Thule Group AB

STO:THULE

Earnings Call Transcript 2021-Q3

[Operator]

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Thule Group Interim Report Q3 2021. My name is Emily, and I will be coordinating the call today. [Operator Instructions] I now hand the call over to our host, Magnus Welander, CEO. Magnus, please go ahead.

[Magnus Welander, CEO & President]

Thank you very much. Good morning, everybody, and welcome to another fantastic quarter from the Thule Group. We can really say that we had another very strong quarter across the board. So we can go to the first slide in the presentation. And on that, you can see that we had a total sales of SEK 2.772 billion, which was a 16% currency-adjusted growth versus 2020. And I think it's very important immediately, and we'll talk more about that on the coming slide later on in regards to what it means in reality because we also have to remember we had a very specific comparable period in 2020. As you will remember, in 2020, the second quarter was stifled in terms of sales due to lockdown measures and people not being able to go ahead and do their activities, so to speak. And that meant that we -- last year, we really had a much stronger Q3 when we caught up with that in the season. So we had a very tough comp period. Despite that, we grew, FX adjusted, with 16%, which actually means then that versus 2019, the last normal year, so to speak, it is a 75% currency-adjusted growth. So fantastic efforts being able to capture the majority of the demand that was out there. At the same time, as you all are very aware, we have seen increasing costs across the board in the world, so also for the Thule Group. Raw material costs have increased dramatically. Freight costs have increased even more dramatically. And on top of that, of course, when you're running to cope with a fantastic demand increase, you do have some challenges in running your plants as efficiently as you would normally do. We have, in our own assembly plants, had more temporary staff. We've had more shift work. And with suppliers not being able to fully fulfill orders, we've had to do many more switchover between various products on our assembly lines, thereby losing some efficiencies. So therefore, in total, those things were partly compensated by the midyear price increases that we did, and of course, some production overhead assumption. So as you can see, our gross margin was 40.6% versus 42.9%. As we wrote in the quarterly report, we are feeling very good about that, with our January price increases, we will have fully compensated for those cost increases. And therefore, we will see some of those negative effects also in quarter 4. The EBIT margin was a fantastic 24.2%, which leaves us at the rolling 12 -- or latest trailing period of 23.6% EBIT margin percentage. And we had an EBIT of SEK 670 million, which was clearly above the SEK 596 million we had previous year. Our scalability in our back end was proven once again, where we, with fantastic teams and good systems in the background, could maintain very efficient cost controls while growing significantly as a business. Overall, our operational cash flow grew, was positive of SEK 525 million, which was less than the same period last year and that is really attributed to 2 major effects. One is that we are spending more money on investments in capacity, so SEK 113 million this quarter. And other one is that we finally, especially in Europe, are starting to be able to build up some more inventory than we were capable of doing at the same time last year. If we go to the next slide, we can see a little bit, as I mentioned, about quarterly performances because, as for most businesses, you see a reality of a very weird quarterly reality going on in the business. We see that we have comparative periods that are different. And that means that you should focus on the year-to-date numbers. So year-to-date, we have shown a 44% currency-adjusted growth. And year-to-date, we have also then managed to grow our EBIT with 64%. So don't be too fixated in comparing separate quarters. Look at the totality of the numbers. That has meant also that, of course, we've seen a significant pickup in EBIT margin at the year-to-date. The first 9 months have delivered a really strong performance. So don't be too focused on quarters, look at the more rolling month period. If you go to the next slide, you can see why because then when actually looking at the quarters, you can see some very strange things going on in 2020. So our comparable period was strange in terms of performance in 2020. You see our track record from 2018 to 2021 there. And therefore, you can see this effect, as I mentioned in the beginning of the call, that the second quarter 2020 was challenged due to lockdowns and people not being allowed to go out and do their activities. That meant a bigger pickup in quarter 3 in 2020 and even actually some of the seasonality that normally would be considered late spring, early summer products being sold as far as into quarter 4 due to backlogs in our business and still a demand that maintained. When we therefore look at the business in 2021, it has a more normal seasonality. Strong start in quarter 1, a very big season push in quarter 2 and a continued strong season in quarter 3 is a more normal pattern, but at a much higher level. So versus 2019, the growth has been 45%, 48% and 75%, respectively. When we then now look forward to how are we coping with that demand situation, we first have to look at a very demanding comp period in quarter 4, but we also feel that despite a -- having done a great job in catching up with some of the backlog, we haven't been fully able to meet demand especially in North America, which showed a very good growth in the third quarter. So also in 2021, we will see some spillover effect of a late season happening in the fourth quarter, meaning that we are feeling very comfortable in what also 2021 quarter 4 will be delivering but once again versus a very tough comp period. So a strong continued performance versus 2019 is something I'm very sure about that we will show also in quarter 4 this year. If we then go to the next page