Earnings Labs

Under Armour, Inc. (UA)

Q4 2023 Earnings Call· Tue, May 9, 2023

$6.18

-0.40%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, and thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Q4 '23 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]. I would now like to turn the call over to Lance Allega, SVP of Investor Relations, Corporate Development. Please go ahead.

Lance Allega

Analyst

Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to Under Armour's Fourth quarter and full year fiscal 2023 earnings conference call. Today's event is being recorded for replay. Joining us on today's call will be Under Armour Executive Chair and Brand Chief, Kevin Plank; President and CEO, Stephanie Linnartz; and CFO, Dave Bergman. Our remarks today include forward-looking statements that reflect Under Armour's management's current view and certain forecast elements of our business as of May 9, 2023. The statements made are subject to risks and other uncertainties detailed in documents regularly filed with the SEC, including our annual report on Form 10-K and our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. Today's discussion also includes the use of non-GAAP references. Under Armour believes these measures provide investors with a helpful perspective on underlying business trends. These measures are reconciled to the most comparable U.S. GAAP measures, a reconciliation of which, along with other pertinent information can be found in this morning's press release about underarmour.com. With that, I'll turn the call over to Kevin.

Kevin Plank

Analyst

Thank you, Lance, and good morning to everyone joining us on today's call. In Under Armour's 18th year as a public company, I'd like to thank our shareholders for their continued support and belief in the dream we collectively share. Your trust and confidence have empowered us to become one of the world's largest athletic brands, a responsibility that permeates everything we do. However, we also know that it's been at times an inconsistent journey, one we acknowledge has not created the shareholder value that we see this brand capable of. Over time, we've seen periods of significant growth and challenges that have tested our grid and resolve along the way. In response to these, we've built a tremendous foundation of talented people, operational and financial agility and most importantly, brand love. With new leadership in place, continued strategic evolution and a renewed mindset, I am both proud and confident in the steps we've taken that put us in a position to begin to reach the full potential we all believe is available for this brand. Next to me is Under Armour's new President and CEO, Stephanie Linnartz. With less than 3 months in the role, she has been hard at work assessing Under Armour's capabilities, leadership talent and focusing on the strategic priorities necessary to put us on a path towards reigniting growth. Her deep brand and consumer expertise and her fresh perspective on the business have laid the groundwork for challenging some of the ways that we work and reenergize the leadership team across UA as we lay out the growth strategy in our next chapter. As one of the most unique brands in sport Under Armour has a right to compete at the world's highest professional levels, a legitimate on-field, authentic, athletic presence with tremendous headroom for…

Stephanie Linnartz

Analyst

Thank you, Kevin, and good morning, everyone. I'll open my remarks today by underscoring that I am honored and thankful for the conviction that Kevin and the board have placed in me to lead Under Armour. In the past that led me here, respect for iconic and innovative brands love for sport and admiration for Under Armour's hard-earned and unique reputation have remained a constant backdrop. Reflecting on my first 70 days here, it's been exciting, intense and eye opening. There are quite a few topics I plan to touch on today, and I will be as transparent as possible about my observations and thoughts thus far. Having learned much in a short time, I will say that the potential for this brand is even bigger than I imagined when I walked through the door at the end of February. I am realistic about our challenges and I am confident that we have the right core components and are developing the right plans to reignite growth in the company and to create value for shareholders. That said, like any athlete, we must measure ourselves against our competition and potential. Operating in the athletic performance, sportswear and retail sector, which has a huge addressable market and consistent revenue CAGRs to tap into, we have yet to capitalize on our full potential. For athletes, customers and shareholders, we must realize this potential and stop at nothing until we deliver renewed growth. Growth is without a question, our highest priority. Throughout my career, I have prioritized people and believe that the only way to succeed is to have a great team around you. This is something that I noticed right away at Under Armour. The teammates working here are talented, hard-working and passionate about our purpose of empowering those who strive for more…

