Adidas Ag Ord

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the ADIDAS-AG full year 2024 conference call. I am Moira, the chorus call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in listen-only mode and the conference has been recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and one on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and zero. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Sebastian Stessen. Please go ahead.

Thanks very much, Maura. Good evening, good afternoon, good morning, everyone, wherever you're joining us today, and welcome to our 2024 full-year results conference call on a beautiful, sunny day here in Herzogenaurach. Our presenters today are our CEO Bjorn Golden and our CFO Harm Ohlmeier. And while there is actually a lot of newness in our product pipeline, as you will see and hear in a minute, there's not much new about the agenda of this call. As always, we will kick it off in a second with Bjorn and Harm taking you through the puts and takes of the quarter and the full year and explaining our outlook for 2025 to you. After that, we will move to the Q&A part of the session. And also here, as always, I would like to remind you that during the Q&A session, you limit your initial questions to two to allow as many people as possible to ask their questions. Thanks very much in advance for sticking to that rule. And now, before I'm going to hand over to Björn, we will start with a video to put everybody in the right mood. Let's go and enjoy.

It is official, the 2024 Summer Olympic Games are now underway.

The European Championship Finals. Germany is ready. 2024 was the year of sport. We took on the pressure. We claimed our spot. We brought back the joy in sports. with a powerful message.

It's only the beginning.

We have tons of innovation. We pushed boundaries like never before. 2024 was our year.

Adidas is doing something special. Maybe one of the most iconic things in history.

Because we are who we are. And we know who we want to be.

Our time has come. To take the shot. To make it count. To be bolder.

To push further. To inspire millions. In sport and in culture. This is what we do.

This is who we are. We are ready.

The time is now.

Hello, everybody. Also from my side, I hope, as always, that you enjoyed the video showing all the things that happened in 2024. I think you remember a year ago when we talked to you about the year. We said it would be a year in the spirit of Adidasler, a sports year. We always have to remember that we are a sports brand, and we hoped that 2024 would be the revival of over Adidas again, given all the sports events that were happening. And I'm very, very happy and actually proud what we did achieve in 2024. It was a great year. And the events that we talked about many, many times, both the Euro and the Copa, was great events for the fans. And of course, us winning with Spain and winning with Argentina, It was, of course, the right signal for us to you and to the consumer. And also the euro in Germany where, you know, there was a lot of negativity. Also to the jersey you see on the picture with the away jersey, we were able, despite the announcement that we will leave the FBA in the 26th, to actually oversell many, many times the forecast and the expectations. So it was an extremely successful summer for us when it gets to soccer or football. And then going into the Olympics and Paralympics was the same story. A lot of skepticism, but it ended up, in my opinion, being the nicest Olympics and Paralympics ever. And again, although we wished we had even more athletes and federation, I think we showed off as a brand that we could be proud of and it came to the right time. And I think in general, if you follow sports, we showed up both, I would say, on the footwear side and the apparel side and also outside the stadium around sport in a, yeah, I would say it in a way that is linked again to the old Adi Dassler spirit. And I would like to remind one more thing because for me this was maybe one of the most emotional things, the Special Olympics, although the Summer Games in Berlin was in 23. Next weekend it starts the Winter Special Olympics in Italy. And for me, you know, when we talk about we want to change people's lives through sport, I don't think I've seen any athletes or friends or families being so affected by sports. like these ones, and I hope you have the time to follow it and support it because it's really, really moving, and again, a great thing that we at Adidas are doing, and a lot of our people, when we now dressed up all the Winter Olympics, worked here on our campus, and I think it was extremely motivational and a great thing. But it wasn't only sports. I think you would agree that it was the year where we had the hottest shoes. We have talked about the so-called Terrace shoes for a long time. The Samba Gazelle and the Speciale, which we educated to you two and a half years ago, is Terrace, has been scaled and, of course, been extremely important for us and I think also for the trade to generate excitement and sales. That was followed up during 24 with both the Campus, which is not the Terra shoe, and SL72 as a classic shoe. When you look at that picture and you see how that has dominated in many markets, and we know that this has happened over the last 18 months, this is, of course, the reason for the brand heat again, and it shows the enormous power of our brand and of Three Stripes. and of course makes our job easier and makes us also proud and also optimistic about the future. We think the future will a probably be low profile starting when the weather gets hot. There is a lot of talk about it. It hasn't really commercialized yet, but we and other brands of course have many silhouettes on the way to the market. We think it will be an extension of the Samba trend. At least we are ready and then we will see how the consumer will react. More importantly, both short and long term, is of course lifestyle running. We have talked about it also for 18 months. The need to get lifestyle silhouettes into the lifestyle area that can be scaled. And, you know, I think from talking to the trade that we finally have silhouettes that are doing extremely well. On the left side, you see our Evo SL, which is coming out of performance. It's a takedown of what we did with Adizero Evo and with Pro4. And it's now 150 euro Evo SL shoe without the carbon plate. And it's flying in all channels. We can't keep it in stock. And we are, as he's speaking, increasing capacity both from the tooling point of view, but also for the factory. And this will be several million pairs over the next 12 months. But not only that. We have four or five silhouettes now in the running space that are being incubated. And many of them already with, I would say, good to very good results. and maybe also an innovation. You see the 4D-printed Climacool shoe, which is the first foam-based printed shoe in the market, will be in the market already in April, and it's also getting orders from the trade in much, much bigger numbers than we thought. That's the same thing there. We're scaling it up, and it will be something that you will see in the market more and more over the next 12 months. And then already a year ago, we said that after Taras, we will then also start to scale the Superstar. We did then delay it in certain markets because there was no need, because the heat of the Taras shoes and also Campos was so high. But we have started releasing some pairs in certain markets. And as you can see here, a lot of collabs from working with Pharrell, with Edison Shen, and doing a lot of activities around it. This will be, you know, a whole franchise, although it will, of course, scale at different speed in different markets depending on the volumes that we will then start to release in the market. And believe me, you know, it will not stop there. There is a lot of innovation in design going into the second half of 2025 and also, of course, into the spring of 2026. And I can assure you that both in performance and in lifestyle, The pipeline is full. It's now up to us to face it, rightly, together with the markets. And I hope you come here the next couple of weeks and months so you can see what we have in the showrooms. We have this luxury of being in sports and lifestyle, and we say, you know, the magic happens when we're united. I think you are all excited to see that we brought the trefoil back again on the pitch. with the second and third jersey of some of the big clubs. You see some of them here. And we have generated this soccer culture in the street that I don't think we've ever seen before. People are now dressing in soccer jerseys from the past, both licensed and unlicensed. And this is, of course, a direction which is very, very good for us. And we are 100% sure it would last into the World Cup next year. And it is sport, footwear, and apparel. Don't forget that even the Samba is an old soccer shoe, which maybe initiated this, and there's quite some franchise sport on footwear, and especially apparel that is in the pipeline going into the summer of 26. Then new for us, and probably also for you, we launched a couple of weeks ago, you know, our cooperation with the Formula 1 team of Mercedes-AMG Petronas, A great, what should I say, co-lab partnership that happened in a very short time. I think we didn't even have a year from when we shook hands until we actually had the first product. Initially doing very well, great drivers, great concept in, what should I say, market that we are new to. And don't forget, this is actually a commercial deal with us that we will make money on. And I'm very, very happy with this relationship, and there might be more to come. In general, I think I told you before that we have about 3,500 partnerships, either through celebrities, players, athletes, federations, and teams. And we're adding, you know, a couple every day. And here are some of them, extremely proud of, of course, that we have Bonmati, the Ballon d'Or winner as a female soccer player, and that we were able to sign Jamal, who I think we have to agree is maybe the biggest talent that exists. And for the U.S., Travis Hunter, who won the Heisman Trophy, which has a huge following in the street culture in the U.S., will be a very, very important partner for us. In general, you see here some of the personalities that will be important going forward. I'm very happy with who we have in the different markets. And as I said, there is movement here all the time. We talked to you beginning of 23 that we had some work to do. And 23 was, of course, about fixing that. And then we promised you in 24 that we'd be a better company. And as I said in the beginning, I'm proud what we delivered. You remember we grew the sales to 23.6, almost 23.7 billion, which is 12% of currency neutral. We were extremely happy with the development of the gross margin. I mean, Harm will explain to you a little bit more about it later. But at 50.8, 330 basis points improvement, that shows you that we had the right product in the market. And, of course, that our discount level was much lower than what it has been in the past. Our operating profit or EBIT ended at 1337, which is up 400% from last year. And I think we did deliver on all the KPIs the way we promised, or actually a lot more than we promised. And as I said again, we are proud and very happy to see that. What was cool was that in Q4, although it was a volatile market on the retail side, we did actually accelerate our growth. And you see it here that all markets had double-digit growth except for Japan, South Korea. That was mainly due to where else in South Korea that the roof collapsed, so we were trapped on merchandise. So for all, what should I say, business purposes, there were double-digit growth everywhere. And I hope you also note that North America for the first quarter in a long, long time were up double-digit. And that gave us then the Adidas brand growth of around 18% in Q4, which again was much better than we initially had expected. For the full year, that gives you then basically a flattish sales number in America, plus one for the Adidas brand. Remember, heavily negative at the beginning of the year, double-digit growth in Q4. And we told you all the time that North America is kind of lagging six to nine months behind the rest of the world. So that showed out to be true. Europe continued through the whole year with fantastic growth, up 19 or 20%. Greater China, a good turnaround. Great job of the team being up 10. Japan, South Korea, we talked about up 10 despite the issues. LATAM, very, very strong. I think we are clearly number one in the region and most of the countries in LATAM, up 28%. Emerging markets, our entrepreneurs in difficult and spread around markets up almost 20% and that gives you then the total growth of the DDoS brand of 13 and the currency neutral growth of 12. If you look at the channels, our wholesale business grew 12%, now 14%, again, showing that we have better sales and better performance and still have very, very good interest from our retail partners. Our own retail, that means the brick-and-mortar stores, grew 15%. I can tell you that, like for like, our concept stores were up more than 20%. and the factory outlets in the mid-single-digit. And that, again, tells you it was the high-end and not the discounted part that was growing. And as you also know, in the factory outlets, we had a lot of clearance at the beginning of the year. And at the end of the year, we didn't even have enough merchandise to actually do the sales that we could have done. Ecom, plus six the way we reported. If you take the easy sales out, even up 18%. And again, for those of you who believe that we are not interested in digital or e-com, that is, of course, not true. And the investment in e-com, A, from the way we present the product and the way we try to improve is, of course, continuing. But I think it's important that both brick and mortar and e-com and especially our wholesale business is very important for us, depending on where the consumer goes in the different markets. That gives you the balance of 60-40 between wholesale and D2C. D2C being spread around 20 or 50-50 or 20-18. And again, these numbers are not targets. They move from quarter to quarter depending on where the consumer goes. And we are extremely flexible in this global number. Important is that we optimize it for what the need is in the different markets. If you look at the divisions, led by footwear again, up 17, very strong number. apparel starting with negative numbers and then growing double digits at the back end of the year of six. And then accessories, which normally is where you actually exploit the heat of your brand into cash, up only two. Of course we can do better, but as you also know, we can't put priorities on everything. So the way this is, again, showcases where we put our priorities during 24. That gives us a healthy balance of over 60% in footwear, 35% in apparel, and 6% in accessories. Again, I think a very safe split between the different divisions. What the product is meant for, or the way we categorize it, performance of nine, so almost of double digit, growing through the year. Sportswear, the lower, more commercial end of both footwear and apparel, with the performance level of six. And then of course the higher end of lifestyle, including basketball partnerships and skateboarding with up 25. And to be honest, when you lead the brand by lifestyle to create heat, then exploited in performance and then commercialized in sportswear is kind of the strategy. And again, looking back, I would have signed off for this split anytime in the last two years, if we could have agreed upon it upfront. I think that was kind of the background for AVR, and then I'll hand over to Harm to kind of give you the results then with the different KPIs.

