Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Ralph Lauren First Quarter Fiscal Year 2027 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to our host, Ms. Corinna Van Ghinst.
Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thank you for joining Ralph Lauren's First Quarter Fiscal 2027 Conference Call. Joining me today are Patrice Louvet, the company's President and Chief Executive Officer; and Justin Picicci, Chief Financial Officer.
After prepared remarks, we will open up the call for your questions, which we ask that you limit to one per caller. During today's call, our financial performance will be discussed on a constant currency adjusted basis. Our reported results, including foreign currency can be found in this morning's press release.
We will also be making some forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws, including our financial outlook. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees, and our actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. Our expectations contain many risks and uncertainties.
Principal risks and uncertainties that could cause our results to differ materially from our current expectations are detailed in our SEC filings. To find disclosures and reconciliations of non-GAAP measures that we use when discussing our financial results, you should refer to this morning's earnings release and to our SEC filings that can be found on our Investor Relations website. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Patrice.
Thank you, Corey. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining today's call. We are off to a strong start in the second year of our Next Great Chapter: Drive plan.
Around the world, the core brand values that Ralph envisioned when he started this company nearly 60 years ago, authenticity, quality, timeless style are resonating powerfully across generations and geographies. And we are connecting with and engaging consumers as only Ralph Lauren can, inspiring people to step into their dream of a better life. This strengthening brand desirability across lifestyle categories, channels and regions is translating into healthy, consistent, sustainable growth and value creation for our business.
In the first quarter, our top and bottom line results exceeded our expectations, supported by our diversified drivers of growth. Revenues increased 13%, including double-digit growth in both Asia and North America and mid-single-digit growth in Europe. Performance was balanced across global DTC comps and wholesale, up 12% and 13%, respectively, in constant currency.
And we achieved this all while continuing to improve our quality of sales with increased full price selling and investing back into our key strategic priorities. Notably, our rolling thunder of brand activations, new AI capabilities and expanding our key city ecosystems, along with returning cash to shareholders. With first quarter revenues and gross and operating margins ahead of the expectations we outlined in May, we have confidence in raising our full year outlook to reflect our first quarter overdelivery even as we continue to take a measured approach to the macro backdrop in Europe, in particular.
Despite dynamic global operating conditions, we remain on offense based on our continued commitment to invest behind our brands, driving high-quality new customer recruitment and retention, our strong and growing geographical presence anchored in our key cities in each region and our strategic investments in advanced analytics, technology and AI to better serve our consumers and drive greater efficiencies in our business, all underpinned by our strong balance sheet and operating discipline. Let me take you through a few recent highlights across the 3 strategic pillars of our plan. As a reminder, these include; first, elevate and energize our lifestyle brand; second, drive the core and expand for more; and third, win in key cities with our consumer ecosystem.
Starting with our efforts to elevate and energize our lifestyle brand. At the intersection of culture, style and luxury, the Ralph Lauren brand continues to captivate new generations while deepening its connection with existing consumers around the world. Through our fashion shows, key city campaigns, celebrations of important historical moments and heritage sporting events, we are bringing the world of Ralph Lauren to life in distinct and immersive ways.
We are leveraging our unique lifestyle authority to create bold, innovative experiences that engage, inspire and strengthen brand desirability. Key highlights from the first quarter included; first, in celebration of America's 250th anniversary, we unveiled our American icons collection of commemorative stamps with the U.S. Postal Service, making Ralph the first designer ever invited to have this honor. The curated collection aligns with our brand's enduring creative vision, which is deeply rooted in the tapestry of American heritage, landscapes, cultures and artistry.
We also invited consumers to step into our vision of timeless style through our Spring '26 global campaign, A Sporting Life, a tribute to sophistication and sport with events in the Hamptons, Pebble Beach and beyond. Our men's Purple Label and Polo fashion show at our Palazzo in Milan, capturing the spirit of adventurous travel through reimagined icons, where we welcome guests, including Lewis Hamilton, Maluma, Henry Golding, Tom Hiddleston and more. Our home presentation during Salone del Mobile also in Milan, transformed Palazzo Ralph Lauren into an immersive celebration of design and craftsmanship.
And the launch of our newest book, Ralph Lauren Catwalk, which chronic holds more than 50 years of our iconic womenswear shows and marking the first time an American designer has been featured in this prestigious series. In Asia, we kicked off our year-long celebration of 50 years in Japan with the launch of our very Ralph documentary at the landmark Akasaka Palace, and we hosted activations around the 20th anniversary of our Omotesando flagship in Tokyo. And finally, reinforcing our leadership in the world of sports, we hosted our first-ever Ralph Lauren Polo Cup in Beijing and Sydney, an elegant live Polo match, seamlessly blending equestrian heritage with high fashion and the world of celebrity.
And beyond the quarter, we were proud to once again serve as the official sponsor of Wimbledon, marrying the traditions of the story tournament with sophisticated spectator style. These activations are driving strong, sustainable growth in new customer acquisition and retention. In the first quarter, we added 1.5 million new customers to our DTC businesses, led by Ralph Lauren stores and our digital commerce sites.
