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Welcome and thank you for joining the Montclair Group First Quarter 2024 Interim Management Statement Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, then we signal an operator by pressing star and zero on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Ms. Elena Mariani, Group Strategic Planning and Investor Relations Director. Please go ahead, Madam.

Thank you, Operator, and thank you all for joining our call today. The Interim Management Statement Call is hosted by Luciano Santo, Chief Corporate and Supply Officer, and by myself. I will start providing a brief overview of our results, and then Luciano and I will be happy to take your questions. Before starting, though, I need to remind you that this presentation may contain certain statements that are neither reported financial results nor other historical information. Any forward-looking statements are based on group current expectations and projections about future events. By their nature, forward-looking statements are subject to risk uncertainties and other factors that could cause results to differ even materially from those expressed in or implied by these statements, many of which are beyond the ability of the group to control and estimate. Let me also highlight that given the nature of our business, interim results can be influenced by seasonal effects and therefore cannot be taken as a proxy for full-year trends or results. Finally, I remind you that the press has been invited to participate to this conference in a listen-only mode. Now, starting on page three of the presentation, I'm delighted to announce that as a group, we achieved revenues of €880 million, up 16% at constant effects, with a particularly strong double-digit contribution from our core BTC channel, both at Moncler and at Sun Island. Moving to page four, let me say that there is no better way to start our brand section than commenting our unique Moncler Grenoble experience. In February, Montclair unveiled its Grenoble Fall-Winter 2024 collection during an unforgettable two-day brand experience in St. Moritz, which brought people from all around the world into the Grenoble universe, bringing together high style and high performance. This included among various events a ski experience with global athletes, such as Sean White or Perrine Lafond, as well as a very emotional show in the forest attended by several celebrities. I'm sure you probably caught a glimpse of this on social media, but the event had a very strong media impact and has been instrumental in further authenticating this distinctive brand dimension, which is the closest one to our Moncler DNA. But it wasn't just about St. Moritz. Still talking about Grenoble, if you move to page five, you can see that in Q1, we continued our all-year-round journey, launching our second spring-summer Montclair Grenoble collection on the back of the successful introduction last year, together with a new season of our trail grip with a very powerful and catchy campaign, which you can see among the pictures. Talking about Moncler Genius, we launched a collection in partnership with Rock Nation by Jay-Z, representing Moncler's first-ever TV advertising in the U.S. during an NBA game. The strong narrative around genius is everywhere had a strong reach globally, allowing us to connect to new and wider communities. Finally, when it comes to our main collection, I just wanted to flag in particular the strong plan behind the launch of the men's spring-summer 2024 collection with a very powerful campaign featuring actor Joaquin Forel, which has been extremely well received globally. Moving to page six, let's talk about Stone Island brand initiatives. First, let me highlight that during a signature event on January 12th, the first day of Milan Men's Fashion Week, Stone unveiled its new brand manifesto, The Compass Inside. You might remember the video we presented during our fiscal year 2023 results presentation. This was a very important moment for the brand, given that it marked the opening of our new brand and communication chapter. And just after these events, we launched a new, very powerful global advertising campaign for the first time featuring members of Sun Island's cultural community wearing emblematic pieces from the Spring Summer 2024 collection. Finally, I just would like to highlight that Stone inaugurated its first ever major U.S. archival exhibition in Los Angeles, coinciding with Freeze LA, bringing to the U.S. rare and previously unexhibited pieces from the amazing Stone Island Archive. Talking