David Bergman

Analyst

Thanks, Stephanie, and welcome to your first earnings call at Under Armour. As a nearly 20-year veteran here, my love for this brand runs deep. Having worked closely with Stephanie in her first few months here, her desire to execute her sense of urgency and most importantly, our dedication to motivating, inspiring and energizing the team have been magnificent. With PTH 3 underway, I am confident the path we're laying to drive increased brand heat, elevate our product and drive growth in the U.S. will create a more advantageous position to unlock more consistent, sustainable growth for our shareholders over the long term. Diving right in, Fiscal '23 results were in line with our expectations, and we closed out the year with a solid fourth quarter with revenue up 8% to $1.4 billion. On a currency-neutral basis, revenue was up 10% in the quarter. From a regional and segment perspective, fourth quarter revenue in North America was up 3%, driven by growth in our full-price and off-price wholesale businesses. Our DTC business was flat during the quarter with solid e-commerce growth offset by softness in our retail stores. In our international business, EMEA revenue was up 14% and or up 20% on a currency-neutral basis, driven by strength in both our wholesale and DTC businesses. APAC revenue was up 24% in the quarter, or up 31% on a currency-neutral basis, driven primarily by significant growth in our wholesale business, benefiting from China's reopening and an easier comp against last year's meaningful COVID impacts. We also saw solid performance in our South Korean business. Revenue in Latin America was down 8% or down 13% on a currency-neutral basis, primarily due to a temporary fulfillment issue that impacted our wholesale business. From a channel perspective, fourth quarter wholesale revenue increased 10%, driven…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. And our first question comes from Jim Duffy from Stifel.

James Duffy

Analyst

Welcome, Stephanie. I want to start on brand and product in the U.S. Stephanie, you referenced inconsistencies in the U.S. market, how do you fix the inconsistencies in real wake and engagement? I'm curious is the wholesale distribution appropriate, and we appreciate you lot more product depth in the best categories. Do you need to abdicate some of the good product offering representation to elevate the brand and reawaken engagement?

Stephanie Linnartz

Analyst

Well, thank you, Jim, and I'm happy to be with all of you today. As it relates to the product inconsistency challenge or the inconsistency challenge overall. First of all, you're right, it's not something that can happen overnight, but we are already starting to move on this. One of the first things that we're doing is positioning some of our existing products in a more premium way. We do have some products in that better or best part of the pyramid. And we're repositioning those products right away through better storytelling and better merchandising primarily through our own stores and on our website. So that's really step 1 and what we can do in the near term. From a broader perspective, it really does get to building out the better and best part of the product pyramid what I am most excited about in terms of driving consistency and driving growth is what we're going to do with Sportstyle. As I mentioned in my prepared remarks, that triples the size of Under Armour's total addressable market to $300 billion. A big part of Sportstyle is going to be footwear and women, not exclusively, but those are big areas of growth for us, and there again, it's going to be a 2-step process. It's not going to be done overnight. Phase 1, we'll start with that repositioning of our existing products. I mean we have some great stuff to be more specific around unstoppable joggers or Fleece graphic tees, the summit, knit, sweat shirts to name just a couple of things. So we're going to -- we have some great stuff we're going to merchandise and market in a different way, as I mentioned. But Phase 2 is, again, where you're going to see new products that are consistently delivered, and it's also not just about the products, it's about the marketing and where we distribute them. So we've got a lot of new efforts underway about how we're going to market in a different way and particularly to new consumers. And then on the distribution front, it's -- we are going to continue to, of course, work with our existing wholesale partners. But I think we're going to open up new doors of distribution too in the mall, new department stores, et cetera. And of course, our own channels will always be a focus. But to just step back and summarize the answer to your question around consistency is it's really going to be a 2-step Phase 1, Phase 2 approach.

James Duffy

Analyst

Okay. Great. And then you have big ambitions for product newness and increasing the frequency of newness. I'm curious, are there KPI targets to benchmark Q2, or do you have any specific objectives for penetration of new products as a percent of the mix?