We continue to drive progress across brand equity metrics, including increased NPS and luxury perception scores as well as our ongoing recruitment of key consumer cohorts, including women, luxury and younger customers. And we increased our social media followers by high single digits to more than 70 million, led by Instagram, LINE, Douyin, and TikTok. We look forward to sharing more of our rolling thunder of activations ahead as we continue to build brand desirability across generations around the world.
Moving to our second key initiative, drive the core and expand for more. Our design teams continue to honor the heritage and enduring codes of our brand while thoughtfully evolving them for the way consumers live today, starting with our core, which represents more than 70% of our business. Core product sales grew mid-teens in the first quarter.
Recent highlights include a broad range of foundational sweaters, our Linen Oxford and Sears soccer shirts and our iconic Chino caps. We also introduced our By the Lake Children's collection, featuring versatile pieces that provide an easy transition into back-to-school led by mini cable sweaters, windbreakers and full-zip hoodies. Our high potential categories, including women's apparel, outerwear and handbags, continue to be accelerators for our business.
Together, these categories increased more than 20% for the quarter, outpacing total company growth. In women's, we drove strong performance across Cable-Knit and Jersey sweater, linen shirts, shirt dresses and cotton chino pants. Our lightweight outerwear, led by our city jacket and oversized windbreaker, along with our fleece programs and bold Polo graphics are driving seasonal newness and consumer engagement.
And our spring handbag campaigns continue to focus on our foundational Polo Play and Polo ID collections and a colorful array of pebbled leathers, denim, beading, and seasonal raffia. All ahead of our next foundational launch, the Polo Blaze for Fall '26. Special releases this quarter included our Wimbledon collection, honoring our heritage of sport, sophistication and timelessness, our latest home collections, Sterling Square and Saddlebrook, inspired by Ralph's Homes in New York City and Bedford, and the launch of our partnership with Pebble Beach Resorts, marking the destination's first and only branded retail concept.
As we transition into fall, we will continue to lean into the breadth of our lifestyle product offering, both connecting with consumers around the world while driving resilience in our business. Turning to our third key initiative, win in key cities with our consumer ecosystem. Our teams continue to set the standard for innovative consumer lifestyle experiences, bringing Ralph Lauren to life in our top 30 cities around the world while also laying the groundwork for long-term growth in our next 20 cities.
Within DTC, which comprises the majority of our business, we delivered another quarter of healthy comp growth across regions. Global comps increased 12%, led by our Ralph Lauren stores and digital commerce. By region, Asia again led our growth with sales up 25%, driven by all key markets.
China sales remained strong, increasing more than 40% as we continue to build our brand. Our China performance was supported by local activations such as our Polo Cup, along with further expansion across our top 6 city clusters and on digital. Europe delivered mid-single-digit growth this quarter on top of last year's strong compares.
And we continue to drive results ahead of expectations in our largest region, North America, with retail and wholesale both contributing to this quarter's 13% growth. As we deepen our presence in our top cities, we opened 22 new owned and partner stores globally this quarter. New stores included the Grove in Los Angeles, Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto, our second store in the Bay Area ecosystem and first in Silicon Valley, including a Ralph's Coffee, Istanbul, new Polo stores in Sydney and Perth, and we renovated our highly elevated Bicester outlet outside of London, which also now includes a Ralph's Coffee.
In addition, we expanded our RL mobile app to Korea, our first market to have the app outside of North America with strong early performance that exceeded our expectations. And finally, touching on our enablers. Our business continues to be supported by our 5 key enablers.
Recent highlights include; first, as part of our focus on advanced technology, AI and analytics, we continue to drive progress in enhancing our creativity, productivity and customer engagement. This quarter, we improved user experiences on our digital commerce sites and expanded brand discoverability across key LLMs. We are also participating in select AI tests to understand evolving consumer behavior on these newer platforms. In addition, we were proud to be named one of Time Magazine's World's 100 most Influential Businesses of 2026, recognizing our company's legacy of style, impactful storytelling and the unique way we transcend generations.
We were also named one of the Wall Street Journal's Best Companies for the Future for 2026, highlighting S&P 500 companies that are best positioned to thrive in a rapidly evolving global landscape. In closing, Ralph and I are encouraged by our brand's continued momentum through the start of fiscal '27. With our diversified drivers of growth and increasingly elevated consumer base, our business model is resilient and delivering consistent performance.
We want to thank our teams who are navigating the ever-evolving operating landscape with care and agility. And to our customers, thank you for your loyalty and trust. Looking ahead, we will continue to invest in our key strategic priorities to deliver the sustainable growth, including harnessing the power of our iconic brand to drive desirability and lifetime value, creating timeless products with a strong value proposition that consumers love and trust and investing in brand experiences that inspire our consumers and immerse them in the world of Ralph Lauren.
With that, I'll hand it over to Justin, and I'll join him at the end to answer your questions.
Thanks, Patrice, and good morning, everyone. Our first quarter performance exceeded our expectations on both the top and bottom line, reinforcing the strength of the Ralph Lauren brand and the resilience of our diversified global growth drivers. In the midst of a dynamic operating environment, these results underscore our disciplined operating approach and the quality of execution by our teams around the world.