Thank you, Bjorn, and good afternoon also from my side, and it's a pleasure now to give you some more details on the P&L and also on the balance sheet. And as always, I want to start with the kind of executive summary that Bjorn alluded to already. So key number here, besides the 24, almost 24 billion net sales, it's 12% currency-neutral growth. And then, of course, what's important for you, the underlying Adidas brand is even 13% up currency neutral, because I would say it many, many times, there has been 650 million of Yeezy business that, of course, will not be repeated in 25 when we talk about it. As you said, very healthy gross margin. We are in control of the inventory. We are in control of the discounting. I'll give you some more details in a minute. That led to an operating profit of $1,337,000,000, up 400%. More importantly, delivering a 5.6% operating profit. This includes $200 million of Yeezy profit, but I come to that later, how we decompose also the puts and takes of the operating profit. But I also would like to go to the development that we had from the beginning of the year. And I know many of you said we have been very conservative with our guidance at the beginning of the year, January 31st, where we said it's mid single digit increase and 500 million operating profit. And of course, we sold some Yeezys and we did better than we expected. And again, we changed it in April 16, then in July 16, and then October 15. So pretty much every quarter we went out ad hoc and we moved from mid single digit increase to At the end of the day, the latest guidance was around 10%, and we moved from $500 million to $700 million, $1 billion, and then at the end, $1.2 billion operating profit. And even that, compared to the guidance, we beat and came home with an ad hoc on, I believe, January 21st. And I want to reiterate, I talked to many of you, I don't want to be on record to do that again with four ad hocs. I'd love to do it if it always goes in the right direction, but we believe we also have have a better grab on the business that we know that we don't need to go out hopefully every quarter. But of course, as always, we under promise and want to over deliver. So it's not just easy. I mean, how we get from the 500 million to the 1.3 billion. you know underlying over 600 million ideas brand that that is really everything that beyond talked about from the product momentum and brand momentum and all the new work that the teams have done is seen in the ideas brand and that's how we led to the 1.3 billion so it's not just an easy story that's very important to bring that across and then of course the acceleration of q4 when you just look at q4 you'll see a 19 currency neutral growth and also there many of you remember that we had readjustment of the Argentinian peso last year in Q4, and rest assured that 90% is the real currency neutral growth, and the Argentine peso has nothing to do with that one. And again, there's some Yeezy still that we did in Q4, so from an Adidas brand point of view, it would have been 18%. You also see on the gross profit, you know, 520 basis points up. for the full year we had been 330 basis points up you also see there what we always talked about some easing of the currencies so that even helped in the fourth quarter so with uh you know 49.8 percent and more importantly 520 basis points up and then the 57 million in profit of course significantly better than the loss of 377 million the year before but if you have done your homework and read through the announcement this morning There's also 150 million one-time cost in Q4. So it could have been 200 million operating profit as well. But that's the acceleration in the fourth quarter that we had as well. So with that, I want to decompose a little bit where we are from a gross profit and the puts and takes. I don't want to go through that one. Of course, there's a positive from a product cost point of view. It's not just the volume that we're scaling, but also utilize the capacities in our factories in Asia in a better way. That gives us better product costing in 24. Freight have more than normalized, so there was still a benefit in 24 compared to the year before. The business mix, of course, has positively contributed to Terrace as well, because you can imagine with all the products that we have sold there, there's significant business mix and benefit from the Terrace setup as well. Very, very disciplined, especially in e-commerce when it comes to discounting. We really controlled, and that probably led to some slower growth even outside of the easy business in e-commerce, but very profitable growth in e-commerce because we did less discounting. And then inventory provision, you remember we had a lot of old inventory that we had provided for in previous years, but we sold that successfully as well. And, of course, we reversed some inventory provisions from the prior years. You know, also in the margin, that was a positive. Easy, you can see in the picture here, only 30 basis points, still a benefit from 50.5 to 50.8, but a minimal base benefit. And again, for all of you on the call, the starting point for us in 25 to compare to is at 50.5%, you know, cross margin. Still very healthy, very happy with that one. And you see in the call out here, when it comes to Q4, you see no easy effect in Q4. And of course, the negative currency effects that we had for the full year are already fading in Q4. And I will probably talk about the dollar ups and downs later on that keeps us busy. But I also want to give you some hint on where we will be at 25 and what you can expect from a gross margin point of view. So we still believe we can continue to see better product cost given the volume that we plan to grow, how we utilize our factories, how we are more agile in our sourcing approach. When it comes to freight and business mix, it's probably more neutral. Discounting, especially in North America, as we always said, we are six to nine months behind. We still did a lot of clearance at 24 in North America. That is mainly contributing to less discounting also in 25, so that should be a slight positive. Inventory provisions, we have clean inventory. Yes, we have 5 billion inventory at the year end, but it's very, very clean. So do not expect a significant further benefit from, you know, releasing provisions from the past. Easy will be gone. So that's a negative, but only the 30 basis points and FX, you know, in the past, I probably talked about some tailwind, but we all know where the dollar moved and then it moved to luckily again today to one Oh seven. So credit to all the banks or not, because they said last week, still, if we go below parity, then it went to one Oh seven today. And you remember, I'm still praying every day that it moves to 110, but my prayers are being heard, it sounds like. So with 107, we are more relaxed on the FX as well, so it's going in a good direction. So these are the puts and takes of the gross margin, so we are confident that this is also under good control. Moving further down the P&L, I want to highlight probably two things. One is the other operating income. which is a significant improvement of a hundred million in that line. And of course that is linked to the settlement that we reached with Ye in the third quarter. We talked about it, but I want to remind everyone, we had the release of the risk that we put into the P&L in previous years. And through the settlement, we released a hundred million other income. That is the increase at the benefit in 24 versus 23. But at the same time, we put further a hundred million donations in that went through the P&L, that we granted to our Adidas foundation to be donated from a cash point of view in the coming years. So that's a neutral effect. And then, as I mentioned earlier, there has been 200 million one-time costs. They will not repeat themselves in 25, 50 million of that roughly in Q3 and another 150 million roughly in Q4. So, and of course there's the easy profit of 200 million in the overall operating profit. When I decompose that again, to just be very, very clear, the starting point is 1.3 billion. We released, given the settlement, 100 million in other operating income. Then we did the donations of 100 million, so it's neutral, both of these. Then we had one, of course, of 200 million. They will not repeat themselves in 25. And, of course, the easy profit of 200 million in simple math. will also not repeat itself. So for you, it's easy mess for us and also for you. So the baseline, you know, in 24 is 1.3 billion. And that's what the starting point is also for what we need to compare to in 25. I hope it's very simple and very clear, but I just want to remind everyone what the starting point is. If I go further down in the P&L, there has been quite some talk in the past about financial income and the financial expenses. you see that we take the benefits of higher interest rates. So we gained 20 million more through, you know, putting our, you know, cash at work as well. So higher interest, but we also had some countries where we had some financing costs where we didn't recapitalize fully. So their local financing, their growth. And of course, in some countries, we still have to deal with negative, you know, currency effects in a very volatile world around, you know, ourselves. And that's how the puts and takes, but also 25 should be much smoother when it comes to the net financial expenses. There was a lot of talk last year about the tax rate of 189%. I explained that many times last year, but also here, we always said, if you get to a better profitability, the tax rate will normalize. And that's what you see here. It's around 26.5%. And of course our expectation is that with that will, you know, further improve over the years to come. but I would say it's largely normalized and now that lead to a net income of $824 million. Going to the balance sheet, starting with inventories, I said during the last couple of calls, we have probably seen the lowest inventory in 24, given the growth profile that we have, and that is actually coming to fruition. we finished the year with 5 billion, 11% up. That gives you an indication based on the increase that we gave in our guidance that we needed to have that inventory to fulfill our demand going into 25 as well. And when you see the, development of that still in the previous quarters with Yeezy in there, but also there, you see there's no Yeezy at the end anymore. So there's just, I want to confirm that again, not one Yeezy shoe left in our inventory. So it's 5 billion of fresh inventory that is also needed to fulfill the demand going into 25. When you go further down the balance sheet, you have accounts receivables, 26% up. That also gives you an indication on what the wholesale growth had been in the last couple of months, depending on the payment terms that we have with our customers. But very normal and very high correlation to what we are selling into wholesale as well. Accounts payable, of course, is going up as we are building up the inventory. That is what we have to pay to our suppliers in Asia as they are producing and shipping the products to us. That is up 36% currency neutral. And a highlight here. All in it together is the development of the operating working capital, which is probably the best seen in this graph here, where we are coming from in Q4-23 from 25.7%, almost 600 basis points down to now 19.7%. I've been on record when we talk about a healthy company in operating working capital, we are probably ahead of where the P&L is. I always said if you're below 20%, we are ahead. absolutely healthy company and managing our working capital very, very well. And that's why we also gave a guidance, probably seen conservatively from some of you again of 21 to 22%. As I said, below 20% is definitely best practice in the industry. We keep investing into the company as well and the brand capital expenditure. We did spend 540 million. We gave a guidance of around 600 million again for 25%. So we keep investing, but also we're not overshooting there. So also there are no concerns. 600 million on a steady state is probably a good number to have in your, you know, Excel sheet. Where did we invest it? Primarily the brand and the controlled space. So the new stores, upgrading stores, shop and shop and wholesale, that is where half of the investment is going into. Yes, we are rolling out, you know, S4HANA to modernize our infrastructure on the tech side and IT side as well. And you also see in logistics, we have the capacity to grow further with the warehouses around the world. And yes, there's also the one or the other being added or modernized, but the majority goes into the brand representation at own retail who want our wholesale accounts. So also good development. Cash is important in today's world. The world became very volatile and it's becoming more volatile every day. So it's good to have a 2.5 billion in cash on the balance sheet. That also gives us some, you know, higher appetite in risk that we can invest into the future. So I'm very, very happy to see that. And I'm pretty sure you have some questions, what we're going to do with that cash in the future, but first and foremost, we will invest it into the operational business. And of course that will lead to a better rating, hopefully going forward as well. As you see here, the cash development is very positive compared to the last couple of years. And even more important, the adjusted net borrowings has come down significantly. And I'm pretty sure we have surprised positively our rating agencies, Moody's and Standard & Poor's as well, with this number here getting significantly below our financial policy target of 2.0, finishing the year with 1.5 on the net borrowings over EBITDA ratio. Very, very healthy again. And this gives us the foundation for further growth and investing into the right areas. So we believe it's good to have a strong balance sheet and good leverage in our overall business. That also allows us to pay some dividend. So also here, almost three times up from 70 cents to two Euro per chair, and the total payout will be 357 million. That reflects the stronger balance sheet, the cash on our balance sheet, the confidence into our outlook, and of course, We are now within the range, target range of 30% to 50%, even a little higher than the average was 43%. So pretty happy where we are with that one as well. And then handing over to Bjorn again to tell you a little bit more of what we do with our cash. Thank you.

