Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Richemont, Richemont's 2024 Q3 trading update presentation. I am Alice, your call operator. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it is my pleasure to handle the Richemont. Please go ahead. Thank you, Alice, and good morning. Good afternoon, everyone. I am Sophie Cagnard, Director of Corporate Communications and Investor Relations, and with me are Burkhart Grund, Richemont Chief Financial Officer, and James Fraser, Investor Relations Executive. Thank you for joining Richemont's audio webcast to review our Q3 sales, ended 31 December 2023. Burkhart will take you through a few slides on our Q3 sales, which you can download from richemont.com, together with the trading update. Thereafter, Burkhart and I will be happy to take your questions about our sales performance. Before we begin, please take note of our disclaimer regarding forward-looking statements in our trading update and on slide 2 of our presentation. Burkhart, over to you. Thank you, Sophie, and a warm welcome to all participants. Looking at the highlight slide for the period, our Q3 sales grew by 8% year-on-year at constant exchange rates. This is a faster rate of growth in the Q2, partly a matter of comparatives, amid a continued uncertain macroeconomic and geopolitical environment. At actual rates, the rate of sales growth moderated to 4%, given continued unfavorable foreign exchange movements, nonetheless, of a lesser impact than during the H1 of our financial year. Third quarter sales reached EUR 5.6 billion, our highest quarterly sales ever. At constant exchange rates, Richemont recorded growth in almost all regions, business areas, and channels during the Q3. Japan generated the sharpest regional growth rate, while Asia Pacific and the Americas contributed the most in value terms to the sales increase. Retail and the Jewelry Maisons led their respective channel and business areas' performance with double-digit increases. Richemont's ESG roadmap continued to be actioned during the quarter, with a number of deliverables achieved, which I will detail later. Finally, last month, we announced the termination of the agreements between Richemont, Farfetch, and Symphony, Symphony Global. Again, more on that later. Let me now briefly review the group's sales performance at constant exchange rates. First by region and clientele, then by distribution channel, and finally by business area. Sales grew in all regions except for Europe and Asia Pacific. Sales increased by 13%, partly benefiting from favorable comparatives. The strong 25% sales growth in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau combined, more than offset soft performance in several other Asian markets. Momentum accelerated sequentially in the Americas. There, the 8% sales increase was driven by strength at the Jewelry Maisons, up double-digit, and higher sales at our F&A Maisons. The U.S. market benefited from a higher share of domestic purchases and reduced spending overseas, notably in Europe. As a result of lower tourist purchases from clients based in the U.S., as just mentioned, but also the Middle East, Europe re-registered a 3% decline in sales compared to the prior year period, notwithstanding a modest increase in spending from the Chinese clientele and higher domestic sales. Sales were also partly impacted by the selective termination of a number of wholesale relationships. The 18% sales increase in Japan was due to stronger tourist spending, mainly from Chinese clients, and some growth in local demand. The Middle East and Africa's robust 10% sales growth was supported by the market performance of our jewelry Maisons, reflecting a robust domestic and tourist demand in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Let us now turn to sales by clientele, which are based on the sales in the directly operated stores of most of our Maisons. This will give you an indication of the magnitude of sales growth for the group as a whole. Starting with the Chinese clientele, sales for the quarter grew sharply by around 42%, driven by increases locally and abroad. For the nine-month period, the one-year growth was around 47% over the prior period, and around 19% and 45% on a two- and four-year comparison basis. The four-year CAGR for the nine-month period was +10%, similar to the H1 of this year. Sales to the Northern American clientele accelerated from the first and Q2, both at 3% to now +7% on the strength of local demand, as spend abroad continued to decline in a relatively easier comparative base. For the nine-month period, sales grew by around 5%. On a two- and four-year stack, growth was significant at +29% and +132%. The four-year CAGR remained the strongest amongst all clienteles at +23%. Demand from the European clientele continued to show resilience, albeit sales growth eased to around +6% during the quarter under review, and with the overwhelming majority of spend remaining domestic. For the nine-month period, sales grew by around 8% and by a strong 38% and 116% on a two- and four-year comparison basis. The 4-year CAGR remained robust at +21%, almost the same level as for the Americas clientele. Let us now turn to sales by distribution channel. Retail sales up 11%, growth overall group sales, sustained by growth in all business areas, including double-digit growth at both the jewelry Maisons and the specialist watchmakers. Retail sales were particularly noteworthy in the U.S., as well as in mainly retail channels, outperformance, and the continued retailization of the specialist watchmakers. Retail sales accounted for 71% of group sales for the quarter, a 200 basis point improvement over a year ago. Online retail sales, comprising the group's online sales directly generated by the group's Maisons and Watchfinder, declined by 5%. The jewelry and F&A Maisons showed relative resilience, with notable growth at Buccellati, Alaïa, and Peter Millar. Online retail accounted for 6% of group sales. Finally, wholesale sales, which include sales to monobrand franchise partners and third-party multi-brand retail partners, sales to agents and royalty income. Wholesale sales rose by 4% compared to the prior year period, as growth at the jewelry Maisons more than offset softness in the two other business areas, partly impacted by the selective termination of wholesale relationships, as previously mentioned. Wholesale sales represented 23% of group sales, slightly less than a year ago. Let me now review our three business areas, most of which posted higher sales. The jewelry Maisons led the group's sales growth, with sales increasing by 12%. Sales rose by double digits