On Holding AG (ONON) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us and welcome to the on-holding AG second quarter 2026 earnings call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star 1 again. I will now hand the conference over to Liv Rathinger, Head of Investor Relations. Liv, please go ahead.

Good afternoon and good morning to our investor community. Thank you for joining on second quarter earnings conference call and webcast. With me today on the call are David Alleman, founder and co-CEO, and Frank Slouse, CFO. Before we begin, I will briefly remind everyone that today's call will contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These forward-looking statements reflect our current expectations and belief only and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Please refer to our annual report on Form 20F for the 2025 fiscal year filed with the SEC on 3 March 2026 for a detailed discussion of such risks and uncertainties. We will further reference certain non-IFRS financial measures such as Adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin. These measures are not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for the financial information presented in accordance with IFRS accounting standards. Please refer to today's release for a reconciliation to the most comparable IFRS measures. We will begin with David, followed by Frank, leading through today's prepared remarks, after which we are looking forward to opening the call for a Q&A session.

With that, i'm very happy to turn the call over to david good afternoon and good morning to our global investor community thank you so much for joining us today when we started on 16 years ago we were told that the sportswear industry operated on a rigid set of rules standard malls standard distribution and standard ways of doing business we politely chose to carve our own path when told it was physically impossible to put holes into the rubber sole of a running shoe, I took those indices-stranded molds and broke them. This is how Cloud Tech was born. That single act of defiance forged our permanent innovation culture. At Onn, we are reinventing the mold again and again because it is the only way to build a premium global sports brand that will prevail for decades. Stepping into the roles of co-CEOs just over 12 weeks ago is a strategic commitment to our founder-led DNA. As ON continues to scale into a multi-decade global company, we approach our growth with the precise focus of innovators and operators, but with the long-term patience of founders. We are not sprinting for short-term volume. we are deliberately engineering for the multi-decade value of a premium brand. Alongside our president and COO, Scott McGuire, and our CFO, Frank Slausch, this leadership structure unifies our strategic intent with disciplined operational and financial execution. Relentless product innovation, a unique design culture, and brand equity remain at the very center of every decision we make. This commitment delivered another exceptional quarter of premium growth. For Q26, net sales reached 850 million Swiss francs, a powerful 22% growth at constant currency. At the same time, we delivered industry-leading profitability, ability, over 65% gross profit margin, and close to 20% adjusted EBTA margin. The strongest proof of the connection we are building is the extraordinary strength of our direct-to-consumer channel, the most premium expression of our brand, which delivered exceptional momentum in Q2, growing 34% at constant currency. This was driven by deep, toe-to-head consumer demand across all regions, with ONS brand awareness increasing to 30% as a whole new generation of fans discovered the brand. We are proving that a brand can achieve global scale without eroding premium positioning or margin ambitions. We do not create exclusivity through artificial scarcity or height. We scale by bringing superior technology, engineering, unique design, and cultural relevance to millions of consumers, capturing market share while fiercely protecting our margins. On ultimately creates a highly defensible, scalable financial profile of a premium growth compounder. Our actions in wholesale this quarter are perhaps the clearest example of our premium strategy at work. momentum in our own channels was remarkably strong with growth ahead of our expectations in all regions on the other hand in wholesale the sellout of some of our everyday running franchises tracked below our ambitions in a highly promotional multi-brand marketplace particularly in the americas clearly this is something we are not pleased with but our response is where the premium standard proves itself. We have been intentional and disciplined on managing selling to the channel within this environment. Most importantly, we choose not to build in-channel inventory that could compromise our full-price integrity. This commitment, discipline, and focus on driving high-value accretive growth will continue into the second half of the year and be evident in our premium financial profile we expect our full year net sales to grow in the low 20s at constant currency with a higher gross margin outlook and reiterated adjusted ebta margin on this basis we are on track to close 2026 as the fastest growing global brand with the highest gross margin in our industry. This is a continuation of the premium strategy that makes us who we are. Let me give you a personal example of where we saw that strategy at work. Early in our journey as a public company, we made the tough choice to prune over-distributed channels in EMEA and protect our full price integrity. Many questioned us then. Today, that discipline is delivering exceptional 21 percent constant currency growth and record q2 group margins emeia proves that premium growth isn't bought through volume it's forged through restraint in the wholesale channel this discipline does more than protect our margins it clears the runway for an acceleration of our innovation cycle we are not just releasing new models we are deploying a step change in performance engineering. Franchises like the CloudMonster 3 Hyper, the CloudSurfer 3 and the Cloud Boomstrike 2 are the direct beneficiaries of this strategy. By ensuring a clean premium marketplace today, we allow these breakthrough technologies to land with maximum impact, driving full price demand. So now let's step into our innovation lab. Our premium position is anchored by our innovation engine, and that engine starts with running. Patented performance engineering is our permanent antidote to promotion. This past June, we hosted our inaugural On Run Sun Meet in Paris, bringing together our top 100 global run specialty partners. We gave them an exclusive look at our next-generation marathon