Dive Brief:
- Moncler SpA reported group consolidated revenue of 2.98 billion euros for fiscal 2023, or approximately $3.2 billion at current exchange rates, showing a rise of 15% year over year, according to a Wednesday release.
- The Moncler brand saw revenue of 2.6 billion euros, which represented a 17% year-over-year increase, while the company’s Stone Island brand was up 2% to 411 million euros for the period.
- The company credited the strong Moncler brand revenue to double-digit Q4 growth, particularly in the DTC channel, which was up 22% for the year, although wholesale dipped 5%. Stone Island DTC was up 16%, while its wholesale channel also saw a 5% decline.
Dive Insight:
Last year was the 10th anniversary of the company’s listing on the Milan stock exchange. Remo Ruffini, chairman and CEO, said in a statement that looking ahead, the company wanted to ensure “continued resonance with existing communities while reaching new ones” with its Moncler brand, while working on a newly-launched brand positioning and engagement strategy for Stone Island.
“The operating environment remains complex and unpredictable,” Ruffinisaid in the statement. “We will continue to navigate through these uncertainties remaining vigilant while leveraging on our agility and reactivity. At the same time, we will continue to invest in our organisation, in our brands and in the exceptional talent within our Group, with a long-term oriented mindset and always pushing for higher peaks."
Moncler brand revenue in Asia rose 25% to 1.3 billion euros for the year, with especially strong year-over-year Q4 revenue in the region. Meanwhile, the brand’s EMEA regional revenue was up 13% to 911 million euros, with a robust DTC channel there buoyed by “a positive contribution from both tourists and locals,” with Chinese, Korean and American customers as the region’s “strongest contributors to tourist purchases.”
However, revenue in the Americas was up a slight 1%, and the company said the Moncler brand’s solid DTC sales were offset by a wholesale depression “influenced by the conversions of Nordstrom and part of Saks from a wholesale to a DTC business model.”
Stone Island saw EMEA revenue rise 3%, and the company said the region is the brand’s most important sector. Revenue in Asia was up 12%, but in the Americas, revenue dropped 19%, due to “challenging trends mostly among department stores, as well as by the ongoing efforts in upgrading the quality of this channel,” per the release.
The company signed an exclusive licensing agreement with EssilorLuxottica for Moncler eyewear in November 2023, and the first pieces from that collection are expected to come out in fall 2024. Also in 2023, Stone Island began the process “to take full control of the brand distribution in the Chinese market,” which is expected to be completed in the first half of 2024, and will include “the closure of some wholesale mono-brand stores” in the region, per the release.
In May 2023, former Gucci exec Robert Triefus became CEO of Stone Island via Sportswear Company SpA, the brand’s licensee. Earlier this week, Carlo Rivetti, chairman of Sportswear’s board of directors and chairman of Stone Island, became an investor in Moncler through his family’s corporate vehicle, Grinta. Moncler bought Stone Island in 2020.
