Amer Sports, Inc. (AS) Q2 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to the Amer Sports Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] I will now hand the conference over to Omar Saad, Head of Investor Relations and Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Welcome, everyone. Thanks for joining Amer Sports Earnings call for the second quarter of fiscal year 2026. Earlier this morning, we announced our financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2026, and the release can be found on our IR website, investors.amersports.com. A quick reminder to everyone that today's call will contain certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These forward-looking statements reflect our current expectations and beliefs only. They are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Please see the safe harbor statement in our earnings release and SEC filings. We will also discuss certain non-IFRS financial measures. Please refer to our earnings release for important information regarding such non-IFRS financial measures, including reconciliations to the most comparable IFRS financial measures. We'll begin with prepared remarks from our CEO, James Zheng; and CFO, Andrew Page, followed by a Q&A session until 9:00 a.m. Eastern. James will cover key operational and brand highlights, then Andrew will provide a financial review at both the group and segment level and also walk through our updated guidance. Arc'teryx CEO, Stuart Haselden; and Salomon's CEO, Guillaume Meyzenq, will join for the Q&A session. With that, I'll turn the call over to James.

Thanks, Omar. Our global momentum continued in the second quarter with over 30% revenue growth and the strong operating margin expansion. All segments, geographies and channels achieved strong double-digit growth, led by another exceptional quarter from Salomon Softgoods, a strong Arc'teryx omni-comp and our Wilson Tennis 360 acceleration. We manage a portfolio of sports and outdoor brands that's very unique in the marketplace. And all three of our primary growth engines, Arc'teryx, Salomon Softgoods, and Wilson Tennis 360 are still relatively small with significant room to grow. First, I will recap key highlights from our three segments. Starting with Technical Apparel. Arc'teryx delivered another great quarter with broad-based strength across regions, channels and categories, including another exceptional performance in [ women's ]. Strong DTC momentum also continued, driven by a 17% Technical Apparel omni-comp. We believe Arc'teryx is a truly global brand with significant runway in all major markets and are encouraged by the strong double-digit growth across all four regions in Q2. The brand also resonates strongly across categories and consumer segments. I want to highlight our momentum in [ women's ], which grew faster than any other category for Arc’teryx. Our confidence in the size and the scale of our [ women's ] opportunity is very large. Brand awareness and affinity with women is rising significantly as we improve fit, style and function and also build expanded assortments, redesigning our core ABCG models for HER, plus expanding feminine color Palettes is driving higher female traffic and conversion. In Q2, newness and seasonal colorways generate over 60% of women's sales. Standout new franchises include the [ Sinsola ] and [ Olia ] lightweight hiking styles and also the Sonii utility vest and jacket. Our remarkable success in women's bottoms with franchises like the Clarkia, Leutia and Nia pants is helping us unlock the female consumer from head to toe, driving higher overall spend. Turning to footwear, which had another great quarter, including strong double-digit growth across regions, led by both existing and new styles. Popular existing styles included Norvan LD 4 trail shoe, which continues to be our biggest volume driver, followed by the Konseal trekking shoes. In March, we launched the latest version of our technical trail run racing shoe, the Sylan 2, performing very well so far. And we are excited to have eight Arc’teryx trail run athletes competing in the UTMB race in Chamonix next week. Looking forward, we are confident that Arc’teryx has an exciting pipeline of shoe releases for the upcoming years. Turning to our Veilance sub-brand, which had a solid growth in Q2 on a small base. We continue to focus on investing in [ newness ], further developing our collections and expanding distributions, all of which is creating engagement and awareness in the marketplace. Turning to Circularity and ReBIRD, which continue to be at the heart of Arc’teryx. In Q2, we added five new ReBIRD centers, bringing us to 47 total. Later this month, we will unveil an important new innovation, which combines our passion for Circularity with uncompromised technical performance. On-Mountain, our renowned Chamonix Alpine Academy was again a great success in July, with over 15,000 visitors in the village over the weekend and more than 1,000 attendees in clinics. Our Mountain Academies are the world's premium mountain education events and the space for mountain enthusiasts of all levels to advance their skills and knowledge through clinics on the mountain. We are especially proud that women now account for half of the academy participants. Turning to Peak performance, which delivered solid growth in Q2. The brand continues to reduce its Nordic dependency and is rationalizing its footprint in the region, while seeing healthy growth in other parts of EMEA. For both Peak Performance and our winter sports equipment brands, we are excited that Freeride Ski will become an Olympic sports at the 2030 games. Peak Performance sponsored the Freeride World Tour and our ski equipment brands sponsored many of the professional freeride skiers. Now turning to the Outdoor Performance segment, which was led by another outstanding quarter from Salomon Softgoods. The investments we are making to grow Salomon brand awareness and distribution footprint are paying off, driving strong footwear momentum across regions, channels and for both sports style and