Operator

Good afternoon. This is the Chorus Call conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Geox First Quarter 2026 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions].

Let me introduce you today's call, speakers, the Group CEO, Mr. Francesco Di Giovanni; and the CFO, Mr. Andrea Maldi.

Geox would like to remind that any forward-looking statements disclosed during this call involve risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to differ significantly from what is expressed or implied. Many of these factors are beyond the group's control. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Francesco Di Giovanni, CEO of Geox. Please go ahead, sir.

Francesco Di Giovanni
CEO & Director

Thank you very much, indeed. Good evening. Thank you all for joining us today. We're going to talk about the first quarter 2026 results. The first quarter of 2026 recorded a 3% sales decline versus our budget across all sales channels and geographic areas. This represented a 12.5% sales decline compared to the same period of last year. On a more comparable basis, however, such a decline was 10.3% in when we included the impact of decisions taken to close some less relevant stores and certain nonprofitable digital channels.

While the performance of the wholesale brick and mortar and web channels was expected as a consequence of the 2026 December, Spring-Summer campaign, and therefore, included in our budget the performance of the retail channel was well below our initial expectations. Although the trend had begun in the second half of 2025 is dramatically intensified in the