about numbers, let's move to page seven, where we're going to start with the Moncler brand. We're happy to say that in the first quarter of the year, the brand grew by 20% at constant currencies. And looking first at the performance by region, Asia was up 26% in Q1, driven by very strong growth in the Chinese mainland, despite, I have to say, a very challenging comparable base and also a further increase in Chinese consumption outside of the mainland. Both Japan and Korea also continue to deliver a very solid performance, with Japan obviously supported by the significant tourist flows into the country. India was up 15%, accelerating sequentially compared to Q4, and this was supported by a further improvement in tourist purchases, but also by solid consumption among local European customers. Q1 revenues in Americas were up 14%, improving compared to the previous quarter, and boosted by a strong performance in the DTC channel, which more than compensated the decline in wholesale. Looking at mutual revenues by channel on page 8, we are delighted to say that in Q1, the DTC channel recorded an extraordinary performance, up 26%. improving sequentially both in the physical and in the digital channel. All regions recorded very good double digit growth in DTC, with both INEA and Americas improving compared to the previous quarter. Wholesale revenues were down 5% in line with management expectations due to the ongoing conversions as well as to the progressive efforts to upgrade the quality of the network. Let me take this chance to reiterate that we expect this channel for Montclair to remain negative through the course of the year, and we still expect to end 2024 with wholesale revenues down approximately high single digits. Moving now to Sun Island on page 9. Revenues for the brand were down 5% at constant currencies, with a strong double-digit growth registered in the DTC channel, partially compensating for the decline in the wholesale channel, which is still the most important channel for the brand. Looking at trends by region, Asia grew 27%, mainly driven by the very strong performance of Japan. Trends in Korea improved sequentially compared to Q4, although they remained softer than other parts of Asia. The performance of the Chinese mainland after the initialization of the market was impacted by the ongoing restructuring of the distribution network, which, as you might remember, was started at the end of December 2023. EMEA revenues were down 12%. The DTC channel saw a very solid double-digit performance, but this was not enough to offset the decline in the wholesale channels. And finally, the Americas region saw a decline of 25% in the quarter, mainly due to the challenging trends in the Joseau Channel, but also to the ongoing efforts in upgrading the quality of this channel. Looking more specifically at Stone Island trends by channel on page 10, The DTC channel performed particularly well and grew by a very solid 31% in Q1, improving sequentially in all three regions with a particularly solid performance in Asia and India. Wholesale revenues instead were down 23% as planned. For Stone, this is the largest quarter in the year for this channel, and it was impacted both by the challenging wholesale market trends but also by the very strict volume control we continue to adopt in the management of this channel. In fact, as you can see from the pie chart, the share of revenues from the wholesale channel continues to shrink, now representing 56% of the brand's Q1 revenues compared to almost 70% in Q1 last year. As a reminder, we expect stone revenues in the wholesale channel to continue to decline and to be around approximately high teams in fiscal year 2024, a bit more negative in the first part of the year compared to the second part of the year. Last but not least, let's briefly examine our store network on page 11. At the end of March, Moncler retail stores reached 275 units, while Stone Island stores were 83. Over the course of Q1, Moncler saw three net store openings, while Stone saw two net store openings. And finally, as usual, on page 12 and 13, we have two wonderful examples of recent STO network initiatives. For Montclair, we have highlighted the opening of Nanjing IFC in China. And for Stone, we have the relocation of Hankyu Men's in Tokyo. We reached the end of the presentation, so I will now hand it over to the operator for your questions. I kindly ask you to stick to a maximum of two questions per person to give all participants the opportunity to ask something. Operator, you can now open the Q&A session. Thank you.