Revenues were up double digits, ahead of our mid- to high single-digit outlook for the quarter, driven by broad-based performance across regions and channels and supported by healthy consumer demand. We continued on our brand elevation journey with stronger full price selling and reduced promotional activity, driving gross and operating margins above our expectations. At the same time, we reinvested behind our key strategic priorities to support sustainable growth and long-term value creation.
As Patrice mentioned, our strong first quarter results and underlying brand momentum give us confidence to raise our full year outlook even as we maintain an appropriately prudent view on Europe due to the macroeconomic uncertainty. But first, let me walk you through our financial highlights from the first quarter, which, as a reminder, are provided on a constant currency basis. Total company first quarter revenue grew 13%, reflecting better-than-expected performance in both our direct-to-consumer and wholesale channels.
By region, Asia led our performance, increasing 25%, followed by North America, up 13% and Europe, up 5%. Total company retail comps were strong, increasing 12% with balanced contributions from our own digital and brick-and-mortar channels. Total digital ecosystem sales, including our own sites and wholesale digital accounts, grew mid-teens, driven by all regions.
Total company adjusted gross margin expanded 130 basis points to 73.6%, underscoring the continued elevation of our business and investments in quality of sales. This resulted in strong AUR growth and favorable mix shift towards our full-price businesses, which more than offset incremental tariff costs and higher labor and non-cotton material costs in the quarter. AUR increased 15%, supported by healthy new customer acquisition and disciplined inventory management, enabling strong full price selling, reduced discounting and selective pricing actions, along with favorable product, channel and geographic mix.
We currently expect mid- to high single-digit AUR growth in the second quarter of fiscal '27, reflecting our ongoing brand elevation strategy. Additionally, we now anticipate mid- to high single-digit AUR growth for the full year with contributions from all regions. We expect this continued AUR growth to more than offset modest pressure from higher freight and tariff costs.
Adjusted operating expenses increased 13%, but declined 10 basis points as a percentage of sales to last year, driven by 90 basis points of leverage in non-marketing expenses. Marketing increased to 8.2% of sales compared to 7.5% last year, supported by our investments in key brand-building activations around the world this quarter, including our spring global campaign and men's fashion show. We continue to view these marketing investments as critical drivers of long-term brand desirability, customer acquisition and lifetime value.
And with compelling ROI behind these activities, we still expect marketing as a percentage of sales to step up to approximately 8% in fiscal '27. First quarter adjusted operating margin expanded 150 basis points to 18.5%, ahead of our plan, while operating income grew 23%. Turning to segment performance and starting with North America.
First quarter revenue grew 13%, above our expectations. In North America Retail, first quarter comps increased 9%, led by our full-price channels. Digital comps increased 8%, reflecting solid traffic trends and benefiting from merchandising optimization and our investments in full funnel marketing activations.
North America wholesale revenue grew 22%, driven by strong spring sellout trends in replenishment orders, resumed shipments to a luxury wholesale account and a shift in timing of shipments from the fourth quarter of fiscal '26. Together, the timing shifts and resumed shipments contributed approximately 15 points of growth in the quarter, demonstrating healthy underlying growth. With stronger-than-expected trends in our full-price wholesale business, we plan to accelerate our strategic reduction of off-price sales and exit of lower-tier full-price stores in the back half of the year.
As a result, we continue to expect stronger North America wholesale performance in the first half, followed by a more pronounced impact from these strategic reductions in the second half, which we expect to more than offset underlying full-price growth and result in modest growth for full year fiscal '27. Turning to Europe. First quarter revenue increased 5%.
By market, Germany, Italy and Spain led our performance in the region. Europe retail comps were up 1% on top of a double-digit compare last year with stronger growth in our own digital business. While store traffic was impacted by the broader macro environment, we continue to outperform market trends with increased conversion rates and basket sizes through our ongoing brand elevation and targeted consumer engagement initiatives.
Europe wholesale increased 8%, also on top of a double-digit compare last year. Results included a roughly 5-point benefit from earlier timing of shipments from the second quarter. While underlying wholesale sellout trends remain in line with our full year outlook, we are proactively managing our selling to maintain healthy inventories in the channel as we continue to take a prudent view of the broader consumer environment.
Moving to Asia. First quarter revenue increased 25%, driven by growth across all key markets. Retail comps grew 23% with double-digit growth in every channel.
Asia digital ecosystem sales also increased double digits with strong contributions from both our own digital commerce sites as well as pure plays. Our full funnel marketing activations continue to strengthen brand affinity across the region with consumers increasingly drawn to our core values, notably authenticity, quality and timeless style. By market, China continues to lead our growth with sales up over 40% in the quarter, driven by healthy comps and high-quality new customer recruitment.
Japan and Korea also delivered double-digit growth, supported by localized brand activations and strong consumer engagement. Moving to the balance sheet. Our fortress balance sheet and strong cash flow generation remain important competitive advantages, providing us with the flexibility to make strategic investments, pursue growth opportunities and continue delivering value to shareholders in a dynamic operating environment.
During the first quarter, we returned more than $300 million to shareholders through our dividend and repurchases, ending the period with $1.9 billion in cash and short-term investments and $1.2 billion in total debt. First quarter net inventory decreased 3% in constant currency, driven by disciplined inventory management, the timing shift of receipts in Europe and lapping higher inventory levels in the prior year as we mitigated the impact of tariffs in North America. Inventory remains healthy across regions and channels and well positioned relative to demand.
