Jamieson Wellness Inc

TSX:JWEL

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q1

[Operator]

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the Jamieson Wellness Conference Call to discuss the Financial Results for the First Quarter of 2023. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that the reproduction of this call in whole or in part is not permitted without written authorization of the company. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded.On the call today from management are Mike Pilato, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Chris Snowden, Chief Financial Officer and Corporate Secretary. Before I turn the call over to Mr. Pilato, please note that a press release covering the company's first quarter 2023 financial results was issued this afternoon, and a copy of that press release can be found in the Investor Relations section on the company's website.Please note that the prepared remarks, which will follow, contain forward-looking statements and management may make additional forward-looking statements in response to your questions. These statements do not guarantee future performance, and therefore, undue reliance should not be placed upon them. We refer you to all risk factors contained in Jamieson's press release issued this afternoon and in filings with the Canadian securities administrators for a more detailed discussion of the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projections and any forward-looking statements.The company undertakes no obligation to publicly correct or update the forward-looking statements made during the presentation to reflect future events or circumstances, except as it may be required under applicable securities laws. Finally, we would like to remind listeners that the company may refer to certain non-IFRS financial measures during this teleconference. A reconciliation of these non-IFRS financial measures was included with the company's press release issued earlier today. Also, please note that unless otherwise stated, all figures discussed today are in Canadian dollars and are occasionally rounded to the nearest million.I will now turn the call over to Mr. Pilato to get started. Please go ahead, sir.

[Michael Pilato, executive]

Thank you, Aisha, and good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for taking the time to join us today to discuss our latest results. I'll begin with some high level comments about the quarter and provide an overview of our key strategic initiatives. Then Chris will follow with a more detailed review of the financials, and we'll open it up for questions.We had a strong first quarter and growth was broad-based across our key segments. Total revenue increased nearly 32% to $137 million, including 30% growth in our branded business. Canada was in line with expectations as consumers remained engaged in the category with strong consumption outpacing shipments. In the U.S., consumption was stronger than expected, driving our Youtheory brand revenue to $22 million, which was above the high-end of our expectations.We also saw our new U.S. e-commerce capabilities in action with strong growth in this channel. In China, we completed our final full quarter under the third-party distributor model, and shipments were up nearly 37% driven by strong consumption in our cross-border e-commerce business and our retail expansion efforts. Consumption patterns began to show signs of stabilizing in Eastern Europe during the quarter. However, revenues in our international markets declined as expected, largely due to timing of promotional orders in the Caribbean and Southeast Asian regions, and offset partially by strength in the Middle East region.Finally, Strategic Partners had a very strong quarter, with revenue up almost 40%, reflecting pricing and order timing factors. Consolidated gross profit margins decreased by 110 basis points to 35.5% in the quarter. Youtheory and Strategic Partners both have inherently lower profit margins. And given our over delivery in both businesses, this is to be expected on a weighted average.As anticipated, revenue in the quarter grew at a faster rate than adjusted EBITDA, which had $24.5 million was up 17% versus a year ago. This reflects our ongoing efforts to expand our infrastructure and resources and invest in brand building activities in the U.S. and China, while ensuring our Canadian business remains healthy and grows its leadership position. We entered 2023 in a position of strength, and our latest results continue to illustrate the power of our platform and the efficacy of our strategy for driving profitable, sustainable growth.The strategic actions that transformed our business and significantly elevated our global presence in the back half of 2022, continued to show material progress during the first quarter. At Youtheory, our expansion and integration efforts are advancing swiftly across key functional areas. This is helping to drive synergies, commercial activity and revenue and our significant performance in Q1 provides a strong indicator of our progress. We also began production of a new and improved hero SKU and the new line of gummies we discussed last quarter, both being introduced to the market starting in Q2.Over the next several quarters, we will be focused on further leveraging core capabilities and strengths to drive revenue and profitability. Over the long-term, we continue to expect our U.S. business to deliver consistent double-digit growth along with an improving margin profile. In China, we just completed the previously announced purchase of our distributor assets for approximately $26 million, meaning that as of May 1, we are directly operating all of our sales, marketing and distribution activities in the country.Given the strong momentum we are seeing in this massive $30 billion-plus market, the timing could not be better from my perspective. We now fully control our brand and entire value chain in China, enabling us to create deeper connections with Chinese consumers, broaden the scope of our offering and expedite our rate of growth. Our partnership with DCP Capital is on track to close in the second quarter, further supporting this transition. DCP's deep experience in China perfectly complements our capabilities and will help pave the way to strengthen and accelerate our market opportunities under our new operating model.Over the past several months, we've been focused on building a strong team in China. And in mid-April, we celebrated the official grand opening of our new larger Shanghai office with leaders from the Consulate General of Canada in Shanghai, government officials from the Putuo district of Shanghai, leaders from the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, our future partners from DCP Capital, Mei Ye from our Board of Directors and a few members of our Corporate Executive Team all in attendance. It was an exciting day for us all at Jamieson Wellness as we marked another milestone in the company's growing global presence. Given the size of the Chinese market, we continue to expect it will likely produce the highest average growth rates for Jamieson for the foreseeable future.In summary, we had a solid first quarter that we are very proud of. Our strategic growth initiatives are continuing to gain traction, and we remain comfortable with our outlook for the balance of 2023. I want to take a brief moment to thank the entire Jamieson team for their hard work, dedication and passion for helping advance our mission of becoming the world's most successful and trusted health and wellness company and delivering another solid quarter.With that, I'm going to turn the call over to our CFO, Chris, to discuss the first quarter results in more detail. Chris, over to you.