performance products. I'd like to highlight a few factors that give us confidence that Salomon is well positioned to achieve its long-term potential. Number one, global sportstyle momentum continues. Sportstyle is critical to developing Salomon position as the modern outdoor sneaker brand. The XT-6 and XT-Whisper franchises are resonating with a younger and more diverse audience from technical sports in the mountains to culture and community in the cities. We were excited to announce that Jisoo, the global superstar singer and actress will be Salomon's new global ambassador. The news had amazing global coverage, reaching nearly 1 billion consumers across social platforms. Second, our performance lines are also working well. We continue to believe our new GRVL franchise is helping to unlock the run category for Salomon like never before. Salomon is gaining traction in the run specialty channels in North America and EMEA. In July, we launched the Aero Glide 4 with a reengineering upper using new mesh technology. We also recently launched the second generation of Genesis, a highly technical trail shoe. Salomon athletes were winning races in Q2, including Courtney Dauwalter earning her fourth Hardrock 100 title, validating Salomon's technical merit on the hardest trails. Third, Salomon continued to have excellent brand heat in Greater China and Asia, where we believe we operate the most productive and profitable sneaker shops in the industry. Greater China continued to deliver very strong double-digit growth in Q2, driven by strength across sportstyle, performance and apparel. Our local for local apparel and accessories lines in China with technical products inspired by outdoor and trail running has also been gaining traction in the past few quarters. Beyond China, Salomon is also experiencing surging demand in Korea and Japan, very important markets given their influence on global sneaker culture. Fourth, our epicenter strategy is working. Focusing on key global metro market is allowing us to build up Salomon’s reach and presence in the right way. Our Tier 1 global epicenter, Paris, London, Shanghai, Beijing, Tokyo, New York and Los Angeles are all driving very strong sales momentum as well as rising brand awareness. We approach these markets by opening a handful of impactful brand stores in the most relevant locations alongside handpicked elevated wholesale doors. In these markets, we also invest in event partnerships, community activations and local media to build a strong and lasting connection with our consumers. We plan to adopt and expand this approach to several new major cities in the future, including Berlin, Seoul, Miami, San Francisco, Chicago and Boston. Fifth is the strong demand we are experiencing in our home market, Europe, driving strong reorders, preorders and sell-through. Sportstyle continues to be the biggest growth driver, but GRVL is also inflecting in Europe, supported by marketing campaigns, in-store events and running event activations. Also, we are seeing high e-com growth in Europe even as we expand our premium DTC and wholesale footprint. In markets, we have been very active, hosting a gravel-focused running event called Gravelanza, sponsoring music festivals and artist collaborations. And most recently, we began a unique partnership with the National Opera House of Paris to outfit their dancers. Lastly, I will mention the U.S., which is the largest single sneaker market in the world, but still a small business for us. We know there's a strong demand for Salomon here, but still very limited distribution for consumers to find us. Today, we are seeing a clear acceleration in North America as we leverage the rising brand awareness to expand distribution with both new and existing wholesale partners as well as our own stores and e-comm. In Q2, we opened our first North America flagship stores on Fifth Avenue in the Flatiron District of New York City, offering both footwear and apparel. And we continue to carefully expand our footprint and shelf space in existing wholesale partners, including Nordstrom, JD Sports and Foot Locker. Lastly, before I switch to Ball & Racquet, although Q2 is a very small quarter for our winter sports equipment franchises, Salomon, Atomic and Armada, we are pleased that our brands continuing taking share despite challenging conditions in certain markets. Moving to Ball & Racquet highlights. Ball & Racquet sales grew 24% in Q2, driven by continued strength in Tennis 360, both softgoods and racquets as well as improved growth in baseball, golf and inflatables. Our Tennis 360 strategy continues to resonate very well with consumers from unique lines of tennis apparel and footwear to high-performance Racquets. Wilson had a couple of very big Racquet launches this spring, including the Q1 rollout of our iconic Blade franchise, Version 10. This has been one of the strongest launches in our history and also the racquets for world #1 Aryna Sabalenka. We also recently launched a completely new Racquet line called Defy. This is our first-ever Power Spin Racquet, which has been a growing segment of the Racquet market. Early results from the Defy are even exceeding the Blade v10 launch I just mentioned. We continue to invest in new tour players, recently signing former World top 5 player, Holger Rune and the 17-year-old rising star, Moïse Kouamé, both playing the Defy Racquet. Markéta Vondroušová, one of our highest profile head-to-toe athletes has been creating great buzz for the brand with her unique Wilson Tennis outfits, reaching the semifinals at both Roland-Garros and Wimbledon. Wilson Softgoods continue its exceptional trajectory with very strong growth across all four major regions. Also, baseball, golf and inflatables saw improved growth in the quarter. Before turning it over to Andrew, I'd like to conclude by saying that given the broad-based momentum across our portfolio, the healthy and growing premium sports and outdoor markets and the world-class teams we have in place around the world, I'm very confident in the future outlook for Amer Sports. Andrew?

