RVRC Holding AB
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Earnings Call Analysis
Summary
Q3-2024
Revolution Race reported a robust third quarter with net sales increasing by 16% year-over-year to SEK 478 million. Despite market pressures, the company achieved a gross profit of SEK 342 million, up 14%, although the gross margin slightly decreased to 71.5%. Operating income (EBIT) rose by 16% to SEK 101 million, maintaining a margin of 21%. Inventory increased to support future sales. The brand's digital D2C model and strong customer community underpin its growth. New financial targets aim for a 20% annual sales growth and a continued EBIT margin of 20% over the next three years.
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Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone, and welcome to this conference call where we will first address the report for the third quarter of the fiscal year 2023 and 2024. And yesterday evening, the Board also decided on new financial targets for revolution rate, and I will today also discuss the new targets and describe the rationale behind the new financial targets that we announced yesterday. My name is Paul Fischbein, and I am the CEO of Revolution Race. And with me today -- for today's conference call, I have the company's CFO, Jesper Alm.And for those of you who are not familiar with Revolution race, I will start by giving you a brief introduction. Revolution race is an outdoor brand, offering a wide range of outdoor products, mainly clothing, but also shoes, bags and other products. Everything started with pants, and that category still accounts for more than half of our sales. Revolution raise was founded in 2013 and launched in 2014. So we recently celebrated our 10-year anniversary. We've been listed on NASDAQ Stockholm since 2021. Our headquarter is located in Boras in Sweden, and we have approximately 120 employees. What really makes us stand out is our digital presence and engaged customer community and also high customer satisfaction. We know how to communicate with our customers resulting in more than 600,000 unique product reviews and more than 1.7 million followers and fans on our social platforms. Our vision is to become the most recommended outdoor brand in the world, and the mission is to make nature accessible to everyone through what we call unmatched value. We operate with a digital D2C business model, meaning that we skip the middleman and sell our products directly to our customers. We do this through our own website, Revolution race or through marketplaces such as Amazon.But also when we sell through marketplaces, we focus on the D2C model. By doing so, we can offer products with an affordable quality. And I think that it is really important to understand this part of our model as this is a clear unique selling point. Because by doing so, we can secure a competitive offering and at the same time, maintain strong margins. But also, the model makes it possible for us to act fast and for example, reactive changes in the industry, but also make it more easy for us to enter new markets. Revolution race is today an international brand, and this picture illustrates our international presence. We now have customers in around 40 countries with a total of 18 localized web shops. We are currently fulfilling orders at 2 main logistic hubs in Germany and in Sweden and with a smaller location also in the U.S. We have all the employees working out of Sweden, and we designed all our products in-house, but work together with more than 25 suppliers for the production in Asia. So now let's take a look at the performance and net sales development for the third quarter of the financial year '23 '24. We are pleased to report another strong quarter with solid growth. During the quarter, net sales amounted to SEK 478 million compared to SEK 440 million a year ago, and this represents a sales growth of 16%. We believe this performance is strong since we, at the same time, also note many reports indicating that the market continues to be challenging. We think this is a consequence from both a weak consumer sentiment in many markets, but also since we see many discounting activities continuing in the market. We continue to deliver growth in all regions. Sales growth in the DACH region continued at 18%, in the Rest of the World region at 20% and the Nordic region grew by 5% compared to the same quarter last year. It is pleasing that for the third consecutive quarter, we have managed to grow in the Nordics, which is the market that has shown the toughest consumer climate. Equally pleasing is that we are increasing our market share in all regions, which is a proof that our offering remains strong across many markets.And if we look even closer at other highlights during the third quarter, as I mentioned, we are achieving solid growth in a market that is still considered challenging, characterized by discounts along with weak consumer sentiment. And again, I think this really demonstrates the strength of our business model. Naturally, we are not unaffected by the dynamics in the market, but we still managed to maintain a good gross margin of 71.5%.The EBIT for the quarter amounted to SEK 101 million. This corresponds to an EBIT margin of 21%. And this is an operating margin that we are pleased with, given the market conditions. Inventory has increased, but as planned to facilitate higher sales volumes going forward and continues to be well balanced. We have a strong financial position with a net cash of SEK 272 million. And on top of this, we also have undrawn facilities of SEK 600 million in place.During the third quarter, we also initiated a share buyback program and among other things, to adjust the capital structure. And during the quarter, 287,750 shares were repurchased at SEK 17 million. If we move on the relationship with our customers and their active involvement in reviewing products are central to our strategy and the part of our product development. During the third quarter, our global community expanded to over 1.7 million social media followers, and