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Earnings Calls: 
Nike Third Quarter Earnings Call
Author: Rozalina Destanova
123jump.com
Last Update: 4:44 AM EDT March 21 2008


Nike''s sales rose to $4.54 billion from $3.93 billion, beating analysts'' average estimate of $4.35 billion. Sales internationally exceeded those in the U.S., with the help of favorable exchange rates. In the U.S., revenue increased 5% to $1.56 billion. Orders of shoes and clothes for delivery between March and July, an indicator of future sales, climbed 11% to $6.9 billion, with currency impact boosting orders by 2 percentage points.

 
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Key questions from the third quarter earnings call conducted by Nike, Inc. on March 19, 2008.

Kate McShane (Citigroup): For the fourth quarter you have indicated that the growth in demand creation would be over 1/3. How much do you expect overhead to be up in the fourth quarter and what is the break down between demand creation to overhead and your SG&A?

Don Blair: We did not provide guidance directly on operating overhead and with respect to demand creation operating overhead. It is 1/3 demand creation and 2/3 operating overhead. Demand creation for the quarter was about $500 million and operational SG&A was $895 million.

Kate McShane (Citigroup): You just announced earlier in March the advertising you would be doing around the launch of the new NIKE Spark products. Have you seen the spending in the third quarter for that or will that also be a fourth quarter impact in SG&A?

Charlie Denson: That is going to be a fourth quarter impact.

Brad Cragin (Goldman Sachs): What are you seeing in the U.S. market?

Charlie Denson: What we are seeing and is something we are comfortable with and have seen before is in uncertain times people tend to go with the things that they know best and feel most comfortable with and we have seen some of our market shares start to increase. You have seen some of the quarterly numbers come through recently and we have benefited. We have had some great product in the market place and it continues to do well especially on the footwear side of things. We feel good about the overall health of the business. I referred to it in my prepared remarks as well that the discipline around inventory management and even in times of uncertainty making sure that we do not put too much product in the market place and that we are continuing to maintain that pull market that we so often refer to.

Brad Cragin (Goldman Sachs): Can you address the price value equation that you have referred to in some of the other markets?

Charlie Denson: The average selling price in footwear specifically is up a small amount but somewhat inconsequential in the overall numbers.

Mark Parker: We did take some surgical price increases in the United States. As we discussed before we looked at this on a style by style basis and we have monitored the sell throughs carefully and we feel good about where we are in terms of the pricing and the demand curve.

Brad Cragin (Goldman Sachs): You have been making incremental progress on the premium consumer experiences. Could you address your sports culture and women’s fitness category and talk about what may be coming down the pipe in terms of continuing to build those experiences forward?

Charlie Denson: Footwear is a strong part of our business. We have a lot of high performing what we call icon styles, Air Force One, The Dunk, a couple of them that are being worked on now and will be launched over the next year; Cortez specifically. It has been a successful formula for us and we feel good about that in the future as well and you will see even more of that. The other idea is as we continue to build out this category emphasis throughout the organization and actually into the market place I keep reminding people that we have not delivered our first product line generated from that organizational shift. You will start to see some of that as we move into this fall and then on to next year. I am excited about some of the things that are starting to percolate within the category organizations here both from a product standpoint and a consumer standpoint.

Robert Drbul (Lehman Brothers): Could you talk about Asia and China specifically in terms of the sustainability of the business?

Charlie Denson: We have spent a lot of time talking about this internally. I think as we gear up for Beijing one of the things that we have been focused on for two years plus is the idea that we are going to be there when everything else leaves. We have positioned ourselves in the market place and with the Chinese consumer with that specific intent. You are familiar with some of the campaigns that we have been running. We have been running a “Just Do It” message in China now for two years plus and I expect that to continue through the Olympics and well into next year. We feel good about where we are at in China. We are keeping an eye on the inventories both at retail and wholesale. I think the team there has done a fantastic job of managing the opportunity and the challenges that has come at them. One of the other things I feel good about is the team we have on the ground. They continue to deliver on expectations and beyond and we are in great shape going through there. Then as you move through to broader Asia to your point, we still feel bullish on Japan long term and we are starting to see the quality of the business improve. It has been a slower journey than we had anticipated or are comfortable with, but we still see the long term opportunities there. Post Beijing Japan is going to be well positioned for an acceleration of growth.

Robert Samuels (JP Morgan): What are you currently seeing with regards to inventory at retail and what are your retailers telling you about their expectations for the consumer for the remainder of the year?

Charlie Denson: It is something we have gotten a lot better at over the last 3 or 4 years, just our connectivity with most of our major retailers and having a much higher level of transparency into the inventory of that retail. We watch it close and even closer today than we have ever watched it because of the level of uncertainty I think that everybody has in the U.S. market. I feel good about where we are at. We continue to take share and our sell throughs are strong and we are gaining ground on everybody. We are not going to take the pedal off and we are going to keep the pressure on. We have got some great product coming down the pike. I think that some of the performance product that we are coming out with this summer around Beijing and the European Championships is the greatest performance product offering this company may have ever had.

Robert Samuels (JP Morgan): Could you talk about the trends you are currently seeing in your full price stores as well as the outlet stores?

Mark Parker: Our in line stores are reflective actually. Those are reflective of the general market. On the in line stuff we are outperforming some of the trends that you see. That is based on a lot of what we are doing with respect to some of the consumer experiences that we talked about. The NIKE Town Running experience has been popular and successful. NIKE ID launched in NIKE Town New York and NIKE Town London and we have seen great response to that as well. We have increased service levels and again as we continue to build out our own retail plan it is more than just about a format. It is about that entire consumer experience. Some of the things that we are continuing to explore and learn are already paying dividends in the market place.

Charlie Denson: Both in line and factory outlet store comps in the U.S. were up 3% for the quarter so we are up on both concepts.

John Shanley (Susquehanna Financial Group): You mentioned that you are building more outlet stores. Is that helping to stabilize the NIKE product versus some of the competitors out there which seem to be promoted more heavily than the NIKE brand is currently being?

Charlie Denson: It certainly puts us in a much better position to manage that. We feel good about the strategy of expanding our outlet footprint over the last 18 months. It is something we talked about a year or year-and-a-half ago and the timing now is going to be even maybe better than expected. Our sell throughs throughout both in line and factory outlet stores continue to be strong. Some of that is based on again being the go-to brand in times of uncertainty and part of it is attributed to just the product assortments we have in the market place.
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