Thanks, James. We had a great financial performance in Q2 across the P&L with strong sales growth, margin expansion and EPS growth. The investments we're making are paying off, driving strong momentum across each of our three biggest opportunities: Arc’teryx, Salomon Softgoods, and Wilson Tennis 360. In Q2, Amer Sports grew sales 32% on a reported basis or 30% ex currency. Our three growth engines all eclipsed 20% growth with Technical Apparel and Outdoor Performance growing more than 30%. By channel, the group continues to be driven by DTC, which grew 40%, led by all three big brands. At the group level, DTC represented approximately 55% of revenue in Q2, marking a record high. Wholesale grew 24%, led by Arc’teryx and Salomon. Growth was also very strong across all geographies, led by Asia Pacific, which increased 60% and China, which grew 36%. The Americas accelerated to plus 26% and EMEA grew 20%. Turning to profitability. Adjusted gross margin increased 710 basis points to 65.8% in Q2, primarily driven by a onetime net tariff refund benefit of $64.3 million or 390 basis points. Excluding this net tariff refund benefit, we generated more than 300 basis points of underlying gross margin expansion, driven by favorable pricing, product, channel and geographic mix as well as favorable transportation and duties costs. The benefit from lower tariff rates versus our plan during Q2 was relatively immaterial. Adjusted SG&A expenses as a percentage of revenues increased 20 basis points and represented 54.9% of revenues in Q2. SG&A leverage in both Technical Apparel and outdoor performance was offset by deleverage at Ball & Racquet due to investments in Wilson Tennis 360 as well as higher Amer corporate expenses. Led by strong gross margin expansion, we generated a 730 basis point increase in our adjusted operating margin from 5.5% last year to 12.8% in Q2. Excluding the above-mentioned net tariff refund benefit, adjusted operating margin expanded 340 basis points. Corporate expenses were $68 million, up from $45 million in Q2 of last year, mostly related to higher IT, personnel and deferred compensation expense. Depreciation and amortization was $113 million, which includes $55 million of ROU depreciation. Adjusted net finance cost in the quarter was $21 million, above the $15 million guidance, primarily due to higher cost of hedging and currency losses. In the quarter, our adjusted income tax expense was $50 million, which equates to an adjusted effective tax rate of 27% -- adjusted net income in Q2 was $127 million compared to $36 million in the prior year period. Adjusted diluted earnings per share was $0.22 compared to adjusted diluted earnings per share of $0.06 last year. Net tariff refunds benefited Q2 EPS by approximately $0.08 per share. Now turning to segment results. Technical Apparel revenues increased 32% to $674 million, led by Arc’teryx. Growth was fueled by 34% DTC expansion, including a 17% omni-comp. Technical Apparel wholesale revenues grew 27%. In Q2, we opened net 8 new Arc’teryx stores globally, and we continue to plan 30 to 35 net new Arc’teryx stores for the full year of 2026 across all markets. Regionally, the Technical Apparel growth rate was led by Asia Pacific, followed by accelerating growth in EMEA and Americas, followed by Greater China. All regions continue to grow strong double digits. Not only is the brand seeing a nice acceleration in North America and EMEA, the largest outdoor markets in the world, Greater China continued to deliver strong growth and maintain exceptional profitability in Q2. We finished Q2 with approximately 140 Arc’teryx stores in Greater China between owned and franchised and believe this could be 200 long term. We are planning 10 to 12 net new store openings in Greater China for the full year of 2026 with openings weighted toward second half and Q4. We had one net China opening in Q2, the Chengdu flagship store, which spans over 7,000 square feet and 2 levels, featuring a distinctive cliff house design. Arc’teryx growth continued to accelerate in North America in Q2, and we delivered strong double-digit omni-comps in the U.S. We are seeing significant progress in U.S. brand awareness, rising by approximately 50% versus last fall, led by top-of-funnel marketing. We also will focus on further leveraging brand experience and community to unlock higher conversions in the U.S. Q2 store openings in North America include Oakridge Park in Vancouver and Southdale in Minnesota, both very elevated presentations of the brand. We now have 75 stores in North America, which we believe could be 200 doors over time. In the U.S., we are expanding into a new partnership with DICK'S Sporting Goods, where we will be entering 15 hand-selected premium House of Sports locations for fall/winter 2026. Arc’teryx will be showcased in elevated and experiential shop-in-shop formats with a particular emphasis on the core outerwear offerings and including footwear. This is still in the test and learn stage but has the potential to expand further over time. EMEA remains Arc’teryx's most underpenetrated market, and we are continuing to open great locations, including Oslo and Copenhagen in Q2, both off to exceptional starts. We now have 19 stores across EMEA, and we believe the market could support 75 plus over the long term. Technical Apparel adjusted operating margin expanded 470 basis points to 18.8%, including a 170 basis point benefit from net tariff refunds. Margin expansion was driven by both gross margin expansion and SG&A leverage on strong sales. Moving to our Outdoor Performance segment, which saw revenues increase 37% to $569 million, driven by continued very strong performance in Salomon footwear and apparel. By channel, Outdoor Performance DTC grew 52%, led by new doors and higher productivity across markets, especially Greater China, APAC and the Americas. Outdoor Performance achieved a 28% omni-comp with strength in both stores and e-commerce. E-com is continuing to grow across regions, driven by sportstyle momentum and higher traffic, especially in the Americas and APAC. Wholesale grew 25%, driven by strong sell-through and reorders for Sports style as well as door count expansion. Regionally, the Outdoor Performance growth rate was led by APAC, Greater China and accelerating growth in the Americas, followed by EMEA. The popularity of Salomon 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 and across markets. In Asia, DTC continues to be the critical growth channel for Salomon led by our highly productive Salomon shops. We opened 13 net new Salomon shops in Greater China this quarter, including both owned stores and partner stores, bringing our total count at quarter end to 315 doors with the potential for 400 to 500 doors over time. For the full year of 2026, we continue to expect to open 45 net new stores in Greater China. We are focused on both expanding and upgrading the fleet with larger format, more productive doors in the highest traffic shopping centers and space to incorporate footwear and apparel. For example, we recently upgraded the best-performing Salomon store in China, Shenyang MixC. The new shop performed very well in its first month, demonstrating that even high productivity doors can benefit from an upgrade. In APAC, another region where Salomon is experiencing explosive growth, we opened net 7 new stores in Q2 across Japan, Korea and Australia. Salomon's overall brand awareness and desirability continues to grow very rapidly in Asia for both Sportstyle and performance. In the Americas, as James mentioned, Salomon footwear is continuing to see a material growth acceleration. The brand is seeing great DTC demand in stores and e-com in both Sportstyle and performance. We are pleased to see traffic is up very strongly in e-com, which tracks our expanding geographic presence, distribution and awareness across key cities. As we shared in our last call and aligning with our epicenter strategy, Salomon has begun to expand into a small number of key wholesale doors with important U.S. sneaker retailers such as Nordstrom, Foot Locker and JD Sports. It is still in the early stages, but these channels are performing very well in terms of preorders, sell-through and reorders. We will continue to selectively expand with these retailers over the next couple of years. We are also expanding our own retail footprint in North America, including our first flagship store on Fifth Avenue in the Flatiron District of