the number of unique product reviews increased to over 600,000.Feedback from customers build trust and is crucial, not only for helping others find the right product, but also for providing us with insights that enable development and significant improvements in our product rates. If we look at products and we can say that a significant portion of our sales consists of our running assortment, which includes products that have been sold for at least one previous season. At the same time, we continuously develop and launch new products that have the potential to become part of the running assortment in the future and are therefore strategically also important. For example, we launched a new Alpine Collection ahead of this year's winter season. And the sales of this new collection were strong, and it has the potential to become part of the future running assortment.During the third quarter, we introduced a new category of outdoor products such as the Rambler collection, as we call it, and the collection is made from thinner and lighter materials. And this launch too has been well received by the customers, and we see great potential for increased future sales also here, particularly in countries outside the Nordics with somewhat warmer climates. We also launched more products and colors and widen the assortment within the active segment. So I think that our assortment is at a very good place right now, and of course, something to be excited about for the future. We are actively working towards sustainable growth and ensuring that sustainability efforts are part of our operations at every level. Our vision is to become the world's most recommended auto brand, and we feel that we are well on our way. This is demonstrated, among other things, of course, by our consistently high customer reviews. Our clothes are not only durable, but also designed to be multifunctional. We produce only what we can sell with minimal over production. At the same time, our work continues to map and clarify the traceability in the supply chain. Our customers should be able to trust what -- that we meet the high standard throughout the entire value chain for our auto products. And now before I hand over to our CFO, Jesper Alm, I also want to highlight that we recently celebrated our 10-year anniversary. Which of course is a milestone at which we are able to reflect on a long period of high sales growth, while at the same time, delivering industry-leading operating margins over time. But even more important, we have established a position with many satisfied customers. We have over 4.6 out of 5 in customer rating. We are getting closer to 2 million followers on social media platforms. We have 2 million consumers who have subscribed to our new centers, and the brand has been established in several markets. That was worth celebrating. And I would like to pause here and now hand over to the company's CFO, Jesper Alm, who will present and walk through the financial performance during the quarter. And after that, I will come back and spend some more time on the exciting future and the rationale behind our strategy and the new financial targets. So with that, Jesper, please go ahead.
Thank you, Paul, and good morning, everyone. I will talk you through our financial performance during the third quarter. Gross profit amounted to SEK 342 million for the quarter, which is a growth of 14% compared to the SEK 300 million a year ago. This equals a gross margin of 71.5% compared to the 72.6% a year ago. The gross margin is slightly below that of the comparison period due to a continued high campaign pressure in the market, which also affects us. On a rolling 12-month level, gross profit now exceeds SEK 1.2 billion. Moving on to operational expenses. We see an increase in the personnel expenses compared to the same quarter last year. Staffing levels have, at the same time, stayed almost flat due to being careful in replacing staff turnover. The increase in personnel expenses is primarily due to salary inflation and rotation to more qualified roles as well as costs related to staff turnover. Personnel expenses amounted to 5.8% of net sales compared to the 5.3% a year ago. Other external expenses increased to SEK 216 million compared to SEK 186 million a year ago, which as a share of net sales is at the same -- roughly the same level as the same period last year at 45%. The cost increase in absolute terms is explained by these costs primarily being variable in relation to sales. EBIT for the quarter amounted to SEK 101 million compared to SEK 87 million a year ago, which corresponds to an EBIT margin of 21%, slightly down from 21.1% a year ago. The resulting EBIT in absolute terms increased by 16%. The balance sheet remains stable with limited changes. Net working capital increased to SEK 216 million compared to SEK 173 million a year ago. Inventory development. Inventory has increased slightly as planned to facilitate higher sales volumes going forward and inventory continues to be well balanced. In total, inventory amounts to SEK 461 million, of which SEK 382 million was good in warehouse at the end of the third quarter compared to SEK 398 million a year ago. Cash flow from operating activities came in at minus SEK 49 million. A reason for the reduced cash flow in the quarter is that the company has been working on extending payment terms in connection with entering into new supplier agreements. The improvement in payment terms has led to a certain shift in supplier payments from the second to the third quarter, for deliveries attributable to the second quarter. Looking at the 9-month period, this phasing effect balances out. Our financial position is strong. We had a cash position of SEK 285 million at quarter end with a net cash of SEK 272 million when adjusting for lease liabilities. And we have a credit facility of SEK 600 million available and that expires in 2028. So in conclusion, Revolution Race has a strong financial position and continues to deliver solid growth and profitability. So I think that sums up my part, and I'll hand over to you, Paul.