Stephanie Linnartz

Analyst

Yes. So we are great question. We are putting together KPIs and metrics around the percentage of products and that better and best bucket, their growth trajectory, we'll continue to do voice of the customer work to understand how consumers are relating to that better and best part of the pyramid and of course, talking to our customers. So we are putting together that scorecard of KPIs as we march forward. I've been here 2.5 months, so we're just getting started and pulling that together, but we're hard at work at it. So Kevin, anything to add from your lens?

Kevin Plank

Analyst

Yes. Thank you, Stephanie. And before I answer that, Jim, let me just say what -- how great it's been having Stephanie here. In 70 days, she has gotten completely at a level of depth of the company. That's pretty remarkable, to be honest with you, and bringing a world-class executive experience, and that's not something shared by me. I think if you polled our team, it would be universal across the brand. And so welcome, Stephanie. And so what you're hearing is -- what you see is what you get, very exciting for us. I think as one of the things we're Stephanie has asked me to lean in, in my role is on the product side of the business. And as you know, Jim, innovation has always mattered at Under Armour SlipSpeed is a great example about of something fresh and new coming out most recently, but we also have great innovations like our 7-pocket pants and our new Meridian line that we have out in full force. A steady cadence of new product is probably the right way to think about it. And one thing that I use the example of SlipSpeed, we launched it on October 31 of last year on Halloween with a soft launch. We then came back on Valentine's Day. I think making those holidays famous for the consumer to start expecting innovation and newness from Under Armour is one of the things you'll see. But that, of course, is echoed by a consistent cadence of product coming out that, as we say, like to blow consumers' minds. We've been around long enough to actually have legacy products as well. So in addition to new innovation coming from our teams, you're also going to see some of these reinventions of previous Under Armour…

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Simeon Siegel from BMO Capital Markets.

Simeon Siegel

Analyst

Welcome, Stephanie, look forward to meeting you in person soon. So your excitement for growth from here is really coming across, it's nice to year. Recognizing that Under Armour has always been about growth. Can you just elaborate a little bit more? And apologies if some of this gets repetitive, but it'd be interesting to hear what gives you comfort and the opportunity for growth now, maybe why it's different than the past? And then how you're thinking about the balance of growth versus the focus on improving profit dollars into '24 as you talk about the turnaround there and then into '25 as well and beyond.

Stephanie Linnartz

Analyst

Sure, of course. What gives me so much confidence about our opportunity to grow the company significantly is the strong base we have in performance. I mean, it's -- I've been really lucky in my first 2.5 months to meet with some of our athletes and coaches and athletic directors, people like Justin Jefferson and coach Freeman from Notre Dame. I knew it before I came here, but it's even more apparent to me that athletes absolutely love Under Armour. They believe in the performance of our products. So we're coming from that place of strength as we lean into things like Sportstyle, which again triples our total addressable market. So that gets me excited. I went through the key elements of our strategy, which are really all about product, marketing and distribution at the end of the day and doing that in different ways, better product, marketing in different ways, distribution, growing the doors we're in from a wholesale perspective, being a better partner to our existing wholesale accounts, improving our own retail stores, improving our website, but why -- the devil is always in the details when you're running a company. And to me, why I know we can pull this off is 3 things. And I mentioned this in my prepared remarks, but let me explain a little bit more, it's about focused execution and accountability. When I got here, there was a long, long list of projects and efforts that the company was trying to tackle. And a lot of what you've heard today, I recognize some of it isn't new. But what we've done is we've really narrowed down the list of projects and efforts for the next 3 years, so we can be laser-focused. Focus like leads to results. The second thing is about…

Simeon Siegel

Analyst

That's great. And maybe just following up on that and maybe for you or for Dave. Just thinking about the composition of the moving pieces embedded in the gross margin guide for the full year? Any way to help think through those puts and takes?

