The new boss of Adidas hiked sales and profit targets for the German sportwear firm on Wednesday and announced plans to increase ecommerce sales, simplify business processes and keep investing heavily in the key US market. Kasper Rorsted, the former chief executive of consumer goods firm Henkel who took over in October, said he was adding goals to an existing 2015-2020 strategic plan, putting more focus on company culture, ecommerce and efficency.
The more ambitious targets will maintain a squeeze on U.S. rivals Nike and Under Armour, which have both been losing sales to the German brand in their home market, where Adidas’s retro Superstar was the top-selling shoe of 2016.
Adidas now expects currency-neutral revenues to rise between 10 and 12 percent on average between 2015 and 2020, up from a previous target for a “high-single-digit rate”, while net income should grow between 20 and 22 per cent, up from 15 per cent.
Adidas also reported a fourth-quarter net loss of €10 million on sales up 12.5 per cent to €4.69 billion euros, in line with most analyst forecasts.
Reuters
