Andrew Page
Analyst · Evercore. Michael
Thanks, James. Q1 was a great start to the year with strong sales, margin expansion and EPS growth. The investments we've been making behind our biggest opportunities are paying off in terms of both sales growth and margin expansion. Today, we are experiencing exceptional trends across each of our 3 biggest growth engines, Arc'teryx, Salomon Softgoods and Wilson Tennis 360, which are all still relatively small franchises with significant room to expand. Turning to our Q1 results. Amer Sports grew sales 32% in Q1 on a reported basis or 26% ex currency. The strong group sales performance was led by outdoor performance and technical apparel. All in racquet also had impressive double-digit sales growth. By channel, the group continues to be driven by DTC, which grew 45% led by Salomon and Arc'teryx. At the group level, D2C represented approximately 50% of revenue in Q1. Wholesale grew 21%, led by Salomon. Growth was also very strong across all geographies. Regional growth was led by Asia Pacific, which increased 53% and China, which grew 45%, EMEA accelerated to 27% and the Americas grew 18% in Q1. As it relates to our EMEA region, I wanted to touch on the Middle East conflict which thus far has had relatively low impact on our business. The region represents less than 1% of our global sales and the impact on both consumer demand as well as our supply chain and logistics operation has been immaterial thus far. We recently renegotiated our annual shipping contracts, and this has also been incorporated in our latest guidance. That said, we continue to closely monitor this rapidly evolving situation, which could create some logistical and cost headwinds should the price of oil remained elevated longer term. Turning to profitability. Adjusted gross margin increased 200 basis points to 60% in Q1, primarily driven by favorable channel, geographic, product and brand mix. Adjusted SG&A expenses as a percentage of revenue increased 60 basis points and represented 43.2% of revenue in Q1. This is a better SG&A rate that was implied in our previous guidance as we were able to leverage the higher sales growth against fixed costs. SG&A leverage in both technical apparel and outdoor performance was offset by deleverage in Ball and Racquet due to ongoing investments in Wilson Tennis 360 and higher corporate expenses. Led by strong margin expansion, we generated a 160 basis point increase in our adjusted operating margin from 15.8% last year to 17.4% in Q1. Corporate expenses was $52 million, up from $27 million in Q1 of last year, mostly related to higher IT personnel and deferred compensation expenses. D&A was $103 million, which includes $50 million of ROU depreciation. Adjusted net finance cost in the quarter was $30 million, which comprised primarily of $25 million from interest expense with the remaining $5 million driven mostly by FX losses associated with the revaluation and settlement of monetary balances. In the quarter, our adjusted income tax expense was prior in the year. Adjusted diluted earnings per share was $0.38 compared to adjusted diluted earnings per share to $0.27 last year. Now turning to segment results. Technical apparel revenues increased 33% to $885 million, led by Arc'teryx. Growth was fueled by 41% D2C expansion, including a 19% Omni-comp. Technical apparel wholesale revenue revenues grew 16%. Regionally, the technical apparel growth rate was led by Asia Pacific and a course continue to be central to Arc'teryx growth aspirations, and we plan to open 30 to 35 net new Arc'teryx stores in 2026 across all markets. Our store opening plan in corporate is a similar level of gross new stores as in 2025 and partially offset by the continued closure of certain outlets and other suboptimal locations. We are planning 10 to 12 net new store owns in Greater China in 2026 with openings weighted towards H2 and Q4. After multiple years of optimizing the fleet, we are excited to resume new store extension in this large and important consumer market. In Q1, we had 5 openings in China, offset by 5 closures. Key new locations include the Grand Gateway 66 store in Shanghai, a great example of the benefit when we relocate from a third flow location to the ground level with much higher traffic and more premium locations amongst the luxury brands. In Q1, Arc'teryx growth accelerated in North America, and we delivered strong double-digit Omni-comp in the U.S. We are seeing significant progress in brand awareness in the U.S. with unaided brand awareness growing to 12% from 8% last fall, led by our top of funnel marketing strategies. We believe brand experience and community are still untapped areas for Arc'teryx to unlock higher conversion rates in the U.S. market, and we will be doubling down on these activities in 2026. One new store worth highlighting is our latest San Francisco area location in Burlingame, which opened in March. It has performed very well so far and will play an important role in continuing to develop Arc'teryx in warmer markets. I also want to highlight our Rockefeller city store, where we are encouraged by the building sales trajectory over the course of this past winter. Also, our Mountain strategy continues to resonate as our new stores in Aspen and Park City got off to great starts despite low snow in the Rockies this past weather. Technical adjusted operating margin expanded 250 basis points to 26.4%, driven by both gross margin expansion due to positive region and get as well as modest SG&A leverage on strong sales. Moving to our Outdoor Performance segment. which saw revenues increase 42% to $714 million driven by very strong performance in Salomon footwear, apparel and bags and socks. By channel, outdoor performance DTC grew 57%, led by new doors and higher productivity across markets, especially Greater China, APAC and the Americas. Outdoor performance achieved a 29% omni-comp with