David Bergman

Analyst

Yes. I mean there's a couple of things that are going on there. Absolutely, we're excited about some of the tailwinds that we're seeing on the freight cost side, whether it be the ocean carrier rates that have normalized a lot, but also just a lot less utilization of air freight now that supply chain is more caught up and we're in a better spot there as well. But on the flip side, we're also being real relative to what's out in the market. There's some fairly heavy inventory levels out there, not just in North America, but a little bit in other parts of the world as well. And we want to make sure that we're planned to be able to move through that. And so that includes a little bit more sales to off-price channel, even though we're going to keep it within that 3% to 4% range of revenue. It also means that we will utilize our outlets more for even a higher percentage of excess product, which has a little bit of an impact on gross margin as well. So there's a couple of different things that are really going on there that kind of come into play. But what I'm more excited about, and Stephanie alluded to this a little bit, is stepping into fiscal '25. We do believe that the inventory situations out there are going to be much, much more normalized as we get into the back half of our fiscal year and certainly into fiscal '25. And we're doing a lot of different initiatives right now on our overall product costing structure, which we believe are going to have some real nice benefits in fiscal '25 and beyond as well.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Jay Sole from UBS.

Jay Sole

Analyst

A couple of questions. Is it possible to sort of to give us like a high-level vision of sort of what your financial objectives are? I mean how big do you think Under Armour can be in terms of sales? What kind of operating profit margin should it have in your vision? And then maybe, Dave, for you, just on China, can you just talk about how the China business progressed in the quarter, and what you're expecting for China growth and fiscal '24. And at the same time, on the inventory, you mentioned some pack and hold. Can you just tell us how much pack and hold you're holding when you plan to sell that inventory? And how much confidence you have that inventory is going to stay fresh until the time you sell it?

Stephanie Linnartz

Analyst

Sure. Well, I'll start, and then I'll flip it to Dave. But on your question about growth, I'm not ready to put a figure out there quite yet, but I am absolutely confident that we can grow this company significantly over the years ahead. Just a couple of statistics that I think about in that context, when our footwear business is only $1.5 billion today, that's great, but it's only 25%. So that's an area of exponential growth. I mentioned the women's business, relatively small. That's another area of exponential growth. So again, we have a lot of work to do over the coming weeks and months to flesh out the details of our plan in terms of our medium- to long-term growth targets, including our profit targets, which would incorporate our growth. The way we're thinking about gross margin. But again, not prepared to call the number today but absolutely prepared to call that we have significant growth ahead of us in the years ahead. But Dave, I'll flip it over to you for the questions on China, et cetera.

David Bergman

Analyst

Yes. So China, again, I don't -- we couldn't be more proud of how the team navigated through fiscal '23. I mean if you think about the impacts from COVID early on in and then the lockdowns and then fighting our way back out of that. So really strong Q4 quarter for China and for APAC as an overall region. So very proud of the team there. Q4 did get a little extra benefit there from comping bigger COVID challenges the year prior and a little bit of a rebound coming out of the lockdown. So we're not anticipating that level of growth for APAC in fiscal '24, but definitely a very healthy growth rate for us, and we believe that we're well positioned to keep driving. And that's an opportunity that's going to continue to be there for long term. I mean, we are still so small. So the opportunity to continue to expand doors expand even more relative to better and best product. There's just a lot of different options that we're going to continue to pursue out there. And relative to inventory, yes, we finished with a fairly high growth rate of inventory. But our inventory turns were still at about a 3 as we ended fiscal '23, which isn't a bad spot and inventory for us right now is very healthy. There's not a lot of aged inventory at all. And in the pack and hold comment, we're sitting on probably about $175 million worth of inventory that we specifically are packing away and holding that we know we have demand for in fiscal '24 as opposed to kind of blowing it out at really low prices in the back half of fiscal '23. So that's a decision that we made, and we're comfortable with it based on being able to utilize our outlet stores to a bigger capacity in fiscal '23. And so for us, we see inventory across the market being a little bit higher kind of in this Q1 and Q2 of our fiscal year, Q3 normalizing a little bit. And then by Q4, really in a good spot, and we're expecting actually to be down probably in the 13% to 14% range year-over-year inventory by the time we get to the end of our fiscal year. So that, again, should set us up very well to be able to run in a pretty clean way for fiscal '25.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Bob Drbul from Guggenheim.