in almost all regions, most notably in Asia, Pacific, and Japan. Sales benefited from openings, including the MixC mall in Hangzhou, China, for Buccellati, Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam for Van Cleef & Arpels, and Cartier in Soho, New York. Both jewelry and watch sales grew strongly. In jewelry, let me mention Trinity and Grain Café, Café at Cartier, Le Grand Tour and Fauna at Van Cleef & Arpels, and Opera Tulle and Ramage at Buccellati. Specialist watchmaker sales increased by 3%, with notable performance from the retail channel, mitigating lower sales in the other channels and affirming the relevance of the ongoing retailization of our watch Maisons. Openings include the Vacheron Constantin, Munich, and Bucherer in Milan, and the first directly owned store for A. Lange & Söhne in Paris on Rue de la Paix. Overall, the quarter was driven by double-digit growth at Vacheron Constantin and A. Lange & Söhne. Let us move to the other business area, which primarily includes the group's fashion and accessories Maisons, in addition to Watchfinder, as well as the group's unbranded watch component manufacturing and real estate activities. Sales slightly contracted compared to the same period a year ago, as lower wholesale and online retail sales were almost offset by the mid-single-digit growth in retail sales, reflecting growth at a number of F&A Maisons, including Alaïa, Delvaux, Dunhill, and Peter Millar. During the quarter, we announced the arrival of a new CEO for Chloé, previously in charge of Dunhill, to lead Chloé during a period of creative renewal. Let us now move to our Luxury New Retail vision or LNR. On the eighteenth of December, we informed the market that the arrangements with Farfetch, underpinning the transaction announced in August 2022, could not complete. Therefore, Richemont, Farfetch, and Symphony, Symphony Global, an investment vehicle of Mr. Alabbar terminated the agreements for the sale of a majority stake in YNAP to Farfetch and Symphony Global, the adoption of Farfetch platform solutions by most Richemont Maisons and YNAP, as well as the opening of e-concessions on the Farfetch marketplace by several Richemont Maisons. We also warned that the convertible notes issued by Farfetch Limited are not expected to be repaid, hence the carrying amount of EUR 220 million, as reported in the interim report, has been written off to nil. Having parted ways with Farfetch, free of any financial commitments, our Maisons and YNAP continue to operate on their own platforms and technology while we are reviewing the strategic options aimed at finding a new controlling shareholder for YNAP that can best harness its strength and potential. YNAP, thus, remains an asset held for sale. As to our Maisons, we are considering alternatives to pursue the Retailization of our LNR vision. The work on the replatforming, planning, and solution design we have carried out to date will be of great value to reach that objective. Let me now share an update on our ESG progress. Respecting human rights is embedded in Richemont's culture and is one of our most material topics. At the end of calendar year 2023, we formalized a human rights statement, which was approved by the Governance and Sustainability Committee of the board. This document reflects our commitment to respect the human rights of our stakeholders, including our employees, clients, investors, partners, suppliers, and other people impacted by our value chain. Furthermore, we completed our first ESG risks and opportunities assessment to prepare for the rapidly evolving regulatory environment. We have taken a bespoke approach to identify, assess, and report our ESG risks and opportunities, allowing us to reinforce our institutional knowledge and integrate ESG into all our business processes. And finally, committed to acting on biodiversity, notably the SDGs 14 and 15, which is life below water and life on land, we delivered a high-level biodiversity training to the Governance and Sustainability Committee of the board. It is focused on upskilling members to better understand the interdependencies between nature and business, as well as the biodiversity impacts arising from our value chain. This concludes our Q3 trading review. Thank you, Burkhart. Before we open the line to the sell-side analysts for questions, let me add that we kindly ask you to limit your questions to the trading environment. Burkhart will not comment on other finances. Thank you for your understanding. Alice, please open the lines to questions. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the touchtone telephone. Our first question comes from the line of Zuzanna Pusz with UBS. Please go ahead. Good morning, Zuzanna. Morning, Susanna. Morning, Burkhart. Morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I'll stick to two. So first of all, would you be able to maybe comment on the performance of jewelry Maisons by, I know, price point, or if you could tell us how high jewelry was doing? The reason why I'm asking is because it's interesting to see that jewelry Maisons did much better than the retail channel. So I'm just—I just want to make sure that, you know, there wasn't maybe anything sort of, you know, some, I don't know, wholesale restocking or anything that, that could have helped. I, I just imagine there was probably a big difference between watches and, and jewelry Maisons for, for retail channels. So that's why I'm asking. Secondly, it's probably a slightly annoying question, so I apologize in advance, but any chance you could tell us maybe a little bit about Q4, sort of cadence of Q3. Now, I know you don't comment on months, but just to get an idea, if you've seen some acceleration towards the end of the quarter, or was it more or less consistent, you know, throughout the quarter? So these are my two questions. Thank you. Yeah, Zuzanna, and I have a question for you, but I'll ask that at the end of my answer. First of all- Fine. Yeah, price points, and, you know, difference between channels, just to walk back on that, you know, basically, for the jewelry Maisons, which are about 83%, own retail, the overwhelming part of the wholesale business that we do, or the business we do through the wholesale channel, is with monobrand franchise stores, right? So basically there, you should expect similar patterns, you know, in terms of spread across the collections, probably with a slightly lower impact of high jewelry, which tends to be more done through our own network or through our own events, right? So I wouldn't see any discernible... Sorry, and then there is a last element, which is more for Cartier, where