Continue reading Nike Third Quarter Earnings Preview

Nike Third Quarter Earnings Preview originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 16 Mar 2010 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

German sporting goods manufacturer Adidas AG (FRA:ADS) posted a whopping 52% jump in revenue for FY 2006 to $13.23 billion (over 10 billion euros), the first time Adidas has broken the 10 billion euro threshhold. The increase was fueled mainly as a result of tremendous sports clothing sales for the 2006 World Cup played on its home country turf and by the acquisition of sport shoemaker Reebok. 4Q earnings topped $17 million versus $4 million in losses in 4Q 2005. 4Q sales were up 48% to just under $3 billion. FY 2006 earnings were $649.76 million.

Adidas has ambitious plans for Reebok, the official sponsor for the National Football League. Reebok has lost market share in recent quarters, posting weak sales and small profit margins.The order backlog at Adidas fell 4% in 2006, and a much larger 18% for Reebok, meaning that production has consistently outstripped demand. Adidas bought Reebok in order to compete more effectively against Nike and Puma in the American market.

Adidas executives continue to be optimistic, forecasting 2007 sales to increase modestly, gross margins to increase 45-47%, and net income growing at 15%.

Adidas running towards profitability originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 16 Mar 2007 16:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Yahoo Inc won big time when it bid to host and jointly operate the official site of 2006 FIFA World Cup. The official site far beat any other World Cup site such as ones offered by Microsoft (MSFT), AOL (Time Warner - TWX) or BBC, reporting at least three times as many visitors.

Up until the U.S. team's loss to Ghana and exit from the tournament, more than 1 million Americans visited Yahoo's World Cup site, while MSN and AOL averaged 300,000 and 100,00 daily visitors respectively. On the global front, 4 million visitors reached the site daily (data for June12-25), with the BBC and MSN both averaging 600,000 daily visits while AOL averaged 170,000 visits daily.

Yahoo also hosted the 2002 FIFA World Cup, but back then it charged $10 to watch video highlights. This year, video highlights lasting two minutes long were offered for free and 70 million consumers worldwide watched them. Another innovative addition was getting scores on cell phones, which was also a very popular service.

As revenues for Yahoo! come mostly in the form of ads, Yahoo also came up with a new advertising strategy, offering advertisers specific areas to sponsor, such as MasterCard sponsoring links for consumers to buy tickets. Yahoo also attracted more advertisers this tournament compared to the last one according to a Yahoo spokesman.

Yahoo! scores with the World Cup originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 10 Jul 2006 16:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Yahoo after the bell 6-21-06: Gets favorable outlook from a Deutsche Bank analyst originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 21 Jun 2006 17:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.