and talk a bit about the regions, starting with the biggest region, Region Europe and Rest of the World. We can see once again here that you need to be cautious in too much focusing on the growth on specific quarters, and I would actually say more looking at this very strong growth year-to-date. But in the third quarter, we showed 7% growth versus '19 it was a 59% currency-adjusted growth. What happened in 2020 was we have some very big sales period of the delayed orders from the spring that truly made a fantastic third quarter in Europe in 2020. So although the growth doesn't seem so big, if you really compare it on a pre-pandemic normal seasonality, as you can see, we had a fantastic period actually in quarter 3. And that was across markets, strong performance across all the markets. We have a very strong bike category that continues to perform well. And it is clearly aided by strong momentum, in general, in more biking both by commuting and active holiday-ing and active weekends with bikes. But we also saw a very strong period in terms of roof racks, roof boxes and rooftop tents across our Sport&Cargo Carrier category with a number of people that is growing all the time taking those short breaks and those short weekend trips closer to their homes. In the RV Product category, which, for our case, is very focused almost solely on the European market with only a little bit of niche sales in North America, we saw a strong momentum and a strong performance of the team as motorhome manufacturers did increase their production capacity. As we mentioned a few times before, it's clear that these motorhome manufacturers would have liked to be able to manufacture even more vehicles because demand is very strong, but they are struggling to get enough chassis from the large chassis manufacturers, mostly Fiat and Mercedes, as they are having similar problems as you've been hearing from the truck industry and the car industry with components coming into this type of assembly, especially semiconductors, but also other things. What is also good to note in this region is that we continued to have a very good pace of growth on our stroller sales, and we're becoming a stronger and stronger brand in that product category. And it was nice to see -- yes, against a very weak comp period, but it was nice to see a solid growth in the bags business, in this case, as would be assumed driven more by sport and outdoor packs than luggage or everyday bags. More and more people are returning to work. Ourselves, at the Thule facilities, have all staff back as of 1st of October in our offices. And that means that we didn't see the normal "August-September returning to work, I buy a new bag" situation. And the same applies to universities and high schools around the world. Having 2 daughters myself at university, I know that both these 2 Swedish universities had different dates and different realities when they return fully. And so most of them are coming back to the school, so to speak, later this year, meaning that the normal business of normal backpack sales in the back-to-campus period was definitely less. But overall, nice to see a very strong performance in our sports and outdoor packs. If we go to Region Americas on the next slide. Also here, very positive to note a strong growth across all markets. You are reading daily about the big challenges in some of the Latin American markets with later COVID pandemic effects and a challenged economy. But I can assure you, we've had a very strong growth in both the major market, U.S., and the second very large market, Canada, and -- but also in all our Latin American market. So a strong -- very strong performance. You also see that our comparable numbers for quarter 3 looks much better in Region Americas. That was partly because we caught up earlier in 2020 with demand and meeting demand in Europe. So the growth was strong in Europe in quarter 3 in 2020 and less strong in Region Americas. So that is part of it. But it is also the case, which is very nice to see, that year-to-date, we have a 57% growth. So very strong demand, and the team is doing their utmost to meet that demand. We are, at the moment, still a little bit more behind in Region Americas in capacity and coping with the fantastic demand we have. But we have, as you can see in the numbers, never produced as many products as we are producing also in Region Americas. As I mentioned, a strong growth across all markets, but it was also nice to see its growth across all categories. So very strong performance in Sport&Cargo Carriers. By carriers, of course, but also all the other products with roof boxes, roof racks, roof top tents, fishing rod carriers, watersport carriers. It is truly across a very strong performance. What is also very nice to see is that within Active with Kids, we've had for many years a very strong performance with our jogging strollers, but we are also seeing growth with other strollers like the one on the image there, our Thule Spring stroller, which is a more city, urban, everyday stroller. But also a very solid growth in the bike trailer category in North America, which is nice to see, which has been a relatively seen smaller category in that region than it has been in Europe but now has picked up very nicely in a reality with more bike commuting and more bike weekend being done by parents. Also in this region, a bag sales growth. Once again, we did have a weak comp last year, but it is nice to see the performance growth here. The team is doing a very good job in winning a number of contracts in terms of supplying to large companies for their returning staff. And we are also seeing a very clear, strong performance in terms of a larger pickup of air travel in North America than you see in other parts of the world. It's clear that the U.S. domestic travel has picked up faster than any other part of the world and that has meant, of course, that there is a little bit more of logic to buy new bags and luggage in that region. So overall, we're very happy with the performance from a sales point of view. And I leave it to Jonas to, on the next slide, speak a little bit more about the rest of the finances.

