Prada S.p.A. (1913) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Prada S.p.A. H1 2021 Results Presentation. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I'd now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Alessandra Cozzani. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good afternoon, everybody, and thank you for joining Prada First Half 2021 Financial Results Conference Call. I am Alessandra Cozzani, the group's CFO. And with me today, there are Mr. Patrizio Bertelli, our CEO and Founder of the company; and Mr. Lorenzo Bertelli, Marketing Director and Head of Corporate Social Responsibility. During the call, Mr. Bertelli will give us an overview of what happened in the semester and then I will go through the numbers. Afterwards, Lorenzo Bertelli will update you on our marketing and communication projects as well as some ESG projects that we had done during the semester. Finally, Mr. Bertelli will share with us some remarks before the end of the presentation. After the presentation, we all will be pleased to take your questions as usual. Now I would like to hand over to Mr. Bertelli.

[Interpreted] Good afternoon, and welcome to the presentation of the results for the first half of 2021 of the Prada Group. Despite pandemics and the continuous restrictions globally, the results recorded in the first half have been satisfactory. And they show that the strategic decisions we adopted have started a positive cycle for our group. We worked to improve brand equity through different actions: the cancellation of markdowns, a selective policy in wholesale sales, the extension of high-value products in all categories. All these actions have improved sales in our stores and margins. Today, the group controls directly about 90% of its revenues through direct and digital sales network. We keep up our commitment in transforming the point of sale in a location where the relation with consumers stays at the core of an experience that reaches beyond buying products. Our store's staff have extended their marketing know-how in order to communicate with customers in a more personal way. As far as sustainability is concerned, we are convinced that it will still guide the choices of consumers. For this reason, we integrated sustainability principles in our strategy. And our daily actions confirm this journey that we will continue to adopt in line with our identity. Retail sales kept increasing in the last 6 months and they have achieved levels that are higher than 2019 with a major acceleration in the second quarter. We have achieved these results without extending our distribution network, which means we are improving the productivity of individual stores. America, Asia, Middle East, Russia have recorded very good results. In Europe, the trend improved after reopenings with excellent response from local customers. Japan, in fact, has suffered more than other countries, the health emergency and the restrictive policies adopted by the local government to preserve the Olympic Games. However, Japan is already showing good signs of recovery. And hopefully, after the Olympics, the market will reopen. Gross margin has reached the highest level since we went public in 2011, thanks to a more favorable channel mix, to the cancellation of markdowns and our strategy to requalify offer in the individual product categories that adopt products with a higher value. We kept managing operating expenses very carefully and to effectively plan production cycles, considering and controlling inventory levels that are now lower than they were at December 31, 2020. All this allowed us to achieve an EBIT which is better than in 2019, both in absolute terms as a percentage of our revenues and to substantially improve our net financial position, which now stands at EUR 102 million as against EUR 311 million as of December 31, 2020. Let me now give the floor to Alessandra Cozzani, who's going to illustrate details of the first half results.