New York City. The store is the first one in North America to carry a wide range of both footwear and apparel and is off to a very strong start. And the new Salomon store in the Upper West Side of New York City also continues to perform very well. Looking ahead, as we expand our Los Angeles Epicenter, we are planning a Beverly Hills location for October. We will continue to focus on our epicenter strategy in 2026 and beyond, particularly New York, Los Angeles, Miami and San Francisco. We continue to plan to open 7 to 10 new Salomon shops in the Americas this year. In EMEA, key epicenters, Paris and London are seeing strong growth. We are also further developing other European markets, including a Barcelona shop that opened in July. Lastly, while Q2 is by far the smallest quarter of the year for our winter sports equipment franchises, we are encouraged by the positive order book trends and continued market share gain despite challenging weather and market conditions. The demand for ski vacations in the mountains remains high and consistent, and the core Alpine on-piste market is healthy despite inconsistent snow conditions as most top ski resorts now have excellent snowmaking capabilities. Outdoor Performance adjusted operating profit margin expanded 800 basis points from last year to 14.6% in Q2, including a 270 basis point positive impact from net tariff refunds. This improvement was largely driven by gross margin expansion due to mix shift benefits and SG&A leverage on strong sales. Moving to Ball & Racquet, where revenue increased 24% to $390 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. Racquets growth was also strong across the board, driven by China, APAC and EMEA. Performance Racquets grew more than 50%, driven by the very strong Blade V10 launch. We are also seeing Padel gaining momentum, and it has become one of the top 5 revenue drivers in Q2. Beyond tennis, we saw a return to growth in baseball after slower sell-in last quarter. Golf and inflatables also saw solid growth in the quarter. All regions generated double-digit growth for Ball & Racquet led by Greater China, APAC and EMEA, followed by the Americas. We opened 12 net new Wilson brand stores in Q2 with the majority split between Greater China and APAC. We have extensive store opening plans for China given the performance of existing Wilson Tennis 360 shops there. For the full year, we continue to plan to open approximately 40 net new Wilson Tennis 360 shops in China between owned and partner doors. APAC continues to drive meaningful Wilson growth driven by softgoods in Korea and Racquets in Japan. In North America, we saw strong growth across channels as baseball and inflatables rebounded. We have also continued to expand our Tennis 360 offering into more DICK'S Sporting Goods locations, including House of Sports and are now in 450 DICK'S stores with our full head-to-toe to hand offering. Looking ahead to the rest of the year. Please keep in mind that Ball & Racquet's tremendous 24% growth in Q2 benefited from some big product launches and related sell-in, and we do not expect this level of growth on an ongoing basis.Ball & Racquet segment adjusted operating profit margin increased 1,300 basis points to 17.2%, including a 970 basis point benefit from net tariff refunds. The underlying margin expansion was driven by favorable pricing, product, channel and region mix. This was slightly offset by higher SG&A and our intentional decision to invest behind Wilson Softgoods, including Tennis Tour Pros. Turning to the group balance sheet. We ended the quarter with $573 million of net cash and exited the quarter with inventories up 19% year-over-year, well below our 32% sales growth. We are very comfortable with the level and the quality of our inventory and happy to see the inventory levels normalize versus revenues earlier than planned. Driven by strong profit growth and disciplined working capital management, we generated $339 million of operating cash flow in the first half of 2026 compared to $108 million last year. And for the full year of 2026, we continue to expect to generate solid operating cash flow growth versus 2025 levels. Now moving to guidance. We had another great financial performance in the second quarter across the P&L with strong sales growth, margin expansion and EPS growth. The investments we have been making in our brands are paying off in the form of exceptional trends across each of our 3 biggest opportunities: Arc’teryx, Salomon Softgoods, and Wilson Tennis 360. We will continue to reinvest behind these early-stage growth engines to ensure high-quality, long-duration growth and strong brand equity over the long term. Our guidance assumes that the most recently announced Section 301 tariff rates remain in place for the remainder of 2026. We have already received the majority of our total tariff refund submission amount and any remaining impacts will be negligible. Let's begin with the updated full year 2026 outlook. We are raising 2026 revenue growth guidance from 20% to 22% to approximately 24%, which includes a 200 to 250 basis point currency benefit at current exchange rates. By segment, we are raising our Technical Apparel 2026 revenue growth guidance from approximately 22% to 24% to 25% to 26%. We are also increasing our outdoor performance sales growth expectations from 22% to 24% to 27% to 28%. Our Ball & Racquet sales growth guidance goes from 10% to 12% to approximately 14%. Turning to margins. We are fortunate to have the revenue and gross margin momentum that allows us to reinvest behind our 3 growth engines to ensure high-quality growth and strong brand equity over the long term, while also expanding our operating margins over time. For 2026, we are raising our full year adjusted gross margin guidance from 59% to 59.5% to 60.5% to 61%, which includes the 80 basis point benefit from the Q2 net tariff refund. And we are raising our adjusted operating margin guidance from 13.4% to 13.7% to 14.2% to 14.5%. By segment, we are raising Technical Apparel adjusted operating margin guidance from approximately 22% to approximately 22.5%, which includes approximately 30 basis points of net tariff refund benefit from Q2. For Outdoor Performance, we are raising adjusted operating profit margin guidance from 15% to 15.5% to 16% to 16.5%, which includes approximately 50 basis points of tariff refund benefit. And for Ball & Racquet, we are raising the adjusted operating margin from 4.7% to 5% to 6.7% to 7.2%, which includes approximately 250 basis point benefit from tariff refunds. We are assuming 2026 net finance costs of approximately $85 million, which is up from the previous $70 million guidance, mainly attributable to an increase in the cost of hedging, FX losses as well as an increase in lease expense. We continue to assume an effective tax rate of 28%. Other operating income should be approximately $43 million for the full year. Corporate expense is now expected to be $240 million versus $220 million previously, primarily due to higher IT investment spend and deferred compensation expense. Net income attributable to noncontrolling interest is expected to be approximately $30 million for the full year. We now expect adjusted diluted EPS of $1.27 to $1.30 versus our prior guidance of $1.18 to $1.23, which is based on approximately 585 million fully diluted shares. Other full year modeling items to consider. We're also assuming depreciation and amortization of approximately $450 million, including approximately $220 million of ROU depreciation. CapEx is still expected to be approximately $400 million, primarily to support our retail expansion and IT infrastructure investments. Now turning to the third quarter guidance. We expect reported revenue growth for the group in the range of 18% to 20%, which assumes an approximate 50 basis point tailwind from favorable FX impact at current exchange rates. We expect adjusted gross margin to be approximately 59% in Q3 2026 and an adjusted operating profit margin of 13.5% to 14%. Keep in mind that last year's Q3 gross margin benefited by approximately 50 basis points from onetime inventory reserve adjustments. Net finance costs will be $15 million to $20 million, and our effective tax rate will be approximately 28%. We expect adjusted diluted EPS of $0.31 to $0.33 in Q3. Lastly, should 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.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Matthew Boss from JPMorgan.