Robert Drbul

Analyst

Stephanie, welcome. Best of luck. I just had a question for you, and then I have a follow-up for Kevin, a few still there. Besides the Chief Commercial Officer, can you just talk about any hiring priorities that you're focused on hiring targets, the needs in terms of the team that you really see besides the Chief Commercial Officer?

Stephanie Linnartz

Analyst

Sure. Absolutely. And good morning, Bob. Great to be with you. So the #1 job we're looking for right now or 1 of 2 is the chief commercial office job, consumer officer, pardon me. And where we've got a great slate of candidates lined up and hope to have that filled in the coming months. Another position that we are -- have out for search is a Chief Communications Officer. As I've mentioned, marketing and communications is going to be both together or going to be a critical part of how we tell our story to our athletes, our consumers and to you or other stakeholders. So those are 2 jobs that I'm currently looking for on my leadership team. And then I'm digging in deep to figure out the rest. Again, I've only been here 2.5 months. So I'm one of the reasons I'm so excited to have all of these direct reports to me in the interim, meaning I mentioned this in my prepared remarks, the head of brand marketing, sports marketing digital data and analytics is in this area, having an all report directly to me allows me to roll up my sleeves and get into the details and figure out what additional talents and capabilities we need, in particular in that area is just one example. And then the last point I'd make on talent because it's such an absolutely critical question that you've asked is we're also supplementing with bringing in outside talent to work with us on collaborations and things of that nature. So it's early days for me in terms of getting my arms around our needs in this space, but it is a very, very big area of focus for me, for sure.

Robert Drbul

Analyst

Great. And Kevin, just an question for you, if I could. The warriors are down 3:1, I think, and I just wonder if you feel like that can bring these guys back.

Kevin Plank

Analyst

Yes. We're actually making Stephen a new superpower T-shirt to wear underneath of this uniform right now as well as dropping some of that into a sneaker too. I mean, it's cool between -- we now have 2 and the Rose between Joel and Stephen, watching both of them play. It's extraordinary. And so I think we're all waiting for those heroics again, with the things you can't believe will happen, but it should be pretty exciting, so both the Waters and the fans, we're with you.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Brian Nagel from Oppenheimer.

Brian Nagel

Analyst

Stephanie, welcome. The first question I have is we're learning now to you about the new operating plan, the PTH 3. And obviously, we have your guidance. You talked about maybe in the response to the last question, some of the new hires you're looking for. But as we think about this and the repositioning, if you will, of the business, is there -- do you expect much investment there? Is there a need to continue to enhance sort of say, the core? Or is it more of a process type change more process type change in Under Armour?

Stephanie Linnartz

Analyst

Well, I think we need both over time, both investment and then anything is always about people, process and systems, right? And so there is a talent element to what we're going to be pulling off with PTH 3. There is a system and process piece of it, and that will require investment over time. As Dave mentioned in his prepared remarks, we're laser-focused on expense control and simplifying and optimizing our cost structure. And as we do that and particularly in the short term, what it's going to allow us to do is redeploy resources against our top priorities, which links back to my plan on focus. So keeping our costs very much in line with where they should be. But I do think a lot of the things that we're going to do over the years ahead will require investment. I mean I'll use a real-life example. We have a lot of work to do on our website and our app. I have a real vision for where we're going to take our website and our app. We've made some progress, improve things like site speed and product spec pages, more kind of the way the site works from a more tactical standpoint, but I have a much bigger vision of where we can take it. And it should be the -- one of the most premium ways we can bring our brand to the world. So things like investing in our digital assets will be a focus for us. So again, there's many more examples, but that's the one that comes to mind right away. But again, it is about -- it's about talent, it's about investment in systems and it's about process.

