{"id":3849,"date":"2026-04-01T17:48:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T17:48:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/3849\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T17:48:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T17:48:07","slug":"nike-says-its-europe-business-remains-highly-promotional","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/3849\/","title":{"rendered":"Nike Says Its Europe Business Remains ‘Highly Promotional’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tWhile Nike<\/a>\u2019s China problems are in the spotlight, weakness in Europe is also now at the forefront.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the third quarter of fiscal 2026, Nike<\/a> saw revenues drop 7 percent in its Europe, Middle East and Africa region mostly due to softness in its sportswear offering and a highly promotional retail environment.<\/p>\n

\n\tMatthew Friend, executive vice president and chief financial officer at Nike Inc., told analysts on the company\u2019s earnings<\/a> call on Tuesday that EMEA presented \u201cboth progress and challenges\u201d in the quarter.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOur performance business continued to build momentum, led by double-digit growth in running,\u201d Friend said when referring to EMEA business. \u201cSportswear was down double digits and sell-through has not tracked with sell-in expectations. Promotions across the marketplace were up versus the prior year as partners manage inventory. We were also more aggressive with promotions on Nike Digital at the end of the season, which resulted in higher markdowns and a higher off-price mix. Inventory grew double digits versus the prior year with units up midsingle digits.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe CFO said the company anticipates ending the fourth quarter with elevated inventory in its EMEA region<\/a>, but Nike \u201cremains confident\u201d that it will be able to continue to work through its Win Now actions in the territory.<\/p>\n

\n\tElliott Hill<\/a>, president and chief executive officer of Nike, added on the call that its city-led approach to introducing new products is \u201cespecially important\u201d to EMEA, where the company lacks a fully integrated marketplace.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt has been one of our biggest hurdles,\u201d Hill admitted. \u201cThe team is responding with a more complete street up-model, working more closely with wholesale partners to improve point-of-sale storytelling and seeding in the community. In EMEA, you\u2019ll see us show up more as a local Nike.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe overhaul comes after Nike made shifts to its EMEA leadership in January<\/a>. The Swoosh announced earlier this year that C\u00e9sar Garcia would become Nike\u2019s new vice president and general manager of EMEA, effective Feb. 2, following the retirement of Carl Grebert after 30 years.<\/p>\n

\n\tHill noted at the time of the announcement that Garcia started at Nike nearly 25 years ago and has since built a \u201ccritical ability\u201d to connect product, sport and marketplace into one integrated system. Most recently, the CEO wrote that Garcia helped integrate merchandising, sport priorities, and analytics to better serve athletes and scale innovation.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Tuesday, the Beaverton, Ore.-based company reported net income in the third quarter<\/a> of fiscal 2026 fell 35 percent to $520 million from $794 million in the year-ago period. Diluted earnings<\/a> per share dropped to 35 cents from 54 cents.<\/p>\n

\n\tNet sales in the period tallied $11.3 billion, flat from $11.3 billion on a reported basis and down 3 percent on a currency-neutral basis.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Tuesday\u2019s earnings call with analysts, Nike said it expects revenues in the coming fourth quarter to be down 2 to 4 percent, with modest growth in North America despite lapping a value liquidation in the prior year largely offset by declines in Greater China and Converse.<\/p>\n

\n\tWall Street didn\u2019t love Nike\u2019s fourth-quarter guidance, sending the Swoosh\u2019s stock down over 14 percent in midday trading on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe company said it will return to providing full-year and long-term guidance at its next investor day in the fall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While Nike\u2019s China problems are in the spotlight, weakness in Europe is also now at the forefront. In…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3850,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3872,3873,4,3874],"class_list":["post-3849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-europe","tag-earnings","tag-elliott-hill","tag-europe","tag-nike"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3849\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}