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Q3-2025 Earnings Call
AI Summary
Earnings Call on May 6, 2025
Sales Growth: Net sales grew 2% year-over-year in Q3, reaching SEK 486 million, outperforming the overall market but below long-term growth targets.
Profitability: Adjusted EBIT margin held at 20.8%, in line with the company’s goal of at least 20%, despite gross margin dipping to 69.4%.
Market Conditions: The outdoor market remains challenging, with many regions seeing double-digit declines, but RevolutionRace gained market share in several key territories.
Product Expansion: Alpine and shoes categories together still represent around 10% of sales, with alpine surpassing SEK 100 million in the season.
Physical Retail Move: The first outlet store in Sweden launched successfully in April; further expansion into physical retail is under evaluation.
Operational Efficiency: Operating expenses declined, driven by marketing and logistics efficiency rather than temporary cost-cutting.
Strong Financial Position: Net cash at SEK 147 million with an unused SEK 600 million credit facility; inventory remains well balanced.
Guidance: Early Q4 trading shows local currency sales growth versus last year, but management remains cautious given ongoing market uncertainty.
RevolutionRace reported 2% sales growth in Q3, outperforming a weak market where many regions are in decline. The company continued to gain market share in key markets, notably in the Nordics, which grew 10% in local currencies, and Switzerland, which showed the highest growth among larger markets. The DACH region grew by 1%, while Rest of the World declined by 3%. Management estimates their sales growth is about 10 percentage points above some peers, underlining their relative strength.
Adjusted EBIT margin was 20.8%, matching financial targets, with underlying EBIT growing more than sales when adjusting for currency effects. Gross margin declined to 69.4% (from 71.5%), mainly due to higher campaign activity, product mix, and unfavorable currency movements. Management emphasizes maintaining high profitability as a key pillar, even if it means moderating growth investment in weaker regions.
The broader outdoor market remains challenging, with some regions experiencing double-digit declines. Sweden’s market shrank by 2.5% during the quarter, and Germany, the largest market, shows no clear near-term improvement. Management noted increased promotional sensitivity among consumers and heightened activity from low-cost Chinese competitors, though the direct impact on sales is unclear.
Alpine and shoes categories together remain approximately 10% of sales, with both at about SEK 100 million each. Alpine exceeded SEK 100 million for the season, and new shoe and lifestyle launches were described as successful—some products sold out, though expansion is being approached cautiously. The company continues to invest in product development, especially on the product and production side.
RevolutionRace opened its first outlet store near Stockholm in April, which was described as a successful launch. Management is evaluating further physical store openings, initially in Sweden, with a possible future move into Germany. The aim is to reach offline customers, as 75–80% of outdoor products are still sold offline. The strategy is cautious, focusing on learning and incremental rollout.
The company achieved lower operating expenses, especially in marketing and logistics, which contributed to maintaining EBIT margins despite a lower gross margin. Management attributes the efficiency more to structural improvements than to temporary cutbacks due to soft sales.
RevolutionRace ended the quarter with a net cash position of SEK 147 million and an available, undrawn credit facility of SEK 600 million. Inventory is well managed and expected to decrease over the coming year. The company continued its share repurchase program, acquiring SEK 27 million of shares in the quarter, with SEK 86 million repurchased under the ongoing mandate.
Sales in the U.S. represent 1–2% of total revenue, so exposure to new U.S. tariffs is limited. Management reiterated that all sales in the U.S. must remain profitable, and any tariff-related cost increases will likely result in selective price increases, assortment adjustments, or reduced marketing spend in the market.
[Audio Gap] RevolutionRace Q3 Presentation. [Operator Instructions]
Now I will hand the conference over to the CEO, Paul Fischbein; and CFO, Jesper Alm. Please go ahead.
Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone, and welcome to this conference call where we will address the report for the third quarter of the financial year 2024 and '25. Our financial year starts 1st of July and ends the 30th of [Audio Gap]. My name is Paul Fischbein, and I am the CEO of RevolutionRace. And with me today for today's conference call, I have the company's CFO, Jesper Alm.
For those of you who are not familiar with RevolutionRace, I will start by giving you a brief introduction. RevolutionRace is an international outdoor brand offering a wide range of outdoor products, mainly clothing, but also shoes, bags and other products. Everything started with pants, and that category is still the largest product category. We operate with a D2C business model, meaning that we skip the middlemen and sell our products directly to our customers. We do this mainly via our own website, RevolutionRace or through marketplaces such as Amazon. RevolutionRace was founded in 2013 and launched in 2014, and we've been listed on Nasdaq Stockholm since 2021. Our headquarter is located in Boras in Sweden, and we have approximately 130 employees.
With our D2C business model, we can secure our competitive offering and at the same time, maintain industry-leading margins, but also the model makes it possible for us to act fast and for example, also react to changes in the industry, which is important when the market is uncertain. RevolutionRace has become an international brand, and this picture, I think, illustrates our international presence very well. We have customers in around 40 countries, and we have 18 localized web shops. We are fulfilling orders at the 2 main logistics hubs with partners in Germany and Sweden and with a small location also in the U.S. We have all our employees working out of Sweden, and we design all our products in-house and work together with more than 25 suppliers for the production in Asia.
Okay. So now let's take a look at the performance and sales development for the third quarter. And we report continued growth and also continued high profitability. The net sales for the entire quarter amounted to SEK 486 million compared to SEK 478 million a year ago. And that sales -- the sales growth was 2% in both Swedish krona and also in local currencies. We, of course, aimed for a higher growth number, but we continue to outperform the market and increase market shares, which is important, especially as the market continues to be challenging in many countries. For the full quarter, the Nordic region continued to perform well as sales in the Nordics grew by 10% in local currencies. It is encouraging for us to see the positive trend continuing in the Nordics despite challenges in the Nordic auto market. For example, according to a report called Spot Index, the outdoor market in Sweden declined by 2.5% during the quarter.
In the DACH region, we grew by 1% in local currencies, while sales in the Rest of the World decreased by 3% in local currencies. In the DACH and Rest of the World regions, market conditions also remain weak according to reports that we have access to, yet we continue to gain market share in several countries. Among our larger markets, Switzerland recorded highest growth during the quarter. U.K. was again now the third largest market after Germany and Sweden. And in Germany, our largest and most important market, we see no real clear signs of a near-term improvement in market conditions. But despite this, we -- it is clear that we continue to strengthen our position. So all in all, even if sales growth is below our long-term financial target, we believe that it is an okay performance across many markets. We are confident that we are outperforming the market as a whole and continue to increase our market shares. In many markets, we are close to the 20% increase in market share, which we have as our growth target.
Let's look closer at other highlights also during the third quarter, which are important. The adjusted operating profit for the quarter amounted to SEK 101 million, corresponding to an adjusted EBIT margin of 20.8%. And again, our financial target is to maintain at least 20%. So this is in line with our target. Delivering a strong result is important to us, and the underlying result improved compared with last year since we had some currency effects from the balance sheet -- from balance sheet items not related to operations, resulted in other operating expenses of SEK 4 million for the quarter, whereas if you look at the comparison quarter, actually showed other operating income or income of SEK 6 million. So if you adjust for this, which is a difference of SEK 10 million, the underlying EBIT grew more than sales. And I think that this is, in fact, important to understand, and we are actually proud to continue to report industry-leading margins despite these challenging times.
So we maintain a solid financial position with a net cash balance of SEK 147 million and also on top of that, an unused credit facility of SEK 600 million as of the end of the quarter. Our inventory remains well balanced, and we expect it to gradually decrease over the coming 12 months. So -- and also during the quarter, we continued repurchasing shares in line with the mandate from the AGM and acquired shares for a total amount of SEK 27 million in the quarter.