Looking ahead, our outlook for fiscal '27 remains based on our best assessment of the current operating environment, including the geopolitical backdrop, foreign currency dynamics and broader macroeconomic trends. For fiscal '27, we expect constant currency revenue to increase mid-single digits to last year on a 52-week comparable basis, now centered around 5% to 6%, up from 4% to 5% previously, reflecting our better-than-expected first quarter results and continued brand momentum despite a volatile global operating environment. Foreign currency is now expected to negatively impact revenue growth by approximately 50 to 100 basis points this year based on current exchange rates.
As a reminder, fiscal '27 includes a 53rd week, which is expected to add approximately 1 point to revenue growth and slightly benefit operating margin. While our core consumer base has remained resilient through the start of the year, our outlook maintains a prudent view of consumer demand in EMEA as well as modest cost headwinds from energy pricing volatility and U.S. tariffs. By region for fiscal '27, we still expect North America revenue to grow approximately low single digits.
We are encouraged by our strong first quarter performance with continued momentum in our direct-to-consumer channel and healthy wholesale sellout. We still expect this solid growth to be partly offset by accelerated strategic investments in quality of sales and lower tier door exits, notably in the back half of the year as we further elevate our long-term position in the marketplace. We continue to expect Europe revenue to increase approximately low to mid-single digits, with underlying growth tempered by ongoing uncertainty in the consumer environment from elevated energy costs and disruption to Middle East partner sales and tourism as well as lapping strong fiscal '26 compares.
And we now expect Asia revenue to increase approximately high single to low double digits, up from our prior outlook of high single-digit growth, driven by our stronger-than-expected Q1 results and ongoing brand momentum and expansion opportunities across key markets in the region. We now expect full year operating margin to expand approximately 60 to 80 basis points in constant currency, up from our prior guidance of 40 to 60 basis points, driven by our better-than-expected Q1 results. Despite the recent U.S. announcements on Section 301 tariffs, we are maintaining our assumption of approximately 10% tariff rates through the first half of this year, followed by a return to reciprocal rates in the high teens during the second half in anticipation of additional tariffs.
At the same time, we are raising our full year gross margin outlook to roughly 50 to 70 basis points of expansion, up from our prior expectation of modest expansion, reflecting our stronger-than-expected Q1 performance. We continue to expect both gross and operating margin expansion to be weighted toward the first half of the fiscal year, supported by the timing of key marketing activations relative to the prior year as well as our current tariff assumptions, which remain subject to change. Foreign currency is still expected to have a roughly neutral impact on gross and operating margins in fiscal '27.
Our guidance continues to exclude the impact of tariff refunds, which we are not planning to include in our adjusted non-GAAP results. Consistent with our long-term capital allocation approach, we expect to reinvest any related proceeds back into our business as well as an initiatives that advance our values and purpose. For the second quarter, we expect constant currency revenue to increase approximately mid-single digits, centered around 5% to 6%.
Foreign currency is expected to negatively impact revenues by approximately 100 to 150 basis points. We expect operating margin to expand approximately 80 to 100 basis points in constant currency, led by gross margin expansion. Gross margin is expected to benefit from AUR growth as well as favorable product, geographic and channel mix, all reflecting the output of our long-term brand elevation strategy.
Foreign currency is expected to have a roughly neutral impact on gross and operating margins in the quarter. We expect our second quarter tax rate to be in the range of 19% to 20%, while the full year tax rate is still expected to be approximately 21% to 22%. In closing, our teams continue to execute with focus and discipline across both our near- and long-term strategic priorities.
The enduring strength of our brand rooted in Ralph's timeless vision continues to resonate with consumers around the world, deepening engagement across geographies and cultures. As we navigate a highly dynamic macro environment, we remain focused on managing industry-wide pressures through our operating discipline, strong balance sheet and organizational agility. At the same time, we are staying on offense and remain committed to investing in our brand, our products, our experiences and our capabilities to better serve and create lasting connections with our customers while driving durable growth and long-term value creation.
With that, let's open up the call for your questions.
[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Matt Boss with JPMorgan.
Congrats on another nice quarter. So Patrice, what's your confidence in sustaining brand momentum through the fiscal year and beyond despite lapping some big moments, including Olympics and Ralph Lauren Christmas? And with more luxury this year, does improvement in the broader luxury market, does that help or hurt your business?
And do you need to keep expanding your marketing budget in order to compete? And then just to switch gears, Justin, could you help break down the drivers of more than 100 basis points of gross margin expansion in the first quarter? And just any structural change in the drivers of your gross margin build as we think about the second quarter or the back half of the year?
Matt, thanks for your question. So as you know, we've been on a clear brand elevation journey for nearly a decade now, and our brand equity is stronger than ever across markets and across generations. Sustaining that momentum goes well beyond marketing.
It's a multipronged effort across our 3 drive pillars. And if you step back, and I know you care deeply about total addressable markets, as an $8 billion business in a more than $400 billion market, we still see significant opportunity to invest behind our brand and for long-term growth. Our 3 pillars remain central to that strategy to seize this opportunity, right?
