Adidas Ag Ord

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the ADIDAS AGQ2-2026 conference call and live webcast. I am Moira, the chorus call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in listen-only mode and the conference has been recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and 1 on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and 0. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Sebastian Steffen, head of investor relations. Please go ahead.

Thanks very much, Maura. And hello, everyone. Good evening, good afternoon, and good morning, wherever you're joining us today. Welcome to our Q2 2026 results conference call. Our presenters today are our CEO, Bjorn Gulden, and our CFO, Harm Ohlmeyer. Before Bjorn and Harm will take you through the key developments of the second quarter and share their expectations, let me just quickly remind you that you limit your initial questions to two during the Q&A session to allow as many people as possible to ask their questions. and now without any further ado, over to you Bjorn.

Thanks Seb and hello everybody. Yeah, you have seen our announcement. We have seen the reaction. I'm sure we will have a lot of interesting questions. But before we go into the update of the business, you have also seen the other announcement that says that Harm that decided not to extend his contract when it goes out in March 28th have now announced that he will leave and that we have found you know a successor together in Birgit and I think before I go into that in detail I think I hand over to you Harm so you can say a couple of words.

Yeah thank you Bjorn and yeah of course it's one of our jobs as leaders to find a good successor and I'm very very pleased that we have found Birgit and I'm even more pleased that I'm in the It will be a smooth transition because I know her very well. And then secondly, we're handing over a very, very healthy business to her. So I'm really, really pleased with that transition. Of course, I'm also very privileged to talk about 29 years with the brand and 10 years of serving as a CFO. That has been a privilege. I always joke that my kids who are 27, 25 don't know anything else but Adidas. that has to change at some stage but again I'm very very pleased with the support that I got from the board from many of you over the last you know 10 years and of course I will be around you know for another quarter or a bit longer until the end so stay tuned for that one and of course the timing is always something you decide like any athlete does as well and as Bjorn said when you're not going to extend your contract you start thinking about what is the right timing and I believe handing over a well-run company now, of course, we can always get better, but it feels very, very good and having the right successor feels even better. So I'm really looking forward to the next couple of months and then I'm very respectful for the time afterwards, but I'm also looking forward to that. So stay tuned.

Thanks, Harman. I think also from my side, I'm sure we will talk about this later, but when I came on board, one of the requirements for me was that you would stay. So I had a guy I knew and I could trust so we could start the process of bringing the company back again. So for now, also thank you, and I'm sure we will talk more about that later. and in that process of finding success we had then the luck to be honest to find Birgit who spent 25 years with the company earlier then left to learn retail being the CFO of C&A and when she then had the chance to become available we took the chance that that is then the timing of this will join us September 1st and then stay in the board. Harm will be the CFO until the end of the year, and they will then work together to make a smooth transition. So very, very happy. I think she knows the company. She knows the industry. And again, now having worked for a vertical retailer, she also brings with her the retail competence that is great to have. So to close that and move into the business update, it should be a surprise for you that we would like to celebrate also in your eyes a little bit the World Cup. Again, a great event, and here's a little bit reminder of our visibility in that tournament.

Hey, listen to me.

What do I know about soccer? Nothing. I know about football, Benito football. The greatest show on turf, the biggest ever seen on Planet Earth. Why so much excitement? If it's just football... Just football?

The day of planet stops for a game.

Mamin Yamal! Oh, what a save!

Yamal to pursue. Oh, it's a beautiful first touch. Pedro Porro, Williams, and funded into Spain! Spain are the champions! Spain have seized their second star! The kings of Europe have conquered the world!