[Christopher Snowden, executive]

Thank you, Mike, and good afternoon. In the first quarter, revenue increased by 31.9% to $136.7 million, driven by growth in both Jamieson Brands and Strategic Partner revenues. Jamieson Brands revenue increased by 30% to $108.1 million in the first quarter. Domestic Canadian revenue grew by almost 2.5% as consumer consumption outpaced shipments in the quarter. This is typical due to the seasonal influx of shipments in the fourth quarter to support promotions and cold and flu season. The increase includes the impact of our prior year second half price increase as well.Our Youtheory acquisition contributed $22.2 million of branded revenue, driven by strong consumption, promotional timing and growth in our e-commerce business. This increase was offset by a continued drawdown of customer inventory ahead of our hero SKU innovation launching in the second quarter. In China, we saw continued momentum with 36.6% growth in the quarter, reflecting strong consumer demand in cross-border e-commerce, our continued expansion in domestic retail channels, and the removal of COVID-19 restrictions.Revenue in China this quarter represents the final period of sales through our third-party distribution model, as we transition to direct sales to consumers and retailers in the second quarter. In our international markets, revenue declined by 15.5% as expected, reflecting slower declines in Eastern Europe as consumption patterns in that region have begun to stabilize. And the impact of timing of promotional replenishments in the Caribbean and in Southeast Asia regions, offset by strength in the Middle East.Our Strategic Partner revenues increased by 39.7% or $8.1 million, reflecting pricing and the timing of customer orders while overlapping a softer Q1 2022. Gross profit margins decreased by 110 basis points, driven by mix factors, including the over delivery of expectations in Youtheory and Strategic Partners, both of which have inherently lower margin profiles.Within Jamieson Brands, gross margin profile -- sorry, gross profit margins declined by 230 basis points to 40.5%, reflecting the lower gross profit margin profile of the Youtheory and seasonally low volumes recognized in the acquired business, as well as lower planned Q1 production and product mix within the base business. Gross profit margin in the Strategic Partners segment increased by 510 basis points to 16.5%, reflecting favorable customer mix and volume driven by operating efficiencies, while pricing offset higher supply chain and input costs.Selling, general and administrative expenses increased by $10.8 million versus last year, excluding the impact of specified costs and the addition of Youtheory, SG&A increased by $1.5 million or 7.3%, largely reflecting global expansion initiatives, marketing and infrastructure to support our growth in China and in the U.S. Specified costs of $3.5 million including acquisition-related costs and our IT system development and implementation costs.First quarter operating income decreased by 3.7% or $0.6 million due to the specified costs for our acquisition and ERP improvements, and investments in SG&A offsetting the impact of higher revenues and gross profits. On a normalized basis, first quarter operating income increased by 13%. Reported EBITDA increased by 4.7%, while adjusted EBITDA increased by 17% to $24.5 million, reflecting higher volumes and gross profit offset by specified costs and investments in SG&A.Adjusted EBITDA margin decreased by 230 basis points to 17.9%, mainly due to the inclusion of the Youtheory margin profile and mix of Strategic Partner volumes in the quarter. As expected, net earnings decreased by 27.5% to $7.1 million and adjusted net earnings, which excludes specified costs and foreign exchange, decreased by 18% to $8.8 million, both from higher borrowings to support our acquisition and higher prevailing interest rates impacted by our seasonally low volume quarter. Our earnings per diluted common share were $0.17, and adjusted earnings per diluted common share were $0.21, a 19.2% decrease compared to the prior year due to the reasons I just noted, and the impact of shares issued within our Youtheory transaction. A reconciliation of adjusted EBITDA and adjusted net earnings is provided in today's press release announcing the company's first quarter results.Turning to the balance sheet and cash flow. We generated $7.9 million of cash from operations in the quarter compared to $17.1 million in the year earlier. Cash from operations before working capital considerations was $2.2 million lower due to specified acquisition and ERP-related costs impacting statutory earnings in the quarter. Cash generated from working