Yeah, as we have told you a couple of times, we created the Adidas Foundation, which are led by external people. Sylvia Schenk is there, for example. Also, Dr. Edward Moses is there and a group of other people. So they manage the money that we actually put into the foundation and make sure that they support projects fighting hate and discrimination, sport for sustainable development and access to sport for vulnerable groups. We have, through our P&L the last two years, put in around 200, 210 million. And in addition to that, we have donated around 50 million. So the total amount of, what should I say, money that has gone through our P&L for donation is then somewhere between 250 and 260 million. And I think I'm very thankful and also proud of this because this is of course something that was made possible by some decisions that we made. ESG of course a topic and I want to make very very clear that our commitment to improving the environment and also to work on everything that improves you know human rights in our business is still there You can see that we reduced our carbon incentives intensity per product by a little bit more than 5% since 2022. This is in line with our targets. We are almost at 100% recycled polyester. The CDP, the organization that screens companies for what they do to improve the climate, has given us an A. That's up from an A-minus last year. And as many companies, of course, we are changing all our operations to 100% solar. That's for both US, Canada, and Europe. And this is just part of what we're doing. If you look at human rights, you can see some of the results there. The rest you can read in 242 pages in our ESG report, which again, I would say is crazy and I think we all have to agree we need to simplify this reporting with the interest of you and of us. I hope you guys talk to your compliance people and that they can start to work on things in a little bit more constructed way because our annual report I think is almost 500 pages and I can say that I doubt if you read it in a way that you remember the most important thing in that 242 ESG pages. But it's a different topic, but the bureaucracy to drive a business here in Europe is, in my opinion, out of control. I would also like to say a couple of things when it gets to all employees. We are now around 62,000 employees. They come from 170 nationalities, and you see it's a little bit more women than men, 51-49. We currently in our leadership have 40.7% being women, and we still think as a normal evolution of our business, the way we drive the business, that we should be a 50-50 men-women setup, and I think you will see that development continue. We as a management group more or less have been here for two years. We have talked to you as a group, at least Harm and I have, since beginning of 23, so we are halfway there. And we said that we will define ourselves as a healthy company if we achieve the following, which I repeated many times, which is a double-digit grow every year. It's a margin between 50 and 52. It's marketing around 12%. I think I said that also when I was at Puma, although I hear that I didn't invest enough in marketing, which is interesting. But I repeat that I think 12% is enough. And cost base of around 30% gives you the 10% EBIT. And Harman, even before I joined, agreed that, you know, with everything we know of this industry, if we're doing a decent job with the current structure of the business, we think that 10% is achievable. And our goal is to get there, and then we can talk about what's then after that. If you then try to explain how we got there, at least for me personally, it's of course luck because you're coming into a company that is not doing well. It's of course easier than to be part of changing it than it is to actually be part of something that is very successful. So I personally have been lucky. I think for the company, timing has been positive. You're all aware of that the big competitor is struggling. And you're also aware that the world is very volatile. And the volatile world where the biggest one is struggling is, of course, an advantage for someone who wants to change their model. And we'll get back to that in a second. What is most important is, of course, effort and attitude. And it's obvious that many, many people in our organization have done an unbelievable effort to turn this around. And that the attitude to wanting to do business and wanting to solve issues has had a dramatic change. As an example, we sourced 140 million more pairs of shoes last year than we did the year before. And, of course, that is impossible in a planned business if you don't have the right attitude and the right effort. And if it is in sourcing or if it is in sales or in marketing or in finance or in any other function, I am very, very proud of the way that people have stepped up to actually turn this company around. And that is, of course, what always has been the DNA, and which I think we have woken up again. But you also have to be aware of that we had to break a lot of internal processes and rules to get there. And I think we all understand that if we want to be a 10% EBIT company or more stable going forward, what has brought us here will not be what will bring us further. So we need to do some changes to adopt our business model and our organization to achieve this. And the biggest, biggest, biggest, biggest thing is to reduce complexity. We have built an organization that is very, very centralistic based on that you can actually achieve the same success in all the markets almost with the same merchandise and the same processes. And, of course, the way the world has developed over the last five, six years, that doesn't work. That's why we have, both from the markets into headquarters and in headquarters, worked on trying to define new operating models or one operating model that then mirrors the way the world is actually developing. And very simplified. It should be a surprise, and you can call this strategy common sense. It starts with the consumer wherever he or she is. And the closer we are to the consumer by the decisions we take, both from what product we put into the market and how we market it, of course the probability of being right increases. And if you're sitting in a market, and a market can be a country, it can be a cluster of countries, or it can be a region, of course they have to be responsible for the commercial success in that market. You cannot do that from a headquarter. And then the headquarter, and it could be headquarters. It might be that you have functions sitting in different locations. But if we say now in Herzl, we, of course, have to build the frame for the brand. We have to make sure that we define what categories, that we find what technologies that we put, you know, into research and into innovation and that we also support with systems so the headquarter roles will not be less important but it's not going to decide what shoes we're going to sell in a city on the other side of the world. And this is important because it means that we have to put decisions into the immediate level of the consumer, and we have to have strong local leadership that we trust. I think it's the same in politics and it is in the business. You don't need rules for everything when you trust people, and you can or you have to. make sure that you get rid of a lot of the bureaucracy because we have so many Hindernis in our business to do business both internally in our organization but believe me also in the market here in Germany within the EU and I think this has to change if not we will not be competitive. So with all this in mind we worked with different departments and different processes and identified work streams how can we reduce complexity and be more right in what we're doing in a more simple way. And these work streams, again, from the bottom up, not from the top down, identified that most of the complexities are actually being created in Headquarter. And we did then define that we have up to 500 roles here in Headquarter that are obsolete. It's not persons that have done anything wrong. It's not the person itself, but it's actually roles. and therefore we initiated then the program to see if we could, with a voluntary program, actually reduce these roles from 500 to zero. The process is underway. We still have, I think, two and a half weeks left to go, and then hopefully we have enough voluntary people in scope that will then leave Adidas so that we can do this in a very, what should I say, good way. Should that not be the case, there will be a social plan that will then, what should I say, support the rest of the leaders. Anyway, not a fun thing to do, but necessary if we want to be competitive and be the best adidas. And the best adidas in the current world is definitely a global adidas, but with a local mindset. And of course it starts in Europe where we are sitting with our headquarter and have the longest tradition. We have to be the market leader in this market. There is no excuse for us not being number one. And all functions here, including the business unit, needs to be sure that what we do in the market is the best and that we win. Do we then go to America? It's obvious that there are differences. The American sports, the college sports, the high school sports are all things that is very different than here in Europe. And there is no secret that the American brands are much better than the European brand in connecting to the American consumer because of this. That's why both in Portland and in LA, we now have creative centers, we have business units, and we'll be much, much more local in the way we invest in sports. and much, much more American we try to connect to the consumer. And this is necessary. If not, we will not be successful. And we have to admit, of course, we don't need to be number one in America because that's an illusion. The competitors are so much stronger. But we can definitely grow and become much, much stronger in the U.S. than we have historically been. Greater China, same thing again. A lot of consumers that are very interested in our sector, but of course it's the same thing there. The sizes are different. You can produce locally. It's only monobranded. You control the space. The influences are different. The sports are different. So again, here we need to give the local management the authority to go to market and produce the product that they want to have in front of the consumer. And don't forget, you can today not really export from China to the U.S., and at the same time, the China market should be supplied out of China factories. So for all intents and purposes, you have two different supply chains between China and America. We have only 3%, 4% of our products sold in the U.S. coming from China, so it's already almost 100% different. I am extremely important that we're growing double digit in China again, and