First is building brand desirability through our distinctive cinematic storytelling. We continue to amplify evergreen platforms like Wimbledon. You may have seen the Grass Court that we built in Central Park recently.
And we continue to launch immersive campaigns that engage women, luxury and next-gen consumers. We continue to see strong ROI from this rolling thunder of activations, and we remain comfortable with the 8% marketing investment guided for this year, knowing that as we've talked, as we continue to expand margin in the future, we do expect to continue to further invest in marketing. Second is the unique breadth of our product portfolio.
We're leveraging our lifestyle offering across core iconic products, which importantly are resonating across generations, including with the younger generations. And then we're continuing to lean into our high potential categories like women's apparel, outerwear and handbags. We're just at the beginning of this journey across these 3 businesses, right?
If you look at the market shares that we've achieved across all 3, it's just the start of an exciting journey. And there, we're delivering timeless value that transcends fashion cycles. And then third is our immersive channel experiences.
We continue to build key city ecosystems with innovative shopping experiences that deepen consumer connection, and we see that both in consumer recruiting and retention scores and support strong performance across the broad range of regions that we operate in. So all this requires disciplined execution and agility. And while the macro environment remains dynamic, we've shown that we can advance this strategy, our 3 pillars across many different operating environments successfully.
Regarding your point on the luxury market, we've built strong luxury credentials across geographies. And I think that's reflected both in our consumer base and our performance and the type of consumers that we're bringing into the Ralph Lauren family. We also occupy a very distinct space within luxury, what we call inclusive luxury, spanning categories and price points across our lifestyle portfolio.
And consumers continue to tell us that they see unique value in our offerings from handbags to outerwear and beyond. I will add that a healthier luxury market would be a tailwind for us, supporting stronger traffic, consideration and alignment with our elevated positioning. So looking ahead, our brand is strong.
We have multiple growth drivers. We continue to invest as we perform, and we remain confident in delivering growth and value creation this year and beyond. And I'll turn it over to Justin to cover your other questions.
Thanks, Patrice. So Matt, on the drivers of the gross margin. So Q1 gross margin was ahead of expectations, driven by better-than-expected AUR growth and some favorable geo and channel mix, and that more than offset incremental tariffs and some nonmaterial cost pressure.
Our gross margin expansion is really underpinned by structural durable drivers, and that really gives us confidence in the continued progression from here. From a quarterly cadence perspective, we still are expecting gross margin expansion to be stronger in the first half, and that's largely due both to our Q1 outperformance and to that tariff assumption that we're making, which is the lower prevailing tariff rate of about 10% through that relief period end of July and then back to the reciprocal rate assumptions for the balance of year. For Q2 specifically, we guided gross margin of 80 to 100 basis points of expansion.
That's really driven by AUR growth as well as favorable product geo and channel mix. On the full year, we did take up our gross margin expansion guide up from an expectation of modest expansion to 50 to 70 bps of expansion, and that's really based on that strong Q1 performance. So we feel really good about the trajectory that we're on and the durability behind the drivers.
The next question comes from Jay Sole with UBS.
Justin, AUR continues to exceed your expectations. How much farther do you think the Ralph Lauren brand has to go on the elevation journey from here, especially if the pricing environment becomes more challenging? And can you give us any color around recent performance or quarter-to-date trends given mixed industry reads over the past few months?
And then Patrice, I also wanted to just ask you if you can expand on China. You talked a lot about brand momentum, but 40% growth in China is really impressive. How should we think about the possibility of that kind of demand and that kind of growth continuing as we go through the rest of the year and into next year?
Thanks for the question, Jay. I'll kick us off. So for us, brand elevation is not a destination.
It's an ongoing journey. And we're still in the early innings of unlocking the full potential of our lifestyle brand. An important context to remember here with AUR is that AUR is an outcome of our strategy.
It's not an objective in and of itself. right? We're elevating across product, storytelling, the consumer experience to deliver more value to customers. And their response, together with our consistently strong brand metrics, really reinforces the strength and success of that approach we're taking, and that includes more than 9 years of AUR growth.
But a few points are worth reinforcing here. First, we continue to demonstrate that growth and elevation, they can go hand in hand, right? It's not an either/or proposition.
And we saw this in the first quarter, where we again delivered strong growth in revenue, including both AUR and unit growth, while at the same time, improving our quality of sales. And second, we have multiple durable drivers of AUR growth, right? These include higher full price sell-through and lower promotions, structural favorability from consumer channel, geo and product category mix and targeted pricing, always with a clear focus on value perception.
Now on the potentially more challenging pricing environment, we're certainly mindful of the backdrop. At the same time, we built flexibility into our pricing architecture, so we can make targeted market-specific adjustments when and where appropriate without compromising our brand elevation strategy or our margin objectives. And to the question on recent performance, we typically don't comment on quarter-to-date trends.
What I would say is that our second quarter guidance reflects the continued brand momentum we're seeing across channels and key markets with positive contributions from all 3 regions in the quarter, right, led by -- so for Q2, Asia is going to lead growing mid-teens, followed by North America, where we're expecting another solid quarter of mid-single-digit growth and with modest growth coming from EMEA despite a more pressured consumer environment and the strong compares in the prior year. Now as we reflected in our initial outlook back in May, we do continue to expect revenue and profit growth to be more weighted to the first half of the year, and that reflects wholesale shipment timing, the compares we're lapping and our decision to accelerate strategic reductions in off-price sales and lower tier distribution in the back half of the year. So just taking a step back, we remain focused on executing our strategy, investing in our brand, strengthening our quality of sales, expanding in our top city ecosystems, deepening our connections with customers around the world.