Thank you, Mr. Bertelli. As Mr. Bertelli just mentioned, we are very pleased to present these remarkable results achieved despite ongoing restriction and uncertain macro environment. In this presentation today, you are going to see every comparison versus 2020 and versus 2019 as we believe it's more meaningful to compare the underlying performance of this year versus 2019 [ versus ] the pre-pandemic level. In this slide, I would like to draw your attention on 3 very important financial metrics to better appreciate the strong progression we made in the period. Net revenues for the first 6 months of the year reached EUR 1.5 billion, with retail revenues that marked a huge growth compared to 2020, 60% and a very good plus 8% compared to 2019. EBIT reached EUR 166 million or 11.1% from sales, above the pre-pandemic level when it was EUR 150 million at 9.6% of sales. Not to mention, the comparison with last year when EBIT was negative at EUR 196 million. Operating cash flow reached EUR 316 million, an impressive number, and also the highest value of the last 4 semesters. The net financial position improved significantly. At the end of the period, stood at EUR 102 million, much lower than the beginning of the year. Net sales by channel. Now let's turn to look at our sales by channel. I have already mentioned the strong progress of the retail channel, plus 60% versus 2020 and plus 8% versus 2019. These results have been reached despite around 70% of the store network closed during the period and the absence of tourists. I would like also to point out that we had seen a strong acceleration trend in the second quarter, which registered triple-digit organic growth versus 2020 and double-digit organic growth versus 2019. Our direct e-commerce business also showed an extremely strong performance in all regions during the period, growing sales by triple digit on a 2-year stack. Lorenzo will give you more insights on how we have achieved these impressive results. Wholesale was down 37% at constant currency compared with 2019. These results are consistent with our strategic decision to reduce the exposure to this channel with the aim to preserve the brand positioning. Retail sales trend. This slide shows quarterly sales trend of the retail channel, which demonstrates what I have just mentioned before. Very strong sequential improvement versus 2019 and a sharp acceleration in the second quarter of the period from single-digit sales growth in Q1 to double-digit growth in Q2 despite around 22% and 13% of store closed in Q1 and Q2, respectively. This remarkable trends demonstrated the very strong momentum of our brands. We are very pleased to say that this encouraging trend is continuing in July. Retail sales by geography. Looking at retail sales by geography, we were seeing sequential strong improvement with sales performance in Asia Pacific, Americas and Middle East largely exceeding pre-pandemic levels and driven by strong local consumption. In Europe, retail sales were still impacted on the one hand by lack of tourism and on the other hand, by prolonged lockdowns with around 36% of the stores closed during the semester. However, we were seeing a robust demand from local customers in every country, following reopening of stores in May to [ be alike ] the strong growth in Russia. Asia Pacific continued its strong momentum and marked a 65% improvement in sales versus first half of 2020 and plus 35% growth compared with the same period of 2019. Demand was very strong when comparing with the first half of 2019. Especially in China and Taiwan, we registered plus 77% and plus a 74% sales growth, respectively. And Korea also showed triple-digit growth trend. In Americas, trend was really buoyant, and sales show a remarkable performance in the first half of the year with triple-digit sales growth versus 2020 and up 53% versus 2019. All countries recorded a strong progress. In Japan, retail sales remain impacted by prolonged lockdown imposed by local government ahead of Olympic Games, not to forget Guam and Saipan that are still closed. Important to mention that in July, we have seen a very good recovery. Strong sales momentum also saw in the Middle East region, driven mainly by local consumption and some recovery sales from tourists. Retail sales by product. The strong improvement we achieved in the first half was also seen across all product categories. Sales trend of leather goods was very good, thanks to new launches and the ongoing success of iconic products. Some of the new collections were very well received by the market. And an adopted digital advertising campaign is spreading significantly Galleria handbag visibility. Ready-to-wear performance was very strong for both Prada and Miu Miu brands, registered a strong double-digit growth compared with the same period of 2020 and 2019. Sales performance for footwear was also very positive, with successful reception of new lifestyle collection, which supported the sales trend in the first half of the year. Retail sales by brand. Rapid recovery sales trend was seen for Prada brand with robust double-digit growth in the first semester compared with 2020 and 2019, accelerating in Q2. This remarkable result that was driven by all product categories demonstrates the very strong momentum of the Prada brand. Highly acclaimed spring, summer and fall-winter fashion show continued to grow visibility. Sales performance for Miu Miu was very encouraging, up 43% on 2020 with a double-digit growth in ready-to-wear on a 2-year stack. Recent collaboration with Levi's was very successful and drove sales recovery during the period. Sales performance for Church's was impacted by the geographical exposure with the vast majority of stores located in Europe and thus more exposed to tourism and penalized by the various lockdowns. Gross margin reached a very high level at 74.3% in the first half of the year, improved by almost 400 basis points versus the same period of 2020 and 260 basis points versus the first half of 2019. The strong improvement was mainly driven by a more favorable channel and geographical mix and product offer announcement. Let's move to the operating costs. Total operating expenses were at EUR 949 million, up 14% at constant exchange rate versus the first semester of 2020 and broadly flat versus the same period of 2019. In the comparison with 2019, we have prioritized cost functional to sustain the visibility of the brands and fewer sales, like advertising and promotion expenses and digital investments. Meanwhile, we are still benefiting from cost optimization activities implemented last year. Capital expenditure was at EUR 75 million, supporting know-how and long-term retail growth. Even though the retail network did not change in terms of number of stores, 633 DOS, our investments were mainly allocated to the network with 76 projects dedicated to renovation and relocation. During the period, in light of our strong cash generation, we made a real estate investment to secure the key location of our Prada store in Athens. Another improvement was net operating working capital that decreased compared to December 2020. Thanks to our efficient control of the supply chain and the strength of our logistics platform, we had effectively managed the level of our stock, which saw a decrease of about 6%. Net financial position. The strong operating cash flow generation allowed us to fully finance capital expenditure to pay dividends and improve significantly the net financial position compared to last year ended negative at EUR 102 million versus EUR 311 million in 2020. This is an excellent result in this adverse environment. Now I would like to hand over to Lorenzo Bertelli.