any statistic you will see, you will see that we're taking market share. South Korea, very special market, very trend-oriented, the market that started the Samba trend, but also in general highly influential, both for the Chinese market and from the Japanese market. We have a creation center in Tokyo that then services both Korea and Japan. I have to remind you again that we had problems in Korea in November, that the roof of a major DC actually collapsed because of snow, and we still have a lot of product trapped in that inventory, which means that the growth that would normally be in there will not be so easy to do in the next couple of months because we're working on, of course, A, separate warehouses, but also to actually get access to the inventory that has been trapped. Japan may be the most conservative market in the world, very Japanese, very focused on having designs, materials, and quality being Japanese. And we have the same thing here with new management, Japanese, that is a very, very, what do you say, seniority guy in the industry market. full freedom also in working with the creation center and we have in very very short time connected much closer to the wholesalers and the retailers in the market and you see it pays out. LATAM I think all statistic I see we number one in LATAM number one in most of the markets a very agile team very focused on servicing the market big differences from market to market very successful in Mexico Even with the province in Argentina with high inflation and difficulties importing products, very successful and very, very happy with that development. As I said, I think we are clearly number one in that region. Our entrepreneurs are, of course, the people that take care of emerging markets, new markets, Middle East, but also markets like India, all the way down to Pacific. not really one market, but a cluster of markets that needs to be serviced individually of a group of people. And I think we have done tremendous steps in actually connecting with the consumer. The examples are, of course, the Indian cricket team and what we have done in India, but also, you know, prolonging with the All Blacks and focusing on the sports that are relevant. And now in Australia, after many, many years not being in the relevant sports in Australia, We are finally back again to be a real sports brand there too. Same thing here, extremely happy with the development and so much energy coming out of this team. One of the pictures here is the women-only stores that we have in Riyadh in Saudi. And I think if you 10 years ago had said we will have a women-only store in Saudi, you will not believe it is true. So a lot of these markets that, of course, have different systems and have a lot of problems, they are making progress. And in my opinion, sports is only helping and extremely proud of what we see in many of these markets. So 2025, we are already two months into it. And yes, the market is difficult and volatile, but so far we are in really good shape and feel that we are doing the right steps. We are, of course, taking the success of our Futura range and the brand heat and now also transferring that into apparel. You know that if you walked the streets last year, you saw a lot of tree stripe shoes from the Taras, from the Compass, from the SL72 and others, but you saw little apparel. We didn't push apparel into the stores, but we started to sell a lot of apparel through the online pure players and through our own channels, and now you clearly see that that visibility is increasing. So you will see a lot of retrofiles, you will see a lot of colors, you will see a lot of wovens, you will see a lot of new materials, and there's a freshness in apparel that we bring to the market that makes us very, very positive of the rest of the year when it gets to apparel business. And then, maybe backwards, but I'm 100% sure this is correct, when you are creating brand heat on the lifestyle side, it's also easier to get more distribution and more sales in the performance side. Maybe on football it's different because it's such a different segment, but bringing back the Predator and bringing back the F50 together with the sports and soccer culture we've done on apparel has, of course, given us tremendous growth in football. And you know when originals and football works, then you know Adidas is doing well, and we are very optimistic about the football range both for 25 and 26. Running, a huge category, and there's a huge... running boom around the world. And of course, we have not had the right product in the right amount in the right markets. But to be honest with you, we couldn't even do that because we couldn't grow more than we had because we couldn't even, in my opinion, execute it properly. So we focused on bringing innovation, do the zero line correctly, making sure we were winning marathons, that we signed up the right runs, very visible in all the marathons, and we are taking market share in all, I would say, the performance categories where people buy shoes to run fast from A to B. Now, when you then look at everyday running and comfort running, where all the brands have clearly done a better job than us, we finally have the right product range. So in the next 12 months, you will see totally new supernova range, you will see new boost material and new boost product, which will impress you. And I'm 100% sure that we will take market share outside of the high-end performance side because we have the right product. And in addition to that, the shoe you see on the screen is again the Adizero Evo SL, which is, in my opinion, the hottest running shoe now in the lifestyle area, although the shoe is also selling in a specialty side and in the sporting goods stores. I think we have it now in 92 different colors and materials, so a wide, what should I say, array of different looks on the same last in the same material in a very, very comfortable form. Basketball, surely the most difficult category to be big in given the strength of our major competitor. On the other hand, With the athletes we have, with the design direction we're taking and the price points, we clearly see that we finally are starting to get better results. And again, the business unit sitting in LA is for the first time real, what should I say, operational. And the things that are coming out of there makes us also positive. And you know, we need visibility with players and products in the NBA to sell our classics. So this is a major part of our strategy for the US going forward. And again, we will not be market leader, but we will take share and we are going definitely in the right direction. A category which we should be strong in training, we are making huge progress in markets like Europe and in Latin. We have not made the progress that we need in America. And again, we all know that this is a major focus for us going forward. We know that all the brands, new brands, are very successful in the U.S. We have seen new collabs, which I'm sure you read and looked upon. And, of course, we are working on collabs, different distribution, and I would say the key for the American market because going forward, training will be crucial for us both in apparel and footwear. The good thing is on footwear, we have now three franchises that actually work both in Asia and in America and Europe, so there are positive signs. But on apparel, we still have quite some work to do. And then outside these categories, because I could have mentioned many, many more, including golf, including US sports, including tennis, but of course you don't have all that time. What is important is that we will continue to invest more in the width of sports and in the depth of sport. That also means in smaller sports that are not commercial. And this is again in the spirit of Adi Dassler. We want to go back again to be the sports brand of choice for the athlete, also in smaller sports, where it's to get visibility and credibility and necessarily not to get the commercial success going. This creates energy and innovation. It creates fun for the designers. And the cost of being in these smaller sports is not necessarily huge, But I think we, as Adidas, should not even look upon the cost, and Harm has given me money, so we will continue. And you will see some announcements, but you will probably be surprised. But it's in the spirit of getting credibility, visibility, and fun with sports and athletes. And then, of course, you know, you ask, what kind of events can you then copy what they did last year? There are no events this year. Of course there are. The Women's Euro in Switzerland will be, in my opinion, a great commercial and image event for women's football and football in general. There is huge interest increase, and the offer coming out of us and other brands is much better than before. The television coverage is better, and that's why that is a huge event for us. The Women's Rugby World Cup with the All Blacks is fantastic for us, And you will start to see a lot of campaigns also going towards women's rugby. The Women's Cricket World Cup will be hugely important for the Indian market. And again, of course, then we support it. And then you have kind of the test for the World Cup next year, which is the Club World Cup that is going to be in the U.S. this summer, where we, of course, are the major sponsor and will have many teams. And then I can promise you, anything that brings us closer to the consumer through American sports, being in high school, being in college, being in any of the American sports, has high priority for us. And you will see that every month, every quarter going forward. So finally, we talked about this many times. We cleaned up our logos, the performance logo on the left side, the tree fall on the right side. We took Adidas away. because the logos are so strong by itself. We created a visual language for results, which you see here. You will see it doesn't matter if it is in Tokyo or if it's in Europe or America. The visual language is the same, but the content might be different. It might be local celebrities. It might be local products. But wherever you go in the world, this is how we look. And I think it's time right. It is us. I'm very proud of it. And when you then get to performance, We changed impossible is nothing to you got this. Why? Well, we think the attitude of you got this is much more right. It is trying to take the pressure away. It is having an attitude that I think we all would like to have, that we don't need to worry, because you should just do it. That's not ours. Because it is not only about winning, It is also about enjoying sports and enjoying what you're doing. And the attitude of these chapters have, in my opinion, been done extremely well by our creatives. And I'm going to play a couple ones because they really touched me. And if you're an athlete, you will now get goosebumps.

