercise, dining, and many other activities, and sought out Skechers for our comfort, innovation, style, and quality, all at a reasonable price. Our international wholesale business grew 30% year over year in the fourth quarter, with increases coming from all our channels, reflecting the global strength of our brand. Our distributor business was the largest growth driver, with a 124% increase, led by the Middle East and followed by Russia, Scandinavia, Indonesia, and Turkey. Subsidiary sales increased 47%, with double-digit growth coming from nearly every country. Several even achieved triple-digit growth. The strongest gains came from the United Kingdom and India, two of our largest markets. We believe this impressive sales growth is due to both strong demand for our product and our ability to deliver goods as some of the port pressure eased. Our joint venture business increased 10% for the quarter on strong sales in China and Mexico, as well as the addition of the Philippines. which transitioned from a distributor model to being directly managed by Skechers. China's high single-digit growth in the quarter is particularly notable given temporary store closures in select provinces due to COVID-19 and the supply chain restrictions, which resulted in a delay of some 1111 inventory. E-commerce still achieved double-digit growth for the quarter. The improvements in our joint venture business were partially offset by declines in several markets in Asia, due to COVID-19, inventory challenges, and a decline in tourism. An additional net 128 third-party Skechers stores opened in the fourth quarter across 30 countries, including our first in Bhutan, a notable number of franchise locations in China and India, as well as through our distributors in Australia, New Zealand, Turkey, among others. In total, at quarter's end, there were 2,946 third-party Skechers stores around the world. Skechers' direct-to-consumer business achieved quarterly sales gains of 30%, driven by a 52% increase in international and a 17% increase domestically. Worldwide, comparable same-store sales increased 21%, including 15% domestically and 36% internationally. our direct-to-consumer average selling price per unit increased 25%. This was reflective of our less promotional stance, higher-priced products, and the continued strong demand for the innovative features in our comfort technology footwear. The increase of 17% in our domestic direct-to-consumer business was the result of a 24% gain in our brick-and-mortar stores, partially offset by a decrease of 12% in domestic e-commerce, which was challenged by low inventory availability during periods in the quarter. As compared to the same period in 2019, our domestic e-commerce business increased 115%. The increase in our international direct-to-consumer business was primarily driven by strong retail sales across Europe and Latin America. This was despite the temporary closure of several stores in Austria and the Netherlands due to local health restrictions. We continue to invest in our direct-to-consumer capabilities in the quarter by upgrading our POS systems in North America and the UK, and we are currently in the process of completing updates in Japan with Europe to follow. The rollout of new e-commerce sites continued in the fourth quarter with the launch of new platforms in the United Kingdom, India, Germany, and Austria. More markets are planned for 2022, including several in Europe slated for this quarter. These investments further our progress as an omnichannel retailer capable of addressing consumer demand whenever, wherever, and however the shopper wants. In the fourth quarter, we opened 16 company-owned Skechers stores, including eight in India, two in Colombia, and one each in France, Italy, Peru, and Chile. We closed three locations in the quarter. This brings the global company-owned and third-party Skechers store count to 4,000 306 at year end. To date in the first quarter, we've opened six stores in the United States and one in Italy. And we plan to open an additional 120 to 150 company-owned locations by year end. We closed 11 stores in the United States at the end of January. And by the end of the year, expect to close another 5 to 10 locations, the majority of which are mall-based concept stores. Sales in our domestic wholesale business improved 5% in the fourth quarter. The growth came primarily from our women's and kids categories, though our men's running and walking categories also performed well. We believe our domestic wholesale growth is particularly positive given the supply chain challenges that continue to impact consumers in the United States. We are able to improve our deliveries in December from earlier in the quarter and are continuing to maintain a current flow of goods through our North American distribution center with the pace of shipments to our wholesale partners picking up, allowing us to better meet the demand for Skechers in our largest market. One of our main priorities is to meet consumers' needs with comfortable footwear at a reasonable price, and we're doing just that. We have seen consumers react positively to our product globally with the consistent and universal demand for Skechers comfort technology. The expansion of our offering with more comfort fits, fresh collaborations, and styles that incorporate recycled materials allow Skechers to appeal to an ever-widening consumer base and for shoppers to meet more of their footwear needs with a brand they trust. As always, we drove awareness to our various product offerings through multi-channel marketing efforts that united the Skechers message across all touchpoints, online and in-store, as well as through television, radio, magazines, outdoor, and social media. While 2021 was a record year, we expect the momentum to continue into 2022. We are strategically investing in both our distribution and corporate infrastructure. In India, we purchased our corporate headquarters in January and finalized the location for a new DC to be opened in 2023. We relocated our Japan distribution center, more than doubling our space, and we also recently relocated to a slightly larger distribution space in Panama with the intent to build an additional center, allowing us to grow from 270,000 square feet to approximately 800,000 square feet in 2023. The expansion continues on our LEED-certified Gold North American Distribution Center, which will bring our facility in Southern California to 2.6 million square feet later this year. And now, I'd like to turn the call over to John for more details on our financial results.