Let's continue now looking at April, we opened our first outlet store in the outlet village of Barkarby outside of Stockholm, and that store opening was successful. And even though it's only one store and one store doesn't have a big impact, we see exciting potential to expand our retail footprint. So the message is that we are currently now evaluating opportunities for further physical locations as a complement to our e-commerce business. Also, our close relationship with our customers continues as it used to do in previous quarters to be a key driver of our success. I often mentioned this, but I think it is worth repeating as it is maybe our most important asset with over 720,000 product reviews and an average rating of 4.6 out of maximum 5, along with more than 2 million followers across our social media channels. Our community plays a vital role in building our company and strengthening our brand. And we focus on this a lot and monitor it closely.
And with that, I would like to hand over to the company's CFO, Jesper Alm, who will present and walk through the financial performance of the quarter. So please, Jesper, go ahead.
Well, thank you, Paul, and good morning, everyone. I will talk you through our financial performance during the third quarter. Gross profit amounted to SEK 337 million for the quarter, roughly in line compared to the SEK 342 million a year ago. And this equals a gross margin of 69.4% compared to 71.5% last year. The decrease in gross margin is mainly attributable to a larger share of sales with price reduction, product mix and a nonfavorable currency effect on net sales in relation to goods for resale, where the SEK has strengthened versus the euro and of course, also against the USD, but that is with a delayed effect in our purchasing of products.
Moving on to operational expenses. We see a slight increase in personnel expenses compared to the same quarter last year. The number of full-time equivalents was 132, which is slightly more than the 121 a year ago, but lower than the 134 last quarter. The increase versus last year is primarily attributable to the product and production side of the organization, which is in line with the strategy to invest more in product development. Adjusted personnel costs as a share of net sales was 6.3%, and the adjustment amounts to SEK 21 million and primarily relates to the stay-on-bonus that was accounted for in the quarter, which is cash flow neutral as it is -- at the same time, has been booked as a shareholder contribution. So this is funded by the founders that -- from the time of the IPO.
Other external expenses decreased to SEK 200 million compared to Q3 last year of SEK 216 million. And this as a share of net sales was 41% and is then a decrease compared to last year, to a large extent driven by efficient market spend. Adjusted EBIT amounted to SEK 101 million, in line with the same number a year ago. And EBIT for the quarter amounted to SEK 80 million compared to SEK 101 million a year ago, translating into an adjusted EBIT of 20.8% and an EBIT margin of 16.4%. The adjusted EBIT margin last 12 months amounts to 20.5% compared to our financial target of 20%.
The balance sheet remains stable with changes in line with seasonality. Net working capital increased to SEK 294 million compared to SEK 216 million a year ago, and changes in net working capital is primarily driven by higher inventory levels. Inventory development then. The inventory amounts to SEK 543 million, of which SEK 484 million was goods in warehouse being sellable and compared to SEK 461 million a year ago. Goods in transit has decreased from SEK 64 million to SEK 38 million and -- compared to last year, and inventory has decreased by SEK 49 million compared to the previous quarter, and that was driven by a decrease in goods in transit.
Our financial position is strong, and we had a cash position of SEK 159 million at quarter end or a net cash position of SEK 147 million when adjusting for lease liabilities. The credit facility of SEK 600 million remains available and undrawn as of March 31. Cash flow from operating activities came in at minus SEK 110 million in Q3, primarily attributable to changes in operating liabilities.
So in conclusion, RevolutionRace has a continued strong financial position. During the quarter, we continued repurchasing shares in line with the AGM mandate, acquiring shares for a total amount of SEK 27 million. And under the current SEK 200 million mandate, we have now repurchased SEK 86 million. Altogether, during last financial year and during the current financial year, we have repurchased shares for a total amount of SEK 251 million, and we currently hold 2 million shares in treasury out of the 109.6 million shares outstanding.