She's coming, guys. Good morning, Emma. Good morning, Emma. Come here. Come to me. I'm here now. How are you feeling? You okay? Come here. Hold on to me. Emma, listen. You only got 10 kilos. Your pace is phenomenal. Okay? She's good. She's good. Okay. She's good. She's good. Look at me. Look at me. You ready? You ready to go? All right, Emma. Let's go. Keep pushing, Emma. Final push, Emma. Let's go. Come on. I'm sticking with you. I'm sticking with you. I may hurt you. I may hurt you. Anything that you might do. Anything that you might do. I'm gonna do too. I'm gonna do too. Oh, yeah. I know you like that, boy. Want another one? Want another one? I got you. Stare! Stare! I'm getting heated up. Hold up. And that works for game. Hit! Hit! And the crowd goes, wow! Inside, babe. MVP! MVP! MVP! MVP!

I think we all need someone to make us believe, and as I said, if you've been an athlete or are an athlete, I think you know what we talk about at least. I think this message is so right. I think we made 52 of these stories, and they're all authentic. So you will see stories with stars. You will see it with not-so-famous athletes, and they all tell authentic stories, which is, again, in these days so important and important. I know who my plus one was, maybe you know too. So where does this bring us? As always, we give our guidance and as you can see here, excluding Yeezy, that means for the leaders brand, we promise you double digit growth. If we have Yeezy into the base, then of course it is first only high single digit growth because we need to replace the 650 million Yeezy product that we sold. in the year of 24. And if we had that all open under those circumstances, we promise you an EBIT and operating profit of 1.7 and 1.8 billion. I know you very well. You will say, why so low? And you get concerned. Of course, our ambition is higher, but you know that we will never go out and promise you something that we cannot deliver. And again, if you're sitting in February and you look at the market and you say, hmm, Are we going to have tariffs in the U.S., or are we not going to have tariffs? Are there going to be tariffs of all the countries? What is this inflation then going to cause in the markets? I think you need to give us a quarter or two before we start to talk about what the potential are. We feel very comfortable with this guidance, and then it might be, even if harm doesn't like to do an upgrade, that we will allow ourselves one later in the year. But again, this is what we promise you, and that is in... the environment that you all know that we cannot, what should I say, guarantee you what will happen in the world, but we can guarantee you once, that is, we will take market share. Our order book is good, our sale term is good, but we cannot control what is happening with total retail, and I hope, as good long-term shareholders, you will agree to that. So, We have been through this many times. We think we are on the way of delivering the 10% EBIT in 26. This is what we have said. This is the map. And again, everything being equal, the time for us is now. And I hope you then have some good questions, only two at a time.

Thanks very much, Bjorn. So the time is now for your questions. Maura, over to you.

We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and 1 on their telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and 2. Questionnaires on the phone are requested to disable the loudspeaker mode and eventually turn off the volume from the webcast while asking a question. Anyone who has a question may press star and 1 at this time. The first question comes from the line of from RBC. Please go ahead.

Oh, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question. My first one is just on the wholesale channel. I was wondering if you could give us an indication of whether there was any timing effects related to the delivery of wholesale orders, particularly in Q4. where the channel accelerated to a mid-20s run rate of growth versus a low teens number in Q3 and whether that would have any impact in Q1 of 2025. And then secondly, just within wholesale, just to understand, the European regional guidance is high single digit after a fairly strong 24, partly supported by football, we understand. Is there anything you're seeing in the wholesale order book for autumn-winter 2025 that gives you any reason to be cautious on the European regional outlook? And then my second question is just on the buyback, which is very nice improvement in the free cash flow generation and very nice improvement in lowering the debt load on the balance sheet. So congratulations on that. I think historically, Harm, you've talked about – the ability to revisit the share buyback should the net debt to EBITDA leverage ratio go below one times. On our numbers, we think that happens in 2025. So is there a scenario in which you may reinstate the share buyback perhaps in 2026? Thank you.