Thank you, Jesper. And let me now spend some time to comment on the future strategy and the new financial targets that we announced yesterday evening. First of all, let me just say that at the start of the fourth quarter, that is the quarter we are in right now, we also report today that we continue to see good growth and that we continue to increase our market share across several markets. We see continued growth in the fourth quarter with the sales growth to date, in line with the growth being reported for the third quarter. Now Revolution race is well positioned for future growth. And looking back, we can see that we have delivered strong growth every year since the company was founded. At the same time, we have also delivered profitability at levels which are very strong in our industry. We have been able to do so despite that recent times have been uncertain and challenging. During the last years, we have, for example, seen a pandemic, a situation with high inflation, increased interest rates and the weak consumer sentiment. And despite that, I hope that you'll agree that we have been consistent in our performance in this very turbulent market. Our strong performance is very much based on that we have a clear focus on offering quality products at price levels, which are attractive for the consumers. But not only do we offer high-quality products, which are affordable, our products are multifunctional. We strive to have a tighter fit, and we have a very colorful assortment. And I think the fact that we have been able to grow both in good times and in weaker times show the strength of our offering. On top of this, our digital D2C model implies a clear distinction versus many competitive brands. By skipping the middleman, we can offer our products at competitive prices and at the same time, maintain industry-leading margins. These are clear advantages, but the digital D2C model also means that we can act and react very fast to changes in the market, be very data-driven in our execution, but also be very digital well when building our brand and launch in new markets with limited investments. On a general level, I think focus is always important. And I believe that this rule to stick to what you do well is something we should protect and therefore, it is important that we continue to be disciplined and focused on our business model that have served us well during the 10 years since the company's inception. We operate on a market where there is still are immense growth opportunities. Based on that, we shall continue to grow, and this growth will include winning over new markets and new customers. We are starting to get a bigger market share in some of our mature markets, but there is still much to do in many of the markets we operate on. Remember, we are currently present in 40 countries in roughly 38 of these markets, we are still pretty small, and this creates big opportunities. And as we continue to penetrate many markets, we are also expanding our product portfolio and developing our categories. We are historically the pant maker and the pant category still accounts for over 50% of sales, meaning we should -- we still have big upsides in other categories, such as jackets and shoes, which are growing fast. We offer outdoor products, but it is also important to understand that we strive to make our products multifunctional, meaning that we try to widen our addressable market instead of being too much of a niche outdoor player. If you follow us closely, you can see that we have already increased the number of styles and products. We will invest in our product team, so that we can speed up our ability to launch more products and categories. And we have seen successful launches over the years, which is very much based on that we have a foundation with many satisfied customers, which, of course, is something to continue to build and capitalize on. So now let's move on to the new financial targets that we have now announced. On this slide, you can see our current financial targets alongside the new ones adopted by the Board of Directors. The new targets will cover the upcoming 3-year period starting the 1st of July, 2024 and end on the 30th of June, 2027. The new financial targets are aiming for Revolution Race, to pursue sustainable and profitable growth, with an annual growth target of 20% and to maintain an annual adjusted EBIT margin of 20% over the new 3-year period. Our strong financial history, characterized by high growth, good profitability and robust cash generation lays the foundation for these new targets. Our task is to generate shareholder value, and the strong financial position we have built up as a result of the historical strong performance is important in a fast-changing world and makes it possible not only to execute on the strategy, but also to continue delivering in line with our dividend policy, which is unchanged, but also to continue with the share buyback program that was introduced recently in Q3. So we continue to have the same dividend policy to annually distribute between 40% to 60% of our net profit. So to summarize, these new financial targets are not just numbers, they reflect our ambition and our commitment to continued sustainable and profitable growth. They reflect that we will continue to grow both in terms of sales, market share and profit, but in a balanced way. We will continue to have an obsessive focus on customer satisfaction. We will continue to invest both in our team, especially within product but also other roles as the company grows, but also in marketing activities and increasing our brand awareness in many of the markets, but we do all this in a balanced way. And that concludes our comments on the result and also the new financial targets. And before we finish, I would like to take the opportunity to thank the whole team at Revolution Race, our customers, shareholders and partners. I look very much forward to continuing to build on revolutionary success together with all of you. And with that, we are now happy to answer questions. So therefore, I ask the operator, do we have any questions?