they have part of their watch business through wholesale, including multi-brand wholesale. Now, that being said, you know, I think you're asking for, you know, different price points, aspirational customer and less aspirational customer. You know, that is less relevant for us. Our price points tend to be much higher, and, you know, don't really take the aspirational customer as an outlier than what we've seen, for example, on the fashion side of the business. That being said, if you compare the performance, let's say, retail versus wholesale, and you look at jewelry, high jewelry and watches, I would say we have pretty similar double-digit growth rates for the jewelry offer. So north of 10% growth, whereas high jewelry, against much stronger comps, has grown in the high single digits, so slightly below, but the comps were quite high, and you know that business is more cyclical. Second question, actually, I think you're going, well, you're asking for the exit rates, right? In general, exit rates have been higher across all the business areas than the, let's say, the entry rates into the quarter. We've seen a sequential acceleration throughout the quarter, with the strongest month being the month of December. The exit rates are somewhere between 3 and 5 points higher than the quarter average that we just published. Right. So, one question I have for you- That's great. Thank you. great. Thank you. One question I have for you. Of course. I heard you were unhappy about- I'm sorry. I heard you were unhappy about not getting those Alhambra earrings for Christmas because there was no stock available. I was unhappy, I was unhappy as a consumer, but I was happy as an analyst to hear it was out of stock. So it, you know, happy- Yeah, but next time you have that problem, next time you have that problem, ask us. We, we might be able to help. I certainly will do. Well, James told me I should ask Santa earlier, so I will, I will make sure this year I, I won't make that mistake. Absolutely. Thanks. When you ask us, you might... You have to be ready to upgrade, so. Well, there was nothing. Last year, I upgraded, but this year there was literally nothing in stock. But I, as I said, it was- I know. -pretty good. I know. I know. That's the problem. Thank you. Working on it. Thank you, Zuzanna. Thank you. Let's move to the next question, please. The next question comes from the line of Luca Solca with Bernstein. Please go ahead. Hello, Luca. Good morning. Yes, good morning, Sophie. Good morning, Burkhart. Morning, Luca. I just wonder, just to confirm, what you just said about high jewelry. I think that there was a concern in the market that the appetite for design jewelry, so anything costing less than $20,000 or so, could be waning because of the middle class being under pressure. Just to confirm, this is not what you're seeing. You're actually seeing that design jewelry is growing at a higher rate than high jewelry. And, and maybe- In the quarter, Luca, in the quarter, so let's, let's not read anything, or more than that into a quarterly performance of high jewelry, right? Yeah, because it was- Okay, no. Last year's launches in high jewelry, yeah, so. Yeah, no, fair enough. Yes. Yeah, but I confirm what you said on the first part, yeah. Fair enough. Fair enough. It's a quarter, so we don't necessarily want to extrapolate, but it, it is nevertheless reassuring as far as consumer appetite for all of your products, not just the high end. Maybe if you could expand a bit more how the increased exposure in retail is working for the specialist watchmakers, which levels you have reached at this point. I remember that you used to be breaking down the portion pertaining to monobrand stores, but also the portion pertaining to franchised stores in this respect. And how you see the progress of this continuing retailization going forward, knowing that we've seen some high-profile transactions, including the Bucherer acquisition by Rolex. Thank you very much indeed. Yeah, I mean, you know, okay, once again, Luca, we're, we're at the quarter here, you know. Usually what we do is on a yearly basis, we break it down or on a half yearly. You know, for the half year, we, we said that the retail share of on the specialist watchmakers was at 56%, so that has slightly progressed since. We're still, we're, we're below 60%, but that has progressed, you know, in the last three months. The performance, you know, if you look at the overall growth for the specialist watchmakers for the quarter, was at 3%, as we said, with a few different realities per channel behind it, right? We've had a mid-teens expansion of retail or growth of the retail channel, mid-teens for the specialist watchmakers. Now, obviously, part of that is linked to internalization and further retailization. The like-for-like growth for the retail channel, that is what we, you know, really focus on because it, it shows the true customer demand and the desirability was high single digits for the specialist watchmakers. So, you know, overall, you know, quite a strong confirmation of the desirability of the brands and the products. Whereas the wholesale channel, in part suffered from this further internalization, right? Which you've seen was negative. So, that leaves us somewhere in the area of 40+% with the franchise stores and the multi-brand wholesalers, you know, the rest of the distribution. You know, and as you can assume probably a 50/50 split for those 42% there. But this is really pretty much continuing or showing the same structure of the numbers that we've shown at the half year. Perfect. Thank you very much indeed, Burkhart. Thank you. Moving to the next question, please. The next question comes from the line of Thomas, Thomas Chauvet with Citi. Please go ahead. Good morning, Thomas. Good morning, Thomas. Good morning, Thomas Chauvet from Citi. I have two questions, please. The first one, just trying to reconcile the wholesale performance. So you did +4% for the group with the wholesale of specialist watchmakers down double-digit and fashion brands also down. So was the difference all driven by Cartier watches, being particularly strong, or is it just your jewelry maison franchise stores? And with wholesale, can you discuss the level of watches inventories in your own books for the group at the end of December, and how your third-party dealers you think look like? Secondly, on the exit trade, December and January, did the three weeks later timing of Chinese New Year, so tenth of February this year, end of January last year, did it have an impact on wholesale and on Asia ex-Japan in the period? So, sorry, so that you have a