The Swiss sporting goods supplier On Holding AG closed the 2021 financial year with a strong increase in sales. The bottom line, however, was a significantly higher loss. This emerges from the current annual report, which the company presented on Friday. The sneaker specialist was optimistic for the current year and announced further growth.
In the past financial year, the company generated sales of 724.6 million Swiss francs (703.6 million euros), exceeding the 2020 level by 70.4 percent. In the direct customer business, revenues increased by 71.9 percent to 275.8 million Swiss francs, in wholesale sales increased by 69.5 percent to 448.8 million Swiss francs.
All market regions contributed to the significant growth: In Europe, sales increased by 38.8 percent to 260.4 million Swiss francs, in North America by 96.8 percent to 409.5 million Swiss francs and in the Asia-Pacific region by 85.8 percent percent to 42.7 million Swiss francs. Sales of shoes, by far the company’s most important product category, were 683.3 million Swiss francs and thus 68.1 percent above the previous year’s level.
For 2022, the company forecasts further improvements in sales and earnings
Despite the increase in sales, On slipped deeper into the red, posting a net loss of 170.2 million Swiss francs (165.3 million euros) after just 27.5 million Swiss francs in 2020. The main reasons for this were an increase in share-based payments from 54.8 to 198.5 million Swiss francs and one-off expenses in connection with the IPO completed in the fall.
At the operational level, the company was able to significantly improve its earnings thanks to significantly higher margins: Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), adjusted for special effects, reached CHF 96.4 million, almost twice as high as in the previous year (+93.8 percent).
For 2022, the Swiss expect further strong growth – not least because the pandemic-related production problems in Vietnam, which slowed the company down in the second half of last year, have now been resolved. On is still expecting short-term effects from the most recent delivery bottlenecks in the first few months of the year, but announced a “return to hyper growth” for the second half of the year.
Specifically, the management forecast sales growth of at least 37 percent to more than 990 million Swiss francs for the current year. The target for EBITDA adjusted for special effects was raised to 130 million Swiss francs. At the same time, the company announced “additional investments in the brand and the team”.