V.F. Corporation (NYSE:VFC) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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Matt Puckett: Yes, certainly. Yes, DTC was slightly negative in the quarter. Of course it’s a smaller D2C quarter for us. Vans is a bigger part of the quarter, bigger part of the total in the quarter, even if the business has been declining, especially relative to the outdoor businesses that are certainly much more weighted toward the latter part of the year. So there’s that going on. If you look at kind of the underlying kind of carve out, Vans, which obviously we’ve talked a lot about the D2C results in Q1, I think we’re up 7% for total VF. And I don’t think, I know they were up 7% in Q1, which is kind of in line with who we’ve been. And if you think about across the year, that’s kind of the range that we’re looking at from a D2C perspective and growth across all regions.

And certainly expecting to see growth in the Van’s D2C business as we move through the year, and we’ve talked about at some point in the year seeing in the back half of the year, seeing the Vans business begin to grow, that’s certainly going to be driven by the direct-to-consumer business. Now, all of that’s also impacted by the comps and the compares, right? The compares get certainly quite a bit easier for Vans in particular, but for some of our other brands as well as we move through the year. So D2C will be a growth driver for us for the year, it will grow across regions and generally expect it to grow across brands.

Jonathan Komp: That’s helpful color. I much appreciate it. Thank you.

Matt Puckett: Yes, thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next questions come from the line of Brooke Roach with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your questions.

Brooke Roach: Good afternoon, and thank you so much for taking our question. Bracken, welcome.

Bracken Darrell: Thank you.

Brooke Roach: And my question is for Matt, and I just wanted to have one quick follow up on the Vans business. I’m curious what you’re seeing in Vans China and the brand equity that you’re seeing in that region as the market continues to reopen. APAC this quarter was down a couple of percent in constant currency. How is that brand trending there? What are the initiatives there and what’s embedded in the China outlook for the Vans brand to the back half? And then maybe for Kevin, as you think about Vans America and the challenge that you’re seeing in classics relative to the green shoots that you’re seeing in some of the new product lines, is there any stabilization in trend in classic sell through relative to where it had been trending as a result of some of these new initiatives that you’ve been implementing? Thank you.

Matt Puckett: Hi, Brooke. Nice to speak with you. I’ll take a little bit there and Kevin, but I’m actually also going to ask Martino to chime in here. Because I know he was actually on the ground in China in the last few weeks and spent time with the team there and certainly looking across all the brands and he’s got his pulse on that. So I think it’d be interesting certainly you’d be interested to hear his perspective on Vans in China. We certainly are seeing the business. We saw growth in Vans in China in the quarter, so clearly, we’re in a better place there in terms of kind of the inventory reset that’s been underway. So we’re, we’re cautiously optimistic that we’re in a place where we’ll continue to see good results coming out of that region as we move forward across the year in overall in APAC, it’s been, Korea has been weaker for us, and Vans is a big, in one of our bigger businesses in Korea.

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