Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to NIKE, Inc.'s Fiscal 2024 First Quarter Conference Call. For those who want to reference today's press release, you'll find it at investors.nike.com. Leading today's call is Paul Trussell, VP of Investor Relations and Strategic Finance. Now I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Paul Trussell. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us today to discuss NIKE, Inc.'s fiscal 2024 first quarter results. Joining us on today's call will be NIKE, Inc. President and CEO, John Donahoe; and our CFO, Matt Friend. Before we begin, let me remind you that participants on this call will make forward-looking statements based on current expectations, and those statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. These risks and uncertainties are detailed in NIKE's reports filed with the SEC. In addition, participants may discuss non-GAAP financial measures and nonpublic financial and statistical information. Please refer to NIKE's earnings press release or NIKE's website, investors.nike.com, for comparable GAAP measures and quantitative reconciliations. All growth comparisons on the call today are presented on a year-over-year basis and are currency neutral unless otherwise noted. We will start with prepared remarks and then open up for questions. We would like to allow as many of you to participate as possible in our allotted time, so we would appreciate you limiting your initial question to one. Thanks for your cooperation. I'll now turn the call over to NIKE, Inc. President and CEO, John Donahoe.

Thank you, Paul, and hello to everyone on today's call. NIKE's foundational competitive advantages are the envy of the industry. As the global athletic market leader, our scale and portfolio allow us to create an impact that only NIKE can. Consumers all over the world recognize NIKE as the number 1 champion for athletes and sport as we fuel inspiration and push the limit of human potential with the industry's most innovative products. Over the past few years, we've navigated through an unprecedented external environment. We've worked through many challenges, societal, geopolitical, global health, supply chain and more. And during this time, NIKE has grown larger and stronger. In fiscal '19, NIKE's revenues were $39 billion. Today, we're over $50 billion. And what's more, our growth has outpaced the overall industry during this period. Let me offer a few examples of how we've redefined the game over the past two years. The consumer told us they wanted lifestyle product, and we delivered, growing Air Force 1, AJ1 and Dunk to be the three largest footwear franchises in industry history. We continue to set the bar in key global sports like basketball and global football. Jordan is now one of the leading brands in North America with potential for so much more. We've accelerated digital capabilities that fuel engagement with our brands and deepen direct consumer connections around the world. The list could go on and on. But we have a saying here at NIKE. There is no finish line. We never settle. We always measure ourselves against our full potential. NIKE has always been synonymous with sport. We're at our best when we deliver breakthrough ideas by lining up innovative product with distinctive storytelling delivered through differentiated marketplace experiences. And when we do it well, we expand and grow the…

Thanks, John, and hello to everyone on the call. NIKE's first quarter results demonstrated the impact of staying on the offense when we drove a quicker return to a healthy marketplace in fiscal '23 and leading with operational discipline as we begin the new fiscal year. We delivered Q1 results in line with our guidance. Retail sales across NIKE Direct and Wholesale continue to grow on top of extraordinary sales this past year. Both Nike inventory and our total marketplace inventory are healthy. Working capital efficiency is improving with a normalized supply chain. Gross margins are expanding on an operational basis, excluding the effects of foreign exchange and transitory headwinds are abating. In short, we are building on a strong foundation for sustainable and more profitable long-term growth. Before reviewing our financial results, let me first speak to what we are seeing from our consumer in the marketplace and where we are driving focus and attention to unlock even greater potential ahead. In Q1, retail sales across NIKE Direct and Wholesale grew mid-single digits versus the prior year. Our top franchises are driving strong full price sales and our newest product offerings across Nike, Jordan and Converse are generating positive consumer reception. Looking at inventory. We continue to feel very good about our position. NIKE inventory dollars are down 10% versus the prior year. Our total inventory units across the marketplace, including NIKE and our wholesale partners, are down double digits versus the prior year. Partner-owned inventory units are in line with the previous year, with levels planned to remain lean through our second quarter, a meaningful accomplishment after higher levels of wholesale sell-in during fiscal '23. On the whole, we are very comfortable with the level of inventory in the marketplace in relation to the retail sales that we're…

[Operator Instructions] We'll take our first question from Bob Drbul, Guggenheim Partners.

Hi. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the question. I guess the first question really is, when you talk about the innovation pipeline for fall of '24. Can you just expand a little bit more in terms of the focus or the categories or really sort of what you see driving the business that you laid out at the most recent meeting? And I have a follow-up.