capital decreased by $6.9 million in the quarter, driven by the timing of collections and temporarily higher inventory within our Youtheory and Strategic Partner businesses.In the quarter, we had capital expenditures of $2.3 million, and we distributed approximately $7.1 million in dividends. We ended the first quarter with approximately $124.8 million in cash and available operating lines. Based on our strong cash flow position and earnings today, we have announced a dividend of $0.17 per common share. The dividend will be paid on June 15, 2023, to common shareholders of record at the close of business on June 1, 2023.Now turning to guidance. We maintain our outlook for fiscal 2023 and the underlying assumptions for revenues and margins across all of our segments are unchanged from what we shared with you at the start of the year. Our guidance includes the following. Net revenue in the range of $670 million to $700 million, reflecting annual revenue growth of 22% to 28%. Adjusted EBITDA in the range of $140 million to $146 million, an increase of 13% to 18% compared to the prior year. And adjusted earnings per fully diluted common share of between $1.62 and $1.72, an increase of 5% -- an increase of between 5% and 11% compared to the prior year.Now with that, let me share some additional perspectives on the second quarter specifically. We anticipate Jamieson brand revenues to increase by almost 50% to 60% as follows. The domestic business up to 3% growth as consumer demand continues to outpace shipments in the quarter, impacted by the timing of cold and flu shipments. Acquired revenues of $40 million to $44 million in our Youtheory business based on shipments to support seasonal promotional campaigns and initial shipments of our new innovations launching in the quarter.50% to 70% growth in our China business, reflecting the step-up to distributor level pricing, as well as continued stronger demand in cross-border e-commerce and our new domestic Chinese club distribution. $9.2 million to $10.2 million in our international business based on stabilized consumption in Eastern Europe and the timing of customer inventory replenishments in the prior year. Strategic partner revenues are expected to increase between 35% and 45%, reflecting the timing of available production and pricing. We anticipate normalized SG&A to increase approximately 55% to 65% in the quarter, reflecting the acquisition of Youtheory, added resources, accelerated marketing investment and a transition to our own business distribution model in China.A complete discussion of our outlook for the full year fiscal 2023 as well as factors impacting our expected performance is included in the outlook section of our MD&A. Our MD&A was filed this evening. In closing, I would like to thank the entire Jamieson Wellness team for their continued commitment and hard work as we execute against our strategic plan and deliver value for our stakeholders.With that, let me turn the call back to our operator, Aisha, for Q&A.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Derek Lessard from TD Cowen.

[Derek Lessard, analyst]

Congrats on a really nice quarter. Just wanted to touch on your 2023 guidance. A lot of consumer companies or those that have exceeded their Q1 guide have decided to maintain their longer-term 2023 guide. Just wondering if you can maybe help us understand how you're thinking about the 2023 guide, given [ the beat. ]

[Michael Pilato, executive]

I'll take it. We feel really proud of what we delivered in Q1, and thank you for the complement. It was a strong quarter by the team for sure. We have a lot of confidence in the guidance that we put into the market for 2023, and we're going to hold that guidance today. Really there's just a lot of moving pieces right now going on both internally and externally in terms of our business and the -- kind of the macroeconomics going on around the world, and we're just not prepared at this point to change our guidance.We have a lot of moving pieces as we invest in these new platforms that we acquired in the U.S. and in China, and we feel great about the plan. So there's a lot of moving pieces there, though, and we don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves. And also, there's still a lot of macroeconomic and geopolitical headwinds out there, still the war going on in Ukraine. You've got macroenvironmental headwinds that are just uncertain at this time. And every day, the news is different and every day, the prognostication on that is different. So we're going to hold to our guidance today. We're pleased with the quarter we just delivered. And this team is fully focused on continuing to deliver quarter-after-quarter, year-after-year.