racing shoe, the Cloud Boomstrike II, featuring our new Cloudtech Sphere geometry paired with Helion HF Superfoam. An independent landmark study confirms that the Cloud Boomstrike II delivers a 1.6% improvement in running economy over the industry's leading super shoes. We are offering the STRIKE 2 in both a precision-laced upper and our revolutionary robotic light spray upper. Light Spray is no longer an elite prototype. It's a fast-scaling commercial engine. With our automated facilities in Busan and Zurich fully cranking, Light Spray is driving extraordinary momentum across our running lineup. Demonstrated by immediate sellouts for the CloudMonster 3 Hyper Light Spray that launched in March this year. Crucially, elite breakthroughs must benefit the broader running community. In Paris, we also previewed our Spring-Summer 27 collection, featuring surreal foam technology in the CloudSurfer 3 and the CloudSurfer Max tool. While the legacy footwear industry accepts a compromise between impact absorption and rebound, we engineered advanced cloud tech structures directly into a superfold, combining unique chemistry with the physical advantage of dynamic cavities. This represents a first for ON and we accepted to define the industry. ON's innovation advantage is tearing up global record books. Zainab Doso captured World Indoor Gold in the 60-meter sprint. To solidify this technical authority, we officially launched the On Athletics Club Sprint Squad in Los Angeles. Led by coach John Bolton, this elite team is built to dominate short-distance track and spark the imagination of a young global audience leading up to the 2028 LA Olympics. Let us expand the view across all our sports verticals. Tennis is spring on to the most premium spectator sport. At Roland Garros, Flavio Coboli captivated millions with an unforgettable underdog run to the final. And 19-year-old Brazilian Joao Fonseca sent shockwaves through the sport by defeating Novak Djokovic in the third round. This isn't just visibility, it's revenue. Tennis is our fastest growing apparel vertical with sales nearly tripling this quarter. In training and hybrid fitness racing, a hyper growth category of intent to scale, our training powerhouse, Alex Roncevic, completely redefined what is humanly possible. Bearing an advanced prototype of our CloudX Tempo Pro, he became the first human in history to shatter the 52-minute barrier, stopping the clock at the blistering 51 minutes and 59 seconds and setting two world records in a single race. Our training vertical showed a 40% growth rate as a result. This intersection of performance engineering and cultural relevance is winning what we call the movement class. A generation that treats health, vitality, and longevity as the ultimate status symbol. They are expanding our dressable market drastically. Today, consumers under the age of 34 represent over one-third of our total customer base and keep growing fast. This massive generational step-up fueled a stellar 190% year-over-year growth for our Cloud Tilt franchise within the premium sneaker channel. We are clearly winning in sports lifestyles. A defining moment for this movement was seeing cloud tilt models take three of the top five selling positions at Foot Locker Europe last quarter, on seating current incumbents that had held top spots for years. This is not just a statistical win, it is a profound validation of our design language and our ability to capture the zeitgeist. We back this momentum with elevated storytelling. storytelling. In April this year, Zendaya's co-created collection was a phenomenal commercial success that sold out well ahead of expectations, with 60% of buyers being women under 34. Our Shape of Dreams campaign film, directed by Spike Jonze, won three conlines, reinforcing our strategy to earn consumer attention through entertainment rather than just buying ad space. Furthermore, our Paris Fashion Week installations alongside Loewe and Post Archive Action prove that ONCE Design Language commands a premium position entirely untouched by legacy sportswear. This brand heat validates our strategy of selective expansion, unlocking highly calculated sequential growth across entirely new product categories, channels, and geographies. Apparel is hitting its stride. Our proprietary ZenStack fabric is helping us engage further with female customers worldwide, a key priority for us. At the same time, the expansion of our vault running collection saw apparel achieve a record 28% share of our running campaign net sales in Q2, proving our ability to complete the runner's uniform from toe to head. our own retail ecosystem is spearheading this complete uniform take the paris retail flywheel our elite visibility during Roland Garros translated immediately into exceptional apparel and footwear performance our Champs-Élysées flagship was our strongest performing store globally this quarter driving exceptional growth in traffic conversion and average item values In Stockholm, our new flagship in the historic Golden Triangle has been open just two months and is already performing at twice our expected level. None of this execution is possible without our global team. We approach our talent architecture with extreme intention, pairing founder vision with world-class operational leadership. To steer our next chapter of scale, we promoted Rebecca Kay to Chief Global Markets Officer following her stellar growth execution across APEC, our most premium region. We are equally excited to welcome Alice Delahond as our Chief Customer Officer, injecting profound consumer brand and digital ecosystem expertise directly into our T2C strategy. They join an elite leadership bench ready for our next horizon of growth, and you have the opportunity to meet them face-to-face very soon. On September 21st and 22nd, we will host our 2026 Investor Day right here at our own labs in Zurich. It has been three years since we last shared our long-term roadmap. We cannot wait to show you up close and personal how we intend to keep pushing the boundaries of what sportswear can be and deliver sustained premium growth for the years and decades ahead. With that, it is my great pleasure to hand the call over to Frank Slausch for his first earnings call as a CFO. Frank brings over two decades of global consumer finance leadership, managing multi-billion operations in Europe, the Americas, and Asia. As an avid marathoner and triathlete, he fundamentally understands what it means to build for long-term endurance. Over the past few months, he has brought remarkable discipline, operational rigor, and an unwavering conviction in our premium pass. He will now walk you through our Q2 performance and how we are calibrating our financial outlook for the balance of the year.