spk08: Thank you, David, and good afternoon, everyone. 2021 proved to be yet another challenging year with more COVID-related operating restrictions, closures, and supply chain disruptions, many of which continued in the fourth quarter. Despite these challenges, Skechers delivered another exceptional quarter and year. Strong product and brand momentum yielded higher average selling prices in our direct-to-consumer business, as well as among many of our wholesale partners. This translated into record sales and a recovery in our operating margins above what we expected at the beginning of the year. We also continued to make investments throughout the year in our core strategies, growing our business internationally and increasing the depth of our relationships with consumers in our direct to consumer business. Before getting into specifics about this quarter's performance, let me spend a moment to provide an update on the supply chain disruptions we spoke about last quarter. First, we note that many of those disruptions – manufacturing delays, extended transit times, port congestion, and elevated freight rates – persisted throughout the quarter, and we worked diligently to mitigate the impact of these obstacles. Alongside our factories, distribution partners, and wholesale accounts, we worked to get product onto shelves as quickly as possible. The effect of these challenges was most evident in our inventory balances. which include an incremental $325.1 million in in-transit inventory, a year-over-year increase of over 130%. This inventory supports orders to our wholesale accounts and our own direct-to-consumer business, which could not be sold in the quarter. As David mentioned, we recently started to see an improvement in the delivery rate of containers and are optimistic this will continue. We are monitoring events daily but expect some level of these challenges to persist well into 2022. Nonetheless, we remain confident in the strength of our brand and trajectory of our business and have fully embraced the goal of achieving $10 billion in sales by 2026. This confidence in the long-term health of the business encouraged our board to authorize a new three-year share repurchase program of up to $500 million, which we expect to fund through free cash flow. Now let me turn to details of our fourth quarter financial results, where we will provide comparisons to both the prior year and, where appropriate, to 2019. Sales in the quarter achieved a new fourth quarter record totaling $1.65 billion, an increase of $323.2 million, or 24% from the prior year, and a 24% increase over the fourth quarter of 2019. direct-to-consumer sales increased 30% year-over-year, supported by growth in domestic and international markets of 17% and 52%, respectively. Both markets delivered meaningful improvements in gross margins and strong year-over-year average selling price growth. As compared with the fourth quarter of 2019, direct-to-consumer sales increased 22%, the result of an 8% increase domestically and a 45% increase internationally. International wholesale sales increased 30% year-over-year and grew 33% compared to the fourth quarter of 2019. Our distributor business grew 124% year-over-year, but remained slightly below pre-pandemic levels. This channel continues to make good strides toward recovery, particularly in critical markets like the Middle East and Russia. Subsidiary sales increased 47% year over year, and as compared to the fourth quarter of 2019, grew 66%. The improvement was primarily the result of a strong recovery in many markets heavily impacted by the pandemic last year, including the United Kingdom, Spain, and India. Our joint ventures grew 10% year over year, led by a 9% growth in China. As compared to the fourth quarter of 2019, This reflects a 32% increase. The growth in China was driven by strong e-commerce demands, somewhat tempered by slower traffic patterns in retail stores, as well as temporary pandemic-related store closures. Continuing weakness in several adjacent markets also weighed on joint venture growth in Asia. Domestic wholesale sales grew 5% year-over-year, and we continue to see very positive underlying trends among our domestic wholesale partners, including strong sell-through rates and higher average selling prices. Gross margin for the quarter was 48.6%, a decrease of 30 basis points year-over-year due to higher freight expense and the mixed impact of higher sales in our distributor business, which is an inherently lower gross margin business with very attractive operating margins. These were partially offset by higher average selling prices. Total operating expenses increased by 119.4 million, or 