[Jonas Lindqvist, Chief Financial Officer]

Thank you, Magnus. Yes, we are now on Slide 7, the reported income statement. And I will concentrate on the third quarter. The sales for the third quarter amounted to SEK 2.772 billion. This is an increase of 14%. And excluding FX effect, the increase is 16%. When looking at the third quarter this year, please bear in mind, like Magnus said, that last year there was a big shift in seasonality. Many of the lockdowns were lifted in the latter part of the second quarter, and there was both a pent-up demand as well as a strong growth in sales for staycation and outdoor products. The inventories helped us to satisfy a large part of the demand increase in the third quarter last year, and that is the first quarter of really tough comps for us. The gross margin in the quarter this year was 40.6% compared with 42.9% for the same quarter last year, which was a high number. The reason for the decrease is higher costs for purchased materials and transportation of incoming goods. In addition, we still run our production at high levels, which are expensive to maintain. And we do it, among other things, with the help of extra shifts and hiring of agency workers. The higher volumes that we have seen have, on the positive side, also led to good absorption of production overhead costs, which counters part of the increased costs. The EBIT margin in the quarter was 24.2% compared with 24.4% in Q3 last year, which means that we are on the same level this year. It's primarily the economies of scale that come into play here since the gross profit was SEK 80 million higher and the SG&A costs only showed a slight increase compared with the same period previous year. The financial net of minus SEK 12 million in the quarter is lower than last year's minus SEK 15 million, and it is the lower utilization of our credit facilities that explains the difference. Tax cost in the quarter amounts to SEK 142 million, which, as a percentage, is slightly lower than what I estimate for the full year where I expect us to be very close to the middle of our guidance of 22% to 25%. If we please move to Slide 8 and look at the working capital and cash flow. Operating working capital was SEK 1.947 billion at the end of Q3 this year, which is about SEK 500 million higher than last year. As a percentage of sales, however, we are at the same level, just above 19%. The net increase in working capital consists of an increase in stocks from a very low level at the same time last year, a moderate increase in accounts receivables, and countering that, an increase in accounts payables. The increase in inventory must be seen compared to a strange situation with very low level at the same time last year. When many countries came out of the lockdowns, as mentioned, the demand for outdoor products soared. Even though we canceled furloughs and even holidays, we were not able to meet the demand with our production, and the inventories were dramatically reduced during Q3 last year as some of the products flew off the shelves. Since then, we have increased the production, but encountered and solved other problems such as shortages in some components and materials as well as shortage of containers to transport goods coming from Asia. In view of this, we have decided to make sure now in the slightly low period of the year that we will not go into a new season without a good capability to meet the demand of our customers. And this means that we are now in the process of stocking up ahead of the new season, which we didn't get a chance to do last year. We get an offsetting effect on working capital from increased accounts payables. And this increase reflects the current high activity in our production. The development in working capital and the fact that we are investing in increased production capacity have, of course, had an impact on the cash flow. The operational cash flow of SEK 525 million in the period is lower than the same period last year when it was SEK 777 million. And the main reason for the lower cash flows -- the main reasons for the lower cash flow are, as I mentioned, the stock buildup and also increased investments in production capacity. Capital expenditure in the quarter amounted to SEK 113 million to be compared with SEK 32 million in the third quarter last year. And as I mentioned, the investments relate to increased production capacity.

[Magnus Welander, CEO & President]

Thank you, Jonas. If we go to Page 9, we can then look a little bit forward. And what you can say for Q4, but also, of course, leading into 2020, it is clearly that we have a strong operational focus to prepare for what we are convinced will be a very good season in 2022. We have clearly proven that our growth strategy with great products but also high on-time and full availability for our retail customers and our consumers buying direct-to-consumer is key to our growth. So to be sure that we can improve and come back to the very high and market-leading levels of on-time and full delivery performance, we are pushing a lot of growth investments earlier than we would have planned 2 years ago before the pandemic. The reason we're doing that is we are convinced, as many are when you look at the trends in the market, that a lot of the behavior that you've seen over the last 18 months is here to stay. We simply will have a bigger base business. So what we are doing is significant expansion of capacity at all the main plants. We are continuing our very aggressive product development push for future product launches and future growth. We will be finalizing our expansion in our global test facility to cope with all the testing of all the new products. And we are also continuing to invest in our own online and direct-to-consumer sales tools. We need to get back to serving both consumers and retailers at the level they should be served. And that means that there is both a short-term focus then to meet these demand increases, but also a structured long-term plan. That structured long-term plan means, as we noted in the report actually, that we will see the most aggressive CapEx in the -- since I became a CEO in the company with a few years of clearly higher than our average and prior guidance. We will be around the 5% type of CapEx for a period of time and might even be above that. And the simple matter is it's because we are convinced that we need to be at the service levels and the production efficiencies that will ensure a highly profitable business for us going forward with big growth ambitions. In the short term, it's a lot about handling mitigation of various smaller issues. It can be anything from the Chinese government deciding that electricity are closed down for certain days of the week at Chinese subsuppliers to a complete lack of containers somewhere, as Jonas mentioned. It can be the fact that there is, in Vietnam, still significant COVID lockdowns of some of our technical backpack manufacturers, et cetera. There is a constant daily challenge. As Biking category is our biggest -- I'd like to do a biking similarity here. I don't know how much biking fans there is on the call, but if you saw this year's Paris-Roubaix 1-day Classic, it was a brilliant reality of what the life looks like in the supply chain today. So Paris-Roubaix is always a tough race. You have the famous pavé sections with cobblestones that make it incredibly hard to bike fast mixed up with pretty straight and easy road bits. That's the reality we have today: a constant intermingling of some production lines, some products being quite smooth and at a very high pace with somebody at the lead of their Peloton really pushing and pulling. And then all of a sudden you turn into one of these pavé sections and it starts to get difficult even in easy years. This year, at Paris-Roubaix, it was pouring down. And on those pavé sections, you had mud. So it was the slipperiest anybody has ever seen. There's never been as many falls. And not only, you were also getting sprayed with mud from other people around you. And then there were people in the way, so people were falling and having to pick themselves up. The great bikers like the Italian Sonny Colbrelli who won in a fantastic fashion is a little bit what it is: we're better than most, definitely better than our competitors at avoiding those obstacles on the pave, taking that slippery road, keeping our legs moving and just pulling ahead when the flatter sections come. That's what we will be doing also in the coming 6 to 12 months because life will not be easy in supply chain in 2022 either. All of the people that hope for that are already realizing and smelling the roses, it will be a hugely challenged '22. Why we feel so good is we've taken capacity expansion decisions much earlier than most. We have a fantastic supply chain team that has shown their flexibility to handle obstacles better than most. We had a brilliant product portfolio. So we feel very comfortable when we look ahead. But it is clearly the case there are some bigger challenges. There is the cost challenges. I've never seen price increases like the ones I'm seeing on raw materials at the moment. I've never heard about increases like some of the freight cost increases, which therefore forces our hand to pass on those costs to our customers, and in the long term, to our consumers. We decided, as we've communicated before, to do that in 2 steps. And with the price increases that are being implemented in January, we feel comfortable that we will have mitigated those cost increases. So in closing, it is a little bit like the race on Paris-Roubaix. Don't take your eyes off the road. Keep paddling. You will fall down. You need to get up quickly. And we will do that better than most. So with that, I open up for Q&A.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our first question today comes from Daniel Schmidt from Danske Bank.

