Watches of Switzerland Group plc (WOSG) Q4 2026 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Good morning and welcome to the Watchers of Switzerland Group's FY26 Trading Update webcast. We're joined this morning by Brian Duffy, Chief Executive Officer, and Anders Romberg, Chief Financial Officer. If you would like to ask a question during today's call, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. I'll now hand over to the Watchers of Switzerland Group management team, Brian Duffy. Please proceed. Thank you Dom and good morning everyone. Thanks for joining our full year fiscal 26 trading update call. A few introductory comments from me and then we'll open the line for your questions for myself and Anders. Our group sales coming in at plus 13% in constant currency, plus 11% in reported. A total of £1.83 billion. We're ahead of the high point of our guidance and of market consensus. H2 growth trends were marginally better than H1 despite being up against tougher comps. We expect a just EBIT of between 152 and 155 million also ahead of expectations. Our team delivered great results navigating through challenges including changing import tariffs, gold price inflation and some other challenges. They really did a great job. Sales in the U.S. are 1.24 billion. We're 24% up in prior year and the U.S. is now more than 50% of group sales. This is a major milestone for our group achieved in just eight years since we entered that market. The U.S. luxury watch market is the largest and fastest growing major market globally and we continue to see the market as underdeveloped. The high income segment in the U.S. has benefited from significant increases in wealth due mainly to the appreciation of financial assets and the luxury watch market in the US is buoyant. The US luxury jewellery market is also the number one market globally and our RobertoCoin wholesale business has ...