And with that, it's over and out from me. Paul?
Thank you, Jesper. So to sum up, we are pleased to report continued growth and above all, also strong profitability in a market that remains challenging. Our margins remain at industry-leading levels and our solid financial position gives us the flexibility to continue to invest in future growth. And our strategically important product range expansion continues. We see positive signs in many categories, such as alpine, as we have mentioned in previous calls, but also shoes and lifestyle. And we have now also opened our first physical outlet store. And as I said, one store doesn't have a big impact, but the store opening was successful, and we see exciting potential to expand our retail footprint. So as I mentioned, we are currently evaluating opportunities for further physical locations as a complement to our e-commerce business. But we will come back to you and to that when we have more things to say on that topic.
Looking at market conditions, it remains challenging. But as the market stabilizes, we are well positioned with strong financials, satisfied customers and a competitive offering with delivering high-quality outdoor products at competitive prices. So we see strong potential to continue our long-term growth journey and note also that sales during the first weeks of the -- our fourth quarter show growth in local currencies compared to the same weeks last year.
And that concludes our comments on the result. But before we finish, I would like to take the opportunity to thank the whole team at RevolutionRace, our customers, shareholders, partners and other stakeholders. I look forward to continue to grow and create value for the future with all of you.
And with that, we are now happy to also answer questions. So operator, do we have any questions?
[Operator Instructions]
Paul and Jesper, I hope you can hear me. Victor from Carnegie here.
Yes.
Yes. Yes. Perfect. Perfect. So yes, you achieved a strong underlying result adjusted for the one-off and the SEK 10 million in FX delta. But in order to drive sales here, would you consider any further campaigning or lowering your prices to some degree? Or are there any other levers you are willing to pull in order to drive top line here in this challenging market?
Not really. I think we have a strong underlying proposition in place already. We did note that the sales and sales growth varied during the quarter. We had some growth in January. We had a pretty weak February, which was more of a full price sales month. And then we did -- as we do every year, we did celebrate our 11th year anniversary in March. And in connection with that, we offered some attractive offerings and good campaigns during a couple of weeks in March. And we saw that, that had a very good impact on sales.
However, as the campaigns were attractive, it had -- so positive impact on sales, but somewhat negative impact on gross margin in percentage. So -- and that had an impact on the gross margin for the quarter as a whole. So we don't have plans to do anything different sort of for the future, but we did note that higher price reductions or discounting or campaigns had a positive impact to top line in March. That is for sure. Whether that is sort of reflecting the challenging market or -- so it's difficult to say because it's sort of isolated to a couple of weeks only in the quarter.
Okay. Okay. Fair enough. Then I'm wondering here, have you seen any increase from Chinese low-cost competitors such as [ Tmall ], for instance? Have they -- would you say that they have increased their activity in Europe after the -- both the de minimis change in U.S. and also the heavy tariffs in the U.S. -- entering the U.S.? So basically, what I'm asking, are you seeing any signs of harder competition?
We have noted for some months or quarters already that we do see, for example, ads on related products, it could be outdoor pants or outdoor-related pants coming from these kind of platforms. I can't really say whether that has increased after the announcement of potential tariffs or removing of de minimis in the U.S. So we have seen an increased activity from some of the Chinese players in our segment, but I cannot say whether that has increased in activity over the last couple of weeks because we have seen that for some time. Whether that has an impact on our sales is very difficult to say. But we -- being in the industry, we do note an increased activity in terms of sales at least on different kind of platforms.
Okay. And a final question for me before I go back in the line. Could you give any update on your new product launches such as alpine and shoes? How much sales did they -- how much did they grow their sales? And are they still about 10% of your sales combined or...
Yes. So alpine, I think we discussed that a little about the end of January, we had pretty good visibility of what -- how much alpine we would sell during that season because it's very much a seasoned product. So we surpassed SEK 100 million in sales in this season. Now this season has ended. So we are now focusing on the upcoming season starting in November, December, somewhere like that. So we are now placing orders and the production is underway of some upcoming products and of course, also replenishment of the products that we already sold.