perhaps a stronger start to January than in Greater China than anticipated. The December exit rate is already very strong, so is January with Chinese New Year timing helping also? Thank you. Yeah. Morning, Thomas. First of all, on the... Let me start with the wholesale. It's not a question of Cartier watches only, even though that helps, you know, the wholesale performance coming out of the jewelry maisons. But as I said before, you know, we have a significant business for Van Cleef exclusively with monobrand franchise stores, and for Cartier monobrand franchise stores, plus, you know, for the full offer. As for Van Cleef, plus Cartier watches, which are sold through multi-brand, you know, retailers and obviously, well, you know, other accessories such as perfume, also sold through the wholesale channel at Cartier. Now, the Cartier watch performance has definitely helped, but it is not exclusively linked to that. It is more, I'd say, the general sell out and then the resulting sell-in, you know, across the jewelry and watch spectrum for basically all three of our maisons. I'm not going to dwell on, let's say, you know, jewelry business, sorry, the silver business at Buccellati, which is primarily sold through wholesale, but that has worked as well. So it's more a more broad-based, you know, performance across wholesale at the jewelry maisons. The fashion accessories maisons, regionally in some regions, have performed quite well, notably the U.S. as well, due to Peter Millar. But in general, it's been slightly negative on the FNA side. Inventory. Our watch inventory, or let's say, watch and jewelry inventory, is on our own books, is in general coming down, which is part of the regular annual cycle that we have. Remember, we built inventory in the H1 of the year, in the run-up to the, you know, high selling season, and then starting basically in November, the inventory comes down strongly in December after strong months like this, and then kind of, you know, normalizes towards the end of the year. Nothing to report on that, on the inventory on our books. We're fine. We are short, as you know, Zuzanna experienced on some jewelry lines and on some high-end watch lines. Still the case. And as to inventory in the trade, we are still in the same, I'd say, good, stable, controlled position we've been over the last, let's say 3, 4 years. So across the entire cycle, we're still pretty much at sell-in, sell-out, at 100% or slightly above, for the watchmakers. So pretty much at ease with that. Lastly, Exit trade. Yeah, well, exit rates, well, it was about the wholesale business- And also- Linked to Mainland China, to Chinese New Year. I'd say marginal impact, but not nothing to write home about. We will see, and we'll probably have to discuss this, you know, in May, when we update, of how the quarter has gone. Remember, we've had in January, Chinese New Year, a big impact of Chinese New Year last year. This will happen now in February. And we've had the strong reopening effect in Mainland China happening at the same time, meaning starting in the H2 of January. So, we go into this quarter with some degree of confidence, but we are aware of the very strong comparables that are stacked up against us. Thank you, Burkhart. Thank you, Thomas. Let's move on- Thanks, Thomas. To the next question, please. The next question comes from the line of Antoine Belge with BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead. Yes, good, good morning. It's Antoine in BNP. Morning, Antoine. Yeah, hello. I think the U.S. was a pleasant surprise. So, reaccelerating, I mean, you noted the with the shift towards more local demand, but all metrics accelerated. So if you could comment a bit on that and also if here also you saw a better exit rate. And my second question relates actually to the Chinese cluster. I mean, it marginally, you know, decelerated, but still was quite healthy. So here also, if you could maybe comment a bit about the mood of the consumer and what sort of products are doing well. Thank you very much. Yeah, with the last question, I'm a bit hard pressed to break that down, you know, on the product side by region. On the U.S. maybe first. Yeah, on the U.S., now we've had quite a strong business in the U.S., but let me probably just give you a bit more background, right? On... You know, and in the U.S., it was driven by the jewelry maisons, to a lesser extent, by the FNA maisons, which were expanding at low single digit in the U.S. And the specialist watchmakers were down at low single digits, so you know, kind of neutralizing this impact. So the story was really about the jewelry maisons in the U.S. Same thing here, as we've seen, in general across the quarter, we've seen a sequential acceleration, not only quarter after quarter in the U.S. So, you know, as I said, the American client or consumer is +3%, +3% for the first two quarters, and then picked up this quarter to about +7%. For the jewelry Maisons, it has been something comparable. In the quarter, we've had a sequential acceleration step by step, and we have, you know, shown a double-digit expansion for the jewelry Maisons in the Americas. This one was pretty broad-based, especially when we look at the Christmas business or the festive season business across the Maisons in the Americas. Pretty much, and this is Christmas, right? So we usually have more the iconic highly identifiable highly desirable product lines in watches and jewelry and, you know, that are, that are in, in high demand, and that has pretty much worked across the spectrum. The high jewelry business is important, but it adds to a Christmas business. It's not where we have the highest level of activity. Yes, we do have, for the festive season, you know, high jewelry deals that are then delivered in December, but, you know, remember the big events we do in usually when we launch the collections early summer in June usually, right? So pretty much across the spectrum. Interesting to note that, you know, the jewelry Maisons have all expanded double-digit in almost all regions, with the exception of Europe, where the business has been flat, which I take as an achievement, given the fact that a lot of American customers have repatriated their spend from Europe into the US. Once again, the US today, the consumer is quite healthy, but the split of where that business with the American customer is taking place has changed quite massively throughout the year. The Q1, I think I spoke about it already at the half year. The Q1 saw strong growth with American customers in Europe, whereas the second and the third has seen the American consumer pulling back spend out