[Derek Lessard, analyst]

Mike, that's fair. And maybe touching on the Youtheory for a second. And more specifically, the hero SKU and the new -- I guess, it was the pulled innovation in the gummies. Could you just maybe talk about how the relaunches are progressing and where you are? I know you're supposed to launch in Q2. But has that started to go into the pipeline as we speak?

[Michael Pilato, executive]

Yes. So from an innovation perspective, in Youtheory, we are launching five gummy SKUs. All five are planned to start shipping in Q2, three of the five have already begun shipping. I would say though that as planned and as guided, those will build over time. We're going to start with e-commerce in a couple of our key health food retailers and some online retailers. So those have begun shipping in the last couple of weeks, and they'll continue to ship through Q2. When it comes to the hero SKU that we talked about last quarter, where we decided to do new improved product, and we've seen some de-inventory leading up to that launch. That product also has been produced, it's in full production. It has started its early days of shipping as well and it's starting to get to market. It will be in shelf sometime over the next few weeks and really start to see a surge into one of our big key customers later in the quarter. So shipping has begun on both of those.

[Derek Lessard, analyst]

Okay. So the -- I guess, the bigger impact will be felt in Q3.

[Michael Pilato, executive]

No, you'll see some -- it's in our guidance for Q2, you'll see some big shipments in Q2. It's just -- it's building up over the quarter on that hero SKU, which would be the bigger innovation of all of the ones that we just talked about. So yes, you'll feel it in Q2, it's in our guidance, and we're quite happy with it. And it is -- the SKU is in our joint care turmeric lineup, where we did put into an improved formula under that key segment.

[Derek Lessard, analyst]

Okay. That's helpful. And maybe one last one for me, a follow-up before I requeue. The $22.2 million that you reported in the quarter, how does that compare to last year?

[Christopher Snowden, executive]

It's slightly -- so versus prior year, it just varies slightly down as that one customer inventory. And that negative was offset by really strong sell-through on our other two hero segments as well as strong growth in our e-commerce segment.

[Michael Pilato, executive]

Just a little color on e-commerce. I think it's important, because I'm sure the question will come up. We talk a lot about that being a growth pillar for us in the U.S. We saw strong double-digit growth on e-commerce in the U.S. as we deployed some new capabilities and a new strategy into the business there in the U.S., we're quite proud of that.

[Derek Lessard, analyst]

Mike, is that -- maybe could you talk about over what base that would be?

[Michael Pilato, executive]

Yes. It's not over the biggest base, Derek, I'm not going to -- we're not going to break out the revenue, but it did outpaced our expectations on the quarter. And the growth rate was higher than we had planned. We're quite pleased with what we're seeing in terms of conversion, both through e-commerce partners and our DTC site that we kicked off in late Q4.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Ty Collin from Eight Capital. The next question comes from Endri Leno from National Bank.

[Endri Leno, analyst]

Congrats on the good quarter. Just a couple of questions from me. The first one, I wanted to ask you that if you can talk a little bit about the costs that you had in Q1, how did they track against your expectations? Did you have some of them shift to Q2? Or are you keeping to catch along those?

[Christopher Snowden, executive]

Yes. With our inventory levels at the end of the year, we did not see a significant change in cost levels. We feel we're very well suited and guided for expected margins throughout the year. There are some categories that are up, some categories that are down, but nothing that's going to change our guidance at this point in time.

[Endri Leno, analyst]

And does that kind of -- being in line, is that also for the additional costs that you're planning to expand or to grow the brand of Youtheory and in China as well? Or are those different?

[Christopher Snowden, executive]

All of those input costs are -- that's what I'm talking primarily about. When we talk about the incremental costs in Youtheory as well as in China, those are a lot of SG&A and fixed orientated costs, where we're investing in marketing, infrastructure and resources. So we continue to be very confident about our guidance and just feel very strongly.

[Endri Leno, analyst]

The other question I had on China, you also mentioned there was new club distribution on your retail partnerships and efforts. I mean, can you talk a little bit about that partnership to the extent that you can share in terms of, I don't know if you can size it? Is it an existing partner with new stores, new partner? Like any color there, I would appreciate it.