[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Benjamin Wahlsted from ABG.
I believe the 20% EBIT margin target, that's a level you haven't been at since 2018. We see several bankruptcies across the E-commerce channel lowering CPC inventory levels are, as far as I can tell, at least lower the market overall. Inflationary pressures are subsiding. Real wage inflation is living on the horizon and interest rates are expected to fall. I was wondering if you could be a bit more concrete on why you expect the margin to be lower in coming years, please? Is it mainly related to added staff in marketing and product development or any additional color would be helpful?
So the new financial target both includes to strive to have a sales growth of 20% and at the same time, also maintain an EBIT margin of 20%. And we are in a phase we are, of course, looking at this on a long-term perspective. We are in a phase where we want to continue to grow at 20%, we are active in many markets. We have a pretty small market share in many of these markets. I just mentioned that we see ourselves in a mature phase in 2 out of our 40 markets where we do actually operate on today. So we want to continue to invest in marketing activities and continue to increase our market shares and sort of brand awareness. And also, at the same time, the growth is expected to be generated not only from entering or penetrating new markets, but also by adding more products and categories. We see when we benchmark many of the other industry colleagues that there are -- there is still a big upside if we can continue to expand our assortment. So in order to do that, we need to also invest in our product team. So -- but I think these numbers is a good reflection of, yes, where the company is and also the ambition that we have set for the upcoming 3-year period.
You're on pace to deliver an EBIT margin above 20% this year, I believe. Could you just give us a bit of an indication, on when sort of investments into more staff and perhaps more marketing as well would mean your margin declines to a level of 20%?
I think that's an ongoing process. If we look at the level of marketing that is required in many of the markets where we are smaller now, we do see that we need to invest slightly more in marketing in relation to net sales in the respective market. And since we are operating on so many markets, are trying to grow in so many markets at the same time that will have some sort of impact on the margin when you talk about percentages.Now of course, we will, of course, be able to -- we strive to also grow profit in line with the growth since the margin is stable.
And I was wondering as well, on sort of the types of marketing initiatives you will actually do here in the past year or so, we've seen you dip your toes in more brand marketing initiatives. Is this the strategy forward as well? Or how do you think about the entry into new markets or the growth acceleration then in new markets, please?
Yes. The vast majority of our marketing investments are definitely geared towards what we call online or digital performance marketing. And we will continue to do that. In some mature markets, Sweden is a good example. Maybe you have noticed that we, on top of that, also work with brand awareness-related activities such as national TV advertising and activities like that. But if we look at the total amount of investments going into marketing, it's definitely going to continue to be geared towards performance marketing, digital marketing.
If you were to overshoot either the growth or the margin targets, which one would you sort of target most, so to speak?
I think, as I just mentioned, we want to continue to grow this company in a balanced way. So I think the way to do that is to balance growth at 20%, which is actually an aggressive growth number if we look at where the market is, but also at the same time, be able to maintain an EBIT margin of 20%, which is actually an industry-leading number. So we should also bear in mind that we are striving to maintain an industry-leading EBIT margin, but at the same time, outperform the market in terms of growth.
The next question comes from Niklas Ekman from Carnegie.
Maybe I can shift to the other part of the target. And when you talk about 20% growth, I'm curious what you see as the main drivers here? And particularly when we consider that over the last 3 quarters, your local currency growth has been in the range of 15% and before that, even a bit lower. So where do you see that acceleration coming from? And then particularly, when we look like 3 years down the line, growing 20% per year is a fairly aggressive target given, as you said, that you have a fairly mature position in some of your markets. So how confident are you in your ability to grow 20%? And where do you see most of this growth coming from?