I hope you agree it was a great tournament and especially for us and me probably like you feel I'm a soccer expert and I summarized the tournament as follows France had the best players Spain had the best team Argentina the best attitude playing for the flag the country and for Messi but then the most fun team was of course the Norwegians I think it was a great pleasure to to see my countrymen not only performing but also being extremely visible. And I can tell you it shows you how much impact the World Cup tournament has at home. I don't think Norwegians have been in such a good mood as long as I've been on this planet. So it's good to add some heat. Again, Spain winning the tournament. Again, having been with us, we have a fantastic relationship to the Federation. I think you agree they look good. One of the ways of showing how close we are is this picture. The day after the tournament when they celebrated, their bus was branded only with us and the team and many, many of the players, of course, also playing in our shoes. and our sports marketing has a great relationship with the federation that currently is by far the most successful one in soccer in general by male, female and also in the youth. I am also, as I wrote in my quote, extremely proud what the team has done in general when it gets to campaigns, planning, you know, the product, planning the activations. I think I said I believe even Adidas would have been proud. and I probably think it's the best executed campaign that has ever happened in this industry when you look across the globe. I will also quickly just summarize the tournament because there was a lot of criticism before. Too many teams, three nations, too many cities. And when you look at it, I think the additions of the teams only made it more interesting. It was kind of cool to see Curacao or Cape Verde playing. The stadiums were full, the atmosphere was great. And for us, having 14 teams that I think we equipped well to reaching the final, you know that we sold close to 18 million jerseys, which again is far, far more than we have ever sold before. And of course, Mexico being the best, our friends in Argentina the second. and even Germany who didn't have a great result had commercially a much bigger success than we've seen before. I have seen in the commentary that I think there is some misunderstandings on how a World Cup sales is being done. You have to remember that we started selling in World Cup product delivering into the trade already in Q4 last year that had both sell in and sell out in Q1 and Q2 and to be honest with you we're still selling World Cup product as you can imagine especially now in Spain because the jersey now has two stars so the period for these 1.5 to 1.7 billion is of course not only in the summer month and I think in some of your spreadsheets I think this has been a misunderstanding when you then look at the campaigns again yes we spent 212 more marketing in the quarter I think we told you that also up front and of course that doesn't have a payback in commerciality in the same period. We meant or were sure that for the brand heat going forward and also during the tournament, we had to invest in media and we choose to do a lot of activations around the world to showcase the brand. If you also look at our campaign, the Backyard Legends, it was to bring back the beauty of soccer the way we used to play it at home and not so serious. and everything that we can measure the engagement around this campaign was great. And the creatives are very proud that it's now even being nominated for an Emmy. So let's see if we have a chance. The way we looked on the pitch, I hope you agree, designs both home and away great. Mexico even did a third jersey. We looked fresh. Remember, we did double branding. We had, you know, the performance logo and wider stripes on the home. And then we had the trefoil and the narrower stripes on the way. We did also, for the first time in history, equip the referees with a lot of variations. First of all, they all had three stripes. Never happened before. and we gave them different colors depending on how the two teams were playing. We did also change the Triumder Ball for the semi-finals and the final into the gold version and the referee then had black with gold logos. I think it's the first time we started to get orders for referee jerseys around the world that people would like to buy. Also, the event itself, and not only the game, but the opening, what should I say, halftime and opening shows, the ball captains that you see in the right corner. We used our celebrities, our partners, and made it an event much, much bigger than only the two teams playing at each other. And I can assure you that everybody that was involved felt very, very, very happy being part of it. Then the culture around it. We had activations, as I said, all over the world. You see on the upper right corner, on the left side, the home of soccer in New York, which had more than a quarter million visitors. And we had basically activations in all markets where we then both made it an event, watched games, had concerts. and again, put color to the tournament branded, of course, with our Adidas product. And then stores, and I think this is also important. Of course, we then put more space to this kind of product in our stores, also in cities in countries that were not qualified. And the reason for this was not only to increase sales, which happened in many places, but of course, to celebrate the event. and here is important that when you put World Cup products in you have to take something out. That's why you cannot just add it on top because of course it's cannibalizing some other products that would have been there. When the tournament is over and World Cup is out then of course something else gets in. So you can never take an event and just add it to the spreadsheet because that's not how retail works. The activations which had many different goals here you see from Mexico where we had a huge event day before the opening again to activate the moment. Same thing we talked about New York where we had celebrities, concerts, games, youth tournaments, the stores here for example in Paris. We had even in China who