On Holding AG (NYSE:ONON) Q3 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

And when we look at the figures, I think, and Martin pointed it out, it’s very important for us, the figures would have been even stronger if it wasn’t for the FX impact. And we saw a bit of shift of orders on how we delivered orders between Q2 and Q3, but consumer demand was always there. So you had a bit an impact from how wholesale would take in orders. But we were always, especially when you look at Germany and U.K., quite happy in how sell-out was developing. And I think this has now come through fully in Q3, and we’re also quite happy on what we’ve seen in October, for example, and happening in Europe, especially given the macro environment.

Alex Straton: Great. That’s super helpful. Maybe one more quick one from me. It sounds like the Cloudmonster and some of your other recent launches have gotten some great press and acknowledgment for real technical innovation. Can you just talk to us about when exactly you launched those and maybe what you did differently with the shoe in terms of either technical components or even marketing, if there’s anything different to be aware of?

David Allemann: I feel we are tapping right into a performance innovation where we are taking our most advanced technology, but then make it much more inclusive, like take the Cloudmonster, which gives you a lot of cushioning based on absolute premium foams, but then, of course, add a very visible technology to it, CloudTec, but almost in a version. So I think that gets us a lot of eyeballs and it’s very intriguing to our core running community, but then, of course, also ventures beyond that core running technology. And so it’s about taking performance running technology and making it available and relevant for the masses.

Operator: The next question is coming from Tom Nikic from Wedbush Securities.

Tom Nikic: Quick clarification. Did you say that FX was a 250-basis-point impact to the gross margin in the third quarter? I thought I heard that, but I wasn’t sure. And then can you tell us how much of an FX impact you’re expecting for the gross margin in the fourth quarter?

David Allemann: Yes. So it was 250 basis points compared to last year’s rates on the quarter. If we look at year-to-date, it’s 170 basis points impact versus last year’s rates. And we have based our guidance of the quarter on the current FX rates. And so we expect a similar strong impact for that quarter. And then, as I said, going forward, price increases will help us to offset part of that. And of course, we closely observe where dollar and euro develop compared to the Swiss franc.

Tom Nikic : Okay. Understood. And just on the gross margin in general, I mean, I know that there was also a headwind this quarter because of wholesale versus D2C mix, which kind of sounds like it was because of some transitory impacts. I mean, should we kind of assume over a longer time period that direct-to-consumer grows faster than wholesale as brand awareness grows and consumers go directly to your brand, and thus, over kind of a longer time period, you would expect to see a — more of a tailwind to your gross margin from channel mix?