20%, to 715.1 million in the quarter versus the prior year, but improved 160 basis points as a percentage of sales from 45% to 43.4%. Selling expenses in the quarter increased year over year by 24.2 million, or 25%, to 122.1 million, reflecting additional demand creation spending globally. General and administrative expenses in the quarter increased year-over-year by 95.2 million, or 19%, to 593 million. However, as a percentage of sales, this represented an improvement of 160 basis points. The dollar increase was due to a combination of factors, including higher retail store labor, incentive compensation, settlements of multiple legal matters, and distribution-related costs. Earnings from operations were $93.1 million versus prior year earnings of $57.7 million, an increase of $35.4 million, or 61%. Operating margin improved 120 basis points to 5.6% as compared with 4.4% in the prior year. Net earnings were $402.4 million or $2.56 per diluted share on 157.3 million diluted shares outstanding. We recorded an income tax benefit of $346.8 million in the quarter, resulting from an intra-entity transfer of certain intellectual property, which will be amortized in the future. Excluding the effects of this non-recurring tax benefit, and the settlement of multiple legal matters, adjusted diluted earnings per share were 43 cents. This compares to prior year net earnings of 53.3 million, or 34 cents per diluted share, on 155.4 million diluted shares outstanding. Our effective tax rate for the fourth quarter was a negative 399%, which reflects the benefit of the intellectual property transfer. The company's effective income tax rate with a negative 43.2% for the full year, which includes a 60.9% impact from the intellectual property transfer in the fourth quarter. Excluding this benefit, our effective tax rate would have been 17.7% for the full year. And now turning to our balance sheet. Our cash and liquidity position remained extremely healthy. We ended the quarter with $1.04 billion in cash, cash equivalents, and investments. This reflects a decrease of $539.6 million, or 34% from December 31, 2020. As a reminder, we fully repaid our revolving credit facility in the second quarter of 2021, of which $452.5 million was outstanding last year. Also, in December, we expanded our senior unsecured credit facility to $750 million, which retains a $250 million accordion feature that provides for total liquidity of up to $1 billion. Trade accounts receivable at quarter end were $732.8 million, an increase of $113 million from December 31, 2020, predominantly the result of higher wholesale sales. Total inventory was $1.47 billion, an increase of 45%, or $454.2 million from December 31, 2020. However, as previously noted, this balance reflects an increase of $325.1 million in in-transit inventory, attributable mainly to supply chain disruptions. Total debt, including both current and long-term portions, was $341.6 million at December 31, 2021, compared to $735 million at December 31, 2020. Capital expenditures for the fourth quarter were $74 million, of which $28.7 million related to the expansion of our joint venture-owned domestic distribution center, $16 million related to investments in our new corporate offices, 14.2 million related to investments in our direct-to-consumer technologies and retail stores, and 5.9 million related to our distribution centers in China, the United Kingdom, and Japan. Our capital investments remain focused on supporting our strategic priorities, growing our direct-to-consumer business, as well as expanding the presence of our brand internationally. For 2022, we expect total capital expenditures to be between $250 million and and $300 million, reflecting continuing investments both in the U.S. and internationally in our distribution infrastructure, omnichannel retail capabilities, and corporate offices. Now I will turn to guidance. For fiscal 2022, our projections are predicated upon the expectation that the pandemic and its aftereffects, such as supply chain disruptions, will continue but will begin to ease in severity over the course of the year. We expect sales to be in the range of $7 billion to $7.2 billion and net earnings per diluted share to be in the range of $2.70 to $2.90. For the first quarter, we expect sales to be in the range of $1.675 billion to $1.725 billion and net earnings per diluted share in the range of $0.70 to $0.75. We anticipate that gross margins will be down slightly compared to last year as freight costs will offset improved pricing. Our effective tax rate for the year is expected to be between 19 and 20%. And now I'll turn the call over to David for closing remarks.
