Shares of sports shoes and apparel giant Nike (NYSE: NKE) are trading up over 5% after hours today, following strong earnings for its fiscal first quarter. As I noted in my earnings preview earlier this week, Wall Street was looking for 92 cents earnings per share for Nike's first fiscal quarter. The company surprised to the upside with a reported EPS of $1.03 a share. While this is down year-over-year from the $1.12 EPS it reported last year in the first quarter, it was still a good quarter considering the current economic environment.
Revenues grew nicely for Nike in the quarter, up a very respectable 17% to $5.4 billion. This also came in above analyst estimates of $5.19 billion.
One aspect of the company's overall business I discussed in the preview was that last quarter the company was able to overcome weak U.S. sales numbers by posting strong growth in international markets. This quarter, too, a weak U.S. dollar has helped boost sales in India and Asia, in particular China, where the recent summer Olympic games were held.
In general, international revenues were much stronger than those in the U.S. Revenue growth in America was 8% during the quarter, compared with a massive 20% jump in international revenues. While international revenue was much stronger, U.S. growth was double that of the fourth quarter when the growth figures were 4% and 19% for U.S. and international sales respectively.
All in all, a great quarter for the company, look for shares to rise nicely in tomorrow's trading.
Michael Fowlkes has worked as a stock trader for seven years and spent the last four years working as an analyst for the online investment advisory service Investor's Observer.
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