[Michael Pilato, executive]

Yes. What I would say, Endri is, it is -- as in any country, there's multiple retailers in different channels in the club channel in China, there are multiple partners. So this would be one of the larger club channels in the country, they do have established stores. We have established a partnership and started shipping to them and are building a business in that channel as we've planned. So quite pleased with that in Q1. And as we continue to build the business in China and that retail distribution we'd be happy to talk about it more and more.

[Endri Leno, analyst]

That's great. The last one for me, how do you expect CapEx in '23?

[Christopher Snowden, executive]

I think we had talked about between 15 and $20 million in total capital, and that would include investments in our ERP system that would be recognized in the P&L and added back.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Sabahat Khan from RBC Capital Markets.

[Sabahat Khan, analyst]

Great. And maybe just following-up on the kind of the China discussion. Could you maybe share a little bit about as we look forward to -- once that deal with the new partner closes, what specific kind of channels or are there specific things that, that partner is going to be able to maybe help accelerate into relative to what maybe the distributor was doing on their own? So maybe just a little bit color, what this channel, type of customers, while there's more in-market customer knowledge. But just a bit more color there, please.

[Michael Pilato, executive]

Yes. I think first off, what I'd say, Sab, and thanks for joining today. They've already started helping us in the background on a few carriers, and it will accelerate it as we close that deal. First and foremost, I mean, we've built a team now of about 30 people in China, some amazing talent, some very talented people that have very, very nice backgrounds in CPG and in VMS in the country, and they've helped us find some of that key talent that is going to drive some of the growth that we're talking about.Secondly, these guys have built some businesses in China over years and really understand where all the different -- China is very complex, right? It's a very complex market with a lot of regions, provinces, cities, a lot of channels. They understand how to get to those through various distributors, various broker partners, various avenues that you need to grow the business and scale the business, and they're going to give us access -- and they have started to give us access to all of those connections. As well as just commercial and operational savviness on the ground, understanding how to speak to consumers, what drives the consumer in China and how to continue to build out our business there, based on their history of growing businesses in the nutrition space and in the protein space.

[Sabahat Khan, analyst]

Just wondering if we think about markets, I think when you guys were more focused on the cross-border e-commerce channel, and there was certain cities or the type of cities that you're targeting, I guess, is the idea now to go broad? Or are you still looking at Tier A and Tier 2 cities only?

[Michael Pilato, executive]

Yes, our focus -- so we're still focused on cross-border e-commerce, it's a very big and growing channel. We continue to see strong growth in cross-border e-commerce in the first quarter, and we'll continue to push that business forward. We also are focused on domestic e-commerce as we move into taking control here. In China, there's two different kind of e-commerce platforms. You have the cross-border e-commerce, which can sell foreign brands through it. And then you have the domestic e-commerce, of which our registrations come into play, and we can sell our registered products.We're also looking to expand into retail distribution, as we just talked about. With that, though, the focus remains today on Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities. I mean the opportunities in those cities are just so big. We have a core consumer that values premium, high-quality products, and those consumers will be focused on have the money to buy the products that we sell in those Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities for now. As we scale, we might continue to expand beyond those, but that's our focus today.

[Sabahat Khan, analyst]

Okay. And then maybe just looking at the domestic market here in Canada, maybe just two part question. One, can you comment on just the general inventory position of the retailers as it relates to just Jamieson as well as just the vitamin category? And second, as we think about this category, obviously, these are all staples, retailers, but how are they -- what kind of environment are they preparing for as you think about the rest of '23? Is it sort of same as what we've seen recently, steady as she goes? Or are they -- are you noticing some level of caution as they build their inventory or manage their inventory?