wasn't qualified a huge activation Celebrating our campaign and the tournament. We even had Pedri flying from Spain to China right after the tournament to continue the soccer culture heat that is building also in China. And the story goes on. Here's from Sydney. Here's from Japan. And when you put it all together, the branding of the Adidas campaign is visible everywhere. everything that we had control over we were very happy except for one thing and this is this picture you did probably notice that certainly all the brands had pink boots which of course none of us was happy with cannot explain to you how it happened probably retail should have told us they didn't and we ended up in the first games looking the same we then of I hope next time we are better at not having the same colors. Not only soccer, in general, I think the visibility of a brand across many, many sports, being golf, being Formula One, being tennis, being rugby, whatever, and running, has never been stronger. And again, we are investing in more partnerships to strengthen the visibility in sports, because as you know, we reduced that some years ago, and I'm starting to be very, very happy on how we look in the different stadiums and arenas and also the content that is then being produced in media. So all that then cost a sale of 6.7 billion euro which is the highest nominal value we have ever done in a quarter and that is a 14% currency neutral growth. The gross margin above 52 of course also led by the high share of D2C which we will get back to but also controlling the markdown and having a big share of full price sales. And that gave us then the famous 574 EBIT despite us having invested $1 million more in marketing and as we have said now many times, this overinvestment in marketing would of course not continue in Q3 and Q4. If you add Q2 into Q1, you get the $13.3 billion, which is also nominal, the highest that we ever had, which then also for the full half year gives you 40% growth, a margin a little bit lower in Q1, so that's at 51.8. Remember, the share of D2C was then lower, and that gives you then a half year result of 1.279, which is an EBIT percentage of 9.6%. which is then also despite the 200 million more marketing still almost a 10% EBIT. If you look at the geographies you see Q2 on the left side and first half on the right side. So North America again we know we have a lot of catch up to do but strong numbers with 17 and 15. Europe at only 6. I have to remind you again that the growth in Europe the last three years have been very strong. Let's get back to what the numbers were in DTC. Greater China, in a market where big competitors are having negative numbers, very strong at 15 and 16. The combination of South Korea and Japan, 18 and 21. Latam on fire, especially in Mexico, but also, of course, in Argentina and Brazil, 28 and 27. And then emerging markets, despite 10 of the markets practically being in war, Up 12 and 11, and again, you summarize it, and you're then at the 14% both for the quarter and for the first half. When you then look into the channel, the wholesale, and remember wholesale is where we sell into the trade, not out, but into the trade at only six. This has been the pattern for a long time, and when we started the selling period, For Q1 and Q2, it was actually flat. And then an unbelievable growth in the D2C business with 23% in our brick and mortar and even 27% in e-com. And remember, this is sell-out to the consumer and then tells you the demand for the product with the consumers. That gives you then a split of 57-43. Again, this is not a strategic move. but it's actually what the consumer is choosing. I'll give you now the D2C numbers per region just so you understand how strong the demand was. You see in North America the D2C in the quarter was even 39, in Europe 12, so twice what the sale in demand was. Greater China at 22, Latam at 37, Emerging at 24, and the combination of South Korea and Japan at 25. I'm telling you this because it is a great situation to be in that your sell-out is stronger than sell-in. I had never seen numbers like this before, and again, that's probably why we are celebrating a little bit more than you do because we clearly see that product and marketing and how we activate it is actually working for both her and him. If you then look at the execution, Same thing, both our e-com and our physical stores, of course with global concepts, but then localized depending on what is relevant. That's why you see front of stores and also the different pages in e-com then being targeting to the demand in the market. If you then look at divisions, yes, food we're growing at only one. Apparel growing at 35 and accessory growing at 20. I don't know if you remember, but we did flag this six, nine months ago that we would see stagnation in footwear, especially on the lifestyle side because of the amount of product in the market, but that we would see the amount for apparel growing dramatically, not only because of World Cup, but of course also because of World Cup. I think you agree that when people are buying product to go to the stadium, they buy replicas and tops and not necessarily shoes. And the accessory business is following the heat of the brand. You will continue, in my opinion, when I look at the order book, to see footwear being flattish in third quarter, but then you will start to see it growing again in the fourth quarter. So again, you cannot plan this in details because you don't know what is happening in the D2C business, but the pattern has been known for a long, long time. That means that in the mix, in the quarter, footwear is 52, apparel at 40, and accessories at 8. You will see this start to change again to be more footwear-led at the back end of the year. And then, again, we are a sports brand first. That's what Adidas gave us. We are investing in performance. I told you three, four years ago that we will try to create heat around the brand, sell lifestyle product, and then get the consumer into our performance product because they like the brand. And we thought already then that we will have technologies and product, what should I say, pipelines that would start to work as we were getting closer to 25 and 26.