spk07: Thank you, John. Achieving record sales for the fourth quarter of $1.65 billion and for the year at $6.29 billion is a tremendous accomplishment. especially given the supply chain constraints and ongoing COVID-related challenges. The comfort, innovation, style, and quality of Skechers resonated with consumers around the world and drove an increase in sales of 24% for the fourth quarter and 37% for the full year, with gross margins of 48.6% and 49.3% respectively. Towards the close of 2021, we saw improvements in the moving of goods through our North American distribution center and are hopeful that the current COVID variant has reached its peak here as well as in many countries and the world can begin to normalize again. Our logistics teams are working tirelessly to address the supply chain challenges, monitoring the situation globally with the goal of delivering Skechers comfort footwear to our customers and consumers as quickly as possible. We do expect the supply chain disruptions to continue through at least the first half of this year. 2022 marks our 30th anniversary in business, and we're looking forward to the continued growth and implementing the many strategic plans underway. We'll be introducing more innovative and comfort technology product, developing multi-platform marketing campaigns with our growing roster of ambassadors, including recently announced television personality Amanda Klutz, and rolling out more Skechers e-commerce sites around the world, including Spain, Portugal, and Italy shortly. We are finalizing plans to enter the metaverse, creating an entirely new opportunity for the Skechers brand, and are further driving home the message that Skechers is the comfort technology company. Innovation, comfort, and creativity will be at the forefront of our product and marketing efforts. supported by efficiency and determination in our operations to deliver product. Our focus is on ensuring the health and safety of the Skechers team as we look to the future and together as determined and driven organization, we will make 2022 another record year and continue on the road to 10 billion in sales. Now I'd like to turn the call over to the operator for questions.
spk01: At this time, we'll be conducting a question and answer session If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary for you to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. One moment while we poll for questions. Our first question comes from the line of Laurent Vasilisque with BMP Paribus Exane. You may proceed with your question.
spk02: Oh, thank you very much. Good afternoon and congrats on a strong finish to the year, as well as the announced repo. I'd love to ask about last quarter, David, John, you talked about this kind of algo for 2026, mid to high teens, international wholesale, mid teens for DTC, and then mid singles for domestic wholesale. How do we think about that algo for 2022?
spk08: Thanks, Laurent. I would generally say we look at 2022 with consistency relative to those guideposts, understanding, though, that COVID and supply chain issues will continue to have an impact and may shift growth between the segments that we report over the course of the year. That being said, I think the overall formula for continuing to drive $10 billion in sales by 2026 remains fully intact.
spk02: That's great to hear. And then I think the real call out here this quarter, if I may say, is China just up 9% on a two-year stack. Didn't show any slowdown versus 3Q. How do we think about China growth for 2022? I know it's a hard question to ask, but I think it's important. And then I have a quick follow-up on gross margins of May. Okay.
spk08: Well, we're incredibly pleased with how China performed, all things considered. The e-commerce channel continued to do extremely well, but there were impacts from COVID in the country, as David noted in our prepared comments. So it's a similar environment to what we're seeing elsewhere across the globe. COVID has an impact. It can cause closures and operating restrictions, and that's That's echoing through the business. That all being said, I think the growth that we showed this quarter shows that the brand continues to perform well. It's well received by consumers, and our team there continues to do a good job of executing. I don't want to get into country-specific forecasts going forward, but I will say we continue to be very optimistic about the long-term prospects for the brand in China. We will continue to invest behind that. Looking forward next year to beginning investments in our second distribution center. So, you know, we remain fully behind China. We're very optimistic about what it will yield. We do expect some, you know, COVID impacts over the course of 22, like every other market across the globe. But overall, we remain incredibly optimistic about what we see there for the brand.
spk02: That's great to hear. And then the last question, yeah, it's on gross margins. Overall gross margins down 30 bps. but domestic wholesale gross margin is down 520. I'd love to, John, if you could parse out how much was freight for the quarter in terms of BIPs, and then how do we think, maybe just a little bit finer points on how do we think about the first quarter gross margin, just like the bridge, you know, if it's down like say 100 BIPs, is it like how much of that would be freight for the first quarter?
