Hermes Intl Sa Unsp/Adr

the Q1 publication results for Hermès International. I'm now going to hand over the floor to Mr. Eric Duelguit, Executive VP Finance, and Ms. Carole Dupont-Pietri, Head of Investor Relations. Over to you. Good morning, everybody. Thank you very much for joining us. The group's consolidated revenue reached 4.1 billion euros in the first quarter 2025, up 9% at current exchange rates and 7% at constant exchange rates. The group recorded solid growth in Q1, despite a high comparative basis last year. At the end of March 2025, currency fluctuations represented a positive impact of 49 million on revenue. At the end of March 2025, all the geographical areas posted growth. More on that later. The group reinforced its investments this quarter in its production capacity with three additional lever workshops for the next three years, as well as in the other divisions, the distribution network and the supply chain. True to its commitment as a responsible employer and its desire to share the fruits of growth with all those who contribute to it daily, Hermès will be distributing in 2025 more than 500 million euros to its employees in respect of profit sharing for 2024. The group continues to create jobs to support the division's growth. Our outlook for 2025 remains unchanged. In a more uncertain economic and geopolitical context, the group has moved into 2025 with confidence thanks to its highly integrated artisanal model. Our strong growth allows us to prepare for future economic uncertainties. Over to Carole now for the regional figures and the division breakdown. Thank you, Eric. Good morning, all. Let's take a look at the business with the different regions, and evolutions are given at constant exchange rates. At the end of March 2025, all regions posted growth. The main trends are the following. We have Asia, excluding Japan, that is at plus 1%, despite a particularly high comparison basis, and despite the downturn in traffic in Greater China since the end of Q1 2024. Sales have been driven by the loyalty of local clients and have benefited from the house's value strategy. In March, the Taochung store reopened in Taiwan after expansion work. And in Thailand, the store in Bangkok's Central Embassy Mall reopened in January after renovation and extension work. Japan, plus 70%, recorded a regular and sustained growth driven by the loyalty of local clients. America, plus 11%, posted good growth following an exceptional performance in Q4-24, supported particularly by the solid momentum in the U.S. in March. Two store openings are planned in H2 in Phoenix and Nashville. Europe, excluding France, is plus 13%. France, plus 14%. Good results thanks to sustained local demand and dynamic tourist flows. In Italy, our Florence store reopened after renovation and extension works. And in Paris, the 15th Sceaux Hermès event was celebrated. In March, very successful at the Grand Palais. The other area, plus 14%, which mainly includes Middle East, continues its momentum. Let's take a look at the different divisions, different métiers, still at constant exchange rates. Lever goods and saddle weave métiers plus 10% achieved robust performance with new models for bags, Médor and Mousqueton. The increase in production capacities continues with the upcoming inauguration of the Lille d'Espagnac Lever Goods Workshop. and also in Loupe in Cheyenne and Charleville-Mézières in the Ardennes region for 26 and 27 respectively. They will reinforce the nine centres of expertise located across the national territory. Hermès thus continues to enforce its anchoring in France and creating jobs there. The ready-to-wear and accessories sector, plus 7%, confirms its momentum. The Women's Autumn Winter 2025 collection was successfully presented at the beginning of the Marche of the Garde Républicaine, and the Men's Autumn Winter 2025 runway show was also very well received in the Palais Diana in January. The silk and textile sector grew 5%. thanks to its broader and more enlivened range. Perfume and beauty remain stable, continue to grow with Terre d'Hermès Eau de Parfum Intense, imagined by Christine Nagel. For Hermès Beauty, we now have the new Rouge Brillant Silky, available in 14 permanent shades and a limited edition of three lipsticks. In a still challenging context, the watch continues its strategy. based on its complications, and the house also unveiled at the Geneva Watches and Wonders exhibition new complications, or iconic complications, the temps suspendus. The new porcelain tableware collection Hermès Encontrepoint was unveiled in January and the other Hermès sectors are at plus 6% driven by jewelry. