|
|
Change Your Life! |
Nike announces first-quarter earnings |
|
News
|
|
|
September 16, 2000
BEAVERTON, Oregon, SEPT 15 (AP) - As the Olympics opens with one of the biggest advertising blitzes in Nike history, the athletic shoemaker reported first quarter profits of dlrs 210 million, beating Wall Street expectations. The earnings of 77 cents per share compare with dlrs 200 million, or 70 cents per share in the year-ago quarter. Analysts surveyed for First Call/Thomson Financial had pegged earnings at 74 cents per share. Sales for the quarter rose 5 percent to dlrs 2.6 billion, from dlrs 2.5 billion in the same period last year. "We're off to a good start for the fiscal year," said Nike chairman Phil Knight, who just returned from Australia in preparation for the annual shareholder's meeting Monday. Asia and South America showed the strongest growth while European sales remained strong, but shoe sales declined again in the United States, falling 1 percent to dlrs 935 billion. U.S. clothing sales also were off 2 percent to dlrs 326 million. The most worrisome trend, to which Knight devoted most of his opening remarks in a telephone conference with analysts, was flat orders for its shoes, clothing and equipment. "I think that the Wall Street estimate on futures was that they'd be up somewhere between 2 and 6 percent," Knight said, "so I was more disappointed than anybody when those numbers came in and they didn't fall within that range." Knight said a 9 percent decline in U.S. futures dragged down improving international orders, and said the measure was not as important to the shoe industry as it used to be. "The company is much more complicated than it was five years ago," Knight said, "therefore, the futures are not nearly as relevant or directly an indicator of what we're going to do in the future as it was two or three years ago." Analysts disagreed. "At the end of the day you're still talking about a decelerating futures trend," said Josie Esquivel, footwear analyst with Morgan Stanley Dean Witter in New York. She said Knight has repeatedly pointed to international growth to counter slipping domestic sales, but "he's been trying to tout that international theme for the 10 years I've covered the stock." The earnings report was issued with some of the top names in sports - including sprinter Marion Jones - flashing the "swoosh" logo worldwide in television commercials preceding the opening of the Olympic games in Sydney, Australia. Nike also has been pushing high-tech sports equipment, including body suits for running and swimming that are designed to reduce drag, whether in air or water. In Sydney, Jones will wear Nike shoes built with tough carbon fiber plates created by researchers at the company's lab at its Beaverton headquarters. But Esquivel said most of the Olympics advertising spending - and resulting sales - won't be felt until Nike's second quarter. Meanwhile, with flat futures orders, analysts may consider whether to reduce earnings estimates for the next quarter. "We may have to clip them a bit," Esquivel said. Shares of Nike, which were up 56.2 cents to dlrs 37.94 in regular trading, fell 56.2 cents in after-hours trading.
On the Net: http://www.nike.com
|