[Daniel Schmidt, Research Analyst]

Thanks for the bike race analogy. It was really good. A couple of questions from me then. Magnus, you said that you're still not able to fully meet demand during the third quarter and you said the same thing in the second quarter. But am I right in believing that this is more related just to the Americas rather than both Europe and Americas, if we start there?

[Magnus Welander, CEO & President]

You're right that it's mostly Americas, but we had during the quarter, especially in the beginning of the quarter, we did have some challenges still with -- also in Europe as we have for every month been catching up stronger Europe. I feel pretty good in Europe now. Still not at the level in terms of on-time infill that I would have wanted, but we are close to that and we will be at good levels when we now enter '22. While we will see some challenges in Region Americas still for a few months even if we are actually building a new plant and opening up a new plant as we speak in the early parts of next year to further add space for some of those assemblies.

[Daniel Schmidt, Research Analyst]

And just looking back to Q3 last year, you -- this probably was maybe more widespread than you talked about the prolonged sort of biking season. Is there a little bit less of that in Europe now this year?

[Magnus Welander, CEO & President]

The interesting thing is, from a consumer perspective, the prolonged season is still there. You have never seen on the mountain bike trails this late in the year so many new bikers and so many bikers. you've not seen on the roads as so many bikers and you're seeing more bike commuters even if it's pouring down in the Malmö City in most days of the week. The last week, there are more bike commuters as well. So from a consumer perspective, demand has not decreased. What has changed is we've been better at supplying, so we didn't have the same bottleneck and a backlog of orders. But the actual new orders with bikers is very strong still as a trend. So the biking season is longer from a consumer perspective, not with the same "we need to fill the backlog slipping into Q4" aside from then the U.S. where we do still have some of those backlogs to fill.

[Daniel Schmidt, Research Analyst]

So is it then fair to assume that the product mix is normalizing a little bit in Europe in Q4 then? Is that impacting in any way the profitability sort of mix?

[Magnus Welander, CEO & President]

No, I would argue that if you see it is that it's a very similar structure in what we sell versus 2020, which has then some skewing versus 2019 because, historically, bags had its one big quarter in Q4 and still very small in Europe. But otherwise, I would say it's a relatively similar performance while you in Americas then have more biking products and some other products coming into quarter 4 than we've historically had.

[Daniel Schmidt, Research Analyst]

Yes. Okay. And talking about mix and you said pushing the direct-to-consumer channel is, of course, high on the agenda and you've said that for some time, do you have any numbers you can update us on where you are in terms of how much of your sales is going through direct-to-consumer now compared to a year ago?

[Magnus Welander, CEO & President]

We will do that when we summarize the full year. But I can also say that in general, we decided in '21, which we've been very clear with our retail customers, some companies chose to aggressively pursue their own direct-to-consumer because that is a nice way if you have limited demand that you allocate more to yourself. We actually did the opposite. We took a conscious decision knowing that we have very strong retailers that we are convinced we will grow very well with in the coming years. And having prided ourselves historically to have very high on-time and full and now not having it, we decided to not penalize retailers but rather actually penalize ourselves in '21. So our bigger push will be in '22 when we will have strong availability. That's where we will clearly see, from our point of view, a likely higher, bigger pickup in direct-to-consumer. It is still around double digit in the U.S. That hasn't changed on an overall picture of what we have. Still low single digits in Europe because the big markets have just come on board. But in terms of truly picking up more significant, it's from '22 and beyond we see that picking up.