spk08: Yeah, I mean, I would say in order of significance, freight and other transportation related costs were certainly the single largest contributor to the pressure overall in margin and domestically. There was a little bit of mix in there in the domestic category, but I would point to freight and continuing COVID related costs as the most significant driver. You know, when we talk about next year, when you kind of look at it year over year, I think you're going to continue to see some pressures early on the gross margin line, kind of setting mix aside. And then our hope is that that begins to improve a little bit over the back half of the year. One other thing I'll just note, there was a mixed impact this quarter, as we noted, with our distributor business. coming back as strongly as it did, that is an inherently lower gross margin, but very attractive operating margin business. So there was some mixed impact in the overall calculus of gross margin as well.
spk02: Great. Thank you very much, John, for all the color. Best of luck. Thanks, Ron.
spk01: Our next question comes from the line of Kimberly Greenberger with Morgan Stanley. You may proceed with your question.
spk00: Great. Thank you. Just a couple of quick ones. This is Alex on Alex Drayton on for Kimberly Greenberger. Could you guys just quickly talk about where you're taking price? I think you said that you saw 25% AUR growth, if I heard you correctly.
spk07: Yeah, that, that was indirect to consumer. And that's partially because of our higher defined product. In other words, all our features that come in have hit everybody. And we have high demand for the higher price, so that's the 25% increase. That's a mixed issue. As far as price is concerned, that's something we evaluate as we go forward every time we put a new line together as to what we anticipate and what we see in raw materials. So for the most part, the next couple quarters are spoken for. We've put it in. We've taken our best guess as to raw materials and what's going to be done. So we feel pretty confident that we're on the right track to maintain or possibly even increase some of the domestic margins at wholesale.
spk00: Great. And then one quick, that's super helpful, one quick follow-up. I think there was a $15 million add back to OpEx. You may have covered this briefly on the call, but could you just remind us what that was exactly?
spk08: Yeah, that was some costs associated with the settlement of multiple legal matters that had been outstanding that were resolved in the quarter.
spk01: Great. Thanks so much. Our next question comes from the line of Jay Soule with UBS. You may proceed with your question.
spk10: Great. Thank you so much. David, I think I heard you mention the domestic wholesale business, and 21 was a really strong growth in domestic wholesale, a lot of sharing and opportunities. As you look forward in that business and your order book, how do you think that business shapes up this year, given the compares are pretty tough in Q2 and Q3? Thank you.
spk07: We're starting the year off very, very strongly. To my comments when we had our prepared remarks about our supply chain cleaning up and getting a lot of product in, it started in December, but it held up very, very well in January, which led us to wholesale shipments that were higher than we originally anticipated when we went into the year. So that all bodes well for going forward. So it continues now into early February. We are picking up a lot of product from the ports and we are turning it and we still have high demand and our backlogs are holding up extremely well given the size and growth we've seen over the last year.
spk10: Got it. Okay. And then maybe just a question on SG&A. You know, the company's been really controlling SG&A. It seems like on a two-year basis, the growth rate in SG&A has slowed down a little bit. Do you feel like the current growth rate on a two-year basis that we're on sort of continues into next year? Or maybe just an easier question is, how do you think about SG&A dollar growth in 2022? And what are the major puts and takes?
spk08: Yeah. Jay, we don't generally think about it from a dollar growth perspective because there's so much volume-driven activity in G&A. And what we've continuously said, and I think you've seen us adhere to, is aside from unusual items, we will aim to keep G&A capped at at least the top-line growth rate or something similar there, too, and obviously strive to keep it below that threshold. That being said, we did ingest some new capabilities this year that we're going to be eager to deploy next year. We started up full operations for our distribution center in China, a new distribution center in the UK. We're going to light up a fantastic addition to our U.S. distribution footprint next year. There are some other elements in there that can sometimes mask, I think, that discipline that we're beginning to show here. And I think you can expect we'll continue to do that. But, you know, it'll ebb and flow on the quarters as some of those events unfold. And then, you know, when you have unusual items like the one we just mentioned to Alex, you know, that we kind of hold aside as an exceptional item.