Thank you. This is the Coruscall conference operator. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and two. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. We will pause for a moment as participants are joining the queue. The first question is from Edward Owen with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Yeah, good evening, Elena and Luciano. So two questions. So your performance was very broad-based at Montclair but particularly impressive in Asia. So when we step back, why is the appeal so strong of the brand in markets like China and Korea? And is the growth driven by kind of repeat purchase versus recruitment or both? That would be question number one. And then question number two may be a bit tricky, but if we look at, you know, your very strong performance in Q1 at Moncler Retail at 26%, the comp base gets easier in the remaining nine months of the year. So should we expect the momentum to continue at this type of growth for the remainder of the year? Thank you.

Okay, thank you, Edward, for your questions. First question about Asia. I mean, Asia, I mean, as we reported, did very well. China, but not only, because something important to highlight is that all the different markets in Asia performed very well. Chinese mainland, but also the countries close by China, like Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Japan, Japan. did very well. We need less to say because this is something common with other brands. Good business with locals, that's very good. And let me say higher than ever business with Chinese customers coming to visit Japan. And Korea still very solid. Why is that? Difficult to answer. I can tell you that Actually, I mean, talking about China, mainland specifically, I mean, our strategy in the past is not something that we implemented over the past few months or a couple of years. has been seen several very clear based on the very clear brand strategy that has been driving all our business decisions including distribution strategy and this is something very important to highlight because as you know very well In China, we have a significant number of stores, but not many, not in all the cities. And we have carefully looked at some specific locations in some important cities to open not only visible stores, but also to open over the past couple of years some important flagship stores. And this has been very important, first because, I mean, with such important stores, we can drive more business, but also because these stores are very powerful ambassadors of our brand. So, I mean, overall, I can confirm what you said. Sorry, I can't give you a better, more precise answer, but I think that this is the result of a strategy, and not only, because also we know we have an organization. In China, in the retail, in the DTC and not only, that is very, very strong with their very first priority, the customer experience, the customer satisfaction. So again, long story short, I think that the brand in China... is very strong and let me say not only in China itself but with the Chinese customers because business was very strong in the first quarter not only in that market but also in other markets still with the Chinese customers. The second question is actually very tricky and important thank you for the question because it gives me the opportunity to clarify something that is important the first quarter results have been very strong and we are extremely happy about this result but it will be a big big mistake to extrapolate these results over the next three quarters i mean we maintain our view about this fiscal year that is based on the current very uncertain situation, scenario, that makes us very prudent and very vigilant. So the way we plan our DTC business this year, as always, let me say, but this year more than ever, is very prudent and again let me say it again but we show you know very well that we normally plan our dtc business with a comp of mid single digit and with the space contribution of mid to high single digit and this is the way we have planned our upcoming fall winter season. Of course we also know that if for any reason hopefully the market demand should be better than what we plan right now we have developed a quite flexible supply chain able to react up to more or less 10% to the eventual or full higher demand coming from the market. And this is what happened last year, by the way, in fall-winter 23. But again, this is our current view. Any more aggressive, optimistic extrapolation is something that we don't endorse right now. Another important point I want to highlight, and then I'm done, is about Q4 of this year. Q4, of course, is by far the most important quarter for our business. Last year, Q4 was extremely good, specifically in November and December. were the strongest two months of our history for several reasons, including weather that was particularly favorable in some regions like China. So this year we see very difficult to replicate those results. And so again, our view for this year, notwithstanding very good results we are reporting today for the first quarter, our view for this year is still positive. unchanged. Very prudent and prudent we are as management team very vigilant on what may happen or may not. Thank you.

The next question is from Louise Singerhurst with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Hi, good afternoon, Eleanor and Luciano. Thanks for taking my questions. I just wondered, firstly, on Stone, absolutely fantastic result. And I presume, you know, obviously we've had the transition, more focus on DTC. I presume what we're seeing now is the fruits of the rebranding, the relaunch, so i.e. it's upwards and onwards from here, just to make sure that we're not seeing anything else in the past. for Stone Island. And then just on the second question, I wonder if I could just ask about the US. Obviously a very nice performance again in Q1, sort of an acceleration from Q4. Obviously the wealth indicators and the wealth signals that we see in the US are very constructive for luxury consumption, but do you think now that we are on a forward trajectory for the US consumer and seeing a bit more or less volatility? I know at the full year you talked about quite a volatile pattern that was happening for the US consumer week on week. Thank you.

Thank you, thank you, Luis, for your questions. About Stone Island, I mean, the first quarter reflects exactly our view for the year, more or less. Obviously, what we said on Stone Island for this year is that we expect a flat-ish top line. Q4 was down 5%, but there was an impact of a sale in Q1 and Q2. The same will be in Q2, so in the first half of the year, higher, deeper than what we expect in the second half of the year. Having said that, behind this flat or slightly negative number, there is a nice positive, strong positive number in DTC and of course a deep decline, a deep negative number in the wholesale. This is exactly what we expect for this year. Wholesale will be down for sure in the high teens, as I said before, hopefully offset by a stronger, a good performance, a good increase in the DTC channel. The top cost is something that we are strategically planning and trying to execute for the brand. Of course, it will take time, because again, if at the end of the year should make what we expect right now, what I just told you, we will be very happy, but still very cautious that it will be still a long, long story to build. I mean, to change, to convert the business model from wholesale to DTC, but also to convert the business, again, something I said several times, we need to build that kind of retail DTC culture that needs some time. So this is, I hope I answered your question about Stone Island. About the U.S., yes, you're right. The first quarter was very good also because something important that Helena highlighted is that the wholesale business in the U.S. was negative. It was negative for several reasons. I mean, first of all, because the wholesale channel is under pressure everywhere in the U.S., even more than in other regions. And also there is the negative impact of the conversions of Nordstrom and Sachs we did last year, blah, blah, blah. Something you don't know very well. And so the DTC business actually did well. Having said that, you touched the word volatility. Honestly, I have to tell you that in the U.S., we still see the business more volatile than in other regions. And so... Results are good, but we are very vigilant in all the regions, but in the U.S. even more, because business has been good in the first quarter, but with ups and downs. Of course, the average was a significant up, but again, it's not still that stable yet. growth you can expect or you were probably thinking about. So U.S. good but still volatile.

Thank you. The next question is from Anilor Abismos with HSBC. Please go ahead.