[Daniel Schmidt, Research Analyst]

Okay. And what is sort of reasonable to reach you think? Or maybe that's not a goal in itself? Or have you thought about that?

[Magnus Welander, CEO & President]

Of course. But I think when you -- I don't think a goal in itself is the logic. We will sell where consumers think it's right to buy. We will be very profitable in all channels, and we will clearly have a hugely dominant share via retail for a very, very long time.

[Daniel Schmidt, Research Analyst]

Yes. And then maybe finally on the gross margin, you alluded to that -- or you're writing and stating that it will take until maybe the start of January till you get full compensation for the raw material and the freight cost. And there will be, I think you said, some effect in Q4. Is that sort of insinuating a slightly less impact in Q4 versus what we saw in Q3 given the price increases in Q3?

[Magnus Welander, CEO & President]

Yes. I mean we've been clear that if you look at the price increase that we communicated as of Q3, we also were clear in communicating also to you, as analysts and investors, that we did not push that through on existing orders. And since we had a backlog in existing orders at the beginning of quarter 3, there were quite a lot of products sent out with prices before the midyear '21 price increases. As those orders now have been fulfilled, all the orders we are now towards the end of the third quarter and the beginning as we will do in the fourth quarter, they are with the prices as we have them from midyear, which are higher prices than we had before. So there will be, in that sense, a little bit more of the price clearly effect. At the same time, we have to say that the costs are also continuing in the wrong direction. So that will depend very much on the cost part. The prices are now fully rolled out at the midyear. We already anticipated that we would need, so there is also a clear price increase of 1st of January, which is where we are feeling comfortable that we will be in the right space.

[Daniel Schmidt, Research Analyst]

Yes. All right. Good. Maybe just a final one, there's been 2 announcements that I think I've seen at least when it comes to the RV side and RV producers saying that there is sort of -- they are forced to have unplanned production stops on the back of that shortage of components during Q4. Is that something that you have experienced? Or do you have any insight into that to how you will fare in [indiscernible] that year in that particular environment in the European market?

[Magnus Welander, CEO & President]

The RV business in Europe is booming. They are manufacturing more than they ever did. And sometimes, you're missing out the logic because it's clear they will have issues, no doubt. As I mentioned, the chassis manufacturers are having issues, then the RV home manufacturers that need those chassis have issues. But it's a little bit of a misconception if you believe that, that means that they will do less than they did same quarter last year. It's just that they're producing so much more that the issues are coming on a higher platform. Therefore, the RV business is doing great for us. If you don't grow in the European RV business at the moment, you're doing something wrong because there's a fantastic momentum in it. I'm sure we will have a very good momentum in Q4 as well, but it could have been even better. I think that's what they are saying, right? So what they're alluding to is the demand is even higher than their increased output. And due to that, they're running, running to capture the demand. When then some of these components don't show up, they will have a little bit like the truck companies, and for Swedes, that's easy to think about when we hear so much about Scania and Volvo, same issue. They're pumping out vehicles. But sometimes when they're pumping out that much and there are limitations, they will have weeks of closure. Same thing for the RV manufacturers.

[Daniel Schmidt, Research Analyst]

Yes. Makes sense. That's all for me.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Gustav Hagéus from SEB.

[Gustav Hagéus, Research Analyst]

A bit curious on Americas. It's quite an extraordinary growth you post there. It's -- organically, you almost doubled the business in 2 years then. Looking into next quarter then, just from the past 3 years, you've been averaging sort of 14% lower sales sequentially in Q4 versus Q3 in U.S. or in Americas and you now alluded that there might be a shift of seasonality into Q4. So is that a sort of good rule of thumb also this year, you think, in terms of sequencing for the U.S. business?

[Magnus Welander, CEO & President]

I think in the U.S. business, you have to realize also, as you know, we have a significantly higher chunk of Packs, Bags & Luggage historically, right, and it's been almost 20% of the business and Packs, Bags & Luggage is normally very big in the fourth quarter. So there are some negatives for that for us because Packs, Bags & Luggage is the category doing least well if you look at -- pace-wise. So I am convinced that Region Americas will do very well. I'm not going to say because there are so many uncertainties still around what exact that percentage will be, but it will be a strong quarter in fourth quarter as well.

[Gustav Hagéus, Research Analyst]

And looking at the stacked growth, adding last year's growth on top of this year, it's quite extraordinary. Do you anticipate sort of that trend to continue? Because I guess it's quite interesting now that you analyze that trend, I think myself and others had expected a bit of a drop-down in the growth now that you're facing much tougher comps in the U.S.

[Magnus Welander, CEO & President]

We are very comfortable in both regions with all the largest macro trends underlying in various activities that we deal with that we have a higher platform with continued growth. The pace will not, of course, be the type of pace we've had in the last 18 months, but it is clearly the case that we are convinced that we will continue to grow. It won't be stagnating or flattening out. We feel very good about '22 and beyond.