David Bergman

Analyst

And Brian, this is Dave. I would maybe just tack on a little bit there, just relative to cost structure and investments, I think we've proven that we've done a lot of work to be able to be more nimble from how we spend and where we invest and the leverage that we showed in fiscal '23. And you can see with the outlook for fiscal '24 that we're actually not showing really much leverage for fiscal '24. And that's primarily because of a few reasons. We do need to invest in a few of these areas, that Stephanie mentioned. And absolutely, we're going to be pressuring certain areas. And with that nimbleness, we're able to do so better than we have before. But we're also going to be pouring more into the areas that Stephanie mentioned or PTH 3 initiatives. So that's really one of the aspects that goes into the outlook that we've provided.

Brian Nagel

Analyst

That's very helpful. And then a follow-up, just with regard to inventories, so as we're hearing, again, a big component of this that the PTH 3 plant is a new product, better product. So is there really thought then with inventory still being elevated to more aggressively clearing out the product you have now in the near term before this new product is introduced?

David Bergman

Analyst

Yes, to a degree, Brian. I mean we started that in Q4. You saw us overdrive on revenue and at the detriment of gross margin because we took some of those opportunities in Q4. And as you think about our outlook for gross margin for fiscal '24, especially the first half, it has some of that expectation built in there as well. So -- but at the end of the day, I think as a reminder, even though our inventory growth rate seems fairly high, it's off of a very lean base. And therefore, when you look at the actual composition of our inventory right now, it is very healthy. There's not very much old or inactive SKUs. So our ability to be able to move through that fairly well and stay in that 3% to 4% mix range of off-price to normal sales, we feel very comfortable with that. So again, we will work through, and we'll get into an even better place than we are now. But we're very confident in the process and the tools we have laid out to be able to do that and then really be able to run into fiscal '25 with higher growth and also with kind of a smarter inventory build.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Laurent Vasilescu with BNB Barbas.

Laurent Vasilescu

Analyst · BNB Barbas.

Dave, I wanted to ask about your comments regarding first quarter revenues down low- to mid-singles, noting the challenged U.S. marketplace. Can you maybe parse out a little bit more how much North America should be down for the first quarter? And then I think you mentioned for the overall revenues, sequential improvement for each quarter as the year progresses. Should we assume -- I know it's early on, but should we assume 2Q is the inflection point or is it going to be more 2H-waived?

David Bergman

Analyst · BNB Barbas.

Yes. I guess a couple of things there. Yes, Q1 is going to be our most pressured revenue quarter. And when we think about that, that is going to be driven primarily by North America and primarily by wholesale within North America. And a lot of that has to do with a fairly cautious order book coming in from wholesale partners based on the levels of inventory that they were carrying towards the back half of our fiscal '23 and as we go into this year. So that's a big piece that's at play. We do see that or anticipate that, that is going to start to work its way out as we get further into our Q2 and then even more so by Q3. So we do see that Q1 is going to be the most challenged quarter for North America and as the biggest region, therefore, the most challenged quarter for global Under Armour. And then we do see Q2 being the turning point back to growth, and we're excited to be able to keep driving forward from there. I think also, you'll see that with some of the pressures with wholesale buildup of inventory, you're going to see our direct-to-consumer outperform a little bit versus wholesale as we go through this year as well, which is something that we're completely fine with. We control the brand very well there, great display of all the different products and breadth and a place that we can start to shine relative to more and more curation around Sportstyle as we move forward.

Laurent Vasilescu

Analyst · BNB Barbas.

That's very helpful, David. And then maybe as a follow-up, I think you called out for international to grow mid-single-digit rate for this year. APAC is about 40% of your international business. Obviously, China is reopening, can you just maybe unpack a little bit more why international is sequentially slow? And then just a quick follow-up as well. CapEx spend is meaningfully up for this year $250 million to $270 million. Is that driven by the new HQ? Or you also anticipating new store growth for this year?

David Bergman

Analyst · BNB Barbas.

