Adidas Reports a Catastrophic Drop in Profits

Due to the closure of most stores, the company’s profit in the first quarter fell by 96% year-on-year.

As Kasper Rorsted’s CEO told reporters, the first two months of the quarter were quite reasonable. And then in March, there was a sharp decline, when revenues literally “fell like a rock”. Sales fell immediately by 19% to 4.75 billion euros. Even though online sales have recently increased to 35%, they could not even close to replacing closed stores. In total, the company was forced to close about 70% of its stores worldwide.

As a result, net profit for the first quarter was 26 million euros, which is 96% less than the year before. However, due to the uncertainty about the duration of the closure, the company will not be able to provide a forecast for the entire year.

The company expects that in the second quarter its revenue will be 40% lower than last year. But on the whole, Adidas is in a positive mood. According to Rorsted, despite the current situation, the sports goods industry will develop favorably in the medium term due to increased attention to health and fitness around the world. In his opinion, after spending about ten weeks locked up, people will have a powerful desire to go outside and engage in physical activity.

Also, according to Rorsted, recent business results in China give a hint of how things are going to happen around the world. In this country, the growth in online and offline sales was robust, as it was in March, and the same trend continued in April.