Great, Bob. Well, as I said in my remarks, we cannot underestimate the - understate, really, that the impact of having our teams back together in person over the past 15 months, and we absolutely see that kicking into gear with our product pipeline. And so this past quarter, you heard a couple of great examples of performance innovation around Phantom Luna, our World Cup kits, the Infinity 4, which had one of our latest foam platforms, React X foam, highest energy return and lowest carbon footprint, that will sustain for many quarters and years And over the next six to nine months into the Paris Olympics and default, there are several areas we're very excited about. Matt and I both talked about basketball, I don't think we've ever had a stronger portfolio of basketball shoes, whether it's the Sabrina 1, the LeBron 21, Book 1. Jordan has Tatum, Luka, Zion and a great Game Shoe coming. And then, of course, we have Kobe. So we see real growth, growing our basketball business and growing the game and market of basketball on and off the court. In running, we feel good about the Invincible 3 and Infinity 4, Vomero 5, OPeg 41, we feel very good about coming into Paris as well as the Motiva, which we think have real legs. And then Air. Air is an are putting a huge amount of focus, and we're very excited about the innovations coming in Air, both performance and lifestyle. And so we have the tenth anniversary of Air Max Day in the spring as we move into the Paris Olympics. Air will be an important opportunity both in performance and in lifestyle. So we see several opportunities to build real scalable innovation and growth.

Got it. Thanks,. And I just have a question. In North America, I guess, in the current quarter, what's the bigger tailwind to the business right now? Is it the Travis Kelce jerseys or the Colorado football merchandise?

Oregon Ducks jersey.

We love the NFL and we continue to see a lot of momentum with Coach Prime, so both.

Thank you.

Up next is Adrienne Yih, Barclays.

Great. Thank you very much. I guess my question is going to be on kind of the shaping of wholesale. Matt, if you can help us out with the - I guess, do we expect direct to be similar to the current quarter and then the balance of that, the kind of up slightly for the current quarter guidance to the balance of that come out of North America wholesale? And then my other question is on the China market. John, you talked about kind of strength and regaining market share. But at the same time, you talked a little bit about continuing to be promotional. It's great to see that you're regaining full price. How much demand creation are you doing there? What does the promotional environment look like exiting the quarter? And any comment on exit trends? How should we think about kind of the trends over the next couple of quarters relative to your long-term algorithm? Thank you very much.

All right. Well, John, why don't I start on marketplace. So Adrienne, when we look at our performance this quarter, I'd be remiss to not just reiterate what I said on the call, which is we saw very strong retail sales in the marketplace up mid-single digits. And in particular, we're very pleased with the performance across a range of our most important wholesale partners, delivering growth high single digit to low double digit. What I said last quarter in terms of the way that I was thinking about channel growth for this year, I said that NIKE Direct would lead our growth. And it did this quarter, and we do expect NIKE Direct to continue to lead our growth throughout the remainder of this fiscal year. The period that we're heading into in Q2 and Q3 is really the higher levels of sell-in that we did last year as we proactively focused on returning our marketplace to a more healthy level. As an example, you might recall our Q2 wholesale revenue last year was up 30% versus the prior year. And so as we face those comparisons, we do expect that NIKE Direct will be the best indication of the growth that we're driving in the marketplace, while we comp those nonlinear comparisons in the prior year. But we feel very good about the health and the shape of our overall marketplace, including in North America. And we're continuing to focus on driving growth across dimensions, across channels, up and down price points and are very focused on building a product pipeline to enable us to do that over the coming years.

And Adrienne, in China, it's interesting. I've been to China twice now in the past four months. And I think, Matt, you were there in August. And I - we feel good about the market there and our position. Frankly, a couple of things stand out. One sport is back in China. You can just feel it. And that gives us great confidence about the future and the Chinese consumer in our segment regardless of the macroeconomic outlook there. And you saw we had double-digit - strong double-digit growth in Q1 and Q2, and we're helping to really drive momentum in Sport there. I talked about Sportchella. I think Matt mentioned the back-to-school kids race. Giannis, it is a tour there this summer that got a huge response outdoor basketball. So we're doing what we do best, which is driving energy and excitement around sport, which then translates into our brand connection and our consumer connection being as strong as it's been in a long time. And as I said, it's perhaps the best example currently where we bring this great innovation with distinctive storytelling with distinctive marketplace reaction. And so even in a promotional period, our full price sell-through and our innovations are connecting well and doing well. And so we got inventory in shape much sooner than the market in China. And so we're playing on the offense. We're playing on our front foot. And we feel good about the opportunities in China in the coming quarters and into the medium to long term.