[Michael Pilato, executive]

I would say a couple of things. I'd say as one thing about inventory right now, you saw in Q1, our consumption significantly outpaced our shipments. And what that shows is, we're getting back to kind of this pre-COVID build burn through cold and flu season, where we build up inventory through Q3 and Q4 for cold and flu season and then it burns through Q1 and Q2. So it's getting back to kind of those pre-COVID inventory build burned cycles that we didn't feature COVID because of all the different waves and everything going on, it's just through all the historical build burns into a different spin. So we're back to that.As we look customer-by-customer, it's kind of no different than any year at this point. We see some customers that could use a little more -- a few more weeks of inventory. We have a few customers that are probably sitting a couple of weeks high in inventory. And as we do every year, we just work to balance that out through the year and make sure all of our customers have the right inventory levels. I'm not -- we're not getting any strong indications of any change in that strategy. But what I would say is, I wouldn't expect customers to be looking to on a materially increasing inventories, based on the macro environmental headwinds that we all could be facing. I think everyone right now is managing the balance sheet. Everyone is watching those metrics closely as they should be doing. And I don't see the opportunity to increase the numbers where we sit today, and we'll continue to work with every one of our retailers on a case-by-case basis in terms of meeting their needs.

[Sabahat Khan, analyst]

And then just one last quick one from me, and I'll pass the line. As you look at -- there's some discussion earlier about the progress on the U.S. side with Youtheory. I guess, we're kind of call it four months down into the year? Has the uptake of the new products and the way Q1 trended? Has that largely been in line with expectations? Or any variations on the U.S. side, whether to the good or to the bad that you've noticed your data in that brand?

[Michael Pilato, executive]

Well, Q1, we over exceeded the high end of our expectations. And really, it came down to -- the main factor being consumption just came in stronger than we anticipated, and we did see that consumer continue to be engaged in the sub categories that we play in. But that was really nice to see. When it comes to the new products that we ship, there's really nothing to report at this point. We just started shipping them. They're still in the pipeline, making their ways to stores and really nothing to talk about there.You see our guidance on the quarter. We feel pretty confident in our guidance there. Those innovations we talked about were the ones we talked about last year in terms of some of the slowdown that we manage through. But we also want some more innovations into market as well, just regular cadence innovation that has started shipping, and we'll let it get to stores, and we believe we have some good business there to be have.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Ty Collin from Eight Capital.

[Ty Collin, analyst]

Sorry for the technical difficulties earlier there. Can you hear me all right now?

[Michael Pilato, executive]

Yes, no problem. Thanks for joining us.

[Ty Collin, analyst]

Okay. So yes, well, congrats on closing the acquisition of the China distributor today. Just my first question is on that. Will that have any impact on margins at all in Q2 and going forward? Or is it kind of too small that matter from a margin standpoint?

[Christopher Snowden, executive]

Well, on a stand-alone business, margins in China will be consistent with the rest of our branded business and are included from a mix perspective in our guidance. So no further impact to what has been already been disclosed.

[Ty Collin, analyst]

Okay. Got it. And then just another one on the Q2 guide here. So it looks like you're expecting gross margins down about 200 basis points, whereas they were down about closer to 100 bps this quarter. Is that just mix driven? Or are there any other factors in there to take note of?

[Christopher Snowden, executive]

Yes, it's the seasonal volume -- higher volume quarter related to the Youtheory acquisition, and just how that plays with the volume recognized in the rest of the business.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Justin Keywood with Stifel.

[Justin Keywood, analyst]

I just had a question on the broader competitive landscape. We saw a pretty significant transaction announced this week. Blackmore is being acquired by Kirin for $1.2 billion, what looks like a pretty favorable multiple. I'm wondering if that consolidation trend is showing up in any areas that you're seeing. And perhaps there could be some more competition on M&A going forward, impacting multiples?

[Michael Pilato, executive]

Yes. I'd start by just addressing the acquisition just in general, if you don't mind, Justin, I'll answer your question. I think, we sat back and saw that we think the valuation paid for Blackmore is really more fairly representing the industry we play in. We've had long-term consumer tailwinds behind health and wellness and vitamins, minerals and supplements. The future growth prospects and the profitability of the category continue to show nothing but upside into the future. And we're quite pleased to see that the valuation that Blackmore fairly represents, what we think the industry should get.We also think it helps validate our strategic choices in terms of growing in Asia and in China, and really seeing companies focus there. So we are quite pleased with that. When it comes to consolidation, I mean, I don't really think it changes anything. This has been a market that has been seeing consolidation for some time. If we could go back 15, 20 years and look at a list of different brands that have been purchased over the years, either by big strategic players or some of the -- few of the brands that we bought, for example.So I think it was interesting to see that. I think if one thing that should bring to light to the North American community is, there's a whole lot of strategic buyers out there that are large that we don't even deal with every day here or know every day like some of the mainstream CPG or pharma companies we've heard over the past 15 years. I mean, this was a large beer company out of Asia looking to get into VMS. So it was an interesting spin and brings a whole different world of strategics and opportunities into the marketplace.