spk03: Got it. Okay. Thank you so much.
spk01: Our next question comes in the line of Omar Saad with Labrador ISI. You may proceed with your question.
spk09: Thanks for taking my question. Another great quarter. A couple follow-ups. Can you help us understand in China and globally as well, I know you've got the in-transit number, but what's the kind of level of missed sales that we're talking about here in terms of not being able to get inventory where you need it to and Is there any risk associated with those inventories? Are they coming in quickly enough after the fact to get where they need to go to be sold at full price and have a follow-up?
spk08: Yeah, I mean, it's tough to determine how much of that in transit would have been transacted. We give the in transit number, again, that 325 is an increment on prior years as an indicator of how much potential was trapped on the water You know, it's probably not fair to assume all of it would have been sold, but it's also not zero either because we're still seeing, as David noted, incredibly strong demand evident in the backlog. And when we have the product, you know, our ability to ship it to customers and their ability, quite frankly, to sell it through a very attractive ASP. So, you know, overall, I would say it was an impact probably more pronounced domestically and in Europe than in China. In China, the MIT numbers weren't as drastic as the impacts we're seeing today. you know, elsewhere across the globe because they just haven't had as many, you know, issues with the supply chain as other markets.
spk07: You know, just to add some light, as I said just before, we had a very strong January for domestic wholesale. So to John's point, a significant portion of that was in transit through the quarter, would have been taken in December, certainly. And the growth in January is significantly larger than the growth we saw last in December. So if you start to even them out, it becomes quite significant. Um, the same basically holds true in Europe as well. Uh, we've come up with a, a very strong month. They took a little longer. They're picked up the back half of January and the first part of February are significantly larger than anticipated because of the goods. And those could have shipped in the quarter as well. So, um, when you take a quarter, that's as good as this, and you can put in any significant amount, it obviously shows the strength of the brand and, and, uh, the demand for it that exists today.
spk09: Yeah, absolutely. And then if I could make a quick follow-up, you know, you mentioned stores, the interplay between stores and e-com stores, you know, coming back very strong with e-com, at least in North America, turning negative. Is that a dynamic you're seeing globally? And are you able to kind of track your customers across the channels and use the loyalty program to track the customers across the channel and make sure you're capturing them in either channel? Or is it a different customer who's coming back to the stores versus the ones that have been in e-coms?
spk08: Well, we can definitely track loyalty members across the channel. That's the result of a lot of the investment we've made over the last couple of years in driving towards an omni-channel solution. I don't quite honestly know how much crossover there was in the quarter, but that's absolutely a capability we have. The way I would think about the domestic pressure on e-commerce this past quarter is largely attributable to inventory availability. As inventory constricted, that was certainly... We saw a little evidence of that internationally as well, outside of China. That being said, I mean, it's important to keep in mind on a two-year stack basis, the results in e-commerce have been fantastic, over 100%. So we're going to continue to invest in that business. We feel really good about what it achieved. Inventory availability was a challenge, but we expect that business to continue to grow going forward.
spk03: That's helpful color. Thanks, guys. Good luck. Thank you.
spk01: Our next question comes from the line of John Kernan with Cowan. You may proceed with your question.
spk06: This is Krista Zuber on for John. Thank you for taking our questions. Just two questions here. First on the $10 billion in 2026 sales target, could you kind of frame how you're thinking about the operating margin within that? I think in the past you've talked about a double-digit operating margin, 10% to 12%. Just like to get your thoughts on how you see that playing out within the next five years. And then I have one follow-up.
spk08: Yeah, I mean, I think the best way to think about it is, you know, we're focused on continuing to grow the business to its maximum potential. You know, we certainly see $10 billion as a waypoint on that. It's not intended to be the end of the road for us. It's just a midterm target, I would say. we've been pretty consistent in saying that we think kind of the natural margin in the business is in that low to mid-teen number. Now, whether or not that occurs precisely when we hit $10 billion or not is to be determined, but no limit on our ability to get there other than we want to continue to invest to grow the brand. And I would stress $10 billion is not the stopping point for this brand. It's just a waypoint.