Yes. And I would just say that I think that the retail sales growth that we referenced in our two biggest wholesale partners is a great indication of the health of our inventory and our ability, especially in this first quarter to flow a complete assortment and season into our retail stores in the marketplace. And that's NIKE at best. Our most premium elevated retail experiences, high levels of seasonal assortments where we can tell stories and really bring the breadth and the dimension to consumers. And we saw that momentum building throughout the quarter. So we feel really good about the decision we made to move fast. And even though the marketplace is promotional, we're on our front feet in terms of the way we're able to present our brand and our stories and our products to consumers in that market right now.

Next, we'll take a question from Alex Straton, Morgan Stanley.

Perfect. Thanks so much. I just wanted to focus on kind of the running innovation that you guys highlighted a number of times on the call across areas. I think you had said you launched some running in the last few years, but perhaps it didn't connect as much as you wanted or you wanted to scale it more effectively. So could you just touch on maybe what changed in NIKE's approach in the last few years? And then what you plan to do differently to kind of reignite that? Thanks a lot.

Yes, Alex. As I said, we - we're at best when we align innovative product with distinctive storytelling through a differentiator marketplace. And in running, we have three different categories and running. In racing, we take our performance innovation, which sets the bar in the industry with the Alphafly, the Vaporfly and NEXT%. We have compelling breakthrough storytelling, whether it's breaking to or we reached that elite runner and we reached them through a differentiated marketplace. And so we're doing well there. In trail running, which is the fastest-growing segment, the Peg trail is doing very well. We feel really good about our innovation pipeline and we're increasingly leaning in to the trail running community and to marketplace connection with that trail runner. And then the area that we talked about road running or what we call road running or everyday running, we're very clear we're prioritizing the everyday runner who wants newness and consistency and we're focusing, therefore, on some key models and ensuring that we get in the path of runners. So in terms of innovation, as I mentioned in my remarks, we've had some very good innovation in the last couple of years. The Invincible took some of the performance benefits from our road racing shoes, particularly ZoomX and brought them into an everyday running shoe along with some great cushioning. So good innovation. Similarly, the Infinity 4 brought the React X foam platform, which has got some real characteristics of low-carbon footprint, better high energy, but we're not yet combining those innovations with getting in the path of the everyday runner with a really strong ground game. And so that's what we're focused on. And that starts with distribution, making sure we're breaking through everyday runners shops. So whether that's our own direct channels, wholesale channels, running specialty doors play a really important role. You may have noted we launched the React 4 in partnership with running specialty doors. So that's a step in the right direction, and we're really working to break through in these channels. And then we're working hard to better connect with runners in their community where they are, where it's driving connections through Nike Run Club and our mobile apps being present in marathons and races and just being where runners are. And so in this case, we know what we need to do. We are focused on it, and we are moving with urgency to deliver.

There's also a meaningful opportunity as running influences, lifestyle and sneakers. And as we've had tremendous success from a Classics perspective over the last couple of years, we have a rich heritage of products in our pipeline related to running for decades. And so one of the things that we're also doing is accelerating our opportunity in running lifestyle with some of our best franchises and capturing on that trend and also the consumer shift to modern comfort. And we feel like that one, two punch, as John mentioned, innovation, performance and lifestyle is really going to position us well to take greater to greater - take a greater attack at the running marketplace holistically.

And next up is Matthew Boss, JPMorgan.

Great. Thanks. So John, maybe could you speak to underlying demand trends as the first quarter progressed? Or any early fall trends that you're seeing in both North America and China. And then multiyear, I'm curious what you see as the next leg of the Consumer Direct Acceleration strategy or just any initiatives that you see to drive further market share gains as we look forward.

Actually, Matt, why don't you take the first part of that and close in on demand, and I'll take the second.

Sure. Well, Matt, as I referenced, we saw mid-single-digit retail sales growth this quarter. And this quarter, we have a unique dynamic because we saw a difference in what we're reporting or what we're communicating from a retail sales perspective versus where NIKE's reported revenue is, and that's because of the restriction of sell-in that we put into place the last couple of quarters of last year. We do expect that to continue as we go into the second quarter. And so we are planning for retail sales growth to be in line with what we delivered this quarter from a mid-single-digit perspective. When we look at the big consumer moments this quarter, 618 seems like so long ago at this point in time, but 618 in Greater China, we were the number 1 sports brand on Tmall and saw impressive double-digit growth over that time horizon. And within back-to-school, we outperformed the industry. And when you look at our performance over the quarter, we saw momentum building throughout the quarter, heading into back-to-school. And so we were encouraged by what we were seeing from a consumer perspective. I mentioned that we saw high single digit to low double-digit growth in our most important partners and strong growth in NIKE Direct this quarter given what we're anniversarying in the prior year. So we continue to see consumer demand for our brands and for our products to be very, very strong. Sport is growing and the consumer is proving to be resilient. There are some dynamics in terms of shifting that's happening from channels. We saw it in our partners a couple of years ago. And this quarter, we are seeing consumers spending more time in brick-and-mortar locations. But 90% of their shopping journeys are starting with digital. And so we continue to believe that our digital and physical strategy of serving consumers at the right strategy to serve demand as we look forward.