Yes, hi, good evening, Lucien and Elena. I will speak to the two questions. So the first one is on current trading. Could you give us a bit of color on current trading and some granularity by region, please? And the second question is on Stone Island and more broadly on M&A. So we have heard in Arendelle that you could do another acquisition. Is it fair to assume that this won't happen until Stone Island is right on track? Thank you very much.

Okay, thank you for your questions. Let me start from the second question because it's very easy. We are not looking, not even thinking of any potential acquisition, not now, maybe in the future, who knows, but definitely not now, also because we are all as management team, including also Mr. Ruffini, very busy all day long with the two branches. Moncler and Stone Island because both of them have a great potential. But in order to take advantage of this potential, we need to take care and to work very hard. So the first question, current trend. I mean, current trend, of course, talking about the first quarter, let me say again that the results were good. Let me give you some more color. I mean, January, very good. March, very good. February, extremely good. Because, I mean, in the back of the Chinese New Year, business was extremely good everywhere. Of course, in the Chinese mainland, but not only because... Something important to highlight for this quarter was that Chinese customers traveled around the world, of course, in the countries close by China, but also in Japan more than ever. We said before the contribution of Chinese customers in Japan was very good. And more than, not more than ever, but much more than last year, they traveled to Europe. and the contribution of the Chinese cluster in Europe was still a little bit behind what it was in 2019, but not so far, and getting closer. So again, thanks to Chinese customers, but not only, thanks also to the other nationalities, thanks to local customers, business in Cuba was very good, and in February, particularly good. Current trend, of course, for what is worth, because we are talking about three weeks only of business in the, let me say, least important month of the year for our business, that is April, also with some uncomparability due to the Easter date that this year was in March, this year was in April, blah, blah, blah, but in any event, April is good, is positive, but on a much more normalized trend, much more normalized trend. So good, positive, but not strong as much as the results of we report for the first quarter. Again, something that we keep observing, positive, but is strictly related to three weeks of business, so not necessarily particularly meaningful.

Thank you.

The next question is from Chiara Battistini with J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead. Hello, hi, can you hear me?

Sure.

Hello. Okay. Thank you very much for taking my questions. Good evening. First question, on your performance within the Moncler brand by category, within the 26%, I was wondering if you could share some color on how to think about the different categories within the Moncler brand and also in outerwear, the instance of carryovers versus lunas. performance. And the second question, I was wondering on the return on events like the one you had in St. Moritz, I was wondering if you could share some snippets on how to translate these events into financials, for example, the store traffic you've seen after the events or conversions or e-commerce. Any idea on how to convert these events into results? Thank you very much.

Okay, thank you. Thank you, Chiara. About your first creative product category, I mean, all the different categories performed very well, quite well. Something important to highlight because the first quarter is at the intersection between the end of fall-winter and the beginning of spring-summer season. And what I can tell you that, I mean, to some extent may have helped Our results was the weather. I mean, you know that we don't like to talk about weather because it is totally meaningless in the long term, but I mean in some specific weeks, in one month or two months, may help the business or may not. January and February were quite cold. And this had not only the end of the fall-winter season, but in particular the category, the outdoor category, that of course... contributed to some extent also on the average selling price. So afterwards, in the first quarter, it performed very well, but again, for this specific reason. Looking at the collection overall, I can tell you that the appreciation for the new spring-summer collection still is very good, which makes us very happy. about the future and of course I mean the appreciation for the end of the full winter season was very good I mean overall outerwear is still our leading category but needless to say that I mean not just in the first quarter but overall the knitwear is growing faster than outward and also other categories that are still smaller are growing faster. I mean our strategy, product strategy is still what you know very well to increase increase the width of our collection and to invest more and more in the other categories. But in the first quarter, again, AltaWorks performed very well. About the return, of course, the financial return is something quite difficult to evaluate, even more in the short term. These kind of investments, like the event we held in St. Moritz, the event was literally extraordinary, and also for the impact, the media impact of that event. Of course, the media impact is constantly measured through all the different metrics that are reached, that are the engagement, that are in the media pages. And so, again, without giving you specific numbers, but the impact was very good. Of course, this is very important, not just, not only for the first quarter, but for the future of this brand, because you know that Grenoble is one of the three pillars, and let me say the second by importance pillar of our strategy. And we all, as management team, honestly strongly believe in the potential of Lenovo because it totally represents the heritage of Moncler. And so again, something important to highlight is also that today was not only the event very strong, very impactful, but the collection we presented during the event It was really beautiful and not just, this is not just my own opinion, but I mean everyone said that the collection we presented was something literally better and different than any other collection we presented in the past.

