Nike (NKE) Q1 2026 earnings

Nike On Tuesday, financially released surprise sales growth in the first quarter, but the sneakers are still trying to carry out their return.

After saying that the income increased by 1% in three months that ended on August 31, and that the sales percentage will decrease in the middle single period in the period.

Nevertheless, Nike’s profit fell by 31%, while the gross profit margin fell by 3.2 percent in the quarter – a warning sign that the efforts to clean up the old inventory are still continuing.

In a press release, the finance chief Matt Friend warned that “progress will not be linear”.

“I was encouraged with the momentum we produced in the quarter, but progress will not be linear as the dimensions of our business improve in different timelines.” He said. “While wandering in a few outer winds, our teams focus on conducting against we can control it.”

According to consensus estimates from LSEG, Nike’s performance in the quarter compared to what Wall Street is waiting for it is explained below:

• Earning per share: 49 cents and 27 cents are expected
• Revenues: 11.72 billion dollars and 11.0 billion dollars expected

Nike’s net income for the period was $ 727 million or 49 cents per share compared to $ 1.05 billion in the previous quarter or 70 cents per share.

Sales increased from 11.59 billion dollars to 11.72 billion dollars from 11.59 billion dollars compared to the previous year.

CEO Elliott Hill said in a statement that the company has taken steps in three key areas: wholesale, running and North America. For a quarter, the wholesale income increased by 7% and increased by 6.8% of dollars, increased by 4% to $ 5.02 billion – better than $ 4.55 billion analyst than StreetCount.

However, beyond these three fields, some parts of Hill acknowledge that some of the work is still fighting.

“While winning a dynamic working environment, we are still working to get all sports, geographies and channels on a similar path, while winning a dynamic working environment.” He said.

Nike Direct sales for a quarter decreased to approximately 4.5 billion dollars with a decrease of 4%. Revenue in China – one of the most important markets of the company – fell by 9%.

Since Hill started almost a year ago, he’s been trying to get Nike back to growth and get back some of his predecessors John Donahoe. One of the most important parts of this strategy is to reorganize Nike’s innovation engine and clean the old inventory to lead to new styles.

Although the strategy is very important for Nike’s efforts to grow again and to reclaim the market share, it suffers in the short term. It required to rely on discount and less profitable sales channels to clean the old inventory and carry Nike’s profitability.

During the quarter, as the units decreased, stocks fell by 2% compared to the previous year, which was balanced with increasing product costs for high tariffs.

Before the release of Nike, investors were looking for any clues about how these efforts went and how long they would last. The company was expected to give more information about its progress during a conference meeting with analysts at 17:00.

Beyond the inventory administration, Hill de Nike promised to reorganize the institutional structure of Nike, so that he would once again divide teams into segments with sports instead of women, men and children. In late August, the company started to mix teams. As a part of the restructuring, Nike said that it would cut about 1% of its staff and most employees will move to new roles by September 21st.

Hill said that focusing on the lifestyle will help the company reclaim the major athlete consumers, but lifestyle products are still an important part of the strategy because Nike allows a larger consumer segment and more women to reach. Increasing the number of female customers has become another important part of Hill’s strategy, and Nike’s latest partnership with Kim Kim Kardashian with Shapewear Skims.

Nikeskims, which was initially released in spring, was officially released last week. Investors will look for a color about how the new brand performances and how it can affect sales.

This story is developing. Please check again for updates.