And Matt, if we just extend out as you asked a little bit longer term, we step back, we still see the same fundamentals, which are some structural tailwinds in our industry, right? The definition of sport is expanding. And so with the movement towards health and wellness and fitness and new big areas of movement like dance, one of my favorite. We've had a lot of interaction with breakdancing in the last three months here on campus seeing some of the elite breakdancers who will compete in the Paris Olympics come in. But dance, throughout Asia and other places is a huge market. So we just see an expanding definition of sport where movement has become sport and we're at center of that. The movement towards athleisure, right, there doesn't need to be a trade-off between what you wear on the pitch and at work between comfort and performance and style. Athleisure combines all of those, and we are very well positioned to continue to drive that trend. And then the digital connection of consumers means that sport, whether they're watching it or commerce is always one click away. And our leading portfolio of digital assets gives us a huge advantage there. So those are some structural tailwinds. And then we just do - we're in a great industry with those tailwinds. We've got to do what we do so well, innovation plus great storytelling plus great marketplace, we believe will drive real strong growth, and we see great growth in women's. Jordan, we think, has extraordinary growth. Running, we think we have great growth. Continuing to expand the market in basketball, global football. And as Matt mentioned, this driving performance and then into lifestyle is something that makes our industry, our business and our future quite attractive.

Jay Sole from UBS has the next question.

Great. Thank you so much. Matt, you talked about you're seeing underlying structural gains and profitability and margins. Can you just talk about how you're feeling about the long-term opportunity for margin in the context of the long-term guidance you gave a couple of years ago for NIKE's ability to get to a high teens EBIT margin over time? Thank you.

Sure, Jay. Well, we remain confident in our ability to drive our long-term financial goals. And we still believe those long-term goals of profitability are achievable. But the timing is difficult to predict. But the reason why I emphasized what I emphasized this quarter is that I feel - I really feel strongly that fiscal year '24 is a turning point for us and a proof point for NIKE to drive more profitable growth. The structural things that I referenced, the structural drivers, I should say that I referenced, it starts with creating value for the consumer and our products. And we continue to see benefits in our gross margin through strategic pricing and managing the price value of our products with ASPs across the NIKE brand across all geos up this quarter. One of the opportunities we continue to see, and we saw some benefit of it this quarter is lowering our supply chain costs. We've increased the size of our supply chain in the last few years to be able to address the growth that we've seen in our business, both overall and in digital. And now our teams are very focused on driving greater efficiency in the way that we serve consumer demand across channels. And I mentioned a couple of examples like reducing digital split shipments so that a consumer doesn't get two boxes for the same order, the way that we're lowering our outbound fulfillment costs through the investment in regional service centers that are closer to where consumer demand is. And so those are just a couple of examples that we continue to see. And then, of course, we do expect that while the ultimate landing spot of digital and direct isn't as clear, we do believe we're going to be a more direct at a more digital company and a more profitable company. And there's a channel mix and channel profitability opportunity that comes with that as well. So we continue to believe these goals are achievable. And based on our gross margin plans for this year, our performance in the first quarter, we believe we're turning the corner on starting to climb to greater profitability as a company and as a brand.

The next question comes from Piral Dadhania, RBC.

Hi. Evening. Thank you for taking my question. Most have been answered. So maybe I could just ask a follow-up, a clarification. Matt, I think you said that in Q1, your partners registered a high single-digit to low double-digit sales growth in the period. I just wanted to understand whether that was their sell-out number or whether that was your sell-in number. Any clarification there would be very helpful.

Sure. That was a sellout number. That was the sales to consumer number.

We'll take our next question from Jonathan Komp, Baird.

Yes, hi. Good afternoon. Matt, if I could ask a follow-up, just as you think about the second quarter, given some of the unusual comparisons, would you be willing to share any shaping guidance across some of the segments? And then bigger picture, if you could just comment on sort of the shape of the recovery of the sales and the profitability that you're seeing in China? And any thoughts as we look to the balance of the year? Thank you.

