Nike Profit Climbs 23%

(RTTNews) - Nike Inc. (NKE), the world's largest athletic shoes and apparel maker, said Thursday after the markets closed that its first quarter profit rose 23% from last year, helped by higher revenue, improved gross margin and a lower tax rate.

The company's quarterly earnings per share also came in above analysts' expectations as did its quarterly revenue.

"Fiscal year 2015 is off to a strong start. Our connection to consumers and ability to innovate, combined with our powerful global portfolio, is a complete offense," said Nike President and CEO Mark Parker.

Nike shares are currently gaining 5.83% in after hours trading after closing the day's regular trading session at $79.75, down $1.09 or 1.35%. The shares used to trade in a 52-week range of $69.15 to $82.79.

For its first quarter ended August 31, 2014, the Beaverton, Oregon-based company reported net income of $962 million or $1.09 per share, compared to $779 million or $0.86 per share for the year-ago quarter.

On average, 25 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to earn $0.88 per share for the first quarter.

Gross margin for the quarter improved to 46.6% from 44.9% a year earlier, mainly due to a shift in the product mix to higher margin products, higher average prices and continued growth in the higher-margin DTC business, partially offset by higher product input costs.

Revenue for the first quarter rose 15% to $7.98 billion from $6.97 billion in the same quarter last year. Twenty-two analyst had a consensus revenue estimate of $7.83 billion for the first quarter.

For the first quarter, the company's North America revenue rose 12% to $3.5 billion, while Western Europe revenue surged 32% to $1.7 billion and revenue from Central and Eastern Europe increased 7% to $392 million. Greater China revenue grew 18% to $679 million and Japan revenue grew 1% to $160 million. First quarter revenue from emerging markets rose 4% to $934 million.

Footwear revenue for the quarter rose 18% to $4.7 billion, while apparel revenue increased 11% to $2.2 billion.

As of the end of the first quarter, worldwide futures orders for Nike Brand athletic footwear and apparel scheduled for delivery from September 2014 through January 2015 rose 11%, or 14% excluding currency changes, from a year ago.

During the first quarter, Nike repurchased 10.6 million shares of its common stock for about $819 million as part of the four-year, $8 billion program approved by the company's Board of Directors in September 2012. As of the end of the first quarter, a total of 62.5 million shares had been repurchased under that program for $4.2 billion.