Frank, over to you. Thank you, David, and a very warm welcome from my side as well. It's a real pleasure to be speaking with you all for the first time. I've spent my first month at ONN listening and learning. spending time with our teams across the regions, with our partners and, naturally, diving into the strategy and the numbers. I want to mention three things that have impressed me the most. Firstly, the obsession with disruptive innovation, which runs throughout the company and is supported by excellent R&D capabilities and supplier partnerships. Secondly, the huge ambition and growth mindset of our 4,000 team members and the still untapped potential in so many areas, including retail and apparel to just mention a few. Thirdly, the founder-led culture and commitment to building the most premium sports brand for many decades to come. This requires discipline every day in the choices we make to drive long-term and sustainable value creation with a unique earnings model. This is the thread I would like to ask you to hold onto throughout my remarks when going through the financials. Let's now dive further into the details of a strong quarter too. Net sales this quarter reached a new high of 850 million Swiss francs, growing 21.6% at constant currency and 13.5% on a reported basis. As ever, the composition tells you more than the total. Growth was strongly led by direct-to-consumer, our most elevated channel, our highest margin channel and the clearest read we have on our brand momentum. The strength ran through both e-commerce and retail. Net sales in DTC reached 388 million Swiss francs, up 34.3% at constant currency and by 26.0 on a reported basis, lifting DTC to a second quarter record of 45.7% of sales. This is the channel where we fully define our brand experience. So to see this powering our business is one of the results we are most pleased with this quarter. E-commerce growth exceeded our expectations in every single region. Last quarter we spoke about deliberately widening the conversation to new communities. We continued to pursue this strategy and the signals of our commitment to this approach are encouraging. Those newer visitors are already moving deeper into the journey, evidenced in increased engagement. And we did it while driving a further increase in full price share year on year. To me, that is the whole strategy in one data example. We are broadening and elevating the brand at the same time. Our own stores also performed very well, with continued strong growth both in new doors and comms sales. David mentioned our Jeanne d'Elysée flagship. I would add our two Tokyo stores, which both continue to perform exceptionally with no signs of cannibalization, clearly telling us that, with the right format in the right location, we have real room to expand even in cities where we are already present, and at very attractive economics. Our retail KPIs continue to strengthen from an already high base, proving the incredible value of our deepening consumer connections. Let me turn to wholesale, because it is where the choices David spoke about showed up in the numbers. Growth was more moderate, 12.7% at constant currency and 4.8% reported, with DTC outperforming wholesale in every region. As David explained, that is deliberate. With sell out softer in some of our everyday running franchises in a highly promotional environment, we chose to hold back sell in rather than ship volume that would build inventory in the channel and put full-price integrity at risk. It costs us some wholesale growth, but it protects our partners' inventory health, our premium positioning, and ensures the best position for launching what we believe are outstanding innovations in 2027. Switching to our regions. In the Americas, net sales grew 13.0% at constant currency and by 4.5% on a reported basis, reflecting the wholesale dynamic I just described. Within DTC, momentum accelerated in both North America and Latin America. We also continue to attract younger consumers, with a share of e-commerce customers under 24, up by more than a third versus quarter one. I find this really exciting because it means we are attracting the next generation of on-consumers, without discounting our way to them. Our stores in the region performed well too, particularly Miami and our New York Flatiron flagship, with higher average basket sizes reflecting the resonance of our premium offer, including a strong performance of our Loewe and Zendaya launches. EMEA was a real standout. Net sales up a very strong 20.5% at constant currency and by 15.4% on a reported basis, and all the more striking against a very demanding prior year comparison. DTC growth was in excess of 20% at constant currency across every single sub-region, including DAG. The performance in Southern Europe was again exceptional, with France, Spain and Italy all tracking comfortably ahead of our expectations and building real momentum on an ever larger base. Our retail presence in these markets also goes from strength to strength with standout performances of our stores in Madrid and Milan. In APEC, net sales grew 54.7% at a constant currency and by 43.1% on a reported basis, broad based across the region, making this another quarter of 20% global share. Japan and Korea continued to perform exceptionally well, as did Greater China. This market exceeded our expectations in every channel, with a great contribution from our stores and particular strength on Tmall, despite our choosing not to participate in promotional activity. This quarter we opened our first store in Macau, which is already matching the strong momentum of our remarkable Hong Kong locations. With the widest assortment in the region, the store achieved above average conversion, reinforcing our conviction in the potential of larger format stores across the region. Across our categories, growth is increasingly driven by multiple engines. Net sales from shoes were up 18.9% at constant currency and by 10.9% on a reported basis. In performance running, the CloudMonster 3 Hyper delivered strong sell-through and continues to be widely praised by retailers and consumers alike. We continue to scale LightSpray, which already contributed quite meaningfully to our performance running vertical this quarter, despite being still early in the scale-up journey. As a runner myself, attending our inaugural Global Run Summit in Paris and spending time with our retail partners and innovation teams has left me even more excited about what is to come next year. This enthusiasm is clearly shared by our partners with Spring Summer 27 orders for Cloud Server 3 from these retailers doubling after the event. If we turn to lifestyle, David mentioned the performance of cloud tilt which saw strength across all versions including the remix which is resonating exceptionally well with the young male consumer the strength of this vertical is particularly impressive in the context of a highly competitive environment where many brands resorted to promotions or authenticity in this space and the newness of our products really resonates with the consumer training was also a highlight with cloud pulse and cloud X both growing strongly and a great example of how we structurally build new franchises and credibility in new sports. Our tennis momentum continued to build on and off-court through the Roger franchise fueled also by our athletes performances at Wimbledon and Roland Garros. Apparel grew 56.2% at constant currency and by 47.7% on a reported basis, continuing