Nike "tumbled the most in 19 months after third-quarter sales missed estimates, renewing concern that the long-dominant athletic brand is losing market share" to adidas and Under Armour, according to Matthew Townsend of BLOOMBERG. Revenue rose 5% to $8.43B, the company said after the market closed on Tuesday. Analysts estimated $8.47B, on average. Under Armour and a "resurgent" adidas have been "grabbing market share from Nike, especially in the U.S." That led investors to "sour on the stock," which had its first annual decline in eight years last year. Last quarter's results "only reinforced Nike's woes" as North American sales rose "just" 3%. Execs did not provide "much reason for optimism," either. Nike shares "slid as much as" 6.5% to $54.23 on Wednesday, "the biggest intraday decline since Aug. 24, 2015." They dropped 10% in the past year through Tuesday's close. Financial services firm Edward Jones analyst Brian Yarbrough said, "This quarter doesn't give any further confidence that they can get back to" sales growth rates of the past. Nike's profit rose to 68 cents per share in the three months ended Feb. 28. Analysts projected 53 cents. Still, "its gross margin, another key metric of profitability, narrowed by 1.4 percentage points." That is more than the contraction of 1-1.25 points that CFO Andrew Campion projected on a conference call in December (BLOOMBERG, 3/22). REUTERS' Gayathree Ganesan reported Yarbrough said, "A lot of the concern about Nike is its growth in a competitive environment. Three to five years ago, a competitive environment (for Nike) was almost non-existent and the market was moving towards athleisure." Sales in Greater China were up 9% in the quarter, "falling short of double-digit growth for the first time in at least nine quarters." However, excluding the impact of currency moves, sales in the Greater China region were up 15% (REUTERS, 3/21).
GOALS SOCCER CENTRES: In London, Sam Dean reported five-a-side football pitch operator Goals Soccer Centres announced a £10M ($12.5M) "swing in its profits as a strong second half" of '16 "fired it back into the black." After last year announcing a loss of £6.2M for '15, "its first loss since it floated on the stock market 13 years ago," Goals began "a turnaround plan" that saw it hire leisure veteran Mark Jones and former Inter Milan CEO Michael Bolingbroke. The recovery "now appears to be underway" as the company unveiled a pre-tax profit of £3.7M in its full-year results for '16 (TELEGRAPH, 3/21).