Thank you very much.

You're welcome.

The next question is from Thomas Chauvet with CC. Please go ahead.

Good evening, Luciano and Elena. Thank you. Two questions, please. The first one on the Montclair brand, Q2 used to be just 10% of sales historically given seasonality. It's trending towards 15% of your full year sales as part of your, you know, all year round product strategy as you discussed. Can you comment on how you're approaching this particular Q2 24 from a, you know, product standpoint, communications, events? And then related to that, Luciano, coming back to your April comment of more normalized retail growth, consensus Q2 retail is about plus 15 for the Montclair brand. Is that a good estimate for April? Secondly, on Stone Island, strong retail growth, plus 31. Could you provide an indication of how much space contribution there was in the quarter? I think the network... was up about 20% year-on-year. I guess that includes some conversions. And then within like-to-like, I'm sure you're measuring that particularly for this brand, what was the components between volume, price, and mix? I would guess it's probably still a lot of volume growth. Thank you.

Yes, Thomas, starting from your last question, of course, we can't provide all this kind of detailed information about Stone Island, but what I can tell you is that the 31% incorporates space, for sure, because it's something important to highlight. I mean, we converted some shopping shops in department stores, like in Milan and Rome, like the Bancorp in Amsterdam, from wholesale retailer and but also with organic growth was quite important i mean let me say half and half okay fifty percent space fifty percent organic organic growth and okay volume and price i mean it's totally meaningless honestly and for for one quarter for one quarter only The other question, which was your first question about spring summer and second quarter. Okay, I mean, spring summer is doing well. I mean, let me say that last year, As you know, we reported very, very strong results, and so this was good last year, but the bad of this year is that we faced and we compared with very, very tough, very difficult numbers of last year. But again, the current trend is good, as I said before. Whether or not we can make consensus is something I don't know. But what I can tell you is that second quarter specifically, our view is much, much softer from the results point of view than in the first quarter for several different reasons. One reason is that the second quarter is still quite weak from the DTC point of view. And there was a channel that historically last year also in the second quarter made an important contribution of business. This year will be down for the reasons mentioned. we said before. So second quarter specifically, I don't know, but we do not expect a strong growth rate. First, because again, we compare with last year, it was particularly strong. And second, for what I said about wholesale. Something important to highlight about the spring-summer collection is that we keep investing in product, in category, but we invest more than ever. In communication, something I like to highlight and remind everyone is that last week, during the Design Week, we held that event that was very, very successful to take over. the train station in Milan and this is something that again was particularly impactful and was purposely held in that week not only because it's a very high traffic week in Milan not only in Italy but also because I mean, it's a season, the spring-summer season is a season that, different from the past, is becoming more and more important for Montclair. Thank you. You're welcome.

The next question is from Charles Scotti with Kepler. Please go ahead.

Yes, good evening. Thank you for taking my questions. I have two. The first one, would you mind sharing with us the breakdown of the Montclair 26% constant FVTC growth between space volumes and price mix? And more specifically, if you could tell us what was the comparable sources for Moncler in America, because I'm quite impressed by the performance there. But I just want to check if there is a disproportionate impact of space in the region compared to the group average. And then my second question relates to pricing. You have been particularly active between February and May last year. So in this context, is it fair to assume that the pricing impact will remain quite relevant in Q2 again and then will vanish during the remainder of the year? And year-to-date, since you have raised prices by 3% to 4%, are you satisfied with the current price levels and price gap that has narrowed to, I guess, around 33%, 35%, I think? Or should we expect further price actions during the rest of the year? Thank you.

Thank you, Charles. I mean, your first question, of course, we're not providing all these detailed numbers, but we just to give you some colors about the 26%. Of course, Of course, space and COMP, let me say that COMP was the highest contribution of that number. This is for sure. How much... price, how much volumes, I can tell you that, I mean, back to what I said before about the collection, the cold weather, blah, blah, blah, I can tell you that price, but more specifically price mix, was higher than volumes in the first quarter of the year, differently from what we normally plan to in the long term in the long term in the 12-month period the business you know that we normally expect volumes a little bit higher than price but in the first quarter price but again the price mix and not the price itself was higher about the pricing policy specifically and you know that our price increase we are planning, I mean we plan for this year, is around mid single digit, a little bit higher in the first half of the year than in the second half of the year, to your point, and of course much lower than last year. So in price increase, let me say inflation itself, And our product this year will be much, much more moderate. About the price gap, I can tell you that for the first time, and not now, but in the coming fall winter season, our price gap with China... will be slightly below 1.40%, which is good because, as you know, we are working to decrease this price gap. I mean, we have been working since many years ago together with Roberto on the price gap to reduce it and to achieve one day in the future, but hopefully soon, probably in a couple of years, our target that is 1.3%. So for the first time it will be slightly below 140. Normally a price gap I'm talking about with China is the same also with the other two markets, important markets in Asia that are Korea and Japan. But this year specifically something of course you know very well. Prices in Japan, due to the deterioration of the local currency, are lower, about 5% compared to China. So Japan right now, and also we plan for winter, the same, is more convenient. 5% as compared to China. Do you mind if I answer your question?