to establish itself as a meaningful growth driver in its own right and increasingly an entry point into the brand. Performers running remained the anchor, supported by our established collections, the expansion of Volt and a highly successful limited drop with Air One. The tennis court collection delivered excellent growth and sell-through, taking a meaningfully larger share of our apparel business. And the co-created Zendaya collection significantly exceeded expectations. In the US, every style beats our forecast by triple digits. To summarize, across regions, channels and categories, we are building an increasingly global and diversified business, one that remains firmly rooted in performance innovation, thrives at the intersection of sports and culture, and continues to be built for the long term with a discipline that comes from founder-led leadership. turning to the pnl this is where all that discipline converts into profitability constant currency sales growth of 21.6 percent coupled with adjusted ebda margin expansion to 19.8 percent drove absolute constant currency adjusted ebda growth of over 30 percent year over year bottom line margin expansion was primarily fueled by an outstanding gross margin of 65.4%, reflecting our strategy at its best. Strong DTC momentum, disciplined execution, and continued operating efficiencies. Together with a favorable freight mix and some positive foreign exchange effects, those efficiencies let us fully absorb external pressures, including higher US import tariffs, and still expand our gross margin. To be clear, these numbers do not include any tariff refunds which we anticipate are likely to come throughout half two. Our gross margin is a clear demonstration of the strength of our premium operating model. While freight mix and foreign exchange will naturally vary over time, the core drivers are in the base. Disciplined full price execution, a higher DTC mix and sustainable operational efficiencies. These capabilities allow us to invest deeply into our premium product and consumer experiences, further differentiating our brand. Within SG&A, distribution expenses decreased to 10.0% of net sales, continuing to benefit from operational efficiencies, including in last mile fulfillment. As we have said before, those efficiencies create the capacity to invest where we see the strongest long-term returns for our future. This quarter, in brand building and digital opportunities, including those to engage with new communities, driving marketing to 14.0% of net sales. Selling expenses increased as expected, reflecting the strong DTC contribution, while we also continue to invest behind future growth in G&A. Discipline earns the margin, and the margin funds the future. Our strategy and value creation flywheel in action. Turning to our balance sheet, where our earnings translated into another quarter of strong cash generation networking capital improved by 14.9 million swiss francs versus quarter one as strong receivable and payables management more than offset our inventory intake for the full winter season and our actions to recalibrate selling total networking capital remains strong at below 20 percent of sales capital expenditure was 28.2 million swiss francs focused primarily on our selective retail expansion and the infrastructure to support our continued growth. Altogether, we increased our cash balance by 185.2 million Swiss francs, ending with just over 1.2 billion in net cash and a very strong financial position. One that lets us fund innovation, stores and brand building ourselves. Before I turn to our outlook, I want to thank the whole OM team for their performance this quarter. I've spent time with many of you these first months and the welcome has been wonderful. You've been open, generous and quick to help. Those qualities are a part of the unique culture of OM and key elements of what makes this company so special. This is just one more reason I'm even more excited today than when I joined about growing the company together. Let me close on the balance of the year. In Q3 so far, we have continued to execute on our strategic priorities and premium vision with conviction. In July, we again demonstrated our commitment to impact and sustainability with the launch of the Cloud X5 with CleanCloud, the first EVA midsole made using captured carbon emissions. This technology has already scaled past a million pairs, 4 years ahead of our own target. Our Pinnacle Light Spray Cloud Boom Strike 2, made for our most dedicated running community, was, as David mentioned, independently validated as one of the very best race shoes globally. And we will begin scaling the Cloud Surfer 3, our first shoe with our new Surreal Superfoam, in October with RUN Specialty Partners. The response to this innovation at our Paris RUN Summit was incredible. We've also opened a number of key premium retail stores in the last few weeks, including in the United Arab Emirates, Copenhagen and Sao Paulo. When it comes to our outlook for the year, I want to share a bit of context on the philosophy behind how we are guiding. I mentioned it, but it is rare and an absolute privilege to work in an environment where every single team member has incredibly ambitious goals and dreams. But at the same time, it's very clear on the discipline required to build a differentiated premium brand for the long term. Strong growth and premium execution can absolutely go hand in hand, as we proved this quarter and doing it the right way is a non-negotiable. So, what you see in our outlook is our premium growth strategy in action. This is a model built on discipline, on only pursuing the growth that protects and elevates our positioning. With the deliberate action already taken on selling in quarter 2 and early quarter three, and the message that we will not shy away from taking further action to ensure we are setting up for success and a strong pipeline in 2027, we are committing to a 2026 constant currency net sales growth rate in the low 20s. This reflects our premium growth strategy, clear visibility on the wholesale action taken for the third quarter, including in our everyday running franchises, and the focus on continuing to manage selling deliberately where we deem it beneficial for our long-term success. With these actions relating to wholesale, it is important to understand that we expect continued very strong momentum in DTC and resulting significant DTC mix expansion for the rest of the year. I want to be equally clear about profitability, because this is where the quality of our growth shows. The commitment to premium execution alongside the high DTC mix means we now expect a full year gross margin of at least 65%. And as we pursue high quality growth and keep investing in our future, we maintain our adjusted EBITDA margin outlook of 19.5 to 20%. Note this margin outlook does not include any benefits from tariff refunds. We expect to recognize some refunds in our Q3 results and will update you when we have fuller visibility on the amount. You heard it today, we're on a journey to build the most premium sportswear brand of the coming decades. The discipline inherent in this is what makes this such a compelling earnings model. Strong growth, industry-leading margins, and a compounding financial profile. As a CFO, I could not be more excited and convinced of where we are going. I look forward to meeting many of you at our Investor Day in September to share in more detail how we bring this ambition to reality.