Thank you, Alessandra, and good afternoon to everyone. Our e-commerce channel continued to deliver great results. We saw triple-digit percentage sales growth in the first half of the year compared to the same period in 2020. And the channel has now been growing strongly for 5 quarters in a row. Sales on our own brand, website and via marketplace, rose to 7% retail sales. We have strengthened our online presence, including creating successful new partnership with some of the world's largest online retailers. Our focus has been on improving our client-centric experience to provide an [ analytic ] omnichannel customer journey. By leveraging improved storytelling strategies, we're offering customers better engagement and more opportunities to relate to our brand values. This investment is combined customer target and experience improvement is delivering better conversion rates. We have experienced strong and growing levels of brand visibility across social and online throughout the period. This confirms our strategy is effective and the ever growing brand heat of Prada and Miu Miu continues to build. As you can see on this slide, our engagement rate on Instagram has strongly improved over the period. Prada gained 2 positions in H1 2021 compared to H1 2020 while Miu Miu, 1. Underlying traffic grew tremendously during the period on both Prada and Miu Miu websites. There was an excellent reception for our most recent Prada and Miu Miu digital shows, and they were great contributors to our increasing visibility, which has become stronger and stronger since we had to move our shows online. The latest Prada Men's SS22 show generated almost 3 million views, up 53% compared to last year's shows, ranking first in reach and engagement rate of all the shows in both Milan and Paris Men's Fashion Weeks. The Miu Miu shows also received an amazing reception on social platforms with 500,000 view on main video on Miu Miu's Instagram account and over 2.1 million views on YouTube. I will talk about our ESG project in more detail in the following slides, but I wanted to highlight how the respect for the communities in which we operate is embedded in all our activities, even the smaller ones. For example, part of the last Prada Men's show was [ filmed ] in Sardinia, and in appreciation of and thanks to the community, we decided to support the MedSea Foundation in its project to restore local marine ecosystems. Similarly, for the new Fall Winter '21 show in [ Cardinia ], we adopted a sustainable approach to building the show set and incorporating with locals. Ensuring that the world's diversity is represented through our talent is key to us. This is one of the main factors that has contributed to a further acceleration of growth in Prada's share of voice across the world online community. The Prada Cup was another important element to the increasing brand heat seen during the period, and it was the face of the tournament who generated the most audience engagement. Luna Rossa has been a long-standing element of Prada active wear identity, which benefited from this visibility. ESG is an increasing important focus for us and essential element that will support the generation of future growth. I look forward to unveiling our detailed Sustainability Roadmap this autumn, which will guide our initiatives and track our progress over the next years. Let me mention a few projects we worked on this semester. In May we announced a substantial investment in educational and talent advancement programs to continue to support diversity throughout the sector. Last month, we launched the second edition of our Sea Beyond project, the education program on marine preservation in partnership with UNESCO, which is supported by a percent of the proceeds from the sales of Prada Re-Nylon collection. Finally, Upcycled by Miu Miu continues to be a success. In April 2021, we unveiled a new collaboration with Levi's that gives new life to pre-loved denim. Thank you. I will now hand over to Mr. Bertelli for the outlook section of the presentation.