Yeah, and shall we just to be a little bit more precise on your first question? So, no, there is no abnormal space of contribution in the first quarter. You know we don't report it separately, but I just wanted to reassure you that there is nothing really standing out compared to China. the yearly indication of something in the region of 5% to 6%. And then in terms of price mix and volume, it was about two-thirds price mix and one-third volume.

Okay. Thank you very much for this clarification. Thank you.

The next question is from Pilar Tatania with RBC. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good evening, Elena, Luciano. So my first question is just on revenue performance in Q1 by product line. Obviously, there's a lot of positivity around the Grenoble launch at the end of last year. Could you just help us understand whether between your main collection, Genius, and Grenoble, there was either any of those which outperformed the other and what your expectations are for Grenoble for the rest of the year. Can you see that increasing as a percentage of the mix, which I think is around high single digit currently? And then my second question is just on the APAC region again. Obviously, very strong growth, as others have alluded to. Perhaps you could provide a few more details in terms of the growth rates, which you called very strong in mainland China. Are you able to quantify that for us? and maybe also give us some indication of maybe what the Japan growth rate was, and also, if you could, what percentage of revenues are being generated by Chinese nationals onshore versus offshore. Thank you.

Okay, Piero, thank you. About your first question, product-wise, categories, something I said before, hardware, stronger in Q1, not extremely strong, not much different from Q4, but in any event, thanks also to the positive weather we showed afterwards. Talking about what we call the pillars of the brand, Grenoble performs very well. Honestly, very well, but not much, much better as compared to the rest of the collection. Of course, Grenoble is again something strategically we strongly believe in because we believe there are great opportunities and we are very happy to see the business keep growing. Of course, it will take time. The Grenoble contribution is already quite strong, high single digit, close to the double digit. And so we expect to pass the double digit soon. So again, the Grenoble Collection, that was not what we presented during the event, but the Grenoble Collection performed very well. Again, something that you will never see overnight, a big, big, big difference, a big result, but in any event, we are very happy with the performance of Grenoble.

And then your second question was about some more color around Asia, Asia Pacific, so APAC growth in Q1, China, Chinese cluster, Japan, and then in particular you asked about Chinese cluster, how much was local versus tourist, right? Sorry, just to make sure we didn't miss anything.

It was. I'd appreciate it. Sorry, I know there's two questions. Just a bit more color on APAC to the extent that you can give it would be great. Thank you.

Okay, about the Chinese cluster, I mean, China, I mean, we just said, I mean, the Chinese cluster performed very well in China, but also in APAC and in Japan, and this is something, I mean, everyone related, and we we did highlight because it was something not unusual but much stronger than in the past was the inflow in Japan of Chinese customers. So Japan performed very well thanks to a single digit increase growth of the Japanese cluster but also thanks to an important contribution of Chinese customers. Other countries, Korea still performed very well. Korea, as you know, has been very solid since 2019, including the COVID period when it was the only country that kept growing and it is still doing quite well. So, I mean, this is the column I can give you about Asia. Again, the Chinese cluster is still very good, but all the different nationalities are very good. Japan, of course, local customers in Japan... still good, but of course Japan's situation behind the deterioration of the local currency and there is also the reaction of some brands including Moncler to increase prices in order to protect our margins and this is having some impact on the local consumption, but nevertheless the Japanese cluster is still positive.

And Pirao, so all the countries you've mentioned, so mainland China, Japan, Korea, they all grew double digits. So there wasn't one specific country that massively outperformed others. So China mainland was up double digit. The Chinese cluster was up a very good double digit. About 70% of spending for the Chinese customer cluster was local versus about 30%, you know, outside of mainland China. And about the cluster, so it's actually still around one-third more or less of the total retail sales because other clusters grew quite nicely as well in Q1.

Very helpful. Thank you.

The next question is from Chris Dow with CLFA. Please go ahead.