strength in both stores and e-commerce. E-commerce is continuing to grow across regions driven by higher traffic, especially in the Americas and APAC. Outdoor Performance Wholesale grew 34%, driven by strong sell-through and reorders and soft goods. Regionally, the outdoor performance growth rate accelerated across all geographies, led by Greater China and APAC followed by the Americas and EMEA. The popularity of solid and footwear continues to inflect globally, and we are doing everything we can to ensure we are well positioned to fully develop this large opportunity in the right way over time. Salomon is positioned for significant growth in all major consumer regions, where we are working hard to build the right team, operational, go-to-market and brand-building functions to support our growth. In Asia, D2C continues to be the critical growth channel for Salomon led by our highly productive Salomon shops. We opened 9 net new Salomon shops in Greater China this quarter, including both owned stores and partner stores, bringing our total count at quarter end to 302 doors. For the full year 2016, we now expect to open 45 net new stores in Greater China, a slight increase from the 35 we communicated last quarter as more high-quality locations have become available to us and our partners. Keep in mind, although our net new store openings are slower than nearly 100 new doors the last couple of years, we are focused on upgrading the fleet by opening larger format, highly productive doors and the highest traffic shopping set with more space to incorporate apparel and accessories. This is a very similar playbook to what we followed for Arc'teryx the last few years again in China. A great example of this is the new Salomon flagship we've recently opened in Beijing's highest footfall shopping center, Chaoyang Hopson One known for its premium trend-driven retail with over 8,000 square feet, the new flagship offers a full range of footwear and apparel and a highly elevated consumer experience. In APAC, another region where Salomon has experienced an explosive growth we opened that 5 new Salomon stores in Q1. These were all in Japan and Korea, both very large and sophisticated sneaker markets. Salomon's overall brand awareness and desirability continues to grow very rapidly across Asia. The Americas, as James mentioned, Salomon footwear is seeing a material growth acceleration. The brand is seeing great D2C demand in both stores and e-com, and we are also excited to share that we are beginning to expand U.S. wholesale in a more meaningful way. Not only are we improving sell-through and expanding shelf space within existing wholesale partners such as Nordstrom and RAI, we are also now starting to move Salomon footwear into key doors with new U.S. retailers like Foot Locker and JD Sports. There is growing demand for Salomon sneakers in the U.S., and we are strategically sequencing our U.S. wholesale rollout to align with our epicenter market strategy. Keep in mind, this expansion into new wholesale accounts will include a small number of doors initially. Accordingly, we are seeing very strong North America order books for fall/winter 2026 with growing demand across a variety of high-quality existing and new retail partners. And we have improved our inventory person to respond to this growing demand. In terms of own retail in North America, we are further strengthening our presence in New York City and just recently opened a Salomon brand store in the Upper West side of Manhattan and in Q3, we will open a Salomon store in the Flatiron District of New York. We also opened our first Salomon shop in Mexico City as the brand is also enjoying accelerating awareness and desirability across Latin America markets. We will continue to focus on our epicenter strategy in 2026 and beyond, particularly New York, Los Angeles, Miami and San Francisco. We currently plan to open 7 to 10 new Salomon shops in the Americas this year. In EMEA, we continue to expand our store fleet in key epicenters, and we will further develop our Europe epicenters into Spain, Germany and other key U.K. cities in 2026. In Q1, we opened our first brand store in Copenhagen, Denmark, which has delivered a very strong positive start. Lastly, our Winter Sports Equipment franchises had a solid Q1 despite challenging weather and market conditions. While the market for cross country and touring remains pressured versus the COVID highs, the core Alpine on-piece market remains healthy despite low snow in certain regions. Outdoor Performance adjusted operating profit margin expanded 480 basis points from last year to 20.4% in Q1. The margin expansion was led by gross margin, thanks to positive channel, region and product mix as well as SG&A leverage on strong growth. We are pleased to deliver strong margin expansion in Q1 after making the decision last quarter to accelerate investments to support Salomon's long-term growth, including marketing, retail expansion and talent acquisition. We believe these types of investments are critical to deliver the kind of results we saw in Q1 as well as position the brand for high-quality long-term growth. I would add that we believe this is one of the advantages of our portfolio. The strong sales growth and margin expansion at the group level gives us the flexibility to invest behind early-stage growth opportunities such as Salomon Sneakers and also Wilson Tennis 360 in a way they could not as stand-alone entities. Moving to Ball & Racquet, where revenues increased 13% to $347 million, driven by Softgoods and racquet sports. We continue to see very strong momentum in Tennis 360 globally. By category, the growth was led by Softgoods, up very strong double digits with continued momentum in all regions. Strong racquets growth was driven by China and EMEA. Beyond Tennis, we saw solid growth in golf, driven by commercial clubs and golf balls, while inflatables were