[Interpreted] We have closed a very positive first half, and we're confident we will continue in the same way in the second part of the year, too. Hopefully, there are going to be no traumatic situations like the ones we had in 2020. Our industrial capabilities is fundamental for a continuous update of the products in the individual markets. Control -- direct control of the supply chain is still a very important competitive edge that allows us to preserve our know-how and to guarantee quality in each individual phase in the production process. Sustainability principles will become increasingly integrated in our growth strategy, and I'd take this opportunity to announce that we will disclose them to the market soon. We tried with a major effort to keep up with our commitments. And we are confident in our growth perspective. Hopefully, there are going to be no further pandemic crisis like the one that we had in 2020. Thank you. We'll now receive your questions.

[Operator Instructions]. Your first question comes from the line of Susy Tibaldi of UBS.

Congratulations for the results. My first question would be on the very strong acceleration that you have seen at retail in the second quarter. Can you share any color in terms of whether this acceleration has also continued in the month of July? And what are your expectations on the top line for the retail channel? Secondly, I will be interested to know when it comes to the nationalities, if you can mention which nationalities are growing the fastest as of H1 2021. And lastly, on EBIT. You had a very strong EBIT margin in the first half of the year. Can you discuss a little bit more in detail the various drivers of this margin? I would imagine that you are seeing already some operating leverage within your retail store network. So it will be very helpful if you can give any details on store productivity or sales densities. That would be very helpful. And also if you can give us an indication of how you expect the second half of the year to be in terms of profitability, so maybe a broad ballpark view of the full year EBIT margin, what we could expect there would be very helpful.

Your next question comes from Thomas Chauvet of Citi.

I have 2 questions, please. The first one, maybe for Alessandra, on the gross margin, can you reconfirm your gross margin ambition by, I don't know, '23, '24 of 78%. You're a little bit ahead in H1 versus expectations. If we assume 75% gross margin as the 2021 base, what will be the 300 bps gross margin improvement that come from? I mean, considering some tailwinds of this year will normalize, whether that's channel mix, full-price sales or higher ASP. How do you go from 75% to 78% in the next 2, 3 years? What will be the main drivers? And secondly, on wholesale, a 37% revenue decline in H1 versus 2 years ago. How much of that in percentage of cash terms was due to the wholesale closures, traditional wholesale doors closures and clean up would do you expect in H2? And could you give us an idea of how much of that EUR 196 million wholesale revenue is now made of traditional wholesale partners, i.e., ex-e-tailers?

Your next question comes from Thomas Chauvet of Citi.

Okay. I was already in the queue. I don't know if you heard my questions correctly earlier. Hello? Can you hear me?

Yes. There was a problem because we would like to reply each person by each person. So it's exactly as usual. So we want to receive questions from one analyst, then we want to have the time to reply and then to take the other question from the other analyst. Thank you.

Please continue.

[Interpreted] So Mrs. Susy Tibaldi, there has been a bit of confusion. And so we hope we will be able to answer all your questions because rather than having to answer each question one at a time, we received a further question. So there's been an overlap. Let's try to go back to your questions, therefore. If I understood correctly, you asked us, which are the countries, the geographies that mainly contributed to our performance. Those were the U.S., China, Korea, Russia and local customers. Then you asked us for the EBIT per square meter. Usually, we are not used to providing this number, but there's been a strong improvement because we didn't open any new stores. So obviously, the performance level improved. We have to take into account that stores in Europe were closed, 37% of them, and those are the biggest stores we have. So the result would be unbalanced if I gave you the EBIT per square meter. As for the end of year EBIT, well the trend we are seeing ever since the beginning of July is a positive trend that continues after the first half. And so if we won't have to meet critical situations connected with the pandemic, we think we can continue along the same trends in the second half of the year. I guess I answered all your questions, but I'd like to know from you whether you actually received all the answers you wanted.

I hope my line is open and you can hear me. So I guess, yes, just on the comments on geographies, I was actually interested also in the nationalities for the consumer cluster. So Japanese, Americans or Europeans, if you can, let's say, rank them in terms of which ones are seeing the strongest growth compared to 2019, would be very helpful. And then on the EBIT margin, would you be able to give an indication of where you expect full year to end, so full year '21 EBIT? Roughly, very rough indication. Basically, if you think in H2, you can still have this level of elevated margin? Or you expect to maybe spend a little bit more in marketing or other initiatives? That means the margin may be a bit lower compared to H1. If you can just give us the weight H1 versus H2 would be helpful.