The way I count, that was three questions, but I'll answer the two first ones, and then Harm takes the third one. Nicely done. On the wholesale channel and Q4, impact on Q1, answer is no. There was nothing pulled forward. There was just, you know, either pre-orders placed and then a lot of reorders. So no impact on Q1, no. The wholesale number for Europe, which is high single digit, which could be 9.9% theoretically, we haven't seen any slowdown other than a lot of European retailers struggled in general. with, I would say, volatile demand. We have seen strong numbers, but we are in an environment where we have to take into account it's not only us. So given the growth we had last year of 20% and given that quite some of the retailers were flagging that they were nervous about the economy and the traffic and actually even now the last couple of weeks, the weather, I think that coming out at a high single digit was kind of smart to do. But the order book is strong, and our performance at the beginning of the year is strong. So there's no red or orange flags on that.

Yeah, first of all, thanks for the credit on the free cash flow generation. I appreciate that. And yes, I mean, first of all, It's very, very good to have a strong balance sheet in today's world and a more volatile environment where every morning you wake up and see some new news. So we're very, very happy that we've made good progress and there's a strong balance sheet. Now we're using that cash to build up our inventory as well. We shouldn't forget we have some seasonality as we go into more double-digit growth again into 2025. That's what we want to see happening first. I'm pretty sure we will generate a lot of free cash flow again in 2025. And whether we talk about a share buyback or not is definitely nothing for 2025. If the world is normalizing, we might look at that in the second half, what we want to do with the capital allocation. But rest assured, the capital allocation is first investing in the operational business, then paying dividends to our shareholders, and then we might consider a share buyback. But that is definitely a topic early for 2026.

Great. Thank you.

Next question comes from the line of Edouard Aubin from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Yeah. Hi guys. Thank you for taking my questions. So my first question Bjorn is on the competitive landscape. Obviously you don't have a crystal ball, but do you expect the competitive landscape to be more adverse than in 24 or less? I mean, if we look at the industry leader, it has been quite disruptive, you know, in terms of discounting and it's still today, but hopefully, things should normalize, but at the same time, they may also get more shell space in the second half of the year. So just your view overall on the competitive landscape. And then on the gross margin, so really impressive numbers in 24, given limited easy benefit and less benefit from China than historically. But if we look harm at 2025, so you kindly broke down kind of the moving parts in terms of headwinds and tailwinds and the 30 basis points. headwind from Yeezy, the market seemed to believe that kind of the tailwind in terms of the product cost and discounting would be about 50 to 100 basis point benefit offsetting, again, part of the offsetting the Yeezy headwind. You know, does that seem correct? You know, obviously don't guide, but, you know, in terms of your gut feeling, if that makes sense in terms of the magnitude of the potential improvement. Thank you so much.

To be honest with you, I don't think that the competitive landscape will change in a way that it will have impact. I think the only thing that worries me would in general be what happened with inflation, tariffs in the U.S., and how is the retail landscape in general. I don't see our competitors' actions having any impact. short-term impact on us. There has been quite some discounted product in the market for a long time and we still did very well on full price and I haven't seen any product launches or anything that I heard about that should have a material impact on what we are doing. There are of course the running brands that we talked about many times that are doing well and they will probably continue to do well but that doesn't really have an impact on our business. And I'm sure that the major player will work through his issues. But I'm sure he also needs some time to fix things. So I would say that we're not really looking at competitors and getting higher heartbeat. But we are, of course, you know, not aware of what will happen in the retailer market should this tariff thing start to move left and right, because it's obvious that that will make the retail market in the U.S. go down when it gets to volumes. But again, no one knows yet. As I said, if it is China only, it won't have any impact on us isolated because we hardly use China for the U.S. But there are many people using China, so it will create inflation anyway, and then we don't know what's happening. But no, we focus on the consumer in the different clusters and markets and feel that we have the answers for 2025. And then we will see if competitors are doing something, but we feel pretty confident right now. Harm?

Yeah, on the gross margin, it's a really good question. And what I need to remind everyone, we normally hedge, you know, 80% of the US dollars with Euro, other currencies as well. And we all see that, you know, the spot rates have been, you know, rather difficult for us in the last couple of months. Now they became very favorable today. When you look at some of the spot rates or how we need to hedge for the future as well, So what I'm saying is it's a very volatile environment from a currency point of view as well. And I can't confirm what you calculated there, Ed, but what I can confirm, you know, pending some things. Forget about Yeezy, the 30 basis points. We will definitely cover that. But I'm also very, very confident that we'll exceed what we have done in 24. So definitely we are targeting to improve what we delivered in 24 with a 50.8%. So we are confident towards this one. And, of course, there are always some external factors. I mean, we have a mid-year election in Argentina where we don't know what's going to happen. If Millet is, you know, going to be confirmed, then it could be even better. So, but the main message is, without going to all the puts and takes, we are very confident that we can, you know, improve compared to 24. Okay. Thank you.

Next question comes from the line of Anisha Sherman from Bernstein. Please go ahead.

Thank you so much. Biren, a question for you around tariffs. So you're going into your third year of strength. You talked about it being scaled up. Where do you think you are in the cycle for tariffs? And are you still seeing double-digit order book growth? And kind of how much longer do you expect tariffs to keep growing above the market? And then one for Harm, on your margin guidance, can you give some color on how you're thinking about sensitivity to top-line performance? So for example, if the top-line growth were to actually come in at double digits for the group as per your ambition, what kind of incremental leverage would you expect on the kind of 6% to 7% operating margin guidance? Thank you so much.

You have to remember that two years ago when we started the Samba and I think we indicated your tariffs because I don't think it was something that people knew what was. there was in the beginning no volume. So the real volumes that have gone to the market has really been scaled for the last, I would say, 16, 17 months. And you have to remember that Taras is just a sub-segment of classic court shoes. So both the Superstar and also the Compass is not the Taras the way we classify it. To the three shoes that are in the Taras area, the Special, the Gazelle, and the Samba, They are in different life cycles in different markets. And we manage these franchises now not as global franchises, but we manage them market by market. So it's obvious that the Samba are in certain markets at the level where we manage now the volumes. Although the order book demand is still up, we are starting to manage that. The Spezial is not at all, what should I say, managed because the demand is increasing in all markets. And the Gazelle is a shoe that is very good in some markets, but not really relevant in other markets. So it's a pretty, what should I say, mixed setup of how we manage them. Important for you is that we don't manage these globally, because global is average, right? I mean, if you sell 100 in one and zero in another, the average is 50, and it is meaningless. So we put all these shoes available for the markets. And then the markets are selling them, you know, both from a pre-order and also from a re-order with forecasts. And then we adjust that from a month to month and in certain markets, even from a week to week. The full, what should I say, block of tariffs is still not saturated, meaning that there is still growth in the area. But of course, at the level we are, you need to manage that. That's why it's important, for example, in the U.S. to start to scale the superstar over time. because that's a much more American shoe, especially for the male consumer than any of the three coming out of Taras. And remember, Campos came as a surprise and was also scaled in many markets. So we're not worried that three-stripe classic shoes, the way we manage them, still has legs to walk on. But of course, we need to make sure that we also put other products on the shelf. That's why the EVO SL, which doesn't come from court, but comes from running, was such a nice surprise for us because it took off like a rocket and it's scalable into millions of pairs, which we hadn't planned it to. In addition to that, you have the 3D printed shoe out of Climacool, which was also only meant to be a small thing. which are turning to be a monster. I mean, we can't produce enough of it, but it's an interesting thing because it's gone commercial in the retailer's eye. Then you have the first running shoe coming out of the LA Center, which is a shoe called Cocana, which all the American kids that comes out of American football loves, which will start to hit the market. Then you have, you know, the Mega Ride, which is our V-Stack answer to what is happening in the market. and you have the old Climacool and the equipment shoes that are trending. So we have a big group of running shoes that are in different phases of, what should I say, scaling them into the commercial, which is completely different than 12 months ago when we basically had SL72 as a test. So we feel when we talk to retailers that we can now fill the classic wall, Taras and other styles, and we can start to fill the running wall in addition to the basketball shoes that are starting also to do better. So we feel we are in a much wider shape than we were, you know, a year ago. And should we get to the stage that we feel that we need to discount any of the tarot shoes, we will, of course, you know, reduce the volumes. And remember, we do not allow discounting on any of the standards colors, only seasonal colors like everybody do on franchises. So with that, I give back to you, Hans.