We have -- shoes is another good product category that we see has been growing over the last couple of years. We did launch some new shoes over the last couple of weeks, mainly in April. We have had an okay start with the new shoes model that we recently launched. And then also we did launch some new lifestyle products actually in fall already, which we think was also a very successful launch. I can say that because many of those products were sold out. But as you may know, we have sort of a [ dip our toe ] strategy. We take it a bit careful the first year. We test it and then increase production and purchasing, and let's see. Hopefully, we will be able to continue to grow in that segment as well after the summer.
Okay. Perfect. Good comment. But no quantitative about the 10% of your sales figure?
Sorry, can you repeat the question again?
Yes. For -- yes, yes, sure. So I believe historically, you've said that alpine and shoes are about 10% of your sales. Is that still relatively true or has that changed is the final question?
Yes. It is relatively true. It's SEK 100 million each roughly per category, which is, yes, SEK 200 million, which accounts roughly -- these are high-level numbers, but 10% of our total sales.
The next question comes from Benjamin Wahlstedt from ABGSC.
I was wondering about your current trading comment and sorry for nitpicking here. Last quarter, you commented on some growth, and now you talk about just growth. Just to clarify, growth is higher than some growth, right?
I don't think we should over-interpret things here. We have decided just to use the word growth because we do see growth. I think it's more that some can be sort of interpreted into. I don't know what. So we -- what we have chosen to do now is to say what we actually have seen. We have seen growth quarter-to-date in local currencies, and that is the message that we give today.
Is it fair, however, to interpret your commentary as suggesting April have grown quicker than Q3 in organic terms?
I'm afraid I cannot comment more than we have actually written in the report. So what we have seen so far quarter-to-date is that we do see growth compared to the same couple of weeks last year.
Right. I was wondering as well about the Easter impact, if there is any. So any flavor on whether or not Easter, the timing effect of Easter might be positive or negative for Q3 and then by extension in Q4 as well?
Yes, Easter is normally a negative -- or normally has a negative impact on pure e-commerce players, and we are an e-commerce player. We had Easter this year in April. So that is maybe something to take into account when doing some estimates. But -- so we have had Easter in April, but at the same time, we can say that we have quarter-to-date been able to grow versus last year, where I think that Easter was in March, if I recall correctly.
Yes. Perfect. Final one from me then, gross margins dipped below 70%, and it rarely does. How should we think about this when we try to estimate the coming quarters? How significant was the negative impact from more campaign sales in March, for example?
Hard to say. I think the biggest impact actually came from that sales was significantly higher in March compared to February. So it had a negative impact on the gross margin in percentage since we had -- so -- as I mentioned, February was a bit weak. That was more of a full price month. March was strong. That was a more campaign-related oriented month, but not the whole March. It was like isolated 2, 3 weeks, that was the anniversary celebration when the anniversary celebration took place. So yes, I think our gross margin is somewhat stable. It's not that we have done anything different.
I think maybe it is more related to in challenging times in some countries, we have seen customers being increasingly interested in campaigns or discounting than previous years. But one should be careful overinterpreting. I mean we are at 69.4%. We are extremely close to round that up to 70%, which is the gross margin where we have been able to -- what we've been able to maintain for many -- for a long time. So -- and we have a target to maintain an EBIT margin of 20%. And I'm sure you know how our P&L looks like. I think we have to stay at around this number also when it comes to gross margin in order to maintain that.
Yes. Perfect. Maybe one final question. I am of the impression that you're gaining significant market share across key markets in Q3. So I would like to ask the inverse question. Where are you losing market share? And why are you doing so? I guess your sort of price -- very price-efficient solution for the consumer should be fairly attractive in tougher consumer times. So yes, where are you losing market share and why do you think?