[Interpreted] Now as far as EBIT is concerned, I can tell you it's expected to stay stable or improve. So of course, we'll see as the season continues. As far as nationalities are concerned, the nationalities I told you are mainly people shopping locally. I mean, China, it was Chinese shoppers; in the U.S., it was American shoppers; in Russia, the same; Korea, the same; and even in the Gulf region, it was the local customers shopping there. So all markets are local right now. There's no -- there are no, let's say, interferences from tourism. People are not traveling. So all markets tend to serve local customers right now.

We can now reply to the question coming from Thomas.

[Operator Instructions]

[Interpreted] This is Mr. Bertelli speaking. So if I get your questions right, so the first question was about gross margin. So what we expect gross margin to be in the second half. So our objective is that of complying with 75% -- 74.8% to 75% throughout the second half. Then you were also asking about cash flow and the main drivers. So of course, there were many factors, many drivers involved. So I could number them out as follows. So the first driver, as we already disclosed in 2018 and 2019, we canceled markdowns. And so full sale -- full price sales improved our margins substantially. Secondly, we wanted the Prada identity to be more focused on luxury products, which means a higher average price. Then we reduced our sales to the wholesale channel. This is something else we had disclosed already, and we kept with that line of thinking. And the EUR 196 million we sold through wholesale, we're -- not done through any kind of digital platform, but I would say 99% was done through, let's say, classic sales, stores buying our products. So am I answering all of your questions? Would you please remind me if there's anything open? Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Elena Mariani of Morgan Stanley.

Apologies. I need to go back to the current trading question because I did not fully understand your answer. So what I would like to understand is whether the first week of July, you have observed retail trends that are accelerating further versus the 12%, 13% sales versus 2019 that you have observed in Q2? I'm asking this because it was highlighted by some of your peers. So I was curious to understand whether you have seen this further acceleration. Question number 2 is on your gross margin again. I would -- interested in understanding a little bit more how much of the improvement in your gross margin was due to the geographical mix, and how much that was due to the full price mix. I was just trying to make up some math to understand what's the different gross margin by geography and how much that might have contributed versus the channel mix. And then my third question is about your profitability over the medium term. Clearly, you are on a very good track right now. You're already back to a low double-digit EBIT margin. And I know you have been quoted in the past by saying that you could potentially go back to a 20%, 25% margin at the EBIT level over the medium term. Based on your internal budget or view, when do you think that would be possible? Is this a 5-year target, 10-year target? And how much revenue would you need in terms of scale to go back to that level of profitability?

[Interpreted] As for July, the month of July, yes, we have also noticed a further acceleration, more than 12%, 13%. And we will see what will happen at a later stage. As for the gross margin, you asked whether -- how it is made up. Well, it's the same for all countries, I need to say, both in terms of product mix and geographic mix. There aren't countries that contribute more than others because our policy was strongly based on brand identity. So products that are present in one country are present in all countries. So the mix with minimum variations is the same in all countries, in all geographies. As for your last question that has -- the one that has to do with the possibility of reaching plus 20% EBIT in terms of profitability. Well, this is a very delicate issue, of course. And we might say that we can work, and we are working to further develop our business in the next 3 years. But telling you exactly what our final target will be in 3 years' time is something which I consider premature. Let's say that we're working really hard to try and reach higher revenues than the current ones and also to improve the future EBIT, the future profitability.

Just a small follow-up. So basically, your point is that in terms of gross margin improvement, the vast majority of the improvement was due to the full priced sales, so the cut of discounting this quarter, and much less by geographical mix, i.e., gross margin, how you're in a specific region versus another one?

[Interpreted] Yes, yes. I repeat once again, yes, full price, obviously, because we already said that we have already eliminated markdowns, and we've cut as much as possible our private sales. We're almost down to 0. As for the geographic mix, well, we try not to have differentiated product mix amongst the different geographies because we don't want to negatively or positively influence gross margin with specific geographies. Was that clear enough?