Yeah, Nisha, on your question on the margin, and of course, if we get to our ambition to grow a double-digit report and compensate for the $650 million easy business, that will be incremental profit in absolute terms to the business as well, and that will be overproportional to what we are guiding right now. So there will be a benefit. But secondly, we also need to look at how the currencies are developing. I mean, if the dollar is getting to parity, we have a higher top line, probably on the same absolute profit. So it might have an impact on the percentage profit. The other way around, if the dollar is getting really weaker and the RMB would be weaker, then we have a higher percentage profitability. But first and foremost, the absolute profit would be favorable if we get to our ambition of double-digit growth and compensate for Yeezy growth. And then we always said we want to have a linear development towards our 26 target of 10%. So that is part of our ambition. And you can do the calculation of where we're coming from in 24. If it would be ideally linear to get to the 10%, that would be a good indication as well if you get to higher net sales. That's pretty much where we are.

Thank you. Really helpful.

The next question comes from the line of Warwick Okina from BNP Party Bike Zone. Please go ahead.

Thanks very much. Good afternoon. Two questions, please. Firstly, Bjorn, you talked about the need to simplify the organization. I don't want to underplay it, but is removing 500 roles in headquarters enough, or is that the extent of what you're doing? And then secondly, in your annual report, it shows that the cost of promotional and advertising commitments increased nearly 30% to to 8 billion euros. Does that indicate rising costs in maintaining your authority in sports or that you're just signing up your partners to longer contracts?

Well, the second one is just long-term contracts that have either been renewed or added. So there is not anything else to that. And as you probably know, we have re-signed some of the big ones. There are some announcements around the corner that So when you know all those, you will know where the math is coming from. The 500 rolls, is that enough? Well, it is enough the way we looked at it now. Remember that this is to reduce the complexity in headquarters. It doesn't mean that we're not going to add people in the markets. So when we did this analysis, and again, we've done it pretty thoroughly, this was what we identified to be the necessary steps in Herzog. That, again, does not mean that we don't need to do things other places in the world, but it starts with headquarters, and most complexity starts with that, with doing things in headquarters that hinder also doing things simpler in the way we go to market in the market. So I would say yes. I mean, and then, you know, we are moving people around on other, what should I say, programs, and we are hiring people in the market. So We don't say every little detail we do in the organization, but this in Germany is a major thing, right? Taking 500 rolls out of a headquarter in Herzog, you don't win the popularity price when you do that, right? And you shouldn't. But it is necessary, probably not short term, but it's necessary for us to start to work in a way that we get the best out of this brand. And I think both Harm and me agrees that even if it has a cost impact, you know, we have accrued for this. And of course, In Germany, getting rid of people costs something. We take the heat now. I think there's a quote that you should change the roof while the sun is shining if it's not too late. And we feel at least we have some sun, and that's why we decided to do it now. But not pleasant, I mean, as you can imagine.

Yeah, got it. Thanks a lot.

Next question comes from from Redburn Atlantic. Please go ahead.

Hi there, team. Just one question, really. Can you develop your thoughts about the future marketing model a little bit more? I'm quite struck by your observations about needing to do more in more sports and more locally, and yet you're recommitting to the 12% of sales number for marketing. which kind of suggests the return on that marketing is as high despite the evolution in model. Is that a fair way to think about it, and how do you think about it in coming years?

You know, marketing, there's no formula for what is right in marketing. 50% is emotional and 50% is rational. What I'm saying is that You cannot only invest in the big sports that are commercial, at least I think so. And I think Adidas needs to be different than other brands by having the Adidas attitude of being visible also in smaller sports and being there for the athlete. Not only because of marketing, the way it looks, but also internally in creation. Innovation people and designers love to work on things. that are different. If it is a ski jumping boot or a bobsleigh, what should I say, shoe, or it is a riding boot or whatever, if we can work on creativity that are outside things that you need to brief in to be commercial, you're creating this excitement which Adidas used to have. And I think we want to bring that back. And now you have to remember that if you're signing a soccer star, that can be $1, $10, $20 million. There's enormous investment in it. If you're signing a skier, You know, it's not even the shoelaces of a soccer player, right? So the point is that when you're doing $3 billion in marketing, you can find money to do things a little bit different than only doing running basketball, soccer. And that's what we're trying to do. The 12% in marketing is not scientific. It might be 11.5%. It might be 12.2%. But I think what we try to tell you is that we think that 52% margin, 12% in marketing, 30% cost gives you 10% EBIT. There are variants in this. Maybe we do 52.5% margin, and then you can do 12.2% marketing, and you're still at 10.3% EBIT. So I think this is not a simulation of exact numbers, but it is a philosophy. And I think we have an agreement about this. I hope you agree that doing cricket in India makes sense, both from an image and commercially. Having the All Blacks in rugby, although we don't play rugby in Germany, makes sense. Michaela Schifrin is the biggest superstar in the world. We can use her more. And you can go on and on and on, and you can find ways that can combine the emotional and the commercial in a way that it fits our, what should I say, Adidas vision. And don't forget that should you, you know, grow 10% every year, that's, you know, 2.3 billion or more, 10, 12% of that is 250 million. So even if you keep your, what should I say, percentage flat and you keep your long-term contract, there's always flexibility. And again, we have a snowboard in China, which is the biggest star now in China. Who would have thought that? We have a break dancer in China who's great. So, So again, this is a moving thing, and I don't have the answers, but I have hungry people that are trying to find things that are relevant, and that's what we're trying to do. There is no more scientific to that, because the ROI in marketing in your models, if they really worked, they wouldn't work again, because then we would all do the same. I haven't seen one model on ROI on marketing that works. So again... Nike paying three times more than we did for the DFB. I mean, how do you find a model that says that's the right? They still do it, right? So, again, there is a subjectivity in this and there's an emotional part. And the important thing is that the leadership and the markets agree upon the direction and that we kind of are backing up the investments that we're doing. And at least I feel of the last 18 to 24 months, we all have agreed to this. And any big investment we discuss in a bigger group. So I really, really feel that it is good. And in a couple of weeks, you will see a couple of announcements that I think you will agree to. And they are both rational and emotional.

Thank you.

The next question comes from the land of Erwin Ramberg from HSBC. Please go ahead.

Yeah, hi, good afternoon and congrats on the journey so far. So I'll stick to two. Thanks a lot for the useful reminder of the framework for margins. To get to 10% EBIT margin, I think you said you needed 50, 52% gross margin, 30% SG&A, 12% marketing expenses. You're already there on gross margin and marketing expenses. So should we understand that you'll get a lot more operating leverage on SG&A in the next year or two? And if that's the case, why do you get more operating leverage this year or next than you got last year despite very good growth? Is there a reason for an acceleration of that operating leverage? And then secondly, on the U.S., you saw a pretty fierce rebound in Q4 last year. I don't want to sound too short-term, but the past few weeks I've seen a few macro headwinds accumulating. At the same time, you're saying the US is lagging six to nine months relative to a few other markets. So should we expect, or is it your assumption that the US outperforms other markets this year, sort of playing catch up relative to Europe or other incredibly strong markets last year? Thank you.