Congrats on a really nice quarter. So James, 32% revenue growth, sequential acceleration at all 3 brands in the second quarter. Can you elaborate on the strong top line momentum that you cited has continued into the third quarter? And Andrew, can you walk through top line and margin back half assumptions? Or why not more top and bottom line upside given the revenue strength and margin flow-through rate that you saw in the front half of the year?

Thank you for your questions. Okay. So we got exceptional results in Q2. We feel very good about the foundation we built up, especially for the major 3 brands. They are on right track to grow the market cross-border in the world. So for Q3, I think the momentum is still there, and we already given the guidance. So we will grow our revenue top line from 18% to 20%, okay, based on the much higher base of our business, okay? So Q3 is one of the largest quarters in cross-border this year. So I think based on our current projections, whole year, we will foresee 24% growth cross-border for the company. So overall, I think the momentum still carry on and the management team got a very good confidence to continue to still our business on a healthy track.

Matt, thanks. This is Andrew. And as you think about the flow-through and the momentum coming out of Q2, we feel very good about our guidance going forward, as James said. I mean, we continue to always strive to provide ambitious and yet responsible guidance. And as you think about the flow-through, I mean, just really think about the fact that we're going to deliver at the midpoint of our guidance, we're going to deliver well over 100 basis points of margin expansion. And we've done that consistently since the IPO. We've delivered over 150 -- on average, 150 basis points a year. We have visibility to be in that ballpark as we go through this. And in the back half, there are going to be some continued investment into the growth in our business, especially as you look at the big opportunities we have in Salomon, Arc’teryx, and Tennis 360. We're going to have a little bit more increase, as I talked about in my prepared remarks, increase in our net finance costs as we look at some of the hedging and FX exposure that we have. And we did note the increase in our corporate expenses related to IT investments that we're making. But at the end of the day, we are still focused on delivering very strong bottom line expansion. We're excited about where we're going, and we have the opportunity to continue to invest in our growth opportunities and responsibly provide guidance for the back half of the year.

