Operating margin
Also: EBIT margin
Operating margin is operating profit, or EBIT, as a percentage of sales: gross margin less store, distribution, marketing and central costs. It shows how much of each unit of sales the business keeps before interest and tax. Many retailers report it before and after IFRS 16 lease accounting and one-off items, so the adjusted and reported figures have to be identified before any comparison.
Store costs are largely fixed in the short term, so a fall in like-for-like sales reduces operating margin faster than gross margin; this is operating deleverage. The same mechanism works in reverse when sales in existing stores rise.
Birkenstock's profit from operations rose 2.6% to EUR 203.1m (EUR 198.0m) in the fiscal third quarter to 30 June 2026, an operating margin of 28.2% (31.2%), down 296bp.