Yes. We see most of this growth coming from the international markets, especially the rest of the world markets where many of these markets are continuing to grow north of 20%. We do also expect or hope to see that the Nordic market will soften up. We have seen now, if we take Sweden as an example, we have seen 9 quarters in a row a market declining, if we look at reports that we get from a Swedish Institute called the Sport Index. But at the same time, we've been continuing to grow now third quarters in a row. So we do expect also growth numbers in more mature markets, for example, in the Nordics to actually pick up as when the hopefully, the consumer sentiment starts to look more positive. So it's a combination of all, of course, but the higher growth numbers is expected to come from the rest of the world markets. We see good growth in U.K., Netherlands, U.S., of course, smaller numbers. Poland is also a market where we see good growth. And remember, all these markets and countries are pretty big. I mean, big population, big outdoor markets. And at the same time, we hope to see that Germany can continue to grow nicely. We recently saw a growth in the DACH region of 18%. Bear in mind that the market continues to be a bit challenging; not like in the Nordics, but still not what we have seen in the past. So I think it will be a combination of all 3 regions actually picking up. And if we can see that many of these Nordic markets continues to grow nicely, they will add more and more to the total numbers.And according to our calculations, that will have an impact going so that we can strive for the 20% growth on a total level. At the same time, we also see when we benchmark where we are in terms of product assortment, there are big upsides, if you look at how many sort of products we have in the footwear assortment. Bear in mind, we have right now a sales number of shoes of approximately SEK 100 million. That's based on 1 sol and basically up until now, 4 different offers, times to men and women. And we will add more -- just as an example, we will add more shoes to the assortment and also expect that to contribute significantly to the growth. So those are the 2 main components. Basically grow outperforming the market and continues to grow in many of the markets where we still have very low market share below 1% in many of these big countries, and at the same time, also add more products, which is something we have already started with now.
When you talk about rest of the world, a few quarters ago, you were growing at 35%, 40%. But in the last 2 quarters, you've been growing at more like 20 plus, which is pretty close to the growth rate in Germany. So why this slowdown? And why do you think this will reverse? Do you have any strong new initiatives that are ongoing in these markets that you think could propel your growth in the coming quarters?
Basically, and I think that is somewhat a reflection of the EBIT margin. We want to -- we need to increase somewhat the marketing investments in some of these markets because we see that in markets where we have a slightly smaller or a small market share, we need to invest more in relation to where we are in net sales in the respective market. So we will invest more in building our brand and recruiting more customers in the markets where we are still pretty small. But if they can at the same -- if we can see good growth coming from those big markets, especially in Europe, but also in the U.S., I think that will have a significant impact to the growth.
And in terms of ranking those markets, would it be those 4 that you mentioned U.K., Netherlands, U.S. and Poland? Is that the 4 markets and the order of preference where you see the greatest potential as well?
You said U.K., Netherlands, Poland and U.S., of course. Yes, I would say roughly those are the outside of the Nordics and the DACH region, of course, the markets where we are. Maybe you could add France as well, seeing also growth north of 20% in France, even though it's still a smaller country for us. But it's a big country, big outer market. And also, somewhat in the -- at least half France in the right climate zone, if you understand what I mean. I mean we are from sort of -- you can look at us for the moment, if you look at our assortment, mid-Europe and North.
The next question comes from Daniel Ovin from Nordea.
First, a question on the sales growth in the quarter. And I'm just curious to know if there was any negative impact from the relatively cold and late summer, spring season? That's the first question.
It's hard to say. I mean we don't talk about the weather. We are operating in so many markets. Of course, we live in Sweden, so that we have seen a pretty cold spring. It just came. But it's really hard to say whether that has had a big impact on our sales. What we do see is that we have outperformed the market. So yes, now it's very difficult to say how much the weather have impacted us during the spring.
Just a question on if we extend a little bit further here and look at your next financial year, 24, 25, then it sounded like to reach that 20% sales growth target, you would need consumer confidence or consumer sentiment in your main markets like the Nordic and DACH to improve? Is that fair that you would need to see some of that to reach that 20%?
I mean, we will increase our marketing investments. If I may guess, I think it will be, of course, helpful if we see that the consumer sentiment gets stronger, especially in the Nordics. I mean, as I mentioned, in Sweden, we have seen now negative growth, 9 quarters in a row. That's a long time, and then you're starting to compare with low numbers. So if that starts to pick up and maybe there is some sort of backlog in the market, that can actually be pretty helpful for our company as well, since we are continuing to -- it looks like we are continuing to increase market shares and so a better consumer climate should be helpful on something we should be able to capitalize on as well.
Then on the financial goals here. So you're lowering that the EBIT margin target here a bit. But I also remember that you have talked about the gross margin staying above 70% previously. So is that unchanged still? So it's more of a -- that you expect higher marketing expenses to take down the EBIT margin, but you still expect gross margin above 70%. Is that how you see it?