spk06: Terrific. Thank you. And then just as it relates to your retail gross margin, you're going to be lapping some terrific outsized gains in 2021. Just wondering if you could frame your expectation on that line item into 2022. Thank you very much.
spk08: Yeah, I think vis-a-vis retail, we have about a quarter to give here because we really didn't see retail pop back into the strong activity into the middle of first quarter. So there will be some natural accretion in the first couple of quarters. From there, I do expect that some of the pressures we're seeing on logistics and other supply chain related effects are going to create some downward pressure. We don't think it'll be significant. And it is considered in that overall mix of guide we gave on gross margin, which is that we expect gross margin for the company in total to be flat to slightly down next year. That's all I'd probably say at a segment level on gross margin guidance.
spk06: Thank you.
spk03: Sure.
spk01: Our next question comes from the line of Tom Nickich with Wedbush Securities. You may proceed with your question.
spk12: Hey, good afternoon, guys. Thanks for taking my question. um so i want to talk about the uh the guidance um you know it seems like you've got a pretty strong uh q1 guide i think it's implied something like you know 17 to 21 growth and then kind of implies a more modest growth rate uh for the remainder of the year um something more like a low double digit low teens type of uh growth rate um is there anything in particular that's driving that disparity in the revenue growth rate for Q1 versus the rest of the year?
spk08: Yeah, Tom, two things. One is keep in mind last year's Q2 was outstanding by any stretch of the imagination. And so we'll be lapping that this year. And that just means that the growth rate looks a little bit less significant than what you see in other quarters, but the dollar value of what we aim to achieve is still pretty notable. But Q2 last year, remember, was that significant combination of COVID restrictions lapping, stimulus going out, and a lot of other factors that drove a significant amount of outsized demand in the quarter, particularly in our retail business. The other thing I'd say is certainly in this operating environment, The further you get from any point, you know, the more opaque the situation gets given supply chain challenges, COVID restrictions. So we're also being, I think, reasonably conservative about how we view the outcourters given, you know, those issues have persisted now for a couple of years. Obviously, if there are fewer issues, that would bode better for us from an operational perspective. You know, if bigger issues reemerge, like what we've seen most recently in the Omicron variant, then, you know, we would expect more challenges. And so we're trying to triangulate against those two potentialities. And as a result, put together what we think is a decent expectation about the back half of the year. But, you know, certainly we will learn more as time goes on.
spk12: Understood. Thanks, John. And on the EPS guide, is there any buyback incorporated in the guidance? And how should we think about the you know, the pace of buyback given the new authorization.
spk08: Yeah, there is no repurchase baked into our guidance at this point in time. You know, we just received the authorization. We'll put it into effect. And, you know, we'll attempt to be, you know, aggressive where we feel like the situation warrants and then, you know, probably put a more programmatic, you know, plan in place and give you updates as we go along.
spk03: All right. Thanks, John. Thanks, David. And best of luck this year. Thank you.
spk01: Our next question comes from the line of Brian McNamara with Barenburg Capital Markets. You may proceed with your question.
spk13: Hey, congrats on the strong results, and thank you for taking the question. So another one on guidance, unfortunately. At your guidance midpoints for the full year, it looks like your top lines implied at 13%. Your EPS implies just 9%. So I'm curious what's driving that delta. Is there some conservatism embedded in there? And how should we think about operating margin progression this year?
spk08: Yeah, I would say there's certainly some concern that we've given voice to already around supply chain costs. I mean, that's the biggest near-term pressure we see. So we have absolutely attempted to consider the array of costs we're seeing come forward in that That's everything from intermodal rates, port fees, congestion costs, freight rates, which are staying impertinently high from our perspective. And then also keeping in mind we'll be in a position where we have to renegotiate freight rates during the year. That's the single biggest factor. We are seeing pressures on labor like other folks. We believe we're doing a very good job of managing that. And then, you know, we will evaluate over the course of the year whether or not that cost profile means we need to, you know, look at price again, as David previously mentioned, or, you know, if the situation changes and some of those pressures begin to abate, you know, delivering more down to the bottom line.