And that's also what happened.

Thank you very much. So the absolute number is actually very small. If you then look at the different categories from the consumer point of view, I think it's fair to say that we are winning in running. We are winning competitions on the road, on the track. We are sponsoring big events. And our running shoes in general are having great sell-throughs which was not the case three years ago. The category training, again, everything that is hybrid training is growing fast. Yes, we are not the partner of the events. We sponsor a lot of athletes and are seeing a great demand both in IROX and in CrossFit and you see some of the winners on this picture. In general, the visibility in sports Winning events and therefore getting the image of being a performance brand again is strengthening. You see some of the sports here and I will note, you know, Soltans is a nickname of the Turkish women's volleyball team who won the Nations League, which is a new asset for us. And again, probably the most known team for women's sports in Turkey. Again, a great thing for us. The recipe in performance, we have told you, you launch technologies to win events and be visible with designs, and then you scale it into the commercial. RE0, Evo 3, Evo SL, and here you see both the Evo SL from a running point of view and then stretched even into SL zipper that, yes, is the Evo SL construction with a zipper and with different stripes that is execution going across many many versions about this and a huge success both in the running side and in the lifestyle side in soccer the same here you see F50 Hyperfast Evo which is the shoe that the professional player is playing at and then the takedown in the new color where we take the same look and feel almost the same last even down to the price point of 60 euros so hero to high low in all categories Also in training, here you see maybe the most innovative training shoe for hybrid training, meaning Hirox, and then the Takedown, which is then a huge commercial shoe with bookings over a million pair already same price. If you then look at in general, we have talked to you about printed technologies. So now we have a printed basketball shoes, which is being played in college and also will be played in NBA. Some of the players are now having it in the summer season camp. The second shoe is the printed soccer boot that one of the MLS players, Kev Sullivan, played already last week, a fully printed shoe. So the technology of printed shoes is now also hitting the top athletes, which is new. First signature shoe on women since a long, long time. You see it here from Sophie Cunningham. Same thing again, dedicated to her, selling very well already in retail. And then because of the investment in volleyball, the Crazy Flight 7, same thing. Innovation also in apparel. You see in the cooling vest and the cooling jacket that we had in Formula One was now transferred into the World Cup so the teams were wearing the same equipment. We even had cooling boots for the players so they could actually wear while they were sitting before the games or during the game if you were on the bench. We had Sverev in our 3D Climacool winning the French Open. and of course we have now many versions of the hyperboost heating the market which in my opinion is the best form that you can have in comfort running. I think we told you before that the 23rd and 24th of September we will have an innovation day which you will be invited where our innovation people will then take you through the pipeline of innovation both conceptually and also finished product So that you can ease the belief that we have lack of innovation because we don't. So then we know that the performance side over time drive the lifestyle side. You also know that we have had a great success on the lifestyle side over the last three years. The lifestyle business in the quarter was of course less, so only 2%. and now we need to be honest that part of the football product that you saw is growing almost 80% are of course lifestyle products, but it's classified as football. So I think if you're really honest, the consumer that used to buy a sportswear and original product in this quarter has also bought football products. So maybe that is a little bit misleading, but it's very hard to classify this accurately. If you look at it here, yes, we are using our athletes also in lifestyle activations, but we also have a lot of non-athletes or people coming from different, I would say, parts of entertainment that are then used for marketing lifestyle products. You see Timothy Chamalet, you see Kendall Jenner, you see Bad Bunny, and, and, and. And the activations here is, of course, both global and local. and there is a huge amount of activities going on. We would still say that especially for her, we have the hottest shoes and silhouettes in the market. Many of them have been stretched into new silhouettes, so the samba, for example, into both ballerinas, into mules, into Mary Janes. We have a lot of low profile and we have running shoes built on all constructions and on new constructions. And again, I have not the feeling that there's anything else in the marketplace that is hotter than we have across the globe. Then I would mention to you that Quart is coming back, especially Triple White. So again, the Stan Smith sector will start to grow again, and you will see many versions in addition to the OG Stan Smith and you will see many activations with many different partners. Apparel, huge growth not only in World Cup but also in modern silhouettes and of course fabrics. I think especially online we look extremely fresh and we do see the heat especially with her all over the world although some of the products vary from region to region. And then when your brand is hot, your apparel is hot, and your footwear is hot, you automatically then sell more accessories. And this is also what happened with us. Also, in addition to soccer balls, which of course has been growing because of World Cup, but we have fixed most of the sourcing issues we have, and therefore you saw a 20% growth in accessories. So with that kind of background, I hand back to you, Harm, where you can take them through more of the financials.