of Europe, double-digit, up... I mean, sorry, double-digit down, somewhere between 18%-20% less spend in Europe, which has entirely been repatriated into the Americas. This obviously benefits the sales in the region, but what we also focus on is the spend with the American clientele, and there we can see that there has been, and probably that goes in line with, you know, the economic news we have or the stock market performance in the U.S. You know, we've had some enhanced feel-good factor in the U.S. that has definitely helped. You know, exit rates in the U.S. have been similar, not just for jewelry Maisons, but in general, have been similar to the quarterly performance, so high single digit. And maybe, Burkhart, just on the mood of the Chinese clientele, without going into details of product lines? Yeah, I mean, the mood of the Chinese clientele, I mean, I'm not- we're not doing Psychology 101 here, right? But I think we've you know, spoken at length about it already throughout the year. There is macroeconomic problems, let's say, in China. We know about the real estate market, and the real estate market, once again, has gone lower in China, so that's not helpful. And we know that this will take years instead of months or quarters to figure out. That is sadly the nature of real estate challenges or crisis. But in general, you know, we've seen, again, weaker comps, a strong performance, you know, 42%. I'm not gonna go into all the details, but Mainland China was double-digit positive. Hong Kong and Macau, so this near abroad cluster, has grown throughout the quarter, depending on the month, somewhere between 60 and 80, and between 80 and 100% for Macau. So that, rebuilt is still pretty much intact. Overall, you know, Mainland China, or let's say, this Greater China area, 25% up, and the Chinese cluster or the client clientele up by over 40%. Business has or is still continuing to rebuild, in Japan, about mid-teens now, of Japanese business is, is with Chinese. That compares to, north of 30%, pre-COVID. So I would say, the rebuild is probably halfway done. It still pretty much is in sync with what we said at the beginning of the year, that it'll probably take two years to rebuild, because in Europe or in the Middle East, we only see, I'd say, still more individual customers, no tour groups yet. Chinese business in Europe is somewhere between 5% and 6%, depending on the month. So they're there, but they're not there in the massive numbers that we've seen pre-COVID. Like we said, and that also coincides with some of the data we see out of China, that the first wave after the reopening has clearly seen that domestic tourism, and that includes Hong Kong, Macau, was the preferred route. In December or by the end of the calendar year, we've seen that, looking at the statistics, that domestic travel is back to 91% of pre-COVID levels, so that probably has almost run its course. Hong Kong, Macau is still below pre-COVID, and outside of China or outside of Mainland China, that is still rebuilding, as I just said. Thank you, Burkhart. Many thanks. Super helpful. Thank you. Welcome. Thanks. Merci, Antoine. Let's move to the next question, please. The next question comes from the line of Louise Singlehurst with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Good morning, Louise. Louise. Thanks. My questions, and actually, we've had a lot of information, so I'll keep it, I'll keep it brief. I wonder, Burkhart, if you can just talk about the overall regional aspect. I think back in November, there was the phrase of like a soft landing in the broader discussion. But when we think about the business today, you've highlighted the exit rates being a little bit more favorable during the period. But if we look at region by region, the U.S., you talk about the resilient economy, and you've given us some color on that. Europe, I wondered if you could just give us a little bit of flavor. We've obviously had a lower profit, a lower announcement from Watches of Switzerland this morning relating to weakness in the U.K. I don't know if there's anything within Europe that you're seeing specifically. Then for Asia, thank you for the commentary so far, but I wondered if you could just touch on the mood across the retail partners, just obviously ahead of the Chinese New Year. Thank you. Yeah, Louise, let me try to give you a bit more granularity on how the markets have performed in Europe and also in Asia. You know, it gives you a bit more granularity because there's a lot of moving pieces here. You know, we published one number for Asia, 23, 13%, right? Growth for the quarter, but there's a lot of moving parts behind it. Starting with Europe, now we were positively surprised, I would say, about the resilience of the European consumer, because if you look around in some of the major economies, obviously, it's pretty dire sometimes what you see. I mean, you live in the UK, so I think the, you know, the general environment and optimism going into 2024 is not so, so, so big. Germany in recession, so we still see the same context, right? That until the ECB starts to lower rates, which, you know, is pushed out now, that that was probably gonna go up and down, you know, one month to the other, with a bit of whipsawing in the H1 of the calendar year, probably in our H1 of our next fiscal year. And we see this really in the markets, you know, Europe throughout the quarter, and we see that market by market, but we see that also when we look at the like-for-like performance. Europe, entering the quarter, probably saw the low point on both counts in October, has rebuilt in November and actually has, in most markets, turned into positive terrain, meaning back to growth, AKA exit rates, right? In most of the major markets in Europe, has turned positive. So throughout the quarter, a sequential acceleration. I'd say France is still France and Germany are, you know, slightly, if you look at exit rates, slightly below last year, whereas we see renewed growth in the UK, Switzerland, Italy, to name but those, you know, more important markets. And it has pretty much been the same pattern. You know, dropping from September, October, you know, low point in October and then rebuilt. Now, I think this is a pattern that we'll probably, as I said, see for the next six months, nine months, but overall, it has been against the backdrop of a quite strong European consumer expansion. You know, if you look at the quarters, we were 8.8% in the Q1, 10% expansion in the Q2, and then in the Q3, we went from 10 to about 6% expansion for the consumer. That is still, I think, quite a healthy expansion, given the economic