After the warm weather in Europe during the fall of 2025, finally the winter came in Europe. This means that we had a rebound in sales in January and February in the consumer sales especially in the Nordic area. This made Frilufts outperform last year’s numbers. It also meant that primarily Fjällräven and Devold showed improvement in sales compared to last year. During March it slowed down, mainly in Germany. However, despite having operational problems due to the implementation of a new ERP system we have been able to deliver our preorder book in a reasonable way, which means that in total our sales were up to 165.9 MEUR compared to 157.7 MEUR last year. The sales in North America were negatively affected by the weaker US dollar by around 1.4 MEUR, whereas sales in local currency were only down 13.3%. This combined with improved cost control our EBITDA was up 5.1 MEUR. Our operating profit was up to 7.7 MEUR from 5.2 MEUR. I also must note that we still in Q1 have taken extraordinary cost, not only the 0,8 MEUR I forewarned for in my last CEO letter concerning restructuring at Globetrotter, also a 1.0 MEUR correction vs LY related to IFRS lease depreciations. Another drive behind the improved result was the better gross margin this year.
Brands
Our Brands segment showed external sales of 58.0 MEUR (56.9 MEUR). It was negatively affected by lowers sales in North America and by the lower USD. This loss in sales was compensated by higher Devold sales. Devold was also last year consolidated only in March. The operating profit was 10.8 MEUR (14.1 MEUR). The decrease in the operating profit is mainly explained by major return for Fjällräven of goods from Globetrotter due to a new service model having been implemented. Most markets were stable in sales vs same period last year, except Germany due to the said return, external customers in Germany on the other hand showed substantial growth. Devold contributed to the bottom line.
Global Sales
Global Sales reached external net sales of 33.8 MEUR (34.4 MEUR). The operating profit ended at 7.3 MEUR (5.8 MEUR). The JV in China once again outperformed almost every other market and had a very good quarter. The lower sales are predominantly explained from delivery problems, in particularly the UK as well as later delivery of Devold, this has been made up in the beginning of this quarter.
Frilufts
Q1 is normally a weak quarter but due to the weather this quarter it was not as weak as last year; it was quite good. This means that all countries outperformed expectations, especially the Nordics. Sales were up to 74.1 MEUR from 66.4 MEUR LY, +11.6%. One interesting fact is that general brick and mortar performed better. In Finland and Germany, the internet sales were hampered by frequent bot attacks closing the sites for traffic, thereby substantially hurting sales, especially in Germany. Unfortunately, the online business is still very discount driven.
Digital/Direct to Consumer
The total direct-to-consumer sales were 91.8 MEUR (87.6 MEUR). We had no increase in online sales; it was all related to the physical shops. The shops in USA are still showing a small increase on like for like basis.
Going forward
As has become normal, everything is extremely volatile and guessing what is going to happen in the world is a gamble. I do however feel positive about the rest of the year given the start of the year. Short term the effects from the Middle East conflict may hurt us, but on medium term there is rather an opportunity for our industry if people travel less and spend their vacations at home. I do believe we are taking the correct measures in this environment. We are currently making major changes to our business model to improve our efficiency as well as improving our service and offering while becoming faster in our actions. I want to point out that we have lot of committed people fighting it out in this volatile world and thank them for their commitment as we change it.
All the best
Martin Nordin
Chairman of the Board
