Under Armour has once again reported strong earnings results, as the company has managed to buck a trend in reporting a big increase in sales of its athletic apparel.
The company reported that sales of its clothing rose to $112 million in the second quarter, up from $96 million during the same quarter a year ago. That’s a 16.5 percent increase.
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Those sales helped offset an $8 million (18.4 percent) decline in footwear sales.
Total revenue rose 5.1 percent in the first quarter. The company has seen a 16 percent rise in revenue in the first six months of the year compared to the first half of 2008.
What’s most interesting about this last earnings report is that footwear sales declined after a big increase in the first quarter, led by the introduction of running shoes in January. But Under Armour had predicted a year-over-year decline in overall footwear sales because the company introduced its training shoe in May of last year. In other words, Under Armour expected the new running shoe to steal sales from the training shoe.
“Last quarter we discussed that we had planned our training footwear business to be down in 2009, as we planned conservatively given the introduction of running footwear in January,” Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank said in a conference call. “Our results of training in year two, even with the addition of the running assortment tell us that the category of performance training is important to our consumer. They get it, and they want products specifically built for it.”
Under Armour said it continued to be satisfied with the reception of the running shoe.
“We are here to stay,” Plank said.
