Nike has seen online sales skyrocket 75 per cent over the last quarter, but this was not enough to offset drastic revenue declines due to the pandemic.
The footwear giant’s continued investment in digital services saw online sales rise to 30 per cent of its total revenue for the first time during its fourth quarter.
New membership registrations for its apps more than doubled during the quarter to 25 million, and its chief executive John Donahoe Nike’s digital revenues will reach 50 per cent of all sales “in the foreseeable future”.
However, this was not enough to stem the losses seen in Nike’s global physical stores estate, with around 90 per cent of its global stores shutting their doors during lockdown.
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Global revenues during the quarter divebombed 38 per cent to $6.3 billion, seeing the Nike make a loss of $790 million.
This compares to a profit of just under $1 billion a year earlier, and has seen Nike’s share price dip by 3.8 per cent.
Donahoe, a former Ebay executive who took the role of chief executive in January, has put digital direct-to-consumer sales at the forefront of Nike’s strategy since joining, moving the company away from its largely wholesale focused model.
It had formerly pledged to double direct-to-consumer sales to $16 billion by the end of this year, however at the end of the current financial year they stand at $12.4 billion.
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