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Moncler Group said sales were up 15 per cent year-on-year to €2.98 billion for the year ended 31 December 2023, driven by a surge in sales in Asia. Results beat analyst expectations.
By brand, Moncler revenues were up 17 per cent year-on-year to €2.57 billion, while Stone Island revenues were up 2 per cent to €411.1 million in 2023. Both brands also saw fourth-quarter revenue increases of 17 per cent for Moncler and 7 per cent for Stone Island (both in constant currency).
“2023 was an important and special year for us: it was the 10-year anniversary of our listing on the Milano stock exchange,” CEO Remo Ruffini told investors on Wednesday. “And we are celebrating this milestone with an excellent set of results.” He noted that sales had increased more than five-fold in the last 10 years.
By region, Asia drove the strongest growth for both Moncler and Stone Island in 2023. Moncler revenues were up 25 per cent year-on-year, and Stone Island saw 12 per cent growth. Mainland China was the primary growth driver, said Roberto Eggs, chief business strategy and global market officer. Japan, Korea and the rest of the Asia-Pacific Region recorded strong double-digit growth in Q4. Luciano Santel, chief corporate and supply officer, noted a massive increase in tourists to the Japanese market as a driver of the brands’ strong performances.
The Americas fared worse. Moncler revenues increased just 1 per cent in the region in 2023, and Stone Island revenues dropped 19 per cent year-on-year. “Performance continued to be impacted by challenging trends, mostly among department stores,” Eggs said. Stone Island CEO Robert Triefus also flagged the brand’s Frieze partnership as a bid to raise the brand’s American market presence.
For EMEA, Moncler saw growth of 13 per cent, and Stone Island (for which the EMEA region is the most important, according to the company) recorded 3 per cent growth year-on-year.
Performance in Asia, and China in particular, has been hit or miss in recent luxury earnings. While some, including Lanvin Group, OTB Group and Kering, have seen growth in the region, others have reported a dip. Mytheresa, for instance, saw sales decline, as did L’Oréal. The latter attributed this, in part, to the impact of a travel retail reset. The Americas are also rocky across luxury. Some companies are reporting a slow return to growth in the region: Mytheresa said the US aspirational consumer is reappearing, and Hermès’s growth was driven by the US. Others, like Moncler, continue to feel the heat. Kering, Tapestry and Ralph Lauren were down or flat.
DTC posited strong growth for both brands in 2023, but wholesale lagged. Across DTC channels, Moncler was up 22 per cent year-on-year, and Stone Island was up 16 per cent. Wholesale revenues were down 5 per cent for both brands. The strong DTC performance offset wholesale decline, Eggs said. He attributed Moncler’s US wholesale impact primarily to the conversion of Nordstrom and Saks and an ongoing effort to upgrade the quality of the group’s distribution network. Wholesale also remains strategically important for Stone Island for visibility and brand presence, Triefus flagged.
Eggs noted that the group is taking a “qualitative approach” to wholesale to account for high volatility and pressure on prices. This means reducing volumes of product sold to retailers and focusing on switching the business to the group’s own sites. “The true brand barometer is DTC, and that is where we want to push in the future,” Eggs said.
Triefus — who was appointed as Stone Island CEO in May 2023 and joined the company’s earnings call for the first time — also shared insights into his work at Stone Island to date. “It’s now nine months since I took on the role at Stone Island, with my first six months dedicated to getting to know the company and the brand,” he said. This, he says, helped inform Stone Island’s business plan going forward.
Triefus shared insights on Stone Island’s next chapter. “While we began to raise the visibility of the brand in Q3 and Q4 last year … It was really on the first day of Milan men’s fashion week in January of this year that we kicked off this next chapter with a signature brand event and the worldwide launch of our new advertising campaign,” he said. The sequencing of the Frieze partnership, fashion week brand image event and ad campaign launch in close succession reflects the group’s plan to heighten Stone Island’s visibility and presence.
The leadership team declined to share the anticipated gross margin growth trajectory for 2024. Moncler Group does, however, plan to continue to reinforce the Moncler brand’s three dimensions (Collection, Grenoble and Genius) that have been the focus since 2022 and to push forward on Stone Island’s next chapter, which, it says, began in January. Already, Eggs said, China is off to a strong start, with Chinese New Year driving positive performance in local markets over the past eight weeks.
“Looking at 2024, I see an operating environment that remains complex and unpredictable,” Ruffini said. “So we continue to remain agile and reactive. And even more importantly, we will continue to invest in our organisation and in the exceptional talent within our group today. We still have a lot of dreams and many goals to achieve.”
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