Your next question comes from the line of Laurent Vasilescu from BNP Paribas.

I wanted to ask first on Salomon with the recent rollout of Foot Locker and then also, I think JD Sports a few quarters back. But curious to know how many doors are you currently at in these 2 key retailers? And where do you think the opportunity lies going forward in terms of number of doors? And then I have a follow-up on Ball & Racquet.

Thanks for your question, Laurent. We're going to go to Guillaume, who's off-site and dialed in for the Salomon question.

Good morning, everybody. First of all, we have this very diligent strategy developing the B2B doors in U.S. One thing I want to highlight before we speak about how we develop is we are very much driven by consumer demand, and we are also driven by our epicenter strategy so that we are looking at the consumer not door by door and kind of numeric distribution, but where we sit and how much we are able to drive demand across the market. So today, we have -- our longest partner is Nordstrom, where we see a very -- Nordstrom, then we have JD Sports and then we just started Foot Locker in July, as you maybe you have seen in our communication that we have been doing. So we have -- we are very pleased about the results. We have very strong demand is it on preorder, sell-through and reorder. And now we are really planning to have these developments. This is very much handpicked location. So we are looking for epicenter. So starting from New York City, of course, but L.A., Chicago, San Francisco, Miami and others. And once again, we start from small. So you know that this type of partner, they have a very large fleet of doors. And today, we just speak about a couple of -- the ambition a couple of hundred on the best location where we're going to have the best sell-through. But this is where we are driving today the demand and the success. And in parallel, this partner, they have also a very strong e-com platform, which is also helping because this platform drive quite a lot of traffic also in North America. So -- so we -- it's more quality over quantity today, and this is the way we would like to plan in order to really secure the brand positioning, the brand equity and also continue to support the consumer demand behind Salomon.

Wonderful. And then, Andrew, under your leadership and now Carrie’s leadership, Ball & Racquet has really taken off with this 24% growth. I know you mentioned that it should not grow at this rate over the next few quarters. But near term, I know you're not in the habit to give us color by segment or by quarter, but it does imply if we assume like low double digits for 3Q that it materially flows to mid-single digits for 4Q, if we take the guide for the full year. Is that the right way to think about it near term? And then last year at the Investor Day, you called out that it should be growing mid-single digits top line overall over the next few years. Is that still the right way to think about it?

Yes. So this is Andrew. Thanks for the question. Very, very strong, as you've talked about, very strong second quarter for Ball & Racquet. It was led by a couple of things. Our go-to-market strategy for our wholesale accounts in North America, we've really amped that up. So our key national accounts, providing them a more fulsome offering, we really amped that up. Wilson Tennis 360, both softgoods and Racquets really had a strong second quarter, led by our 2 Racquet launches of Defy and Blade V10. And our softgoods door expansion in DICK'S going from 250 to 450 doors -- so if you think about all of those things that I just talked about, the 2 successful launches, the increased door count with DICK'S, the revision of our go-to-market strategy and focus on our offerings to our key wholesale accounts, those were accelerators in the quarter, and they drove that outsized performance. We also had solid performances in our baseball and our golf irons and our inflatables business. So we feel great about Ball & Racquet's record quarter. We would not expect such high growth rates to sustain given the new launches. So there were new launches and new sell-ins and revision of our go-to-market. So our updated guidance reflects the appropriate growth rate that we believe is appropriate for the second half.

And longer term, it should it grow mid-single digits as a segment?

Update the algorithms on the 2Q call, Laurent. But yes, it is a fair point that the softgoods business has become a lot larger and that business is growing faster.

Your next question comes from the line of Brooke Roach from Goldman Sachs.

I was hoping you could elaborate on the growth investments in the business that you're making in the back half of the year. Is there any texture you can provide regarding the categorization of spend? Is this a step-up in marketing spend as a percent of sales relative to your prior forecast? Or are these more durable and permanent investments such as headcount? And how should we be thinking about the revenue and sales growth opportunity on the back of this?

Brooke, this is Andrew. Let me kick off a little bit, amplifying some of the points I made earlier. Philosophically, because of the significant value creation potential for each of our 3 growth engines, we're going to invest behind the brands and the capabilities so we can deliver healthy, sustainable growth while also ensuring strong brand equity over the long term. As I noted, we've delivered a very large amount of margin expansion over a short period of time. And if you think about our -- the midpoint of our 2026 guidance, we've averaged 150 basis points of annual EBIT margin over the 3 years since the IPO from 9.8% in 2023 to 14.2% to 14.5% this year. This is well above our 30 to 70 basis points plus bps on an annual margin expansion in our algorithm. So we believe we have 3 of the most unique brands in all of consumer discretionary, and we're sitting in one of the healthiest and fastest-growing segments. So making it well worth our investment on our sales and gross margin upside to ensure that we capitalize on these opportunities in the right way and still be able to deliver bottom line margin over time. So this means, again, attracting high-quality talent, supporting our brands with best-in-class marketing, building premium owned stores and developing our IT digital platforms. So as we think about that, I'll hand it over to James because I think it's important for you guys to really understand what are we investing in for our key big growth drivers.

