Adidas this week said that Q3 sales in North America decreased 1% because of the pandemic's ongoing economic impact and "warned of a companywide sales decline" in Q4 because of the "sudden re-acceleration in Covid cases," according to Matthew Kish of the PORTLAND BUSINESS JOURNAL. This comes as global business for the company "significantly recovered in the quarter," with sales and earnings "approaching last year's levels." Each of Adidas' geographic sales territories "improved over the second quarter, led by Russia (11%) and Europe (4%)." But in North America, the company said that sales "decreased 1%, despite sales increases in July and August that were fueled by the federal stimulus." Year-to-date, Adidas' sales are "down 18%" to $16.8B, "not including currency charges" (BIZJOURNALS.com, 11/11). Adidas CEO Kasper Rorsted said of the Q3 report, "I do think it’s important that we recognize we are still standing in the middle of a pandemic and if we can trade more or less at the same level as previous years, we’re actually quite happy about that. We’re still extremely optimistic about the future and it’s in that context we are guiding the way we’re guiding.” He added, "We believe that the course we’ve taken with a high focus on a strong balance sheet and a very strong P&L is the right focus in a very volatile market” (“Squawk Box Europe,” CNBC, 11/10).