[Justin Keywood, analyst]

I appreciate that. And then just one other question on the DCP transaction closing in Q2. Any reason why that wasn't closed in conjunction with the China distributor?

[Christopher Snowden, executive]

Yes. So Justin, it's about the transfer of assets and the transition of our cross-border e-commerce storefronts. That transaction or those transitions, there's probably 30 -- close to 30 of those store funds that transitioned throughout the month of April. So now that, that transition has been completed, they have a statutory period of time with which they can close their transaction, and we expect to announce that in the next few weeks here.

[Michael Pilato, executive]

Just one thing on that DCP thing, as Chris is talking that hit me, Justin, it goes back to Sabahat's question. I shouldn't let it go unaddressed. We ask what some of the capabilities are that DCP brings? Because of DCP's experience, they've done this before. They've done some transitions on an e-commerce basis. We were able to transition our e-comm platforms very quickly, and really take a lot of the learnings that they had been through in their history and leverage them in our transition, and it happened at a really nice pace that we're really proud of, I'm really proud of the team there that was able to pull off some of these transitions by May 1, which was fantastic. So some more benefit that DCP brought for sure.

[Operator]

The next question comes from George Doumet from Scotiabank.

[George Doumet, analyst]

Yes, Mike and Chris, congrats on a good quarter. I just want to get started on Jamieson Canada. It looks like we're expecting to see negative volumes for the first half of the year. Can you maybe talk a little bit about POS where it's trending? I'm just trying to get a sense of that opportunity for volume recovery in the second half? And second part of that question is I know it's probably too early to talk about next year. But historically, what do you usually see in sales the year after re-anniversary a really strong flu season?

[Michael Pilato, executive]

Yes. I'll take the first part there for sure. So we had a really good quarter in Canada in terms of consumption, and consumption in terms of dollars outpaced our revenue number by about 3x -- almost 3x as we saw the consumer continue to buy products and really some of the pricing that we put in, in the back half of the year. When it comes to units, we actually didn't see a decline in unit storage. We saw a very slight increase in units, which was really nice to see in the quarter.And underlining that numbers are really some interesting data points that I think are important. We did see some unit declines in the immunity side of the business, not anything material, but some unit declines in the immunity side of the business. But we have to remember, the immunity was comping the Omnicom surge of a year ago. So it was up against a really tough comp. You would think that -- or there could be a hypothesis out there that, that would drive units down. But what happened is, all the other categories of strength that have been growing, the unit sales in those subcategories grew and just outpaced any declines we saw in immunity.And what that tells us is, it really validates this notion that we've been talking about that the consumer entered the category through COVID, through immunity, but they spread their usage and their engagement in the category out across multiple categories, and they continue to grow those categories outside of immunity. We saw strong unit growth and energy and sleep stress, digestive joint and multivitamins, we saw it in a lot of subsegments outside of immunity. So underneath those trends, we're seeing some really nice data points.

[George Doumet, analyst]

Okay. I'm very sorry, on the hangover effects the following year...

[Michael Pilato, executive]

Yes, the second part of the question, it's hard to tell, because it depends on how strong the flu season is. And flu season is not projected to be light again this year coming up. So year-over-year, we tend to see flu season pop our business in terms of Q3 and Q4 sales. We see ourselves burn through it in Q1 and early Q2. And we don't see any change in that expectation moving forward. We're still -- this quarter, we're still comping against some tough comps in terms of COVID and Omnicom, but we're going to start to see those disappear as well, and we should get back to a more normalized cadence that we used to see.

[George Doumet, analyst]

Okay. And maybe shifting gears to China, Mike, I'm curious to hear about the investments you're making in brand building and maybe what KPIs you use to measure the success there?

[Michael Pilato, executive]

Yes. So we're investing in marketing -- in brand building marketing and some broad-based marketing. And we'll be looking to measure that in a couple of fronts. First off, it's going to be impressions and really maximizing the impressions that our brand has with consumers and with our core consumer that we're targeting there, and ensuring that we're talking directly to that consumer. Over time, then we start measuring that through awareness and equity scores. And our insights team is all over making sure that we have the baseline set coming into this transaction. We know where our equity and awareness scores are, and now looking to build that up over time as the business grows. And really closing that gap between awareness and equity that we know outpaces our business today, getting our base business and our sales to catch up with that, and then continuing to drive equity and awareness forward. So it's a really traditional type of look at how you do brand building. But what I would say is most of it done in -- most of it in China would be done through digital channels and digital marketing, which that consumer is just so engaged digitally compared to any other country in the world.