[Gustav Hagéus, Research Analyst]

So then I guess you had probably put a lot of effort into thinking about CapEx and so forth. And it seems like you now had to accelerate those plans, if I understand your communication correctly. And then I'm just curious about all the other assumptions going into your targets that you released not that long ago because you're hitting quite a big base now in 2021. Looking at your target now, it's shrinking to below 5% CAGR, it seems like, since the base for '21 is so big going forward. And given that you're also running on a much higher margin than the 20% floor that you anticipated the implicit EBIT CAGR for your target is now, I think, 3% or something going forward. And Magnus, I'm sure that can't be your internal goal. So will you care to update us on sort of what your actual plan is going forward?

[Magnus Welander, CEO & President]

Yes. I think in general, you shouldn't do a financial target update in the midst of a quarterly report in the third quarter. But you are absolutely right the 2 logics there, Gustav, no doubt. We've said all along, it's more than 7% CAGR you should focus on than the doubling of sales. So if you look at how we presented the sales growth, it was like we should at least be doing 7% CAGR. I would focus on that aspect rather than the doubling of sales by a certain year. Then, of course, if you look at EBIT performance, we've clearly said, for us, the biggest focus is true EBIT growth on the bottom line rather than an exact margin percentage. That doesn't mean, as we also clearly said, that we want to give away a hard-earned nice EBIT margin at a higher level. But we will focus on ensuring that it's this above 7% CAGR that happens rather than being too focused on an exact decimal point in the EBIT.

[Gustav Hagéus, Research Analyst]

All right. And by the assumption of CAGR, you're referring to revenue CAGR or also EBIT CAGR.

[Magnus Welander, CEO & President]

Yes. So if you looked at when we presented the financial target, we said if you do at least 7% top line growth every year, we will hit a double of sales by this year. You can keep that if we do at least 7% CAGR every year part in that equation.

[Gustav Hagéus, Research Analyst]

Okay. And with the 5% CapEx then to sales, it's a bit higher than I had in my assumptions, but I recognize that you want to grow and capture this opportunity. But you haven't talked about R&D to sales. How is that looking, you think, going forward?

[Magnus Welander, CEO & President]

So if you look at it this year, as we mentioned, the top line growth has been beyond our expectation. So we never throw money at product alone. And it is, of course, the right development projects, the right people. And we have hired more people than ever, but we won't be at the 5% level this year. But in the rest of the coming years, in the strategic near few years, we believe we'll be back at that 5% level.

[Gustav Hagéus, Research Analyst]

And where are you running, you think, this year?

[Magnus Welander, CEO & President]

I mean we will end at a high 4% this year rather than a 5%, so to speak. We were at 6%. We said we would be around 5.5-ish, and we will instead be high 4s in the end. But we will be running around 5% in the period. And you need to also remember, if you look at the 5% CapEx that we're talking about, we will see a few years of a limited period with a higher spend. Then our strong belief after catching up with the capacity, you have to remember that we are currently not as efficient as we would like to be because we are having to run shifts and weekends that are less cost efficient and we're not being able to be as flexible to capture upside. So what we're doing in the CapEx spend is partly to catch up with the capacity we should have already had because the growth was faster than we expected. So we are anticipating planned spending more to catch up. And then we're also spending to prepare for the next step. So if you look -- I would say it's a 3-year period of a higher-than-average spend. And then we hope and expect that we have caught up as well as prepared for the future, and we will return back to a more previous guidance in terms of CapEx.

[Gustav Hagéus, Research Analyst]

Right. And then, finally, you highlight quite clearly in the report that you see sort of -- it's tough for you to fully compensate for external inflation now in this year. But you also highlighted, with the ordinary pricing increases next year, from January next year, if I read it correctly, you're going to be back. So is that basically guiding for Q4 that margins in Q4 probably should be a bit lower than it would have been? Is that your -- what you're trying to say?

[Magnus Welander, CEO & President]

No. But I think we've been very clear. And as I also answered Daniel just before is that we said all along that we would be seeing some of the pricing effects -- price increases that we implemented during Q3, all of them in Q4. But clearly, what has happened is that raw material prices have gone up more than most people believe, definitely a little bit more than we thought. Freights are continuing to increase. So we're not at the level I would have liked to be, but that's why we're confident that our price increases for January will make us at the level we want to be. So yes, there is some effects on Q4. And the total margin will be more related then to a lot of other -- will there be those intermediate frustrating stops and frustrating effects from suppliers that are forcing us to do more production switchovers. Because one of the underestimated things, aside from huge material increases and freight, is that if you want to run an efficient plant, you don't want to have to do switchovers because certain components don't show up. Switchovers between different products, different things always is cost inefficient. And therefore, these constant small interruptions, which are very difficult at the moment to foresee, are one of the impacts also on our gross margin in our own assembly plants. So that one is a little bit of an uncertainty. But yes, we are saying there is some challenges on gross margin in 2021 Q4.

[Gustav Hagéus, Research Analyst]

All right. Those were all my questions.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Mats Liss from Kepler Cheuvreux.