Yes. I will add more color relating to the brand investment areas. So for Arc’teryx, -- so we will continue to invest on our overall global brand awareness, okay? So through very strong global brand campaigns. And we will continue to leverage our store opening process and make sure we have a good level of penetration in the markets we'd like to move in. And obviously, we will put a good level of investment on our products, especially on women's, footwear and apparel, where we really think it's a key growth engine for coming years. So for Arc’teryx, obviously, so these are the major areas. For Salomon, I mean, as Guillaume mentioned, epicenter strategy is still, I mean, underway, cross-border in the world, especially in Europe and North America. I think this is the areas we really like to put the resource behind that. through the strong product and brand campaigns to leverage our overall brand awareness and equities. And also, I mean, we will continue to accelerate our own retail penetration in China, Asia Pacific as well as in North America. So I think these are the areas we really like to focus on Salomon. For Wilson, obviously, Wilson Tennis 360 is the most important growth engine for Wilson for coming years, okay? So we will continue to invest on our assets and also the overall store development in -- both in Asia Pacific, China and also North America. So these are kind of areas we really like to put a good level of investment behind that to secure long-term sustainable growth for cross-border for these 3 brands.

Your next question comes from the line of Ike Boruchow from Wells Fargo.

I'll add my congrats. Two questions. One, and I don't know if it's for Andrew or James, but just commenting on the constant currency growth you saw in Europe or seeing in Europe, could you give us an update? There's been several brands, both footwear and apparel that have kind of called out some recent slowdowns in the past couple of months. It doesn't seem like you're seeing anything notable, but wanted you to comment on that. And then this one, I think, is for Andrew. It's just simple math, but you have your algo of 30 to 70 basis points on margin by our math, you're getting 80 bps of the refund in the guide this year. Should we assume, just to keep the models clean that next year, year-over-year margin should net out that 80 basis points, which kind of gets you more flat to down margin as a starting point to your plan to adjust for the refund? Just kind of want to make sure the models kind of stay clean in the outlook.

Okay. Thanks, Ike. We're going to start with Guillaume actually, who is going to talk about the market in Europe, the market trends in Europe, what we're seeing in the landscape. And then obviously, Andrew will answer your margin question.

So I think the European market is not a fast-growing market today. But there is still some segments where we can really play a big role, and we see that we get some traction. One is running. So I think that there is still upside and excitement for the consumer in running and especially when we are coming with very unique stories. So trail running is one for Salomon. What we are currently building with GRVL running is also another one. So it looks like micro niche. But finally, you are able to attract traffic and interest from the consumer and leading conversion. The second one is this outdoor sneaker market or modern outdoor sneaker market where Salomon was definitely building this space in the market. So it was -- it's a new space. It looks like now obvious because we are driving big sales and as you can mention for this quarter result. And this segment still is a place -- a good place to be, a good place to shape for Salomon, driving excitement, bringing the modern mountain sport in the city and attracting new consumer. So in a nutshell, I think that it's -- the market is a challenging market overall, but still with some room to grow. And I think Salomon is very well positioning with very unique competitive edge in Europe.

This is Andrew. Thanks for the question as well. So I'm not ready to provide -- to give margin guidance for next year. But I will acknowledge to your point and included in my prepared remarks that we did -- the net tariff refund will be an 80 bps increment to our margin in the current year. Recall, though, if you think about the 2-year stack, our -- we essentially handled the tariff challenge last year primarily through vendor sharing, which was netted out against this, and we essentially absorbed most of the hit of the tariff impact. So if you look at '25 and '26 together, we have -- we believe that our margin reflects a good 2-year picture for us. But I do acknowledge 80 bps margin expansion this year, and that's why I called it out to -- when you look at where we guided at the beginning of the year and the onetime impact of the 80 bps.

Your next question comes from the line of Adrienne Yih from Barclays.

Congratulations across the board on all the brands. James, there are 2 very different strategies between the 2 biggest brands. Wholesale drives brand awareness faster than DTC, but Arc’teryx is following a DTC strategy, maybe more brand premiumization and control and then Salomon is driven by the wholesale. How do you think ultimately kind of this pans out for the longer term in terms of channel mix and penetration? And then for both Stuart and Guillaume, my follow-up is Arc’teryx has been strong in China, Salomon is strong in Europe. What elements of those successes in current regions accelerate the road map for penetration into the U.S. market?

Thanks, Adrienne. We're actually going to have Stuart and Andrew sorry, Stuart and Guillaume answer your first question for Arc’teryx and Salomon and how they approach DTC versus wholesale and how that might shake out long term. And then we'll have James and Stuart and Guillaume answer your second question as well.

Okay. Thanks, Omar. And Adrienne, thanks for your question. I'll try to be crisp here. So wholesale remains important for Arc’teryx. It helps ensure that our brand is showing up in the right points of sale and with the right comparisons with other great brands that helps elevate our own brand position. The DTC has been critical and a massive catalyst for our growth around the world and has really unlocked the trajectory we've seen over the last 5 years. So both parts are important and play different roles for how we're driving growth and brand awareness. Specific to the U.S. market, Canada is our home market, where we see highest brand awareness, and it's enabled us to have a natural launching point into the U.S. U.S. is the largest global market and in many ways, the most competitive. Our strategy is focused on what we call epicenters, focusing on major urban areas like New York, L.A., San Francisco, Chicago to where the pools of demand are greatest to drive brand awareness. And that's where we focus our store openings that have been very successful over the last several years. We complement this with what we call our Mountain Town strategy, which is focused on the place of practice, where we see opportunities to stoke the brand identity in places like Aspen and Park City. So it's the combination of those factors that build the brand while also developing the economic opportunity, and it really leverages an omnichannel approach where we're driving the brand position through our DTC channels, but also driving brand awareness importantly with selected premium wholesale partners. So I'll pause there and hand it over to Guillaume.