We haven't announced any goals on the gross margin, but I think you can see that, that has been stable over time. And I think it is important to keep that at the level north of the 70%. I think the main thing to remember around this new financial targets is that we will increase our investments in marketing, and we will somewhat also increase our investments in staff, mainly related to product development. So that would then be south of the gross margin.
And just a follow-up on that staff question also because, I mean, I looked at the quarter here and the personnel expenses came a bit higher than I had expected. Tell me it's quite a strong growth here if you look over the last year, the adjusted number. I mean it's up almost 30% year-over-year. So would you say that you were -- have been reinvested on this line and the new number that that's the one to work from when you forecast going forward here? And is the catch up perhaps then related to product development? Is that how to see it?
Well, the increase in personnel expenses, as mentioned before, is partly due to salary inflation and partly due to personnel orientation into more qualified roles, definitely including product and product development. And also costs related to staff turnover. So we will be coming in at around at higher numbers than previous quarters, definitely, yes.
But you could also expect, as I mentioned, that we will continue to invest in especially the product development team. You could expect the number of FTEs also to increase.
The next question comes from Andreas Lundberg from SEB.
If I start with the financial targets. You were pretty clear on the marketing expense. Are there any other investments required to reach these targets, be it your selling prices or CapEx or working capital?
No. I mean, I think you should look at the business as a scalable business. Maybe it sounds a bit contradictory since we are not -- the EBIT margin should be maintained at 20%. But that is linked to that we will increase marketing investments in especially the rest of the world markets where we want to continue to grow. But over time, during the 3-year period, maybe over a longer period, one should, of course, expect this company to be a scalable company, both when it comes to profit.When it comes to the operational setup, we want to continue to be an asset-light company. We will continue to try to work with partners when it comes to warehouse , to not take any investments in that. We don't own any factories. The only thing that we have increased our investments in when it comes to more ban-related items is the inventory, and that is a planned increase in order to facilitate higher volumes and also an increase in number of styles and products that we just saw. And also, as Jesper mentioned, we have recently also launched a new supplier agreement where we're seeing that we have been able to successfully get longer payment terms. So that is also something to be aware of when we look at the balance sheet and cash flow going forward before. When the company was fairly new, we had pretty short payment terms. Now they have been extended and no longer and that is also basic why we see a negative cash flow in this quarter and a very positive cash flow in the second quarter of financial year, but somewhat in the 9-month period, you can say that, that is eliminated.
[indiscernible] We see a balanced approach going forward based on where we are today. If and when there would be a third full-scale logistics hub, that would at that point in time would imply increased investments into working capital for inventory. But we're not there yet. We'll run at 2.5 warehouses at the moment.
Yes. And if we plan to do so, you can expect that to happen in a gradual balanced way.
So the net effect on working capital with the current or the new targets here are rather neutral, so to say on?
Neutral is probably the best word to describe it.
And on the campaign activity now in the quarter, is it mainly due to weaker consumers? Or is it a combination with retailers effect from destocking or being more selling out what they have sort of saying?.
Yes. I think there are 3 main components to lift here, 2 of them we have already mentioned. Weaker consumer sentiment, but also the fact that many of competitive brands and the retailers have faced a situation with continued high inventory levels and as a result, pretty aggressive campaigning and discounting in the market that is very clear. On top of that, we actually had a big campaign in March, celebrating the 10-year anniversary. So we were, to some extent, a bit aggressive on price also in March. But I think I think we managed to, at the same time, keep the gross margin at a stable level, even though we participated somewhat in some campaign activities. We are not totally not impacted from what we see in the market, but try to manage the situation in a good way. And I think we have been able to do that.
So the way out from this is that more competing competitive thing rather than what you can do on your own?
I don't know if you -- when we look at, for example, some of our competing or brands or industry colleagues, they do mention that there is still a situation in the market with high inventory levels. But at the same time, we have this good situation operating in 40 countries. I think we should be able to manage situation in a good way, and we see that the impact is not that high actually for us on a gross margin perspective. So I think for us, we always try to balance things. We try to balance the gross margin, try to balance campaigning. I think it's important to protect your brand equity. We want to balance our EBIT and yes, towards growth. So finding that balance in all aspects, something that we want to prefect.
The next question comes from Emmanuel Janssen from Danske Bank.