backdrop. We'll have to monitor how that plays out, but I do see volatility both in the monthly and monthly numbers going forward, but also, market by market, you know, deviating events. Asia Pacific, something I'd say similar if... But let's back out first the performance, let's say, of what we call the Greater China, so area Mainland, plus Hong Kong, plus Macau. Now here we've had a very strong, obviously, Q1, a more moderate expansion in the second, which was a double-digit expansion, and a 25% re-acceleration in the Q3, admittedly, against weaker comps. The picture in Hong Kong and Macau has pretty much been similar, you know, triple-digit to high double-digit expansion between Q1, Q2, and Q3. Same thing for Macau. And whereas Mainland China, very strong expansion in the Q1, high single-digit drop in the Q2. Once again, that's where the big tourist outflow also started. And then, you know, a double-digit mid-teens expansion in the Q3. So overall, with higher exit rates, you know, for Mainland China, for the quarter. So overall, I'd say the Chinese business is, as I said before, rebuilding. I don't know if it's according to plan, because it's very difficult to plan in this environment, but we're quite content with the way it's rebuilding, knowing that we have growth potential or growth reserves, you know, if we bank on a further expansion of the outbound international tourism business. Now, if you look at the other markets in Asia Pacific, it's been, I would say, a mixed bag. You know, you look at something closer to home, for mainland Chinese, Taiwan. It's been, I'd say, a strong expansion in Q1, normalized around high single digits in the Q2 and slightly negative in the third. Nothing really to say about it. Taiwan is a market which is always difficult to read because it usually goes against the trends of the rest of the region, and no specific reason for that. Korea was pretty much flattish to slow single-digit growth across the year, and across the first three quarters, with, however, a much higher exit rate, mid-teens exit rate in Korea for December. We'll have to check on that, if that stays the same. The markets where we're challenged, and is one of the major ones, is Singapore. I've touched on that before. We see that there is local wealth effects linked to inflation and especially to exchange rate-driven price adjustments that we've done. That applies to a certain extent to most of the dollar-linked currencies in Asia. And Singapore has suffered from that. Has also suffered from an outflow of money, you know, that migrated there quite massively during COVID from Hong Kong. Australia, same thing, has been negative in the quarter. Probably the same reasoning here. Local pricing has, or price increases by our brands have impacted the demand, but it's not dramatic at this stage. And we're monitoring that, obviously, going forward. Long answer, but I hope it gave you some color. That's incredibly helpful. Thank you. Thank you, Louise. Let's move on to the next question, please. The next question comes from the line of Edouard Aubin with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Good morning, Edouard. Yeah, good- Good morning. Hey, good morning, good morning. Happy New Year, if I can still say this. Thanks, very. Just two questions for me. The main question, Burkhart, is so looking at the better-than-expected Jewelry Maison performance, to the extent you can tell, you know, is it a function of, you know, the luxury sector demand being more resilient, demand for jewelry being more resilient, or you guys accelerating your market share gains? So obviously, it's difficult to assess. It's a bit of both. But based on your market intelligence, you know, which one would you say is the greatest factor of the two? So I'd be really curious to have your view on that. And then sorry, just a small clarification on the exit rate, if you're not too tired to talk about it. You mentioned that December was better than the rest of the quarter. By any chance, was the comp base getting a bit easier? Or if you look at kind of on an underlying two-year stack, there is also an acceleration. Thank you so much. Yeah. No, I mean, the comp base is getting better for sure, but in December, you know, we had double-digit expansion in the constant rates, you know. So we're talking absolute numbers that have significantly increased, right? So, the absolute volume of the business, and that's why. And you know, we're not really wanting to brag, but we said, you know, EUR 5.6 billion in this quarter is, in terms of absolute business volume, the highest volume we've ever had, or value we've ever had in any given quarter. So there is not just a question of weakening comps and thus, you know, strength and growth rates in this quarter, but it's also the absolute volume or value and volume of the business has expanded. Now coming back to your first question, I think what we've seen over the last few years, clearly emerging as a trend, is that in a way, brand equity or individual brand equity trumps, no pun intended here, you know, trumps, I'd say, sector attractivity. In the sense that, yes, jewelry maisons or jewelry business in itself is an attractive segment to be in or to go into, and that's what we've seen a lot of competitors doing. And I think it has many reasons behind it. But one of the big reasons is that it is a product category that is inherently attractive, for I'd say, across generations, including, and that has been, I'd say, quite impressively proven, for you know, younger generation, Gen Zs, because millennials, we don't even talk about anymore, as you know, as... which constitute the biggest part of our business by now. So but within the sector or the segment, I think brand equity makes the big difference today. Probably as well, has helped us because in times of, let's say, economic uncertainty, and I'm not saying that times are bad, but it's at least an economic uncertainty with an outlook. At least, you know, when you read in the newspapers, you know, everybody's talking about, you know, more difficult, more challenging, or more volatile times ahead. It helps to be highly recognized and highly respected jewelry brand through the power of its iconic product lines. This reassures customers, not just in jewelry, but also in watches, if we look at the Cartier watch business and watch performance there. So I'd say it's primarily driven by brand equity, and we see a clear clustering. Our jewelry brands have all performed very strongly. The watch brands with the strongest brand equity, they have outperformed the rest of the crowd, and we see it in everywhere, and