Your next question comes from the line of Thomas Chauvet of Citi.

Yes. Apologies for coming back. I'll try to ask the rest of my question. It seems the operator had some difficulties with managing the queue. So if it doesn't work, it's fine, I'll take this offline with Alessandra and Alberto. So my question, Alessandra and Mr. Bertelli, on the gross margin, was back in February, you gave a very ambitious gross margin target of 78% in the next 2, 3 years. Pretty high. If we assume 75% for this year, what will be the drivers of that 300 bps improvement, considering that some tailwinds of this year will normalize? The channel mix, full price sales, the higher ASP? So what is this incremental 300 bps? Where is it coming from? And the second question I had -- sorry to repeat it again. On the wholesale side, you've reduced some traditional wholesale doors. You've closed some of them. Wholesale was down nearly 40% on a 2-year basis. What kind of outlook do you expect in H2? Will the wholesale cleanup be over by the end of 2021?

[Interpreted] So can I take your second question first about the wholesale business in 2021. Now of course, in the big recovery of the Prada brand is now pushing the wholesale market towards Prada in general. We have budgeted a specific number, and we want to comply with it. And so we don't think we'll see major changes as compared to our wholesale planning. So when it comes to wholesale, we have to be very careful and not confuse sales through classic stores, physical stores and platforms, e-platforms. And I should say that actually Lorenzo Bertelli would be the right person to talk about digital wholesale. Then of course, yes, we said in February, we would like to achieve a gross margin of 78%. And actually, this year, we actually did the first increase from 71.6% to 74.6%, so increased by 3 percentage points because we actually started working on that quite substantially. So we're not necessarily going to do that by the end of 2021. This is an objective for the next 3 years or so. So how should we do that? Well, we have already defined some strategies. There are improvement of the relationship with the markets with [ BICs ], with everything that goes with the in-depth analysis of individual geographies and our products that better represent Prada's identity in the luxury market.

Your next question comes from the line of Luca Solca of Bernstein.

Yes. We see that ready-to-wear seems to be your best foot forward, followed by leather goods. Do you anticipate that in the coming future, handbags could play a more important role in supporting your revenues? Connected to that is my second question about retail productivity. In a way we are back to square one, we are back to a situation pre-COVID when we look at the first half of '21. How satisfied are you with your sales per square foot? And what is the ambition you have to improve that? Thirdly, when we look at the smaller brands, if we look at Church's and possibly also Miu Miu, they seem to be 1 or 2 steps behind Prada. What are your plans on those brands? And do the smaller brands make sense in the portfolio at this stage?

[Interpreted] Thank you. Let's start with your first question, the one concerning the fact that ready-to-wear increased strongly because -- and this is due to the fact that we think that ready-to-wear today is fundamental for the development of our brand and of brands in general. Not that we don't believe in leather wear for this. Obviously, it would have been easier to grow with ready-to-wear, given its [ incidence ]. So we grew by 5, 6 points incidentally. As for the retail position, I said this before, we're partially satisfied, but we have to take into account that very many stores were closed in the first half, 17% of stores were closed. And so it's a huge number in terms of square meters. We're partially satisfied, as I was saying, because in different conditions, we would have further improved our retail sales. As instead for your question having to do with Church's and Miu Miu brands, well, I'd make a general remark. Miu Miu is actually going through a proper turnaround. As we did for Prada, we are adapting the products against the different requirements coming from the market. And we, especially in the last 3 months, have increased marginality because in these last 3 months, we've actually started with this turnaround activity. Miu Miu has a huge potential to express, and we strongly believe in Miu Miu for 2022. As for Church's, which -- I mean we have to be aware of the fact that we've defended this brand. Also in terms of know-how and industrial capabilities, we kept the factory in Northampton, and we kept all workers working there. Certainly, what has happened given that this is a brand that used to sell 90% of its products in Europe. But obviously, it suffered more than other brands because of its geography and because of the fact that U.K. stores were closed for a long period of time. So we really think that after this difficult situation of the pandemic, we'll be able to go back to pre-COVID revenue levels. As for the fact of having smaller brands in our portfolio, well, I don't think this is a fundamental factor to be examined, frankly speaking. Because I mean, also most small brands require know-how, which is often very, very useful to be then translated into other and more significant brands. So they are incorporated also in -- their know-how is incorporated in bigger brands.