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, you can now ask your questions by dialing the key star and then one. Please keep to a maximum of two questions. First question from Luca Solka from Bernstein. Over to you. Good morning. Thank you very much, Eric and Carole. I have a question on your progression across the quarter. Have you seen with the news from the US any changes in trends? Have you seen, for example, a slowdown in some regions attributable to the increase in tariffs? which would probably affect April more than Q1. But have you also seen any impacts with job destruction in the U.S.? ? where some of your competition are seeing some weaknesses appear. Thank you very much, Luca. First of all, to answer your first question on America, we've grown to the tune of 11% in Q1. It's virtuous growth because there is a scope effect and a price effect that... is of about 5%. So double-digit growth, and you can see it in the US, Mexico, Canada, and Brazil. So it's really all of the Americas. In Q1, we had a start of the year which was a bit slow because of climate events and the fires in LA, whereby we had to... close our stores in Beverly Hills and Topanga. And then there were also a lot of snow in some states, such as Florida, as unlikely as this was. The beginning of the year was also affected by very low stock levels in the U.S. Our Q4 stock was very good in 2024 with plus 22%. The teams were very motivated, but our stock levels were quite low at the beginning of the year. And then March was very good for us in both the East and West Coast, thanks to the replenishment of stocks. So good performances for all the divisions in the U.S., At the moment, there is no changes in that trend for early April, which might not be very representative because we only have two weeks' worth of figures, but we don't see any changes in trends. Now for the other regions, because that's also what your question was kind of driving at, for the tariffs more specifically, at the moment the tariff levels have not been set or not set in stone at any rate. And since the 9th of April, we have an extra 10% tariffs because that's what is applicable to the EU. but we've compensated the gross effect of that extra 10% by increasing our prices in the U.S., and we'll do so from the 1st of May. And we'll do this across all the different divisions and businesses, that price increase. So we remain cautious. because we know that these announcements have a huge impact on the financial markets and the impact also on the dollar, which went from 1.03 to 1.13 today. Thank you very much. Just an additional question on stock levels. You said, Eric, at the beginning of the year that Q4 sales were very good. But what about the other region? What about the stocks for lever goods? Are they at the right level? Well, stocks have gone back to a normal level. You might have to wait a month or two here and there to have the optimum level of stocks. But we are pretty much back to normal everywhere. Next question, Charles-Louis Cotillet from Kepler-Chevreux. Over to you. Hello, thank you very much for taking my question. I have two. Question number one on your performance in Asia-Pacific bar Japan. It looks like things were improving at the end of the year, but growth has slowed down once again in Q1. Can you give us a bit more granularity on the greater... China performance. Is it down to the drop in footfall or is it the conversion rate going down? Second question on tariff, you're going to compensate that by a price increase. Could you give us an idea of the price increase that you're aiming for at beginning of May? So for Asia-Pacific, There is a small amount of growth, but with a high comparison basis because growth was at 14% in Q1 2024. Now, for Greater China more specifically, we're pretty much flat compared to 2024 and compared to Q1 2024, in spite of a high comparative basis. We had a very good, for example, Chinese New Year last year. So this year, once again, we were able to sell as much as in 2024, which is in and of itself a good performance in the current context. We don't see any changes in trends in the Asia-Pacific area. That's the main takeaway. Now, when you look at Taiwan, we have... Very dynamic growth there with a value strategy and very loyal customers. In Macau, the situation is a bit more complicated with a drop in Chinese tourists. Hong Kong, no huge changes in the trends. We saw that there was a drop in tourism from mainland China and the competition also from Shenzhen. So we have a lot of people from Hong Kong who go to Shenzhen. But Hong Kong remains an important financial hub. So we're not expecting any changes in trend. For continental China, no major changes either. No disruption in the trends that we saw in Q2, Q3 and Q4 last year. There's one positive macroeconomic indicator which is good for us. Real estate and exports remain quite difficult. Exports are difficult because of tariffs. But when it comes to consumption, the Chinese government has implemented a number of policies. which we believe will be positive. So consumption is the third pillar of China's economy, and it seems to be about to look much better. But in China, we still had good performance in spite of a high comparative basis. We're going to continue with our value-based strategy with small evergreens, jewelry, and ready-to-wear products. which is going to allow us to keep revenue levels at what they were last year. And we are perfectly in keeping with our budget we had prepared for this Q1, and we are perfectly in line with what we had anticipated. Your second question on the price increase, well, we haven't set things in stone. We are calculating things. It will come out soon because the price increase will be enforced on May 1st in less than two weeks. Next question, Thomas Chauvet from Citi. Over to you. Good morning, Eric and Carol. Two quick questions. First of all, could you maybe give us a breakdown, volume, price and mix for Q1 for the main categories? It seems that there's a drop in volume for most divisions in Q1 apart from lever. Do you believe that... Some entry prices, some categories are a bit weaker because they're exposed to an aspirational client base. And could you maybe tell us about the negative impacts