So we -- I agree, it looks like based on our data sources and data points that we have access to. We see -- and it's big data sources like Google, Amazon, payment suppliers. We do see, and I think we can confirm that we are increasing market share significantly actually in many markets. We have a -- as you know, we have a financial target that we want to maintain a healthy EBIT margin over time of over 20%. We've been able to do that. And obviously, operating with such a high number is somewhat maybe a conflict on how much we can and want to invest in short-term sales growth.
And I think that our increase in market share has been maybe lower in countries more related to the Rest of the World region, because focus has been more when it comes to allocating investment to Nordics, DACH and some of the maybe big countries in the Rest of the World. But we have seen that -- we have seen some countries in the Rest of the World region where we have not invested so much because it has also been important for us to maintain a decent profit level.
The next question comes from Emanuel Jansson from Danske Bank.
So I think staying on the same subject here in terms of profitability, where it seems that there have been a lot of focus on keeping the profitability high in this quarter. Do you think given on how you're describing the market today and what you have seen so far in April, should we expect that the focus will remain pretty much the same in the upcoming quarter when it comes to allocating resources to the 3 different regions going forward?
Hard to estimate. I mean we have this target, as I mentioned, to maintain a 20% EBIT margin. That is also for a full year. And as you know, we are now entering 2 quarters with somewhat lower volumes than during fall and winter. We -- I discussed previously with Benjamin about the gross margin. And now we come into tactics. Gross margin is one important component. What we are aiming for a 20% EBIT, and we are looking a lot on, what we call, gross margin 2 and also gross margin 3 because gross margin 3 and gross margin 1, they are somewhat at a very high extent correlated. So I think we have a situation where we can be very tactical. I think I mentioned in my introduction to the call that being a D2C company, we can react fast to changes in the market dynamics.
I think it will be -- it's hard to say exactly how we will -- what will happen in the upcoming months and quarters, what we can say is that we will maintain our tactical commercial approach on a daily or weekly basis on what happens in the market when it comes to activities from competitors or other kind of behaviors among consumers. So it is actually a very strong position to have a D2C model in these times where we can act and react very fast to changes.
Great. Understood. And looking at some other questions here from my side, I just wonder, is it possible to give maybe a broad assumption of the overall market growth in this quarter or different data points?
Yes. In many markets, I would say it's close to double-digit decline. We saw one. We have access to, I mentioned, somewhat confidential information from Google, Amazon, payment suppliers. We saw -- in Sweden, we saw a report called Spot Index, where they break out the performance that was minus 2.5% in Sweden. We have seen that Sweden is somewhat slightly better than many of the European countries. And we have now also seen some industry colleagues announcing their quarterly results, and we do see that -- we have seen so far some negative numbers in those numbers in their report. So I mean, 2% is not a number that we are satisfied with, but we can sort of assume that we are growing somewhat around 10 percentage points faster than some of the colleagues, resulting in that we are very confident that we are increasing market shares in many, many places.
Great. And you think that, that double-digit decline, has it worsened since Q2?
Looks like it. When we look at the data that we have access to, it looks like -- so now again, we are operating in 40 countries. If you take Sweden, I think the answer would be no. If you take Germany, I think the answer would be yes. So it's a bit difficult to give a clear answer, but it varies among markets. But in our biggest market, the most important one, Germany, looks like that the decline is somewhat higher than it was in our Q2.
Okay. Understood. And maybe, just I think you mentioned U.K. as the third biggest market in this quarter, if I understood it correctly. Are you displaying growth in U.K. in this quarter?
I think U.K. and Austria are switching places. I think Austria was #3 in the previous quarter. So they are very close to each other. We have a number of countries that are size-wise, very similar. It's Austria, Finland, U.K., Denmark is getting there. I'm trying to look for the U.K. number. I'm not sure that we have actually disclosed that, announced that, but let me just see among my papers if I can give you a...