[George Doumet, analyst]

Great. That's really helpful. And just one last one, if I may. I noticed that you guys kept your international guide still pretty wide, 5% to 20% for the year. You noted that things look to have stabilized in Eastern Europe. Just kind of wondering why it's so wide or maybe what factors need to happen for us to land either at the bottom or the top end, maybe some color there.

[Christopher Snowden, executive]

Yes. In spite of the percentages being wide, it doesn't really provide for a significant dollar gap. I think it's only about a couple of million dollars. And it's really about the new countries that we're looking at getting into, and the timing of the registrations that come with entering those countries. Those are -- that's the big driver between landing somewhere in the middle or versus the top end of that guide.

[Operator]

The next question comes from John Zamparo from CIBC.

[John Zamparo, analyst]

I wanted to get back to Youtheory and specifically the seasonality of that business. And can you just remind us, historically, I know Qs two and four are the most important. But can you remind us historically what the seasonality of that business is? And is it right to say that? Or is it fair to say that Q4 maybe around 40% of expected sales for the year?

[Christopher Snowden, executive]

I think that's a little high based on my view of the overall business. Certainly, you probably have about a 45% weighting on the front half versus the back half. And then last year, obviously, in Q3, we only had I think it was 2.5% of three months in the quarter. So you'll see that seasonality normalize this year. Obviously, with Q1 being lower just based on the inventory cycle, as well as Q4 2022 being low based on the drawdown in inventory customers at the time as well. So both of those factors impact your comparatives going forward. Otherwise, we think that shipments will be very close to consumption as we move forward from a quarter-to-quarter perspective.

[John Zamparo, analyst]

Okay. Understood. And can you share anything on consumption [Technical Difficulty] kind of its point-of-sale data? Or if you just use your e-comm as a lead to there. But can you give us a sense of point-of-sale data for the brand?

[Michael Pilato, executive]

Yes. So we have some very -- as we talked about, we over delivered the high-end expectation on the business, and a lot of that was driven by the fact that consumption came in higher than expected. We don't have broad-based like a Nielsen data point or something like that, but we do have a few data points by some of our key retailers. And what we don't break it out, what I can tell you is, we did see some good high single-digit consumption across the business that we were quite happy with in the quarter.

[John Zamparo, analyst]

Okay. That's helpful. Switching gears, I wonder if you've seen any change in private label penetration, either in Canada, U.S. or any of your key international markets over the past few months.

[Michael Pilato, executive]

Yes. We actually, John, saw private label actually hold steady in Canada, actually lost a very little piece of share in Canada on a dollar basis. So we didn't really see them move the needle at all or any real shifting going on there, if that's what you're getting at across the board. What I would say though, when it comes to shipping is, we have continued, as we talked about before to see shift to some channels that are more like club, e-commerce, some of the grocers who talk about shipping to the value -- their discount channels, we continue to see that across all CPG including our category.And the good thing is, in a lot of those channels, we have very strong business, and we're seeing the benefits of that. And again, as we talked about before, we're kind of margin agnostic across the board with a few puts and takes. So it's played out well for us to-date. Both in Canada and the U.S. I don't know, control label numbers in the U.S., but from the channel shifting perspective, it has played out well for us.

[John Zamparo, analyst]

All right. That's interesting. And then last one for me. Have you seen any change in promotional behavior from competitors in particular on the U.S. side?

[Michael Pilato, executive]

We have seen no material changes that has appeared in any data that we have today.

[Operator]

This concludes the question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Pilato for any closing remarks. Please go ahead.

[Michael Pilato, executive]

Perfect. Thanks for joining us today for your continued support. It's nice to see everyone out asking great questions. We look forward to continuing to scale this business globally in 2023 and well beyond. We are focused really hard on solidifying our key platforms for growth in the U.S. and China and really focus on continuing to strengthen our brand here in Canada and the leadership position we have. So this team is full force ahead to deliver the guidance we put out, and we're really looking forward to speaking to you again. Have a great night, and thanks for coming out.

[Operator]

This concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating, and have a great evening.