Sure. Well, as it relates to the second quarter, what I said was that we expect our growth to be up slightly versus the prior year. I did answer Matt's question just and I'll connect the two together, but we are expecting retail sales to sell out to the consumer to be in line with the mid-single digit that we delivered this quarter across the full marketplace. And the second quarter is really the last season that we've managed the sell-in to a more restricted level so that we could ensure that the marketplace was set right as we look towards the remainder of this year. As far as the comparisons go, Q2, and I think I referenced the wholesale number earlier, but we're comping about 27% currency-neutral growth in Q2, but what we're much more focused on is the quality and the health of the growth that we're delivering in the quarter. And so as you see our gross margins expanding in the second quarter on an operational basis, excluding the impact of FX, we're up 150 basis points and are really encouraged as we think about what we delivered in the first quarter, the improvements we're guiding to and believe we can deliver in the second quarter and then the way that will accelerate through the balance of the year. So as we get into the second half of this year and we think about our gross margins, we're going to start to see even more impact from ocean freight because those are rolling in midway through this quarter. We're expecting to see lower product costs in the second half and our FX headwinds are going to abate a little bit as we get into the back half of this year. And so some of those elements will…

We'll go next to Aneesha Sherman, Bernstein.

Thank you. So as a result of your direct-to-consumer strategy, you've shifted, I guess, more than 20 points of sales mix from Wholesale to NIKE Digital over the last seven or so years. You're seeing shoppers returning to stores this year. You did make some adjustments to adding physical distribution points. Do you feel like you are in enough physical retail doors today to appeal to a rebalancing of shopping habits? And then a quick follow-up on overheads. You talked about lowering some of the specific costs of direct split shipments and fulfillment costs. Can you give us more color on the investment cycle are on the investment cycle to support the direct business as well as centralized investments like ERP and kind of where you are this fiscal year and next fiscal year? Thank you.

Matt, I'll take the first part, maybe take the second. So Aneesha, again, our entire marketplace strategy is driven by giving consumers what they want, when they want it, how they want it. That starts with our digital properties, our own direct retail, which Matt will talk about in the second part of the answer, but wholesale plays a really important role for us to get the breadth and depth of access to consumers and consumers access to our products. And so as you know, we've really sharpened our wholesale focus over the last few years to focus on fewer multi-brand partners that where we're investing in elevated retail experiences and connected digital membership at scale. And so that's DSG, JD, Zalando, our partners in China. We've got a great launch with Pro Direct, Hibbett will come online with connected membership in October. And so we think there's a lot of growth opportunity with those strategic wholesale partners. We're also putting increased attention on our neighborhood partners who are authenticators. They help authenticate both sport and lifestyle and drive energy and local connections. And then as we said, where we see gaps, whether it's in a price point or a gap in a product segment will selectively add wholesale partners in different geographies and in different segments. And this will be a dynamic thing. I mean we're led by the consumer. We have the blessing of the strongest direct connections in the industry. And with direct connected membership, we can be indifferent about which channel And Matt, you're going to talk a little bit about, I guess, the margins are direct, but the Nike Rise our direct monobrand doors Nike Rise and our well collected doors are doing quite well, and we feel like we're getting our concept right now that we have seasonal right assortments coming into them. We feel very good about our ability to augment where their gaps as well with our own mono-brand doors, also a House of Flight on Jordan. So we feel good about being on the front foot with our marketplace. I think the most wide and connected marketplace offense in the industry.

Yes. And I think I would just add maybe one point and then I'll hit the last part. When I think about the momentum that we've seen over the last several years from a digital perspective. You're right, we have shifted our channel mix, and that's been a consumer-led and a consumer-driven shift based on the consumers' desire to want to connect with NIKE, both through our digital apps and through our stores What we saw this quarter wasn't unexpected for us. And when we look underneath the momentum that we saw in our NIKE mobile app, we saw a strong growth, high single-digit growth in traffic. We saw member activity continue to increase both in terms of engagement and buying behavior and a higher basket size, a higher AOV. And so we continue to be focused on creating the best personalized experience for our members from a digital perspective. And we believe that that's going to continue to fuel growth in our digital business over the long term. I do think this year, the comparisons are going to not be linear as we go quarter-to-quarter channel to channel, given what transpired last year. But what we're seeing from a consumer perspective doesn't shift our dimensionality in terms of needing to do something different in order to serve consumer demand. As John said, we've got the biggest, deepest breadth of distribution of anyone and have the right partners to be able to serve the marketplace. As it relates to overhead, the numbers that I referenced actually impact our gross margins, our lower digital fulfillment cost that sits in our gross margins. And it's something that we've been focused on for some time. We started investing a couple of years ago in regional service centers in North America and in Europe…

And everyone, that does conclude our question-and-answer session. It also concludes our conference for today. We would like to thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect.