Nike Inc.’s fiscal second-quarter earnings and sales topped Wall Street’s expectations as strong momentum in North America helped offset a steep decline in China. The sportswear giant maintained its guidance for the full year. Major themes on Nike’s analyst call included continued hyper-growth in digital, the Nike One Place reset accelerating Nike's direct growth, healthy full-price sales, and ongoing, but not-worsening, supply chain disruption.
“As I said before, and I'll say again, these are times when strong brands can get stronger, and that's what Nike did this past year,” said John Donahoe, Nike’s president and CEO, at the company’s 41st annual meeting. He attributed much of the gains to progress coming from its Consumer Direct Acceleration strategy.