spk13: Thank you. And just one more on India. Can you provide some color on how India finished the year relative to 2019 and and what your expectations are for that market this year. It seemed like the back half of the year really accelerated after Q2 was pretty much a lost quarter with the pandemic last year. Thanks.
spk07: Right. It really did accelerate in the back half, and they were relatively flat to 2019. So some growth. We do anticipate they will continue to grow and maybe even pick up the pace depending on their own issues as far as supply chain and COVID.
spk08: Just to clarify, what David says, flat to 19, he meant on the full year. In the fourth quarter, they did pick up speed. But if you think about that comment, that means they were able to make up what they lost in Q2 in the back half of the year. And that's a stunning accomplishment. David also made mention of two sizable investments we're making in that market because we believe that market has tremendous promise. We purchased some corporate space for our team there. And we're in the process of, you know, identifying and then building out our own distribution center there because we see that market as having, you know, fantastic long-term opportunity for the brand.
spk13: Great. Thanks a lot. Best of luck.
spk03: Thanks, Brent.
spk01: As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. One moment while we pull for questions. Our next question comes from the line of Jim Duffy with Stifel. You may proceed with your question.
spk11: Hi, this is Peter McGoldrick on for Jim. Thanks for taking our questions. First, I just wanted to ask about the inventory growth. So, $325 million in transit up significantly from the prior year. How should we think of the increase in inventory as it progresses throughout the year, should we see a moderation or is there a moment in time where you expect to be caught up or realigned with your forward sales growth?
spk08: Well, that's a good question. I think if we knew the answer to that, we would be geniuses.
spk07: Yeah, we hope we're going to be aligned or will be aligned. That's always our target. I think what you see in that growth is not necessarily look in hindsight. You've got to look forward to the demand for the brand and So I think the demand can pick up to a point that hasn't seen before. Or there could be supply chain issues where there's a big influx of goods in the quarter and then things tend to slow down. So there's a couple scenarios out there. We think our inventory does very well. We feel no risk with it as it's coming in now, that there are homes for it around the world and demand for more than we can make in the near term.
spk11: Okay, thank you. And then finally, with 2021 in the rearview mirror, I wanted to ask about promotion, the benefit to gross margin. How did that benefit for the year? What's embedded in the outlook? It sounds like pricing is a partial offset to the transportation costs. And is there any indication of a reversion towards historical norms in promotional cadence?
spk08: We haven't seen any kind of reversion to the mean, if you will, on promotions, although I'd say our hope is obviously that that mean diminishes. Right now, we're seeing the same environment. We do have some expectation that that will return to some more normalized level of promotion in the back half of the year in the direct consumer channel. But right now, what we're seeing is strong resilience of the ASP increases we had put in place last year and a very continuingly strong environment relative to promotions. It's obviously something we'll watch carefully. That's a competitive marketplace dynamic we keep abreast of regularly. But at the moment, we don't see those fading. And we do have a little bit of expectation the back half of the year some of that will return. But but not nearly what you saw in kind of 18 and 19, which is pretty deep.
spk11: Okay, thank you, guys.
spk03: Thank you.
spk01: Our last question comes from the line of Susan Anderson with B. Riley. You may proceed with your question.
spk04: Hi, good evening. Thanks for taking my question. I was wondering, did you guys mention what your expectations are between the international markets for growth for this year and the U.S.? ? And then also, did you guys say what units were in the quarter versus AFPs?
spk08: I don't know that we touched on either of those. You know, I'd probably say there's no strong departure we see from kind of our normalized growth algorithm for Q1 or even the full year of 22. Although, again, I would just caution the impacts of COVID tend not to be uniform across the globe, so we certainly have seen changes. You know, I'd point out we think domestic wholesale will probably be a little bit stronger in Q1 than kind of what we normally anticipate, but absent that, I think the growth trajectories for the rest of the businesses will be, you know, pretty consistent with our longer-term guide as to how the business gets to that $10 billion mark.
spk04: Great. Thanks so much. Good luck this year.
spk03: Great. Thanks.
spk01: Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of today's question and answer session. This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation. Enjoy the rest of your day.
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