I have a little follow-up, if I may, on retail sales. I fully appreciate. But not all of the stores were open and retail sales in total could have been higher at the stores being open, and they will be open down the road, we all hope, as COVID-19 is managed. But what about sales per square foot or sales per square meter and productivity? How do you anticipate that irrespective of the stores being open you have the right tools in place to drive sales per square meter higher?

[Interpreted] Yes. It's a very simple answer. To improve sales, you have to improve your products and you have to improve product positioning, more specificities, what you need. In the last 3 months -- even less than that, in the last 2 months, we've introduced jewelry more into our stores. But we're right at the beginning. So jewelry's positioning is something we will assess at the end of the year and especially in 2022. And then we're also changing the presentation of products, the display of products within stores in a more active manner. And then another activity we've started with great success is related to pop-ups. Everybody believes a pop-up is something you do outside your stores. Instead we've started doing pop-ups in our [indiscernible], started displaying products as pop-ups. And this has been extremely successful. We've -- we did it in Oyama and in other important stores. And this is another important aspect that makes us believe that the retail sales per square meter will increase. Obviously, the market requires continuous attractions. And unfortunately, we went through a period of time, which was too static. And this is the reason why we've made radical changes, and we will certainly see the results very soon. Thank you.

Thank you. That does conclude this conference for today. Thank you all for participating. You may all disconnect. Your next question then comes from the line of Paola Carboni of Equita SIM.

Can you hear me? Hello? Go ahead. I have...

Yes, yes. We can hear you.

Yes. Okay. So my first question was about a sentence from you. You were referring to the fact that you are still benefiting from some cost optimization activity implemented last year. Can you give us a rough idea of how much has this been helping profitability in H1 and whether this is going to last across H2? Or should we think about those actions as also partly temporary in nature? The second question is about Miu Miu. You appear to be very confident on the prospects of the brand. I was wondering what are your plan here for the future, your expectation in terms of contribution of Miu Miu going forward? Your ideal size of the brand and the profitability, which could ideally Miu Miu reach in the next 3, 4 years with your growing focus? And second, I'll come back on another question, which was prior than me and I didn't catch your answer. Honestly, if you can come back, you were asked what the, let's say, ideally, the size that you would need in terms of revenues to come back to a 20%, 25% EBIT margin in the future.

Thanks, Paola. [Foreign Language] I will take [indiscernible] one and then the Miu Miu question will be taken by Lorenzo or Mr. Bertelli. In terms of cost optimization, if you look at the slide where we have presented the general expenses bridge, you will find easily the amount of the action. What we have done in 2020 has been a set of saving initiatives. Most of these initiatives can continue to benefit also this year and probably the year after because we have already taken some decision. Talking about the possible dimension that we need to reach 2025 EBIT margin, it's not an easy question, for sure. We need to reach at least EUR 4 billion, and then we will see.

[Interpreted] As far as Miu Miu is concerned -- Ms. Carboni, this is Patrizio Bertelli speaking. So let me remind you that on the freight markets, in particular, China and Korea, we are extremely successful with our new actions, and Miu Miu is particularly successful in those markets. So we are working to extend the same positive experience we're gathering there to other markets as well. And of course, right now, the most complicated market, the European market, for all well-known reasons. So for the second half of the year -- well, by the way, Miu Miu has reached a breakeven point in the first half already. So we are in positive territory already as we speak. And then we see exactly what kind of results we'll obtain with Miu Miu in the next 2 years. But definitely, it enjoys a substantial position also on the profitability level. Thank you.

Thank you for joining us. Apologize for the confusion that we had at the beginning of the call. And we are looking forward to see you hopefully in person during the autumn for our Capital Market Day. Thank you.

Thank you. That does conclude this conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. [Portions of this transcript that are marked [Interpreted] were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]