Latest News – Page 11
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Potential supply chain constraints may hamper Under Armour’s progress
The EMEA was the shining region for Under Armour in both the fourth quarter and the full year 2021. In the final period ended Dec. 31, the company’s EMEA revenues rose by 23 percent on a currency-neutral basis to $200.2 million, driven mostly by wholesale gains, lifting the operating margin ...
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Adidas extends two board mandates amid five-year growth strategy
Adidas will continue to be led by its proven six-member executive team, which will jointly pursue the five-year “Own the Game” strategy launched in 2020. The company, based in Herzogenaurach near Nuremberg, announced on Thursday that the contracts of Roland Auschel and Brian Grevy were extended. Auschel, who is responsible ...
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Nike sues StockX, and explores the nature of NFTs
The age-old philosophical debate over the nature of simulacra has found new life in new forums: the metaverse, where big brands have been recreating their products in virtual form, and the courts, where those same brands are now clashing with other business entities over the realities, virtual and other, of ...
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Nike among investors in U.S. women’s basketball
Nike announced that it has joined other backers in investing in the U.S. Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA). The total investment by all parties is $75 million, making it the largest capital raise to date for a women’s sports organization. In addition to Nike, which has been a commercial partner ...
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Strong results for Columbia, driven by DTC
Despite persistent supply chain disruptions that negatively impacted its wholesale revenues, Columbia Sportswear reported impressive fourth-quarter results on the strength of its Direct-To-Consumer and e-commerce businesses and an improvement of 1.6 percentage points in the gross margin to 52.2 percent, as higher freight costs were more than offset by a ...
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Adidas and Decathlon encourage shoe recycling to help women practice sports
Adidas and Decathlon have decided to jointly organize and finance a program intended to promote sustainability and women’s sports in France at the same time. In a first step, Decathlon has started offering customers at its 330 stores in France to drop off 25,000 used sports shoes by any brand, ...
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VF Corp. cuts sales guidance after a good quarter
VF Corp. - the owner of brands such as Vans, The North Face and Timberland - cut its sales guidance for the financial year ending in March 2022 to $11.85 billion from a previous $12.0 billion, as it once again lowered the forecast for its Active segment, led by Vans, ...
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Adidas has two other regional clusters in Europe
In addition to its creation of a ‘cluster’ for Southern Europe, which we reported about yesterday, Adidas has established similar regional clusters for Northern and Central Europe in the past few months. Cluster North is headed up by Kathryn Swarbick and includes the U.K., Ireland, the Benelux countries, Denmark, Norway, ...
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Adidas creates a new digital hub in Spain, while regionalizing Southern Europe
Adidas is creating a new international technological hub at its Spanish head office in Zaragoza to collect and process data for the development of its omni-channel operations on a wide scale and for other IT-related engineering capabilities, said a spokesman for the company, confirming a report in CMDsport. The number ...
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Nike reviews changes in its distribution apparatus
On Jan. 19 Nike published a run-down of the changes it has made to its supply chain since mid-2020, when “consumers across all segments immediately shifted to digital engagement.” The company refers to this digital direct-to-consumer (DTC) operation as the “Sole Train” – no doubt a punning reference to Soul ...
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Chinese sports companies are doing relatively well
Some Chinese sports companies indicated that their results improved in the fourth quarter of 2021, just as China’s National Bureau of Statistics announced a better-than-expected increase of 4.0 percent in the country’s gross domestic products for the period, in spite of Covid and other challenges, leading to a growth in ...
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StockX reviews the collectibles market in 2021
The collectibles-trading platform StockX has released an annual report, titled Big Facts: Current Culture Index: 2022, that breaks down its key markets – notably sneakers, but also electronics, toys and apparel – for the elapsed year 2021. Jordan remained the best-selling sneaker brand, with items trading at an average premium ...
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Nicole Otto leaves Nike to become TNF’s new global brand president
VF Corp. has named a digital expert, Nicole Otto, as global brand president for The North Face (TNF), based in Denver, Colorado. Next June, she will succeed Steve Murray, a British-born industry veteran who will be retiring this year, as planned, returning to the U.K. Murray had been promoted from ...
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Mojo Vision partners with sports apps
Mojo Vision, a provider of smart contact lenses based in California, has established partnerships with five connected-fitness platforms: Adidas Running, the German sportswear company’s digital-tracking division; Trailforks, a trail-mapping service for cyclists and hikers; Wearable X, provider of smart haptic fitness apparel; Slopes, an iOS, Android and Apple Watch app ...
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Nike beats Q2 estimates on strong North American showing
The Nike group reported higher-than-expected earnings and sales in the second quarter ended Nov. 30, as a strong performance in North America offset a continued slowdown in China and persistent, industry-wide supply chain challenges. In the quarter, Nike’s sales inched up by one percent to $11,357 million and were flat ...
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Moody’s upgrades Under Armour’s rating, pointing to opportunities outside North America
In May, Moody’s had upgraded its financial outlook for Under Armour from negative to positive and improved other metrics, considering that its turnaround had been successful. This time, it upgraded its debt ratings further following better-than-expected recent increases in sales and earnings. Moody’s again praised Under Armour for the significant ...
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Adidas releases its first NFT collection
As we reported earlier this month, Adidas has struck deals with three producers of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the Ethereum blockchain: Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), gmoney and PUNKS comic. The fruit of those initiatives, a first collection of NFTs under the Adidas Originals brand of lifestyle products is slated ...
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Nike acquires a London-based digital assets producer, RTFKT
Nike has acquired RTFKT (pronounced “artifact”), which the sportwear giant describes in its press release as delivering “next generation collectibles that merge culture and gaming.” The terms of the deal will not be disclosed, said NIke. Founded as a company as recently as January 2020 – by Benoit Pagotto, ...
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Adidas moves into the metaverse, and Ethereum
About two weeks after establishing partnerships with the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase and the networked-gaming platform The Sandbox, Adidas has announced by tweet three new partners in its foray into the so-called metaverse. One is Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), a collection of about 10,000 Bored Ape non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on ...
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Adidas strikes a cautious note after a 3.4% sales hike in Q3
Adidas toned down its expectations for full-year sales and earnings as the company’s growth slowed in the third quarter due to supply chain disruptions, Covid-related lockdowns in Asia-Pacific and a “challenging” market environment in Greater China. In the quarter, Adidas saw its sales edge up by just 3.4 percent to ...