We've got a lots of papers.
I think I have to come back to you exactly the U.K. growth. But as you can see, we had a negative growth in the -- in total Rest of the World. And the main reason behind that, as I mentioned earlier, is that we haven't overinvested in a country like U.S., for example. So we've been able to operate with a decent margin instead.
Yes. Okay. Great. And lastly, the 2 couple of questions from my side. What has been the main driver behind the average order value in this quarter? I think it grew around 5%. Is it product mix?
Sorry, I just got the number here from U.K., growth in U.K. Sorry. Can you repeat your question again, please, because I was looking for that number.
Yes. No worries. Thank you very much for that number. Yes, looking at the average order value, which increased, I think it was around 5%. What has been the main driver behind that? Is that product mix because of the successful launch of the alpine collection? Or what has been the driver there?
I think product mix is one explanation. One smaller impact also comes from March, where we could see that we had somewhat a higher basket size due to some good offerings.
Okay. Great. And lastly...
Can I just say, so just to give some flavor on that. So that has a negative impact on gross margin 1. But if people add more products to a basket, it actually may help gross margin 2 and also gross margin 3. So that one -- I think it is important to understand the full dynamics of the balance sheet -- P&L and not only focus on a gross margin number.
Yes. Understood. Great. And just curious when you're mentioning about the physical store, and it seems to be quite a successful launch here in April. I'm just curious going forward, if you expect this to expand the physical store network, how will that impact the cost base in this business model going forward?
Yes. Good question. So yes, I mean, we have had an outlet store open now for a couple of weeks. It has been a successful launch and we see exciting potential to expand our retail footprint. We have a dip our toe strategy. We take it a bit prudent step by step. But when you zoom out and look at the opportunities, we do see that roughly 80% of outdoor products are sold offline. So obviously, this can be a very, very interesting growth journey for us going forward. So obviously, opening up some physical stores will increase some rent. We will have to add some staff, of course.
However, we do not expect to -- that we have to increase marketing for that physical store. We will not -- we will have a much lower fulfillment and logistics costs related to the products that we will sell in store. I think return rate will be much lower. So I think costs will be both higher and lower having physical stores. And I think it will actually also be able to help sort of expanding the awareness of the brand as in general also if we can open up not only an outlet store, but also maybe a more full assortment stores in different formats. So we will test different kind of concepts going forward, but take it a bit slow step by step and take it from there.
The next question comes from Andreas Lundberg from SEB.
Yes. A few questions. Starting with OpEx, other external costs, you mentioned some marketing efficiency, if I remember correctly, Jesper. Was that more temporary? Or you see structurally lower other external costs, I think?
I think in general, we've been able to operate with somewhat higher efficiency. We -- yes, I think that is -- and that is related to both logistics, marketing, but also other kind of costs in the business. So I mean, we have a slightly lower gross margin 1. But at the same time, we've been able to maintain a EBIT margin. So yes, all in all, below the gross margin 1, I think we can say that we've been -- we can report some increased efficiency in the operations across the line.
Okay. So it's not due to that sales being weak or soft markets that you temporarily took down costs?
No.
It's more about efficiency.
Yes. Efficiency in marketing and also logistics, which is a big cost item and yes, other related direct selling costs.
And then on the gross margin, you talk about the mismatch in SEK, euro, dollar in this quarter, given what has happened in currency markets. How meaningful was that effect in the quarter? And then do you see a gradual sort of improvement from here until eventually, I guess, you will get some benefits from the currencies?
So first, back to the previous question that market spend and gross margin, those are in communication. So we could have a lower market spend with a higher efficiency supported by a slightly lower gross margin. So that goes for the past quarter. Currencies going forward, our primary revenue currency is obviously euro, which makes up 70-ish percent of the sales. The euro has come down versus the SEK quite a lot, but the USD, which is our purchasing currency for all the goods for resale has come down even more. So at this very point in time, we're selling, and let's put it this way, an old inventory that has been purchased at higher USD levels.
