If teenagers are a barometer of anything (and they are), Nike might be in more trouble than an impending Amazon deal would let on. According to a recent Piper Jaffey report, detailed by Retail Dive, teens are spending more on clothing than in the past, but less on the famed athletic apparel brand.
“Nike is suffering from teens’ changing attitudes,” the story says. “In fact, Nike, Ralph Lauren, Steve Madden, UGG (Deckers), Fossil and Michael Kors saw the largest declines among major brands, according to the survey.”
The report found that teens were spending about 20 percent of their available cash on clothing — up from last year, while food spending was down because Clout > Life, which is just basic math — but were placing more of a priority on brands like Vans, Supreme, and adidas than they were on Nike, representing that aforementioned “changing attitude.”
Of those priority brands, Adidas is by far posing the largest threat – they posted a 20 percent sales growth in the second quarter, a number that led Cowen & Co. analyst John Kernan to note that the German brand is “outgrowing Nike meaningfully in all major geographical regions.”
“[Adidas] continuously release new colorways for some of their key products like the NMD,” the article notes. “Adidas Originals is always successful as the product resonates with a fashion upscale customer. The product continues to be design led with minimalistic silhouettes.”
And even as Nike continues to hiccup out Retro releases, those styles are failing to resonate the way they used to (the Tom Sachs and off-white collaborations not withstanding, but the increasing number of Jordan’s on sale at places like Undefeated very much standing).
Is this a somewhat catastrophist take on the fate of a company that still made $32.4 billion in 2016? Probably. But there are certainly cracks in the foundation of Phil Knight’s empire.
You can read more about it at Retail Dive.