of currencies in 2025 that you mentioned in February during the annual results? Tell us also about your currency hedges and the drop in the value of the dollar and the RMB. Now, regarding the price volume breakdown, what you can see is that our mature markets, France, Europe and Japan, are areas where we are posting solid growth and areas where volumes are also increasing once you've removed the price effect. It's worth highlighting this because in these complicated times, local customer bases play a very important role for the group and helps us secure growth. For the U.S., as I said, the volumes have increased, certainly in China where things are a bit more complicated, although there is a high comparative basis effect. The divisions that are struggling the most, and it's mainly because of China, it's silk and fashion accessories and watches also, as you have seen. watches where the comparative basis was very high, with a very good Chinese New Year for watches, where we sold our iconic products, but also high-value watches with high levels of complication. And extrapolating growth with the volumes is a bit misleading because we started with low stock levels, especially for lever goods. Now, for the currency effects, no changes there. We're expecting a negative impact for our markets. P&L but we're covered for that what might change is our coverage or hedging for 2026 but it's too early to say that and then there's the conversion effect whereby this gap between the constant and current growth will probably be smaller the gap will be closed down Next question, Edouard Aubin from Morgan Stanley. Good morning, Eric and Carol. First question. Eric, the consensus is a speed-up of growth over the next few quarters. Of course, you have a crystal ball, but earlier you mentioned that... You were expecting a slowdown in growth for Q1. Do you think that growth is going to pick up and you're going to have a double-digit growth going forward? That's my question number one. Second question, on the headcount, you have... had a lot of employees join over the last couple of years, and I believe that you also have ambitious targets for 2025. You talked about a 10% to 12% increase in the headcount. Is that correct? And could you maybe give us a bit more color also on your distribution network? because the distribution network has grown or will grow by 3% for 2025, but lever goods production is going to increase by 6%, 7%. How are you going to reconcile all of this? So the first question on growth, yes, we remain ambitious and true to our ambitious objectives, although we, of course, remain cautious because of geopolitical changes that impacted the financial markets. At the moment, we haven't seen any impact, but we remain very conservative whilst keeping this ambitious growth target. We're not looking at double digit growth, just single digit growth. We continue our recruiting. especially for production. So for the upstream, we've got lever good production workshops that are in the pipeline. So we're going to grow the headcount, but it's going to be single-digit growth. And all our different divisions are growing and recruiting. And so back to the question, we're looking at what kind of numbers for 2025? An additional 1,000 to 1,500 people. Are you talking in net? Yes. Yes, indeed. It is net compared to a basis of 25,000 people. Next question, Adrien Duverger from Goldman Sachs. Hello, Eric and Carole. Two questions on my side. First of all, you talked about the performance of the divisions in China. Could you maybe say a word about the U.S.? I imagine small-level goods will continue to perform well because demand is so high. But have you seen any changes in the other media's performance, those that don't have these volume constraints? And second question on China. Can you maybe comment on China in light of your experience there? Do you see any changes in consumer behavior? Or do you feel that Chinese clients have a different perception of European luxury goods? In the U.S., no change in trends. The growth that we've seen there is attributable in a smaller part to lever goods because of low stocks at the beginning of the year. But for the other divisions or the other media, no changes in trend. And then for China, we haven't seen any changes in consumer behaviors. Nothing about dupes or anything like that that you might read in the press. No changes in customer behavior in China. David Amaya from CIC. Good morning, Eric and Carol. A technical question on the tariffs. Yes. Can you use after sales to reduce the impact of tariffs in the U.S.? Could that be a way around price transfers? The interpreter apologizes, but the sound quality is very poor from our speaker. Will the price increases only concern the United States, or is the price increase going to be more global? Well, the price increase that we're going to implement will be just for the U.S., since it's aimed at offsetting the increase in tariffs that only applies to the American market. So there won't be price increases in the other regions. The price increase at the beginning of the year was 600%. But the second question, sorry, I didn't really catch it on the tariffs because of the sound. But the price that is going to be factored in for the calculation of the tariff is going to remain the same. So we see how we can offset. And all of the countries pay a wholesale price, which is calculated on our costs in France. That policy remains the same.