[Mats Liss, Equity Research Analyst]

Congrats on a solid quarter. I just had, well, a few questions. First, I mean you implement price increases and so on. And I guess you are the premium brand in many segments. Do you sort of see that you benefit from more baggage-related competitors that they need to increase prices more?

[Magnus Welander, CEO & President]

I think in many of our categories, we have very strong local smaller competitors that sell good product. We are the only really big player in Sport&Cargo Carriers. But if you, for example, take Active with Kids, there are some very strong brands as well. So we're definitely not saying that we are that different from the rest. We're just much bigger in Sport&Cargo Carriers than all others. But if you look at it, everybody is pushing through price increases. So it's clearly not just us. Everybody is clearly pushing through price increases. And then there are different levels of percentages, et cetera. So we are not standing out in any shape or form in the market with our price increases. They're relatively in line with most people, what they're doing.

[Mats Liss, Equity Research Analyst]

Great. Then the margin, I mean the margin is good, I guess, but you indicated it could have been even better if you were able to balance all the cost increases. But what's the difference there? How much did it affect your margin?

[Magnus Welander, CEO & President]

Yes. If you look at it, and you can see the reduction we had versus last year, and last year we had a fantastic month for being that quarter, so I think it's always logical to more look at year-to-date reality. But if you look at it, we were about 2 percentage points down in the quarter. A part of that is, of course, raw material costs. A part of it, as I mentioned, is also the inability to be super efficient in your plants as you're getting constant stop issues while you're trying to desperately catch up with fantastic demand and outputting much more than you've ever done when you don't have all the capacity you need. What that means is you're paying people overtime, you're paying people for weekend work, you're taking in agency workers to complement your own staff. All of those lead to inefficiencies. So there are roughly those 2 percentage points, so to speak, is a combination of those 2 factors.

[Mats Liss, Equity Research Analyst]

Yes. Great. Then we have a question on RVs and so on. But I guess the fleet of used RVs is growing quite considerably also. Is this market for you? Or is it more sort of new RVs that are sort of that's when you sort of equip them with your accessories?

[Magnus Welander, CEO & President]

I think the key logic to understand the RV industry that almost all RVs when you talk about, not caravans, which is a small part and the big part is motorhomes. If you look at motorhomes, it's almost always triggered by somebody buying a new home and selling their old motorhome, which means if you look at our products in the RV product category, which is why we have always said from the beginning that they are more cyclical to a large financial investment, is it's products that you do not put yourself on the vehicle. You wouldn't -- you were being afraid that you would drill into the toilet from Dometic or -- the van from some -- the fridge or something, so you wouldn't do it yourself. When you then don't do it yourself, it's going to be at the time when you go to a dealership, especially if it's a used vehicle, or actually when you order it new from the manufacturer. So it's at the time of purchasing of the vehicle. So change of ownership is good. If it's change of ownership of an old one, it can be equally good. They say, oh, I like that motorhome. But wait, there isn't all those cool Thule products I want on it. Please, dealership, before you give it to me, put that on. So we are helped by the fact of ownership changes, so to speak, both new or used, then we benefit equally.

[Mats Liss, Equity Research Analyst]

Great. Yes. And while here, I was disconnected. I'm sorry if you answered that -- my question. But I mean we have talked about increasing the offering with some sort of new product launch. Is this a plan for next year? Or have you sort of...

[Magnus Welander, CEO & President]

We will -- in the spring next year, we will announce our new category. We haven't changed that. So we will definitely announce what the new category is in the spring next year.

[Mats Liss, Equity Research Analyst]

Great. And you don't want to talk more about that, it seems so.

[Magnus Welander, CEO & President]

I'm surprisingly consistent, as I often joke with Daniel, who tries to trap me with some very intricate question. No, we will tell you when we tell everybody.

[Mats Liss, Equity Research Analyst]

Right. And I guess one final one is, I mean, you grow very well and organic growth seem to work well for you. But yes, I mean, you seem to generate a lot of cash now. And I guess the acquisitions, it's still the bolt-on, small ones that you...

[Magnus Welander, CEO & President]

Absolutely. Yes, absolutely. We are convinced that you can win playing many different ways. We have, I think, proven with our growth and top line growth and our very nice EBIT margins and our very sustainable performance as a company that this way that we are doing it works very well for us. So we will definitely continue that way. And in that way, we've had some minor bolt-on acquisitions, and I'm sure we will have some in the future as well.

[Mats Liss, Equity Research Analyst]

And looking at next year, I guess, final, final, it will be tough comps. And I guess should we expect you to be able to reach the 7% CAGR target you have? Or is it more like long-term 2030 targets? Could you say something more there?

[Magnus Welander, CEO & President]

I feel very good about '22.

[Operator]

And we now have a follow-up question from Daniel Schmidt from Danske Bank.

[Daniel Schmidt, Research Analyst]

No, but I just wanted to come back to the investment pickup that you're announcing. And also I think you said that you're being quite forceful when it comes to product development into 2022. Could you try to shed some more light on exactly what you're doing on the CapEx side because you've been in this process of automating production in Sweden and in Poland and so on. And where are we in that process? And what are you adding now? And on top of that, could you give us any examples of new ranges or new collections in different categories that you will have in the market next year?