I think our peers see it as well in with their strong hero brands or mega brands in their own space. So I think brand equity makes a difference. The brand equity, you know, leading to secular market share trends is still there. Yes. But again, based on your market intelligence, if you look at recent quarters, would it be fair to say that you suspect that Cartier and Van Cleef have accelerated their market share gains? I mean, it seems that we're picking up in terms of our channel checks, but wanted to hear it from you. Yes, I- Would that be fair to say that in recent quarters? Yeah, except, you know, market share gains are difficult to gauge quarter by quarter. We're not a, you know, fast-moving consumer goods, but in general trends, I would say so, but there's two moving pieces here, right? One is against the competition, and one is, let's say, branded versus unbranded. You know, so I think probably on both counts, yeah. Got it. Thank you. Merci, Edouard. Let's move on to the next question, please. Especially because it's already 9:22 A.M., so we'll take a few more. Our next question comes from the line of Jon Cox, Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead. Good morning, John. Yeah, good morning. Good morning, guys. Yeah, good morning. Morning, John. A belated happy New Year to everybody. Yep. Thank you. Same to you. A couple of questions for you. Yes, thanks very much. A bit of an early New Year's surprise, positive surprise. I'm amazed at how positive your commentary is, Burkhart. You know, if you look at consensus at the moment, for the next quarter, people are pretty much flat, probably constant currency. You know, you're talking about exit rates being better, and I know the comps start to get a bit difficult, but just- Mm ... based on what you're saying today, you know, it seems that you'll probably do a little bit better than flat for the final quarter of the year. That's the first question. I'll see how that goes. And people haven't really been talking about the YNAP. Just wondering if you could just give us a bit of detail on any further write-downs on that. Your net cash position actually looked a little bit worse than I'm expecting. I'm wondering if there's some sort of outflows there, you know, related to what's happening with YNAP. And then you talk about you're looking for, you know, somebody else to take it over. Just wondering where you are on that, any time frame, you know, how, how much is the cash burn likely to be for the next, you know, couple of quarters? Because obviously, it will, it will be on your books for at least the next few quarters. Thanks. Yeah, I mean, we're positive looking back onto the quarterly performance. And, I mean, yes, positive exit rates. So I'd say we take out of this a bit of a positive momentum, you know, because our business and our business leaders, you know, they hear a lot of bad news, and, you know, it's always good to have kind of a positive momentum reestablished through positive news throughout the quarter. You know, like I said, it has been an acceleration. The entry into the quarter was more challenging. Now, does that mean... And, I know that... You know, many people are looking desperately for kind of a sign that, hey, the industry has turned the corner. You know, I take a bit of a different view on that. I mean, it's not about turning a quarter. I still think, and if you put away all the, you know, the projections and we put away all the, you know, the invested money into our stocks and our shares, we are in an industry that has underlying and over the very, very long term, already proven that they grow and can consistently grow as an industry. And the projections, positive projections are still there. Going forward, and you can discuss, but for us, the growth rate has been over the very long term, sort of two times global GDP expansion, right? So that brings us to CAGR growth over the long period, probably the last 20 years, around 8% or so. So I'd say that is a positive underlying fundamental. Secondly, we are in a business, in a jewelry business that has, and I've spoken about it before, a high protective moats around it. Investments, if you want to go and excel in that business, are quite high, and continuous and significant investments have to go into the business. But if you execute well, your cash back, meaning your the cash you generate is quite high. But you have to be willing to consistently invest also high amounts of money into this business. Watches is the same, but probably has a lower underlying growth rate to be expected. Now, right now, we're at a point where we have a few things that concern investors, but that also concern ourselves. One is, we've had across the industry, not necessarily for Richemont, but across the industry, we've had a huge hope that when other markets, probably the Western markets, start to weaken or to normalize after quite an explosive growth in Europe and in the Americas over the last four-year cycle, that China will ride to the rescue. And that still is the case, and that still is our assumption in a way, but we've taken a much more subdued view that this would take probably the better part of two years to rebuild. And it's not gonna be, you know, a massive rebound as we've seen in 2021, calendar 2021. So we're not, you know, we've been quite sober about that, and today, at least, this is what we still believe and what we see building or rebuilding. Secondly, the strength of the American consumer, and to a lesser extent, the strength of the European consumer, is still there, which comes as a surprise, you know, for many observers, right? But same thing. I mean, yesterday, the U.S., you saw the published retail sales, which were beyond expectations, which, you know, kind of pushed back the the Fed's, you know, interest rate lowering scenario by another few months, probably. So, we're picking up some positive undertones and undercurrents here. Yet we're not unaware that, you know, the next, you know, the Q4 has challenging comparatives. I don't wanna overstate the case, but I don't wanna be, you know, highly pessimistic either. We just simply don't know at this stage. You know, it's highly volatile. Too many moving parts to be, at this stage, able to, you know, reliably predict any given outcome at the end of the year. I'm not saying we're without visibility, but what I'm saying is we have a very short-term visibility. And I can tell you what I see is that we've taken a positive momentum into the last quarter of the year. We'll see what happens. That's all I can say at this stage. And then I think the rhetoric that is coming up saying that 