We will now begin the question and answer session.

For the Q&A, David and Frank are joined by Caspar Capetti, founder and co-CEO. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of J. Soul with UBS. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Great. Thank you so much. David, my question is for you. You mentioned in your prepared remarks about the global trend toward fitness and wellness. But at the same time, a lot of brands in the athletic wear space have seen slowing results over the past year? What gives you confidence that the industry growth rate that you envision can remain strong? And what gives you confidence that we're not seeing a real slowdown in athletic wear broadly on a global basis that maybe could cause more weakness going forward? Thank you.

Jay, thanks a lot for your question. This is David. Hey, what we're seeing and you see that really broad-based growth for all in our direct consumer channel, that's all this stellar growth um and we're an innovation brand so really kind of our um core comes from innovation and we're seeing that we have across channels geographies but then also new verticals like for example tennis training now our new innovation that comes in in running like for example the recently launched cloud monster that we have an incredible momentum and we believe that what we call the movement class is a societal shift that brings a lot more consumers to sports because it's not just about utility but it's about identity and identity is built through innovation through cultural relevance and ultimately also through price point because it's a differentiation factor and so it's the perfect territory for a premium for a premium innovation brand. And that's where we're doubling down. We feel that's an opening time and that is supporting ONCE growth. And you've seen that at play in the second quarter as well.