slightly down. Baseball also declined, impacted by the timing of shipments in bats and gloves, partially offset by growth in baseball uniforms and apparel. Regionally, the Ball & Racquet growth rate was led by Greater China, APAC and EMEA. We opened 1 net new Wilson brand store in Q1 in Korea. We have extensive store opening plans for China this year, given the performance of existing Wilson Tennis 360 shops. For the full year, we now plan to open approximately 40 net new Wilson Tennis 360 shops in China between owned and partner doors. APAC also continues to drive meaningful Wilson Softgoods growth. We are seeing strong growth -- and inflatables in baseball last year. We also continued to expand our Tennis 360 offering into more DICK'S Sporting Goods locations, including House of Sports. We are planning to expand our DICK's footprint from 250 doors to 400 doors by the end of 2026. Ball & Racquet segment adjusted operating profit and margin decreased 370 basis points to 3.6% as positive product, channel and region mix was more than offset by higher SG&A as we made the decision to make... Turning to the group balance sheet. We ended the quarter with $539 million of net cash and exited the quarter with inventories up 33% year-over-year, slightly higher than that 32% sales growth. We are very comfortable with the level and quality of our inventory, this high inventory growth is primarily related to the same factors we've previously disclosed. Number one, earlier receipt of seasonal Arc'teryx merchants to prepare for the better in-stock positions. Two, higher Arc'teryx goods and transit resulting from the greater use of ocean freight versus air freight, three, FX translations from the weaker U.S. dollar and four, the addition of the Arc'teryx Korea inventory following the recent acquisition. We expect inventory growth rates to normalize in the second half of 2026 when we start to cycle our improved in-stock positions and the higher use of ocean freight driven by strong profit growth and disciplined working capital management, we generated $172 million of operating cash flow in the first quarter compared to $164 million last year. And for the full year of 2026, we expect to generate solid operating cash flow growth versus 2025 levels. Now moving to guidance. A couple of housekeeping items before I walk through the details. First on tariffs. Our new updated guidance today assumes that the higher IEEPA tariff rates that were in place before the February Supreme Court really remain in place for Q2 and the remainder of 2026. Regarding tariff refunds, we have filed our submission and last week received a small portion of our total submission amount, which does not have an impact on our guidance as presented. Second, as we mentioned last quarter, Beginning in Q1, we discontinued allocating certain corporate expenses to our reportable segments that are not directly attributable to the operating performance of the segments. There is no impact to the overall group adjusted operating profit margin. It is simply reallocating certain costs from -- to corporate. Included in our press release and the earnings deck, as an exhibit that details the cost reallocation from each segment to corporate for each quarter of 2025. Let's begin with our updated full year 2026 outlook. The second quarter is off to a strong start. And given the continued momentum from our highest-margin Arc'teryx franchise, accelerating Salomon's Softgoods growth plus the solid foundation of our equipment franchises, we have the confidence to raise our 2026 sales, margin and EPS guidance. We are raising 2026 revenue growth guidance from 16% to 18% to 20% to 22%, which includes a 200 to 250 basis point benefit from favorable FX impact at current exchange rates. By segment, we are raising our technical apparel 2026 revenue growth guidance from approximately 18% to 20% to 22% to 24%. We are also increasing our outdoor performance sales growth expectations from 18% to 20% to 22% to 24%. Our Ball & Racquet sales growth guidance goes from 7% to 9%, and to 10% to 12%. We are also raising our full year adjusted gross margin guidance from approximately 59% to a range of 59% to 59.5%, and we're also -- adjusted operating margin of approximately 22% for technical apparel. For outdoor performance, we are raising adjusted operating margins guidance from $14.5 million -- we are assuming full year net finance cost of approximately $70 million and an effective tax rate of 28%. Other operating income will be approximately $30 million for the full year, with approximately $20 million coming in Q2. Net income attributable to noncontrolling interest will be approximately $20 million for the full year. We now expect adjusted diluted EPS of $1.18 to $1.23 versus our prior guidance of $1.10 to $1.15, which is based on 586 million fully diluted shares. We are also assuming D&A of $400 million, including approximately $200 million of ROU depreciation. CapEx is still expected to be approximately $400 million primarily to support our retail expansion and IT infrastructure investments. Turning to second quarter guidance. We expect reported revenue growth for the group in the range of 22% to 24% which assumes a 200 to 250 basis point benefit from favorable FX impact at current exchange rates. We expect adjusted gross margin to be approximately 59.5% in Q2 of 2026 and an adjusted operating profit margin of 6% to 7%. Other operating income for the quarter would be approximately $20 million. Net finance costs will be approximately $15 million and our effective tax rate will be approximately 28%. We expect adjusted diluted EPS of $0.08 to $0.10 per share in Q2. Lastly, I would note that should strong trends continue and better-than-anticipated demand materialize, we believe we are well positioned to deliver financial performance ahead of our expectations. With that, I'll turn it back to the operator for questions.