And I also believe that maybe most of my questions have already been answered to some extent. But just jumping back quickly on the gross margin here, and you're also talking about the expanding the product assortments and such. Is there any risk at all that the gross margin could decline slightly when you expand the product assortments?
I think, first of all, I think it's also important to understand that we look at gross margin, of course, but we also look at something that we call gross margin 3. For example, if we do see continued success within the footwear category, that may have an impact on the gross margin that we report. But at the same time, that category has a higher average order value. So the gross margin 3 might be at a good level at the same time. So I think product mix will have some sort of impact. We are the pant maker, pan to still account for more than 50% of our sales, and that is a category where we have a pretty strong gross margin. And then we also see the country mix which can, at some point, also have an impact on the gross margin. I think there's no secret to reveal that, for example, in Sweden, we have a much lower gross margin compared to many other countries. So there is a country mix into -- and product mix into the gross margin at some point. But bear in mind that, that is not the total -- maybe the most important KPI to look at. It's actually the gross margin 3 that we look at the operational level also, that is important to understand.
And also looking at the product development team, you're talking about, is it possible to quantify the team and how many are they currently and how many would it require to double the revenue in 3 to 4 years?
Yes. I think just to give you a rough number, I think you can look at an increase of FTE in the product development team of around 5 to 10 people. Today, it's around 25%. So maybe going just north of 30%. So it will be -- if we look at the company today, it will be like between 1/4 and 1/3 of the total company's FTEs. And I think that reflects what this company actually is. It's a product company. So it's really important to be focused on developing new products that are attractive for the consumers.
And just looking at competition, looking at the past couple of years, I think it started maybe your independent make a lot of outdoor and sports place are focusing more on their own digital channels and also, of course, through our own store concepts and also increasing the share of direct-to-consumer sales. Do you see this trend is continuing? And is it also maybe one of the reasons why you also need to maybe lower your profitability target because there is an increased competition out there much on your digital scene?
That's hard to say. If we look at year-on-year general level, the click prices, I would say that we can see and this different from market to market, and it also depends on where we are in phase in respect to the market. We can see a slightly higher click prices on the Meta platforms and also Google compared to a year ago. So it's getting slightly more expensive.However, it's still much cheaper compared to what we saw, when the whole market was on fire. So yes, slightly picking up, I would say. But I think that our ambition to increase our marketing activities is actually to speed up our efforts, in increasing our market shares in many markets at the same , rather than the competition or click prices have increased in the market.
Is it possible for you to maybe quantify or maybe say what's your view on your market position in Germany and Sweden, which I assume is the mature market you're talking about, if you try to quantify your size versus competitors in sales terms?
Yes. I would say if we look at for example, a tool called Branded search, which we know is pretty correlated with brand your market share in terms of brand awareness, you can say that we have the highest market share in Finland. The second highest is in Sweden. Those are markets that is around and north of 5%. However, in Germany, we are still below 2%. So there's still a big upside in Germany. Yes. So I would say -- I used to say that we are in a mature phase in 2 of our 40 countries where we operate on. That is why we want to increase marketing investments in all those rest of the world countries, especially, but also in the dark in some of the markets like in Nordics such as Denmark, where we still see immense growth opportunities. I mean, we are operating on a very big market, and that is an opportunity we really want to see. We think that we have a fantastic customer offering and good momentum. So we want to continue to invest in that.
The next question comes from Benjamin Wahlstedt from ABG.
Could you share anything on the profitability per geographical segment at all? Just how to help thinking about the profitability development as increase marketing spend in Rest of World specifically, I assume?
Well, we're not disclosing that. But as I just mentioned, it differs a bit between the different countries. When it comes to gross margin is one example. It's not a secret that we have a lower gross margin in Sweden. And again, it really depends on how aggressive we want to be in marketing activities as well on the different markets. But it's not something that we have disclosed at this point. And so I'm afraid I cannot comment further on that.
There are no more questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers for any written questions and closing comments.
And yes, we remain optimistic about the future. We think that we have immense growth opportunities. We think that we have a very strong market position, and we have a strong business model, and this is something we are committed to me, and we are committed to maintain our momentum in this positive direction. So before we finish, I want to thank you all for joining us today and for your interest in our journey. We are eager to engage with you again in the near future as we continue to share our developments. And may I also remind you that our year-end report for our financial year will be announced on August 13. And with that, we say thank you, and goodbye.