Pedestrians walk past a Nike store featuring a modern design and mannequins displaying winter apparel on December 5, 2024, in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China.
Cheng Xin | Getty Images
Nike is expected to report a decline in quarterly sales on Tuesday, but its forecast for the year ahead will show investors whether CEO Elliott Hill’s strategy is gaining traction.
The sneaker giant has been implementing a turnaround plan, and nearly a year into Hill’s tenure as CEO, some analysts are expecting Nike’s performance to improve.
When it released fiscal fourth-quarter results in June, Nike said the financial hit from its restructuring is expected to lessen in the quarters ahead. Executives added the company has improved its inventory position and started to win back wholesale partners.
Clearing through stale styles to make way for innovative products is crucial to Nike’s efforts to grow again and take back market share. The company faces multiple hurdles as it tries to gain back ground, including tariffs and intense competition.
Tariffs are expected to have a moderate impact on Nike’s bottom line in 2026, but consumer spending is choppy and it’s still unclear whether demand for new shoes and clothes will drop during the crucial holiday shopping season. The uncertain consumer backdrop, coupled with competition from upstarts like On and Hoka, is making a challenging comeback that much harder.
Nike is expected to provide its financial guidance during a conference call with analysts at 5 p.m. ET. Investors will also be looking out for updates on the back-to-school shopping season, Nike’s outlook for the holidays and how its new styles are performing.
Here’s what analysts are expecting from the world’s largest sneaker company, according to consensus estimates from LSEG:
- Earnings per share: 27 cents
- Revenue: $11.0 billion
In the three months since Nike last reported quarterly results, Hill has been enacting the strategy he outlined to investors. In June, he said he would realign Nike’s corporate structure so it would once again segment teams by sport instead of by women’s, men’s and kids. In late August, the company started shuffling teams. As part of the restructuring, Nike said it would cut around 1% of its staff, and most employees would be moved into new roles by Sept. 21.
The realignment Hill implemented is part of his strategy to reignite innovation at the company. Under his predecessor John Donahoe, the company changed its structure in a bid to grow its lifestyle business, but some critics say focusing on consumer segments over sports led Nike to lose market share in crucial categories like running.
Lifestyle merchandise is still an important part of the strategy because it allows Nike to reach a larger consumer segment, and more women. Growing the number of female customers has been another important part of Hill’s strategy and Nike’s recent partnership with Kim Kardashian’s shapewear brand Skims is one of the ways it’s getting there.
NikeSKIMS, originally slated to release in the spring, officially launched last week. Investors will be looking out for color on how the new brand is performing and how it could affect sales.