Good evening, Luciano and Elena. This is Chris Dow. Thanks for taking my question. I have two. So the first question is related to the Olympic impact on the timing of your new product introduction and promotion. So we know that this year Paris Olympic will happen in late July to early August. And just wondering if it will impact your full collection introduction. Do you consider to introduce your full collection earlier than normal years? Or do you plan to do some core customer CRM events possibly earlier, maybe in the late June? So just wondering about if there's any seasonality impact coming shift in terms of a CRM event as well as new for the launch. So the second question is related to the Grenoble. Luciano just mentioned about a very strong growth momentum of Grenoble. And as I also covered China's right now, we definitely note a very explicit trend that Chinese clusters strongly uphold the functionality technical apparel, carbon running shoes are selling very well. So we wonder for Grenoble, as a strongly functional product collection, do you see Chinese growth is even higher than overall collection? And what's your detailed plan in terms of the Grenoble stores launch maybe in China onshore? Thank you very much.

Okay, Chris, thank you for your question. About Olympics, honestly, we don't see any impact coming from Olympics and we are not taking specific actions for the upcoming Olympics in Paris. So nothing, honestly, I can tell you about Olympics. Talking about Grenoble, of course, Grenoble is doing very well. Again, is growing a double digit but I mean all our business have been growing double digits in the first quarter and honestly I can't tell you that I mean we see stronger results coming from Grenoble in China, not much stronger than in other regions, but I can tell you for sure, not for sure, but this is what we believe, that the potential in China, for exactly what you said before, is very, very high, something that will grow step by step, but we see a potential for Grenoble growing very, very strong in China for the next years. I don't know if I answered your question, but if you have some follow-up, let me know.

Yes, just for the first question, just have some follow-up. Actually, my question is related to your, if the Olympic timing will impact any of your, you know, full collection introduction or shelf, or will it have any impact on your CRM event timing? Yeah, this is my question.

No, no impact on our deliveries, honestly, and no specific change in our CRM activity. That, of course, is still very intense, but not more, nothing different from what we do normally.

Understood. Thank you very much. This is very helpful.

You're welcome.

The next question is from Rogerio Fujimori with TIFO. Please go ahead.

Good evening, Luciana and Elena. I have two questions. The first I was hoping if you could help us how to think about the phasing of marketing investment this year, given that you had the Grenoble event in February and you have the Genius event planned for the second half. And my second question is about Chang. Could you remind us about your store opening plans in China this year? Thank you.

Thank you for your question. About your first question on marketing sizing, an important question because this year will be different from last year. You may remember that last year in the first half of the year there was an important impact, a much higher percentage than the second half of our marketing activity. This was due to the event we had. we have in London for Genius. This year, we expect a much more balanced marketing budget. between the two different periods, the first half and the second half. This is because, I mean, of course, in the first half of the year, we are activating many, many initiatives, not only the event in St. Moritz that we talked about, but I mean, and also a very constant campaign, advertising campaign and communication, whatever. So, I mean, our voice is constantly on the market, but also because, as you said before, we have an important investment planned for the second half of the year, When, where, and what is something that we have not disclosed yet, but details will come soon. And store openings in China, I mean, of course, overall, we have for not China only, I mean, worldwide, we have, as you know, about 15 new openings. And for this year in China, we are talking about six openings.

The next question is from James Grignich with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Good evening. My question has been asked for the sake of making most of my time. Can you perhaps, talking about clusters again, on the European side of things, if we split out from the 15% growth you reported in Q1, could you tell us what locals would have grown by in Q1, please?

So the growth of Europe on locals only? Yes, please. Correct. Of course, we don't, I mean, report this kind of precise number, but again, I'm happy to give you some color, but I mean, not much more than what I said before. I mean, in Europe, it was very good in the first quarter, of course, and it was very good because, I mean, the business... with the local customers is still very strong, very good. But also, more than last year, the business with other customers coming to visit Europe, specifically Chinese customers, was very good. And this was much better than last year. Of course, together with the business we did with Americans, with the Korean, these three American, Korean and Chinese customers are the three most important nationalities in Europe. So the new factor I want to highlight is that the Chinese cluster contribution in Europe in the first quarter of this year was good and much higher than last year. But overall, also the business we did in Europe with the local customers was very good.

Thank you, Luciano. You're welcome.

The next question is from Antoine Belch with BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.

Yes, hi, good evening. Actually, I've got only one question. If you would follow up on. One question regarding the store openings. As you mentioned, out of 15, there should be six in China. Is it possible to have a bit of a breakdown of the nine others? And also taking into account that you're sort of like enlargement, you know, plans, what sort of, you know, increase in the average I think last year it was a low single digit, if I'm not wrong. Thank you.