2024 will be a year of two halves, which by definition is always the case, but I think makes sense, that the first six months, probably into summer or towards the end of summer, will be more challenging. Comparatives are high, volatility is there, and there's still a potential that, you know, in Europe, other countries slip, and there's still a potential that in the US, you know, some accidents might happen. For the time being, it looks like a soft landing, but things can still happen. Whereas once the lowering cycle in Europe and in the US gets underway, we should see more positive news coming out of it. So we have more, I'd say, subdued optimism, which is linked to the strength and the confirmed strength of our brands or the brand equity that drives sales, so that we are confident in general about the strength of our strong Maisons that will see us through. The rest is really today very challenging, very difficult to fathom. And on YNAP? So that was a long-winded answer on question one. On YNAP, I can probably a bit more sharp. Pretty much what we said or what we wrote is what we're doing. So we're looking and we're preparing the process to identify a future majority shareholder or a majority can go up to 100% for YNAP. That process is kicked off. How long will it take? Don't know. We see interest, unsolicited today, from a number of places, but we can update once we're further down the road. Just to give you an indication, I mean, Held for Sale means you see a reasonable, or management sees a reasonable, chance that the asset will be sold within 12 months, right? That's from an IFRS perspective, one of the criteria to be able to classify it as Held for Sale. Cash generation, you mentioned that. Nothing to say on... Nothing linked to Windup. We've once again, this is a normal process, so we do that with the entities or the businesses that need it. We have, you know, recapitalized Windup during the Q4, but that is all internal, so it doesn't really make a big, big difference. Nothing to report on the cash side with regards to Windup. Going forward, what's the cash burn? I have a general idea, but I can't comment on that at this stage, because that would mean that I've taken a firm view on how the business development will be. Thank you. You're welcome. It's 9:32 A.M. Should we take one last question? Sure, sure. Next question, please. Thank you. That will be the last question. Our last question for today comes from the line of Rogerio Fujimori with Stifel. Please go ahead. Oh, hi, Burkhart, Sophie, and James. I have actually just one question. I think in your prepared remarks, you called out Vacheron and so on, outperforming, I think especially with watchmakers. So when you look at your DTC business, are there any thoughts you could share with us in terms of consumer behavior across price points when you look at the sell-out date of, say, Baume or Montblanc or watches for other maisons, versus Vacheron, for example, at the top of the pyramid, in terms of resilience? I think you referred to the strongest brand equity as a differentiating factor. But I was just wondering if your exposure to high-net-worth individual clients is helping you at this stage of the cycle with brands like Van Cleef, Vacheron Constantin, et cetera. Thank you. Yeah, morning, Rogerio, but let me just try to address the high-net-worth individual question. We are, and I... Yes, of course, we benefit from high-net-worth individuals, and I think we see in some brands in the soft luxury spectrum, this trend, and we can also see it at or through Windup, that you know, the high-net-worth individuals or the VVVVIP customers, however you want to call them, they take probably more share over time. But if we look at Cartier, we look at Van Cleef, for argument's sake, and the volume they sell, the biggest part of that volume is decidedly, let's say, for middle-class customers. If you look at the average price points, you know, let's say somewhere between 5 and 10, for watches, not for Van Cleef, but... And probably 10 to 20 in jewelry, or 5 to 20 in jewelry, you know, this is more driven by, if you look at the volume, in fact, by more middle-class customers than always the high-net-worth individuals. If you look at, if you look at, the watch space, I would, I would try to put it in a, like, in a quadrant model, if you want to, in the sense that you have two axes. One is price points, and the other is basically positioning of the maison. And I must say, also positioning of the maisons in their own space as compared to positioning of a maison with a product lineup in a more contested space. If you look at some of our brands that, you know, are positioned in the more sporty, more steel, segment, such as, you know, IWC, such as Panerai, such as parts of the Montblanc lineup, but also such as Omega, Rolex, you know, Breitling, this is a more contested space, right? In general, because the sporty, more steel, watch, or part of the watch segment is quite important. And that is where a, you know, big battle is playing out in a way, and that is where you have more competitive pressure. So it's, and on the other hand, yes, you have lower price points, and you have higher price points. And interestingly enough, depending on where you position your business, you know, we are more on the very high end of the or the higher end of the watch market. If you look at the watch exports, we're always in the upper part. That has performed very well, but what has happened is the very low or entry price segment, which is where, you know, Swatch and many other brands are positioned, has also expanded recently. That's not where we are present, or only with a marginal presence. So our price points are more skewed to the upside, somewhere between, let's say, entry 3,000, up to, you name it. And there definitely our exposure to the higher price points has helped us. But I'd say price points higher or in general, on average, higher than the rest of the industry has helped us, for sure. But then again, you have the very contested space where Rolex is dominating and where some of our brands and some of the Swatch brands are positioned, where it's much more contested. So try to look at the business a bit like that and try to read it like that with the insight you get from your own sources. Super helpful. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Well, thank you, all. I think this concludes our Q3 sales presentation. Should you have any more questions, obviously, James and I are happy to take them afterwards. So wishing you a very good end of the day. Bye-bye. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. Goodbye.