The benefit of the lower USD in purchasing will increasingly become evident towards the second half of the calendar year and going forward. So it depends on how the USD, SEK develops, obviously. But right now, purchasing is favorable, but the effects of that will come at a slight delay, whereas we have the immediate impact of the weakened euro.
The next question comes from Victor Hansen from Carnegie.
Just a final follow-up question from my side about the status on the U.S. market for you now. I believe it's roughly 2% of your sales that you have in the U.S., but feel free to correct me if that's wrong. And so I'm wondering what you will do here? Will you raise prices to compensate for tariffs fully or just partly? And what are your updated thoughts on growing in the U.S. from here?
Yes. Yes, good question. So you're right, it's between 1% and 2% of our sales. So we are not that exposed to the U.S. sales or potential tariffs. However, it is, of course, one of the biggest outdoor markets in the world. So it is an exciting market if we can grow there. We have a rule internally that we should -- everything we sell should be profitable. So I don't know exactly whether we will increase [ all ] prices significantly or partly, but it will be -- it is important for us to be able to operate under profitability when we enter new countries, and it doesn't necessarily only mean that we have to increase prices.
It can maybe also lead to that we will only sell, isolate the part of our assortment or let's see what kind of actions we will take. Maybe we'll have to invest a lower amount of marketing spend instead to compensate for a higher cost in U.S. So it's hard to say, but I think what is important to say is that we have a rule that everything we do sell should be profitable. I think it sets a level of discipline internally. And I think that is also a very important component in our culture that we operate under profitability in everything that we do. So yes, increased costs, whether it's tariffs or whatever it is, will have some sort of either direct or indirect impact.
No more questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.
And thank you, operator. And before we wrap up, I turn to Jesper to see if there are any questions online. And if there are, I will ask Jesper to read the question and maybe I will try to answer it. Are there any questions?
Yes. We have a number of questions, and they are all related to opening of stores. So I'll try to summarize them. Parts of it has already been answered in the call. But one of the questions is, what is the reason for moving to physical stores?
Yes. We have seen that the launch has been successful. And I -- we have a situation now where we have a market share in mature markets such as Finland is a good example, where we believe that of outdoor products sold online, we have a very big market share. And I think we have now a situation where we are interested in meeting new customer groups and 80% of outdoor -- 75%, 80% of outdoor products are sold offline. So we believe that if we can maintain our very competitive offering with high-quality products to competitive prices, we would like to approach those customer groups as well. And I think we have a platform in place now with the sales of almost SEK 2 billion. So we have a lot of costs and we have an organization in place. So I think now is the time to actually start to evaluate opportunities for further growth, and we believe that opening up some stores will help increasing sales directly, but also indirectly meeting new customers who maybe go in to visit one store and then can potentially do the order online. So I think that can -- this can create a lot of advantages and opportunities for the future.
And then we have questions on what are the future plans for opening additional shops and if we can say anything about in which regions?
Yes. So we are evaluating -- currently evaluating opportunities for further physical locations. We -- even though we are -- we are a Swedish company, so we have already opened up one in Sweden, while I think it is fair to expect us to open up the next one also in Sweden because this is a dip our toe strategy. We are testing. And if we feel that we have found our format and concept, 1, 2, 3 stores, then maybe it will be time to open up in more countries or regions. And I think Germany is our biggest market. It's more than 50% of sales. We have a footprint or platform in place there with a fairly high brand awareness. So I think it's fair to assume that Germany would be a market that we will also evaluate opening up stores in future. But we have, of course, deep respect also for the operational challenges or things that we need to address in order to make that really good.
Well, thank you. And that concludes the questions received online.
So with that last comment, I would like to say thank you to all of you for joining us today and for your interest in our journey. And may I also remind you that our year-end report will be announced on August 12. And with that, thank you, and goodbye.