Yeah. Maybe, Frank, if I can ask you one question, just on the gross margin guidance increase, can you just walk through the drivers? Is it mostly mixed?

Is there any markdown increases baked in to your gross margin guidance for the year? thanks jerry um as we said in quarter one already is that for this year i think that the margin trajectory will be quite clean uh and no basically significant one-offs uh in in our year to date and also not in our outlook uh so in quarter one you saw a basically a sort of a mid 64 margin now a low 65 or a mid 65 65.4 and in that basically growth versus last year of course is a combination of number one an higher DTC share or number one I would say is a continued strengthening of a full price strategy number two is the the increased share of the DTC mix and number three operational efficiencies and I think yeah as they are in the year-to-date margin I think they'll also be visible in a similar sort of rate in the year to go. And hence also we lifted the outlook a bit from the basically 64.5 to 65 plus. As we now see that basically the DTC mix in particular is trending favorable. And we believe that also to remain the case for the remainder of the year.

Thank you so much.

Your next question comes from the line of Jonathan Komp with Baird. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon. Could you just maybe share a little bit more perspective? When you look at the divergence across channels right now, are you seeing a similar divergence in your everyday running platforms across channels, or do you think there are some unique factors in the America's Whole Salt segment currently? Do you have any insight on how long of a drag some of the intentional actions to limit sell-in into those channels and wholesale might continue here?

John, thanks a lot for your question. I think what we are seeing is a very, very loyal customer in our own channels. And actually, we also have a lot of new cohorts coming to our channel. Now, a third of our consumers are under 34. So it's also a next generation that is coming to us. And of course, they're coming to us as a premium brand, and they're not looking for a price, but they're looking for innovation. They're looking for cultural relevance. So that's the primary driver in that channel. While in a wholesale channel, of course, you're more exposed to a very promotional environment.

And so it's more of a choice that you have. and so that's why we feel we have a very strong consumer we have higher awareness now 30% we have a young new cohort coming to us and that's what drives the D2C growth that you have seen at more than 34% John and I can weigh in a bit on wholesale so we want to be quite clear so this is mostly a America's wholesale topic where it's it's been a bit more volatile um and and the months are are are different um we had a very strong start to the year with our innovation hitting now um in in the second quarter we were mostly comping some of our everyday running run franchises which we've still grown but not not maybe at the rate that we're expecting going forward now when we um look into the start of q3 we're already off to a very good start with innovation that we have um most importantly cloud x5 and cloud runner max that are landing extremely well we also had a very strong back to back to school so even in in the region where wholesale is a bit depressed for us right now which we believe is transitory um we're seeing a lot of good signs um to your question how long this will last um we're starting to roll out cloud surfer 3 to our own specialty stores first in october giving them a three month exclusive period to also really gain the credibility for our new technology and then surfer 3 will roll out broadly in january followed by surfer max 2 in april and we're also relaunching flow which in the past has been quite a strong franchise so there's a lot of innovation happening q4 q1 and Q2. And then this is the big, the fastest accelerated rollout of product that we ever had. So all everyday running franchises will update to the new foams and the new technologies and the Swiss engineering precision fit within 14 months from now.

Very helpful. And maybe more broadly, just given the strength of the pipeline on the performance side, the strength and acceleration on the lifestyle side, and then some of the additional drivers that you have have over the next few years, how would you frame up thinking about the broader potential for AAN? Do you think we should assume the growth rate continues to moderate, given your focus on quality and larger size, or do you have enough in the pipeline here to sustain the types of growth rate you're projecting for 2026 to continue for a while here?

You know, I think, John, we talked to it in the opening remarks, we have planted a lot of seeds and you see these seeds now fully sprouting think about our training vertical 40 growth year over year think about apparel growing over 56 think about tennis think about geographies i mean if you think about apac but also then we're i'm super excited about them About EMEA, where we are actually opening new stores in a Nordic cluster with Stockholm and with Copenhagen, but also in Germany, LATAM. So there are so many opportunities for premium growth. I wouldn't worry about basically being out of fuel at all.

And of course, you're going to come in the investor day when we can really talk about the long term. looking forward to that.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Aubrey Tianello with BNP Paribas. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks for taking the questions. I wanted to ask about the revenue guidance and should we assume that the change in revenue guidance is entirely coming from a lower wholesale outlook? I think last quarter you mentioned that the DTC growth we saw in Q1 in the high 20s was the right way to think about the full year for DTC. Is that still the case? Obviously, we saw a really strong DTC number in Q2. Did anything change in terms of the DTC outlook for the year?