The new openings, Antoine, the 15 new openings, pretty equally distributed over the different regions. In China, as you said, six new openings. But, I mean, in all the different markets, we have some openings. Talking about the expansion projects, of course, I mean, we have... There are some projects, most of them are associated with the relocation of some stores. I can give you some examples. We are relocating in America the store of Atlanta, the store in Hawaii, Kadakawa. There are also important projects in China. is our Nanxin Daily store. It is one of the most powerful stores we have, not only in China, but worldwide for sales density. And we are expanding that store to take advantage of the high traffic and high business. And, I mean, many, many others. But these are the most important stores.

Perhaps, Antoine, the only thing to say is that when it comes to openings, they are concentrated mostly in Asia and in America partially, so broadly equally split, while for EMEA there is a much more significant activity when it comes to relocation and expansion, actually probably just relocations and expansions in EMEA. So maybe that's the only thing that is important to flag.

Thank you. Maybe on the average increase of the size of a store this year, would it be much different from last year and that low single digit number?

I mean, it will be more or less in line. I can tell you that maybe a little bit less because, again, I don't have the number. But even if I had, I could not disclose this number, not for a quarter. But in any event, last year, I mean, we did the sum. very important expansion projects. Just to mention a couple, I mean, the Plaza 66 in China, in Shanghai, Zurich store, the Biennial store. And so for this year, we don't have such an important number of expansion. I would say that the most important is what I mentioned before, which is in Beijing, that again is a very important store, and we will double the space. But also the new stores we are opening, of course, you know that the average size of our new openings is higher than the average, of course, depending on where we open, because in department stores, when we open a concession store in the department store or in a sub-retail store, because we have some projects in sub-retail, normally have a lower size than the average. But again, nothing particularly significant, not this year, not as much as last year when, again, the summer projects were particularly important for sizes.

Thank you very much.

The next question is from Paola Carboni with Equitasim. Please go ahead.

Yes, hi, good afternoon everybody. Thank you for taking my questions. I have two. The first one is about the normalization you have mentioned for Montclair in April. I was wondering if you can provide us some more color in terms of nationality. So which nationality? have slowed down most compared to the trend of Q1 and also if you can comment specifically about volume as far to assume that volume are still positive in any case in the last few weeks and second question is instead about Stone Island in particular following up on your comment on the like for like trend or kind of like for like performance you have mentioned in the mid teens range can you comment on that by region so just to understand which region is performing better is driving the d2c performance of stone island excluding space let's say thank you yes paula about the normalization again we're talking about a few weeks business so not particularly

Beautiful. Honestly, there are no regions that are performing particularly well or particularly bad. A region, but not only the region, but a cluster that is, of course... Particular alteration for everyone is China and Chinese cluster and I can tell you that the performance is still good, still positive, but overall with no exceptions. Again, good performance but not strong as the results we reported for the first quarter. So honestly, again, I don't know what other color I can add, but I think that this is an explanation I can give you. About Stone Island, an important question, because something I didn't say, even if it was in the speech of Elena. There is a market for Stone Island that is definitely outperforming that is Japan. So in Japan, yes, we are doing particularly well, and it is totally, totally organic growth. Of course, in the future, I mean, we are planning, we are thinking of a potential extension, but right now, I mean, again, our strategy is to keep building the business organically, and I can tell you that Japan still is very good. Other regions, just to give you some more color, still good, but less. I mean, Europe still good. Korea good, positive, but honestly still struggling. China, I mean, it is still premature, but something important to remind you is that we, in short, internalized the distribution of China, generally first of this year, But the first action we took, as you know, was to close half of the stores because locations were not something we were particularly excited about. So right now we have really to build a new chapter about the brand, about the distribution. And so China is something that I hope to... to have more elements to talk about maybe one year from now. But again, long story short, a market that is definitely outperforming is Japan.

Thank you very much.

And not something that they suggested me with local customers because business of Stone Island is not particularly affected by the inflow of Chinese customers.

Okay, so thank you very much to everyone for participating in this call. I think we're done with the Q&A session. For any follow-up questions, do not hesitate to contact myself or the rest of the IR team. We're here tonight, so just drop me an email in case you need to get other questions answered. And as a reminder, our H1 2024 Interim Management Statement will be released on July 24th after market close. and our quiet period will start on June 26th. Thank you again, and have a great evening, everybody.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over. You may disconnect your telephones.