Yes. I think when we think about APAC, again, excited about what the team was able to drive through in fiscal '23. Keep in mind, Q4 of fiscal '23 for APAC, had some over-index benefits from comping the China COVID bigger issues a year prior, but also kind of the rebound out of the lockdowns in Q4. So we wouldn't necessarily expect that level of growth to continue into fiscal '24, but definitely healthy growth, especially in China, but really in all parts, Southern APAC, South Korea, et cetera. For us, though, we do look at the overall picture there. And there are still some heavy levels of inventory there as well. There's a lot of brands that have been closing doors. There's a lot of brands that have been really pushing through a lot of excess inventory more so than we have. And so we've got to be a little bit careful with what that looks like and how that impacts Under Armour. So obviously, we hope that we can be able to overdrive that, but we think we're planning prudently in this outlook. But when you think about CapEx, you are right. There is a larger increase in CapEx in fiscal '24 planned. Some of that is store growth around the world on an operated store growth. Some of that is also investing in e-com as Stephanie had mentioned, whether it be in the loyalty program, whether it be in further site speed, et cetera. But then, yes, there is a portion of that, that is the build-out of our headquarters, our new headquarters here in Baltimore, which is just going to be a magnificent place to show the brand and feel the energy of Under Armour with the track and field and the new teammate headquarter building. So that is a piece of it. However, we still plan and will manage CapEx within that 3% to 5% range of revenue, even including the headquarter build-out. So I think we're doing a great job of prioritizing there. We're certainly not holding back on driving into the revenue-generating aspects even on the IT front as we're investing in end-to-end planning. We're investing in retail POS, PLM system, transportation management, so a lot of great things that will continue to enable us more so in fiscal '25 as they're actually live and really working to our benefit. So a lot of exciting things that we're jumping into there.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Matthew Boss from JPMorgan. And this is our last question. Again, this is our last question from Matthew Boss.

Matthew Boss

Analyst

So Stephanie, you cited fiscal '24 as a year of building the brand. And then fiscal '25 is the opportunity to return to growth in North America. So maybe 2 questions. How do you view overall health of the brand today? And then as you've sized up the opportunities, what provides confidence in sustainable North American growth from here, or what is the material change in structure that you're really putting in place?

Stephanie Linnartz

Analyst

So I'll start with the first part, what is the health of the brand today. I think as we noted in our prepared remarks and Kevin in some of his answers, we are very, very strong in the performance space, very strong there. And we have a very solid base business in the good part of the product pyramid where we're not as strong and where the brand needs to get healthier is in the better and best part of the product pyramid. And we also need to consistently execute across marketing and distribution. And I use the word in consistency, the way -- some of the challenges that Under Armour has faced very purposely because there are places where we really have done some great things. Heat gear, cold gear, compression would be an example. And more recently, Kevin talked about SlipSpeed. And when we execute well across the 4 Ps, product, price, place and promotion like we did with SlipSpeed, we win. So I'd say the health of the brand is strong from a performance perspective, but needs to get healthier and grow in the better and best part of the product pyramid. And then the second part of your question was about my confidence that we can grow in fiscal year '25. And again, I have tremendous confidence that we can grow in fiscal year end '25 because we have all the basics, all the core basics and building blocks for growth in place. We have this strong base in terms of performance. I'd much rather be a performance brand leaning into Sportstyle than the other way around, right, to be a Sportstyle or dare I say, athleisure brand trying to get into performance. It's 2.5 decades of hard work to get that credibility on the performance side. So I have tremendous confidence. Again, I'd go back to the relatively low numbers we have in footwear and women's as 2 examples of where we can really see exponential growth. And then a lot of it is putting the additional building blocks in place as it relates to talent, Dave just articulated some of the investments we're making on the systems side. I'm very bullish on our future in 2024 fiscal year 2024 is going to be the year where we get the building blocks in place even further.

Operator

Operator

And I am showing no further questions.

David Bergman

Analyst

Great. Thank you, everyone.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.