Thanks, Aubrey. Yeah, so coming back to DTC. So indeed, coming back on the first one is that indeed the actions we are taking in wholesale in quarter two and also in quarter three of course they are indeed the the key factor for the new basically top-line guidance it is also fair to say that we were I think that the DTC growth in quarter two has been very strong I think what you saw in many industries was that I think with the change in the digital landscape that basically we also saw a slight slowdown probably at the end of last year I think we are very positive on the actions we have taken and the good growth in e-commerce in quarter two and as David said we are basically exceeding our expectations in all the regions secondly of course you know that that will open up quite a bit of stores in the back end of the year so all in all I think that basically we look with a lot of confidence in half to to basically our DTC growth and we yeah we basically it should be over the full have sort of continued to be strong. And that's why, indeed, the revised top line guidance is very much linked to the wholesale actions.

Your next question comes from the line of Anna Andreeva with Piper Sandler. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Great. Thank you so much for taking your question. We wanted to follow up on the sales guidance. You mentioned a couple of time uh that you're off to a good start in 3q uh with the innovation how should we think about the cadence of sales growth uh 3q versus 4q and what's being applied for the americas and the wholesale channel and then secondly uh inventory was up uh 30 uh ending the quarter uh can you talk about what's the composition in terms of units versus price thanks anna um indeed uh when we look or thanks for the question when we look at basically the balance of the year indeed the actions that we are now taking in wholesale of which we took

some in quarter two the remaining ones will be basically we will take them in quarter three and that's why indeed we expect the Q3 growth rate to be lower than the Q4 growth rate that's what I would say about the phasing the second question was about the infantry growth. I think it's important to realize that our growth that you see year-to-date has been primarily volume-led, so it's been very significant. That's the first driver of the infantry growth. The second is that the effects rates, and that's quite technical, that basically have increased the value of the infantry a bit due to the effects movements, and that explains the majority of basically the increase, so these two factors. Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Wendy Liu with JP Morgan. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thank you for taking my questions. My first question is actually related to the original performance. You were seeing a bit of a de-sale in America. I think you mentioned about overall the environment being promotional, but EMEA looks still very solid, where I think some of your peers were warning about the market overall being a bit softer. How do you assess the gap between your performance in these two regions? And is there anything that you are doing, you know, sort of self-help that are helping your performance in EMEA that perhaps can be replicated to like North America and other regions as well?

Happy to take that question and maybe David, you want to add. EMEA is really a very bright spot for us. We've taken this, some of you on the call might remember, we've taken some actions about three years ago where we completely moved out of the comfort channel because we didn't feel it was premium enough. and that's now paying off. We have a very clean marketplace. We have innovation resonating very well. In fact, for example, running is growing for us in EMEA quite strongly. And then we also have some newer markets for on really helping drive the growth. We have established a very good presence now in France. David spoke to that, but also Italy, one of the largest sporting goods markets in Europe. is seeing very very good results. For example our Milan store has a line out the door every single day and that translates extremely well.

We're also doubling down in EMEA with store openings. We've seen a store cluster in Germany is coming online. We also brought a new store to Stockholm and to Copenhagen so there's a lot of energy in the market and this actually also translates to to a strong lifestyle momentum the cloud tilt and the cloud tilt's outsole was originally born from running technology is now seeing an incredible growth and I mentioned it in the call before it's now taking three slots of the top five spots at Foot Locker Europe so we're seeing a very young cohort coming to buy the Cloud Tilt and many other franchises. And that crosses also over to running and actually to youth. In youth, year over year, we have seen 40% growth. So that's also a potential. So the brand has heat, is becoming younger. So that's great momentum for EMEA.

And then maybe a question to Frank. On guidance, I see that you increased your gross margin guidance to at least 65%, but you maintained your adjusted EBITDA margin guidance. Can you perhaps walk us through the different moving parts? And broadly, is growth from D2C accretive or diluted to adjusted EBITDA margin?