[Magnus Welander, CEO & President]

Absolutely. So if we start with the last question, what we decided to do is that with so many challenges to just be able to produce what we're producing, we've really focused on adding only products in where we were missing something in our portfolio rather than replacing a very well-selling, fast-growing category. So if you look at it, we will have a number of new products in rooftop tents. We will have some new cargo solutions. We're adding some bike solutions. But if you look at it, I would say, very much more focused on capacity and meeting demand on very well-performing product categories is a key focus in '22 to regain the on-time and full and the confidence from retail. So mostly, there's still a lot of new product coming. But if you look at it, not any of the huge volume sellers being replaced. The huge volume sellers, we are struggling enough to keep up with just making the ones we have. So in '22, a lot of focus on the big volume products being the same and then nice, smart additions around in the portfolios. If you take where we're spending the CapEx money, you're absolutely right that we've had some very successful automation projects on our roof rack factory in Sweden and that has not been a bottleneck, which proves out one of those things that if you do the right way. So what you can really say is that what is happening at the moment with those big volume increases we've had is that we, at all the major plants, are anticipating previous plans of extension. So we're doing building extensions at both our 2 Polish plants. We're doing building extensions in Sweden. We're doing building extensions in the U.S. in Connecticut to have more space for more production. That more production is also more automized because it's realistically the case that with big growth ambitions in the future, we need to ensure that we don't become too dependent on being able to find enough staff. It is also the case that when you have certain production lines that are more similar and you have more modular approach as we have also in some of our new models coming out from the beginning of how they were product developed, you can merit to set up an automated production. So interestingly enough, what people seldom realize is automized production needs much more space because you need the self-guiding robots to drive around, you need more space when you build automatic assembly lines. So therefore, we need space in terms of new shelves, so to speak, in the plants with new roof over it. So you're seeing across the board, both new building extensions and heavier automation investments with robots. To give you one example, in a near future, we will in '22 have more robots new than we had total robots in Poland in the past, only the new ones in '22. So if you look at that, we're pushing ahead of automation and space is the 2 key focus.

[Daniel Schmidt, Research Analyst]

Yes. Okay. And if you are sort of -- I don't know if you can answer this or not. But if you are currently at a situation where you can produce corresponding to SEK 10 billion in top line in a year with these investments, what will your sort of capacity be in terms of revenues, if that's possible to measure?

[Magnus Welander, CEO & President]

Yes. I think there's 2 -- it's a good question actually, Daniel. I think you need to answer it in 2 ways. One is that if you would deploy it on a yearly basis, you can add up a lot more millions, right? But what is the key for us, we want to get back in a high on-time and full exactly when the consumers wanted to buy the product. So that then forces us on an annualized basis to have overcapacity. Otherwise, we're not going to be flexible to meet the capacity when they actually wanted it during the year. So what we are dialing up now is not just a capability of adding SEK 5 billion in sales with the same capacity. It's actually, in practice, dialing it up even more to capture those months when truly there is a need for higher capacity because there's 2 ways you can serve that high on-time and full a seasonal business. One is having endless inventory. We don't want to have endless inventory because inventory for the sake of having inventory actually is not a brilliant thing. It is more cost efficient and more flexible to have the right things going if you increase your capacity opportunity for the peak season. So what we are currently doing is not only catching up with the capacity we should have had, it is adding the capacity not only to meet an annualized growth number that is big, it is actually adding capacity to handle a few months' growth capacity at much higher levels. So that's a little bit to answer your question. We're talking about several billion more capacity, if you look at it from that perspective that we want to be able to have in capacity output.

[Daniel Schmidt, Research Analyst]

Yes. Okay. I got you. And did you say also -- I don't know if I got you right or not, but you gave this guidance for '22 in terms of 5% of sales. But I thought I heard you say something about a couple of years. Was that right?

[Magnus Welander, CEO & President]

You're right. Yes, you're right. I think you can -- in your models, so to speak, in your macro models, I think it's logical to see in front of yourselves a 3-year period of the higher-than-historical average before we can turn back to the historical average just due to the huge sales increase we already had and some ambitious plans of sales increases going forward, plus a new category being introduced that itself triggers quite large CapEx.

[Daniel Schmidt, Research Analyst]

Okay. And would you say in that 3-year period that '22 is the peak year in terms of percentage?

[Magnus Welander, CEO & President]

That will all depend on how quick the top line growth as it is a percentage.

[Daniel Schmidt, Research Analyst]

But as you plan it?

[Magnus Welander, CEO & President]

I think, yes. Yes, you could say that, actually.

[Operator]

At this time, we have no further questions. I will now hand back to Magnus for any closing comments.

[Magnus Welander, CEO & President]

Thank you very much. I wish you all -- I know you have incredibly busy day with loads of companies reporting, so I wish you lots of fun. And I hope all the other companies had equally brilliant reports as we did. And look forward to have a nice follow-up for the Q4. Thank you, everybody.

[Operator]

Thank you, everyone, for joining the call today. This now concludes our event. And please now disconnect your lines.