So thanks, Stuart. I think that, first of all, globally, Salomon is still -- is developing very fast in DTC. So I think that the perception of having Salomon relying only on B2B is a little bit kind of old position we have and previous strategy we had. I think we were turning really into omnichannel, so at the global level. This is true that if we want to develop in U.S. because of the scale of the market, we have to have this true omnichannel strategy. So first step is moving to epicenter, opening some store, making sure that our e-com platform is also a very -- one of the best experience you could have for Salomon. So best experience in our store, best experience on e-com. And of course, we want to rely and we will develop on B2B. So it's an omnichannel for the simple reason that traffic buying footwear is very much about traffic and B2B partner are the one running the traffic and doing a very good job at distributing footwear in the market. So this is why we are looking at this B2B. But when we develop B2B and maybe for the one living in New York, you have been noticing that in July is we have a very close partnership with our partner. We want to have very strong and outstanding visual merchandising, so where you can notice the brand. We are also building activation to make sure that they are really activating their local community at every store in order to make sure that we position Salomon at the best level even on B2B. So this is really the mindset for U.S. is building retail on epicenter, leveraging with e-com and having this partnership on B2B because this is why you can leverage a larger traffic, but keeping a very strong consistent approach towards the consumer and focusing on demand, which is, of course, our priority #1.

Your next question comes from the line of...

Still, I'd like to add a bit color on Arc'teryx China. So Adrienne, you asked for Arc'teryx China. So actually now Arc'teryx is already the largest premium outdoor brand in China market. So naturally, its growth pattern will normalize versus the hyper growth levels during the past 5 years. But Arc'teryx China, I think will continue to deliver solid double-digit growth annually, especially given we only have 140 stores today and versus 200 potential for coming years. So the management team also got a very good level of confidence. We are running exceptional work for Arc'teryx in China markets, and we will continue to drive our business and gain market share in China markets. Okay.

Our final question comes from the line of Jonathan Komp from Baird.

If I could follow up on Salomon. I want to ask further the new store opening in July in Flatiron, really telling the full story, footwear and apparel performance and sportstyle. Does that really represent where you see the brand heading as you continue to diversify toward a broader lifestyle -- performance lifestyle brand positioning?

Yes, this is for me. So Salomon has been -- is rooted by performance. And there is one simple thing, this idea of modern mountain sport driven by innovation, elevating the sport experience in the mountain and beyond because, of course, now we conquer also the city, but still having this idea of modern mountain sport. This is where Salomon is coming from. And this is first for footwear because this is where we have the biggest traction, but we have the ambition to move forward in apparel. Today, apparel is pretty small, but we have -- we start to see some traction, and we are preparing the future pipeline of innovation as well in order to offer the full silhouette. So this is the position. When we are coming and we are elevating that into culture, this is where Sportstyle resonate to the consumer. And this is why you see this momentum coming in the city with sportstyle. I think that Flatiron is a very good example of what Salomon wants to develop is it's not either or, it's performance and still driven by innovation and culture. So this piece of performance product moving to culture into sportstyle. And this is footwear because this is where we express today the best of our innovation, premiumness, quality of product. But of course, we are also working hard in order to develop that in apparel. So I think that your level of readiness into the store is the right one. But keep in mind that we are coming -- we are rooted by performance and innovation, and this is not either or, but it's and it's performance and culture together.

That's very encouraging. And then, Andrew, if I could just finish Technical Apparel margin in the back half, segment operating margin implied down year-over-year. Is that reflective of incremental investment or some other factors or conservatism? Just any more color there.

We're going to actually have Stuart who is also dialing in remote, talk about the margin for our Technical Apparel.

Jonathan, it's Stuart. So yes, we're pretty confident in the overall P&L outlook for the full year, we're going to see healthy expansion in gross margin. We're going to see balanced SG&A leverage, and we're going to see operating profit margins expand for the full year. So it's -- the overall business momentum is healthy. As you heard from Andrew earlier on the call, characterize how we provide guidance as being responsible. -- yet, there's nothing structural that would prevent us from delivering higher levels of top line as well as bottom line results should demand materialize. I think we've had a good track record of delivering on that approach to the business in prior quarters since coming public. So yes, we're going to have what we would call a responsible posture for guidance. But there's, as I mentioned, nothing structural that would prevent us from delivering higher levels of sales and profitability, and we're quite bullish on the outlook for the balance of the year and beyond. So hopefully, that gives you some color or context on how we approach guidance.

At this time, there are no further questions. I will now turn the call back to management for closing remarks.

Thanks, everyone, for joining. And a quick reminder, the Salomon Amer Sports Investor Day, September 17. I look forward to seeing you there or online for the webcast. Have a great day.

This concludes today's call. Thank you all for attending. You may now disconnect.