But at the same time, you'll see us remain agile. We'll remain disciplined as we navigate this external environment, just as we have over time throughout the elevation journey. Over to Patrice.
So we're always excited to talk about China and indeed, up 40% this last quarter. So a few things I would call out. First of all, our teams are doing an outstanding job across the market, engaging consumers, both new consumers and existing consumers.
So across our 3 drive strategies, first, on the marketing and storytelling front, we're leveraging our global campaigns very effectively, and they're resonating in the market. And then we're complementing that with local activations. You heard us talk about the first ever Polo match organized in Beijing that we did recently, 74 million people live streamed that Polo match, just to give you a sense of the scale that's possible when our teams really hit a nerve with consumers.
And we're seeing our brand equity ratings go from strength to strength. We're very excited about the momentum that the teams are building there from a brand standpoint. From a product standpoint, our strategy is also playing out very well there.
Our core is strong, and we're seeing disproportionate performance from our women's business, our handbag business, continuing to lean into that. And as I mentioned earlier, there's so much potential globally on these categories, and that applies also to the Chinese market. And then finally, as you know, we have a very focused, disciplined TC approach for China focused on the 6 key cities that we activate, and we have a disciplined rollout plan for retail.
So those strategies are evergreen for that market. As we look ahead for this fiscal year, we expect China to be around mid-teens, right? Remember, in the back half, we're going to be anniversarying some pretty high levels of performance.
So I don't know that we can count on 40% every quarter. But I think mid-teens is a very -- still a very exciting number for us for this fiscal year. And then in the context of our Drive strategy for the 3-year period, we guided China to be low double digits and have confidence in our ability to deliver against that.
The next question comes from Brooke Roach with Goldman Sachs.
Patrice, can you provide a bit more detail on the engagement that you're seeing with the brand in Europe and dimensionalize the impacts of the macro pressures you're seeing? How have trends progressed throughout the summer months? And what actions do you have in place to drive resilient growth amidst the uncertainty?
And then perhaps for Justin, a similar question. Is there any cadencing regarding revenues or margin delivery that we should be mindful of in this region for the rest of the year given the comparisons and the macro?
So similar to what we're seeing around the world, we continue to see strengthening of our brand equity in the European market across the key drivers of consideration, awareness, Net Promoter Score, luxury perception. So we feel good as a group that the campaigns that we're putting in the market, the activations we're doing locally across Europe are resonating with the consumer. Now we do know that this consumer is more pressured because of what's happening in the Middle East, because of consumer sentiment generally being depressed and because of inflationary pressures.
But in that context, our brand is continuing to resonate very nicely across the key markets. The markets I would call out in terms of disproportionate strength are Germany, which is actually our #1 market in Europe and Southern Europe, Italy and Spain. As you know, Brooke, we don't comment on the current quarter, so I can't give you any perspective yet on what's happening during the summer, but you've heard Justin talk earlier about the trends and the momentum that we expect continuing there.
So we are continuing to invest. We are gaining market share in Europe. We see that very broadly and excited to see how the brand is just continuing to perform in line with what we expected and how we see strong returns from the different investments we have, whether that is marketing activations, Wimbledon being the latest highlights of that or our men's fashion show in Milan or our Salone del Mobile activation also in Milan.
We're opening stores, right? We just recently opened a beautiful store in Saint-Tropez, which is a great brand statement that will continue to drive brand elevation in that market and brand energy. So continuing to run the play, but obviously keeping an eye on and being prudent on the general consumer context.
And on the cadence point, so as Patrice mentioned, underlying business continues to show positive high-quality growth, and we continue to expect to deliver that high-quality low to mid-single-digit growth for the full year, and that includes the mid-single growth we delivered in Q1 and expected growth in Q2. And again, there is a bit of a first half, second half dynamic there because we know we're up against some really strong comps in the first half of this year. So we do expect an improvement there as we move through the second half.
And on an operating margin perspective, we expect expansion from all 3 of our regions for the full fiscal '27, driven by higher gross margin and quality of sales in EMEA. And I think the important thing to call out there is for Q1, you did see operating margin pressured, and that was really due to the timing and the increase behind marketing where we continue to Patrice's point to invest behind our brand and our business, and we had some onetime activations that were not there in the prior year like our men's show in Milan.
The next question comes from Laurent Vasilescu with BNP Paribas.
If I heard correctly, Patrice, I think you're still expecting China to grow mid-teens for the year. I'm curious to understand a little bit more what you're seeing in terms of Q2 trends? Or I know you don't talk about quarter-to-date, but how do we think about the evolution of China overall as the year progresses?
And then I know there's a lot of focus on China, but it looks like overall, Asia is doing really well. So I'd love to get your perspective on what you're seeing in the key markets, Japan and Korea.
So as I mentioned earlier, our strategies in China, I think -- not just for this year, but they're pretty evergreen. And clearly, our teams are doing an excellent job executing across both marketing, product offering and go-to-market. And it's a big market, right?