question is from the english channel with ashley wallace of bank of america please go ahead uh thank you very much good morning eric and carol thanks for taking my questions i have two please um the first question is just back on inventory availability you mentioned that you had low stock available in both the us and some other markets in q1 but i was wondering if there's a way to potentially quantify the impact that this had on your revenue growth in the quarter And as supply improves into the second quarter, should we expect revenue growth back to double digit from Q2 essentially? The second question is just on Europe, which remained quite solid. I was wondering if you could give some color between how locals versus tourists performed. And maybe if I could just like actually add one more question just on the tax. and the price increase coming through in May in the U.S., can you just confirm whether that price increase will be on the 10% confirmed tariff for today, or you're going to attempt to offset the full 20% proposed for the European market? Thank you.

Hi, Ashley. So thank you for your question. So we confirm that regarding inventories, the impact is just limited on the Q1 concerning the very strong Q4 and sequential impact we had. And as Eric mentioned that, just the level of inventory just should come to a more normal level, maybe one month or a little weeks more, but we will come back to, I would say, normality in terms of inventories for the rest of the year and the impact on the P&L. Just regarding Europe, what you saw is just a trend which is just dynamic, both with local demand and tourist flow. Just Eric mentioned also with different nationalities, just U.S., Middle East, some parts of Asia, well, just not just the Chinese tourist flow regarding the trans. Last point regarding the tariff, maybe you can just precise a little more.

I guess on the tariffs at the moment, there's a 10% blanket tariff for moving production or moving product into the U.S. for right now, and there's a 90-day repeat on the 20% potential tariff that will potentially be put in place for Europe. So I was just wondering when you do the pricing in May, will it be to offset the initial 10% tariff, or will you look to do the 20% tariff that's being proposed for Europe?

The weight that we have regarding this tariff is 10%, and the idea is just to fully – offset this impact, I would say this growth impact in 2025, considering this new tariff with this increase of price on all the different materials for us in the U.S. from 1st of May.

Okay, thank you.

in addition to your question uh the growth in in europe is uh we can observe that in uh in uk italy as well as germany switzerland spain austria and so on so it's a homogeneous growth throughout all the countries in europe and the The biggest nationality in terms of export sales are, as Carol mentioned, Middle East and U.S.

Thank you. Very helpful.

This conference is from Melania Grippo with BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. This is Melanie Agrippor from BNP Paribas. I've got two questions and a clarification. First, if you could please give us a little bit of details of what are currently we see in Korea, how is the environment there, and maybe if you could state what is your performance. My second question is on the first top 25 profitability, how should we think about it in light of your Q1 growth and also the impact from hedging. And finally, the clarification on the inventory level. When you mentioned this, it just referred to leather or also to other categories. Thank you.

Regarding your first question on Korea, we still continue to have a significant growth, more than double-digit. We do not see any adverse context, considering that other brands are facing difficulties. We do not see any change. Regarding the margin, of course, we are in line with our objectives today, as I mentioned, for sales. So there is no doubt for uncertainty regarding profitability, but we remain very cautious given the geopolitical risks and the big impacts on the financial markets, which could at one step impact some customers. But for the time being, we do not see it. And we do not see any significant change for the forecast this year.

Just sorry, on the inventory level, just clarification whether this is just leather or also other categories when you mentioned the low inventory level.

Mostly on leather. For other materials, we are in line with our normative criteria. Thank you very much.

We have no further questions for the moment. Well, I suggest that we wrap this up just by saying that Hermès, over the first quarter of 2025, posted a revenue of 4.1 billion, which is a record. better even than Q4 2024 with the Christmas figures. So we're growing across all the regions, and in these uncertain times, the loyalty of our customer base is crucial. likewise for the quality of our products and the commitment of our teams that allow us to prepare for economic and geopolitical uncertainties with some confidence. And Hermès is a strong group because of its long-term strategy, which I think has paid off, and you've seen the latest figures for the share price. Thank you very much. And if you have other questions, do not hesitate. Thank you very much and have a great day. Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you very much for taking part. You can now sign off. Thank you.