Well, the second one, is of course that our assumption is that we should grow double-digit in the U.S. starting now and forever. I have to do a disclaimer, though, because we don't know what these tariffs will cost in the whole market. But with the lack of market share that we have in the U.S., but still, in my opinion, with a great infrastructure and the right focus, of course our goal must be to grow double-digit. every quarter or at least, you know, every double quarters or half year because you can all have variances within the quarter. So the answer to that is yes. And again, we believe that we should have the ambition to be number one in all markets except for the U.S. Why not number one in the U.S.? Well, we are so far behind and our competitors are strong that I don't think we should even say it because it's an illusion. But we should have a clear, clear goal with our management to give the tools that we can take market share constantly and become a much bigger sports brand in America because that is doable. In all of the markets, I don't see any rational reason that we shouldn't have the ambition of being number one. That doesn't mean that we will reach it in all markets. I know that would not happen. But I think any GM that works for Adidas in a market should be asked, What do you need to be number one if you are number two or if you even worse are number three? And then we should try to give him or her the tools to be number one. That must be our ambition with a brand that is 75 years old who has an awareness in the high 90s and have a global infrastructure. That's how we think. And then when it gets to the U.S., again, I don't know where you're sitting, but there is, of course, now the big question mark. Should he put tariffs only on China? Okay. then we will not really be impacted in the beginning from our own margin because we don't source from China. But the people that do source from China will, of course, raise prices, and then you have inflation, and when inflation goes up in a segment, then volumes go down, so it might also have an impact on us. Everything else being equal, we still have to take market share. So if the market is up, we will be up more. Should the market be flat, we can still be up. Should the market be heavy down, we should be less down. That's kind of the math on this, but we don't have any numbers on it. To your first question on your leverage, yeah, I mean, it's pretty obvious that You know, the leverage in the beginning of a turnaround is more difficult to get because we haven't really looked for any cost-cutting or real efficiencies. We have been looking at making sure we produce anything that the consumer wants. Service to the retailer and growth in front of the consumer has been important. Going forward, of course, we should try to find a leverage much more specific. So your assumption is correct. Okay. Thank you so much.

Next question is from Adam Cochrane from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon. Thanks, guys. First question, given the external volatility that you're talking about, can I just check, is that more macro related in the last few weeks than Adidas specific? I just want to clarify when you're talking about some of these concerns, whether it's something that you're seeing in your numbers or just something that you've might theoretically see in the wide.

No, no, I stop, you know, there's no Adidas. So we don't get a misunderstanding. There's no volatility on us, but there has clearly been, if you follow retail has been some volatility, uh, in traffic and conversion in the U S uncertainties. And there has been some uncertainty in Europe because of the weather and general consumption, but not with us. Uh, there is nothing, um, that, um, us internally on our own development zero.

That's brilliant. Then what I was going to ask is given volatility, can you just remind us how much you can flex your production and your capacity either up or down given the volatility is question number one.

Last year I improved my volumes in footwear by 45%, 140 million pairs, and I think in a pile it was 25 or something, so my flexibility upwards is always there. Flexibility downwards is different because then you have to, what should I say, work, I would say, by extending your delivery times, but it's all doable. The way we work with our suppliers and the transparency we have, we have a great deal of flexibility right now, to be honest. And don't forget that we have been a hot brand now to work with because we are growing 2.3 billion. So the growth in percentage might not be so impressive, but the volume for the suppliers have been very impressive. And you know how that works. They will tend to drive towards the people they believe will increase volumes, right? If all the brands are growing 20, 30%, but at the base of, I don't know, two, two and a half billion, that is of course in the big scheme, a lot, lot less for the supplier than for us. So right now I would say that the demand, or should I say the request from suppliers to work for us is pretty high, which is very different than it was 24 months ago where, you know, we have cut capacities. So I think we are in good shape. when it gets to having the flex that we need to do to control both demand from a positive side and then also to control at least mid-term inventory should there be a real problem in retail. But again, we're not at that stage yet. We haven't cut any orders yet at all and have an order book that has been growing until yesterday for both Q1, Q2, and into Q3 of this year. So There's nothing in our numbers that worries right now, but we all see the news, right?

And the second question is one that I'm sure you won't give me an exact number, but the success that you've had in increasing the full price sell-through, would you be able to indicate how much more there is to go in terms of full price sell-through? And then you talked about the US still having an opportunity. As a benchmark, how far behind the other market is the U.S. in terms of its full price sell through?

Thanks. I can't give you any exact numbers of that because it's impossible. You know, we have more than half our discount on our direct channels. So that tells you, you know, what has happened in our own stores. And, you know, the like for like performance we had in all our own channels was very strong. When it gets to the retail partners, you remember that our retail partners can discount whatever they want. We don't have the power to do that. But when we look at their margin with our product and their sales rate, it's enormously good. And then you know that even if should something slow down, I think we are far away from getting a lot of discounts because there are other brands that are on the shelf. with much worse self-truths that we are having. So right now, we still feel very, very strong when it gets to us having products where the retailers will make money with it compared to other brands, and we don't feel that we are under pressure to discount in our own channels for the time. I don't think we really have inventory issues anywhere, to be honest. So So right now, knock on wood, should the world be okay and should your friend not install tariffs in a way that it will create a lot of noise? I think we are in very, very good shape, to be honest. But again, we don't know.

All right, thank you.

Thanks, Adam. Maura, we have time for two more questions.

Thank you, sir. The next question is from Jurgen Kolb from Kepler Chivre. Please go ahead.

That's Frankfurt. That's Frankfurt. Nothing to do with tariffs. Just a quick one for Harm. You mentioned that you're expecting or hoping at least that the rating agencies may increase or may look deeper into the financials and potentially upgrade the rating. What impact would that potentially have, let's say, one notch or two notch improvements here. And then the second one for Bjorn, probably you mentioned it, that you have good transparency in the audiobook until Q3, and I was wondering if you could maybe fill us in on a little bit more details in terms of, you know, how is that broken down into lifestyle, leisure, performance, category-wise, region-wise, a little bit more more color on the order book that would be helpful. Thank you very much.

You know when I start to break that up it gets complicated. What I can tell you is that we have no markets that doesn't have a positive order book and we have no categories that doesn't have a positive order book. I think that shows you where we currently are. The flex between the different order books we need to be careful about because In 25, you can imagine we had a huge order book on soccer, you know, for the Euro, which, of course, is not there now, but then we have all the soccer products. So I don't think I can give you anything else that we clearly see. We're growing in both performance and lifestyle, and we have an order book which is positive in absolute all markets.

Good enough.

Yeah, when it comes to rating, Juergen, it just confirmed that we have a healthy P&L and a healthy balance sheet. But there's nothing we can really buy for this one unless we go to the next crisis that we have a better rating. But at the end of the day, we don't plan financing. We probably pay back the bond that becomes due at the second half of the year. And at the end of the day, confirmation of our roadmap is And it's a feel-good factor overall, but there's nothing that fundamentally changes our P&L or our balance sheet, just confirmation.

Understood. Very good. Thank you, guys.

The last question from today comes from Robert Kakonsky from UBS. Please go ahead.

Hello. I've got like two questions. The first one will be on top line. I just wanted to check the start of the year. The commentary was very reassuring. But I just wanted to see whether it's still double digit as we saw in Q4. So that's the first one on top line. And the second one, I just wanted to come back to gross margins. I appreciate that you guys expect expansion versus 2024, but it's quite impressive to see that Q4 24 was ahead of Q4 19. Should we assume that this kind of trend of narrowing the gap versus margins pre-COVID in 2019 can continue in Q1 2025 and Q2 2025? Thanks.

Well, the first one I don't think I should answer, but yes, the growth so far this year is double-digit than harm. I didn't say that officially, right? It just slipped my tongue.

Well, we shouldn't forget when they talk about the first quarter, we are probably on record right now. They're a really good start, but we shouldn't forget that we sold some Yeezys last year in March and we are comping these. So that's always the question, you know, with Yeezy, without Yeezy, that still keeps us busy when we talk about it. But yes, very good start to the year. When it comes to the gross margin, yes, the corridor is narrowing. That's what you can assume. We made good progress in Q4. That's a good assumption. But I want to reiterate again what I said earlier. You know, FX is probably neutral. But again, we are very, very confident that we make further progress. And just summarizing again what Bjorn said earlier, we are in the corridor with the gross margin. It's always, you know, not that difficult to spend 12% on marketing. And rest assured, you will see leverage on the operating overhead in 2025. And I just want to restate it again. We will not repeat the $200 million one-time cost. And, of course, with the complexity reduction program that we have, we accrued for most of that already in 2024, so there will be benefits as well. And we will make good progress from where we finished in 2024 with 34 percent to also make there hopefully linear progress to what we need in 2026. expect that to be a focus for us and the one KPI in our little formula that we haven't achieved yet, but that's what we're working on. Great. Thanks.

Thanks, Robert. Thanks very much, Maura. Thanks very much to Bjorn and Harm. And also thanks very much to all of you for participating in our call today. As always, in case there are any further questions, please feel free to reach out to Adrian, Philip, myself, or any other member of the IR team. We're also very much looking forward to seeing many of you over the next couple of days and weeks as part of our roadshow activities. And with that, thanks very much again for your participation. All the best. Bye-bye. Take care.