And similar to our high potential categories, I think we're only at the very beginning of this journey. Now China before COVID was 3%. Greater China was 2% of the company.
Today, it's 10% of the company. So really nice consistent progress, right? If you look at the prior year performance, we've been on a strong performance run for many, many years now in China.
This isn't just a 1-quarter story or a 2-quarter story. But again, I think only at the beginning of it, many of our luxury competitors have much greater China penetration than our current 10%. So we have a game plan that we're running, that is working across the different vectors of our strategy.
You are right that APAC as a whole is doing quite well for us, up 25% this last quarter. And you heard I'm sure from Justin's remark that we actually took our guidance up on APAC specifically for the year based on the strong momentum that we're seeing across the board. Korea has seen significant acceleration of our performance.
Again, the same strategy is at play here, elevation of our brand, driving our core products in high potential categories and also selective expansion of our footprint for those of you who are tracking, BTS, who had a concert last week, I'm sure many of you were at their concert last week at MetLife actually asked to be dressed in Polo. So the whole group was dressed in Polo. We're excited about that opportunity to partner with them as they reached out to us.
So that's Korea. Japan performing quite strongly. We're seeing good sustained momentum in Japan.
We're seeing particularly strength in full price sales and a better-than-expected inbound tourist spending from China and other markets. Now we've got some exciting activations going on in Japan this year because we're celebrating our 50th anniversary in this market. This fiscal year, we're celebrating the 20th anniversary of our Omotesando flagship store.
So good continued momentum there. And in general, we look at the energy that the brand has across China because I didn't quote Southeast Asia, I didn't quote Australia, but the same dynamic is true across the board and strong confidence in the future.
The next question comes from Michael Binetti with Evercore.
Congrats on the great quarter. A couple for me real quick. On the near term, maybe just on the second quarter North America revenue guide composition, I think, Justin, you said mid-singles.
Can you just talk about how we get there a little? It sounds like there's -- it sounded like maybe there's still a wholesale benefit in 2Q, and then we get into some quality of sales in the back half. So it seems like you're baking in a fairly conservative DTC comp in North America.
Maybe just a comment on the composition there. And then a bit of a longer-term question, as we think back to the Analyst Day with the updated guidance today, you're now tracking to probably to the high end of your fiscal 2028 revenue guidance this year, the year ahead of time. So congrats on that, first of all.
But I wonder with some of those wins under your belt and a lot of leverage coming through this quarter on the operating expense line, the non-marketing line. Is it right to -- is it smart to think maybe marketing towards the mid- to high point of the 2028 guide? Do you think it makes sense to start targeting the high end of that range to continue this level of revenue performance?
Any thought would be helpful.
Thanks, Michael. So on North America, listen, we're really encouraged by our growth in North America. It's our largest region, it's on a really solid, high-quality growth trajectory.
We saw strong Q1 results across channels, and we saw that broad-based brand momentum carry forward into Q2, where, again, we're expecting another solid, another high-quality, balanced mid-single-digit growth quarter, and we continue to have confidence in delivering that full year sort of growth expectation of low single digits with potential opportunity against this expectation as we continue to lean into strategic elevation investments and the brand continues to perform well really across the entire North America ecosystem. So we're seeing strong results in DTC, strong demand across channels, digital and in the stores. We're seeing strong results in wholesale, really solid sell-out trends, enabling us, to your point, to be able to lean in and accelerate on some of our elevation initiatives.
And as you've seen us do in the past, we're going to continue to leverage our ability and our agility to take advantage of incremental demand opportunities when and if they arise, right? We know we have the ability to chase into incremental demand. So Q2, I would say, is more of a continuation story, a really balanced high-quality growth story for North America.
On the sort of longer-term outlook and the marketing, I mean, you've seen us steadily increase our marketing as we move through the course of our brand elevation. I think we started, it was 3.5%, right, roughly 8% up to this year. And we feel really good about the impact that our market investors have been having as we scale them and as we diversify them.
And that's been part of the ROI and the impact has been the driving force behind us continuing to take the spend up. Now, you can see that as we deliver on our commitments and in the case of recent quarters, overdeliver our sort of 1a area to put the overdeliver that we don't flow through is really behind our brand and building our brand and strengthening our brand, and that's what you see happening in marketing expense. I think we feel good about the 7.5% to 8.5%, 3-year guide that we laid out back in September.
But as Patrice always talked about, it's not a ceiling. So we know that as we continue to see the traction impact behind our spend, this is an area that we're going to continue to focus on moving forward.
Yes. Our marketing teams are really doing a fantastic job around the world, building brand desirability, recruiting new customers. You saw the number this quarter, again, 1.5 million new customers, driving clienteling.
So we're strengthening value per customer. So we're getting really good returns on the increased marketing investments that we've been doing over the years. I think, Justin, as you mentioned, we're comfortable with the 8% guide for this year.
The range we had provided for the 3-year was 3.5% to 8.5% (sic) [ 7.5% to 8.5% ] . Michael, I don't think there's a ceiling, right? So as we come up with new smart ideas to activate the brand and engage with consumers, we'll look at it through the lens of ROI.