So starting with the gross margin guidance, the uplift basically in the guidance is really, I would say, fully attributable to a higher basically DTC mix. Yeah. And on the rest of the assumptions, I think, as we said before in quarter one, and I'll repeat it now, is that the rest of the gross margin, I think, is sort of is clean in the sense of no major one offs. So I think the other key drivers of basically our pricing and the full price basically strategy we have, et cetera, is all and also the FOB rates, et cetera, are all basically consistent. So the gross margin fully linked to the DTC makes change. Indeed, we have basically had the EBITDA margin is unchanged, I think, with two big factors in there. One, of course, is the gross margin. the other one I would also say is that of course we have a little bit of the leverage coming from the revised top-line guidance and and that also of course is a factor and the third one we want to continue to invest in the business we want to make really sure that we continue to pursue growth we see a lot of opportunities as David and Kasper explained and we just want to make sure that we continue to have the funds to invest for future growth and that's why we basically decided to to maintain the EBITDA margin as it is today great thank you so much your next question comes from the line of Paul Livwes with Citi your line is open please go

ahead guys thanks you mentioned some slower sell through in the running channel and I'm curious if you could talk about maybe more broadly what you're seeing in terms of sell through in other channels and other regions and how that compares to your DTC growth in those regions. And also just bigger picture, should we think about the second half wholesale growth rate as the go forward growth rates or is this something that you look at as being temporary before we see a re-acceleration of growth rates in the first half of 27? Thanks.

Let me probably take the first part of the question and then Frank will take the second part of the question. So if you're referring to what we're seeing in D2C, we're seeing actually strong growth ahead of our expectation in each region. So it's really a positive momentum that's driven by overall brand, brand heat and brand demand. I talked about the 30 plus awareness. It's about new consumers coming to on and it's very broad. I mean, it's our channel where we are doubling down on running, but also where apparel is growing even more than in the rest of the market. so in our own stores indeed to see we have a higher apparel share and so we're really growing toe to head but then also our new verticals i mean you can imagine during Roland Garros in in France there were long long lines in front of our Champs Elysees store and then when we recently signed Alex Roncevic in in in high rocks we just saw how training has been exploding so it's 40% growth and even innovation in apparel like for example Sense Tech has proven to be one of the most important pathways for bringing new female consumers under 24 to on really in training apparel so we see that momentum across the board in D2C.

Yeah and Paul coming back to basically the second part of the question whether this is a sort of a long-term impact of course we've been very clear that our intent is exactly what we do now is to ensure that it is not right so basically we i think the uh the the whole selections are really predominantly in the us and we do it of course and basically by managing the sell-in we do that that's all driven by our premium strategy We do it exactly to protect our full price strategy, to make sure that inventories are at the right level, because what we are protecting really is, I think, very strong innovations in the running space that we see coming up. And I think Kasper and David can talk more about the technology behind it, but we fundamentally believe it is really strong. And therefore, basically, we want to make sure that the marketplace is basically at that the inventory levels are healthy, so that the innovations can actually land well at the back end of this year and also in 2027. And that's why we do this precisely to make sure that is that basically at the long term trend in wholesale continues to also be strong.

Just to clarify, is it fair to say that you're happy with the sell-foods in the wholesale channel in regions outside of the Americas?

That's correct, yes. Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Anisha Sherman with Bernstein. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thank you so much. I have two, please. The first one is on ASP. Last quarter, you talked about strong ASP growth of about mid-single-digit per year on average over the last three years. As you're now seeing slow performance of everyday running in the U.S., do you believe there's some price resistance in that channel? And how does that shape your view of pricing strategy this year? Is it going to be different across your higher-end products versus your everyday running segments? And then a follow-up on the actions to limit sell-in, Frank. Frank, you mentioned a lot of actions taken in Q2. I'm curious, are you seeing any improvement in wholesale sell-through in the U.S. as a result of these actions in the early weeks of Q3? Thank you.

Happy to take the first one on pricing. Generally, what we're seeing in the market is that runners are really willing to invest against the latest technologies. um for on as a premium brand lowering prices is has never been part of the playbook and you will don't do not expect that from us what we are going to do and we spoke to it already on the last call is we're going to open up the aperture of our pricing range so our entry-level price point if if you want to call it that that is 160 for every day running um and you know in in the past we've maybe had an increase of 10 to 20 dollars between models or or levels of performance we're seeing quite a lot of demand in the in the higher area so 210 to 250 for us are very attractive price points where we can actually move significant volume for example the cloud monster hyper range is doing extremely well we cannot make light spray fast enough and those those issues can be up up to 290 dollars so um in the future think about maybe three price levels for on the the entry level at 160 which is still higher than our competition um something around 200 210 and then something towards 300 or even above yes and anisha to come back on the second part of the question uh indeed basically we keep of course a very close eye on the on the

performance in in particular in the US and we work very closely with our retail partners in order to drive sell through and and indeed for now we see in the first basically for now the trend is in line with basically our outlook so yeah yeah so it's it's positive initial signs are positive but in line with our outlook okay thank you very much we have reached the end of the Q&A this This concludes today's call.

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