And if there's a smart opportunity to lean in, then we will do that in parallel with continued expansion of our operating margins.
The next question comes from Dana Telsey with Telsey Group.
Congratulations. Two things. As you think about -- I think, Justin, you mentioned you had 90 basis points of leverage in non-marketing expense.
How should we think about that going forward? Is there more opportunity? And then the other question on the strength in wholesale with North America resuming some shipments, how do you think about that going forward?
And given the more pronounced strategic reductions, where should wholesale be as a percentage of the business? How do you see the growth of DTC relative to wholesale, especially given the opportunity categories have so much room?
I'll kick it off and then Patrice and I will tag team on the wholesale sort of strategy. On expenses, our long-term philosophy remains unchanged, right? And that's to balance reinvestment in growth for the longer term with delivering on or exceeding as we did in Q1, our operating margin commitment.
So you saw us deliver a little bit of leverage in Q1. You also saw us invest in marketing up pretty meaningfully year-over-year. So we're going to continue that balance, and we've built out that muscle of operating expense leverage with our cost optimization discipline that we've created as a culture here at Ralph Lauren.
And just on the trending on the wholesale before the strategy, I'll just say that for North America wholesale, we feel really good about the health of the business. We're driving high-quality growth while at the same time, continuing to elevate our positioning in the channel. Underlying demand remains healthy, sell-through remains strong, and we continue to gain share across our family of brands and key accounts.
So for us, driving growth while elevating in this channel is really the play here.
And from the general strategy standpoint for go-to-market, Dana, as you know, we've got this key city approach that we're leveraging around the world, top 30 cities and then the next tranche of 20 cities that we're starting to activate. Wholesale is an important role to play, and I would qualify that by saying quality wholesale has an important role to play in that strategy because we're finding that quality wholesale is a wonderful way for brand discovery and new consumer recruiting. So we rely on it in large part for that in the context of our key city ecosystems.
Today, the split is 70-30. If you look at just sheer geographical composition and mix, right, APAC is mostly DTC. So as APAC disproportionately grows, obviously, that percentage is going to continue to increase towards DTC.
But we're not obsessed with the split. Frankly, each part of that business has a role to play. What we're obsessed with is are we engaging the consumer in the right place?
And are we engaging with them in an elevated way in a way that we are proud and that is financially attractive. I have to say, having had a recent lunch with one of our key wholesale partners, it's so exciting to see the strategic alignment we now have with our key department store partners, both here in the U.S. and in Europe. And it's exciting to see the breadth of our performance as we look at market share gains, men's, women's, kids, core, high potential category.
So to Justin's point, we feel we have very strong momentum there. And most of the reset is complete, although we will continue to clear the bottom because there's always a bottom. But we feel good about where we are from a wholesale standpoint, both in North America and Europe now.
And I think back to the percentage question, probably a little more than 70% DTC moving forward.
Our final question will come from Blake Anderson with Jefferies.
So I wanted to ask about Europe. I know you've discussed it on the call already. I was wondering if you could unpack a little bit more what you're seeing in terms of local demand versus tourism?
And anything on units or AUR in that market or traffic to your stores? And then bigger picture, I wanted to ask, has your perspective or strategy changed at all for this market in terms of your outlook given the recent environment? I know that you've had some quality of sales initiatives, you implemented more in the last few quarters to maintain that high AUR.
How are you thinking about kind of the strategy there and outlook going forward, bigger picture as well?
Yes. Thanks for the question. I'll start us off.
So traffic, as you know, has been broadly pressured across EMEA, right? And that's really driven by the challenging macro backdrop trends varying by markets, and that includes that slowdown in tourism from the Middle East. On the plus side, our brand positioning and our brand strength remains very strong.
And we've been able to offset the soft traffic with higher conversion rates, increased basket sizes as we continue to appeal to our core consumer. And our core consumer in the region remains resilient, and that's really what's driving our growth in the region. At the same time, we put together our kind of established action plan to engage and convert those consumers that are more pressured by the macro.
That for us is a smaller subset of our consumer base, but this is with targeted personalized marketing with very specific tactical product value propositions, clienteling reach out, et cetera. And we've seen that circumstance before, that environment before, and we've ran that play before, and we know that we can successfully talk to and engage these consumers during this time. We've reflected the macro challenges in our outlook for the year.
And at the same time, we continue to deliver growth. We continue to invest and we continue to see the high-quality full price growth come through in our quality of sales and in our gross margin. So when we think about the outlook for the region, we're really confident in that low to mid-single-digit growth algo that we guided because our underlying European business continues to show that positive high-quality growth.
For the longer-term strategy, Blake, Europe is around 30% of the company. We've had a really nice run in Europe now for several years with strong growth across all the markets and a reset of our wholesale business there, so strong foundations. So our ambition and expectations from Europe are unchanged.
We still expect to deliver mid-single digit for the full 3-year period, to Justin's point. This year, we're being a little more prudent given the consumer context, but our longer-term ambition relative to that market and our longer-term excitement about the opportunities that we have across EMEA are unchanged. All right.
Well, listen, thank you all for joining us today. We look forward to reconnecting with all of you in early November to share our second quarter results. And until then, take care, and have a great day.
Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude your conference for today. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.
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