Thank you Bjorn and of course we're looking forward to get some more details on the financials and I want to start as always with the top line as Bjorn already said 40% currency neutral growth has been not just a record quarter from a top line point of view but also has been a record you know first half and in addition to that we also had the you know highest retail sales ever in a quarter so all of these are credit to the teams that created the product and executed on the sales side so very very pleased with the top line when it comes to the gross profit I would like to go a little Little deeper on this one and have a little bridge. I want to go on the right-hand side, starting from the bottom to the top. Of course, we had U.S. tariffs already last year in the second quarter, but this year a little bit higher, giving the full impact of it. There's some mixed effect on the sourcing cost and a little bit on freight, and I'm just really saying a little bit on freight because it links to the war surcharge as we get into the Middle East. And then when it comes to AFX, it's actually neutral. You might be surprised, but there's benefits on the US dollar. Thank you for watching. We had a small amount of US tariffs refund. I know the different phases. We only have recognized the first phase. We got some cash returned already. It has been a small amount and we will talk later about the remaining phases that you saw in the notes already. There's probably something in the second half. that we haven't recognized in the second quarter in the amount of 250 to 300 million US dollar that we still would expect to come towards us at some stage. The biggest piece that is actually moving the gross margin in the second quarter was very disciplined pricing, very disciplined on promotions. And of course, when you're growing 27% in e-commerce and 23% in retail, it has a positive channel mix as well. So the upper two are actually the moving part of the 51.7 to 52.5. So very well done and very happy with the DTC growth that we have seen. Of course, what you're interested in is the increase in the marketing and POS expenses and the operating overheads. So with the 30% growth in marketing and the 12% operating overheads, I want to immediately go a little deeper. Even so, we have some leverage on the operating overheads overall. But I want to explain that step by step, starting with the marketing. and of course in marketing we always said we want to make the World Cup not just you know winning it commercially which we no doubt did with the teams that we had and the two teams in the final but we also wanted to make sure that we use that platform to win as a brand and that's why we invested significantly. More than 200 million, the exact amount is actually 212 million, as Bjorn said. And yes, we indicated around 150 million earlier, we want to invest, but it has been so successful. There's two teams in the final, having the ball, having sellout records in North America and Latin America. So we decided then, short term, to invest even more to pave the opportunity for the future. Secondly, yes, with growth in e-commerce of 27% and growth in retail 23%, there's a lot of variable cost in D2C. Especially in e-commerce, there's platform fees, there's freight cost to the consumer, there's customer service fees. When you're growing that much, you might even pay a little bit more in customer service. This is what we see in e-commerce. There's a lot of variable fees. And of course, in retail, we leverage much more, but we also build up some pop-up stores. We also had extra staffing in the DCs. We had a lot of things that we did in order to fulfill the needs of the consumers and kept investing into this one. And rest assured, maybe you could have said that earlier, but very clearly in the second half, You will see a normalized marketing spend and on the full year you should calculate in your spreadsheets around the 12% and you will see a much lower growth in Q3 and Q4 on the operating overheads and what's really related to the DTC growth in the second quarter. And again, I take it on me that I could have probably explained that earlier. That's definitely learning on my side. When we go further down the P&L, I talked about the operating profit already. Still an 8.5% operating profit with the $574 million, 5% up. And again, it's primarily as the gross margin is compensated for the operating overhead increase in D2C. It's primarily attributed to the marketing where we have been opportunistic to spend and potentially even overspend on the event. When we go further down the line, no surprises on the financial expenses or on the income taxes. Income tax around 25%, similar to Q1, which leads to net income growth that is similar to the operating profit growth. Operating profit 5%, net income 6%. So far to the P&L, very happy where we are, very happy what we've achieved in Q2, but also in the first half. Which leads to the balance sheet, and I want to start with inventories again. Currents neutral up 12%, but I want to immediately go into the details of that. Again, I said on the last call, we will be around the same as end of Q1. We came in a little higher. Some of that is linked to the Middle East. where we are not selling through as much as we would have wished. We counted a double digit amount there. And of course some FX plays into the absolute amount as well. But the most important point for me is that the composition of that inventory. And 90% of that inventory is current or future seasons or goods in transit as we have it on the board. And only 9% is previous seasons. And that is not even enough to clear our factory outlets. and our planned buy for the factory outlets globally is north of 50%. So it gives you an indication the inventory is very, very healthy and I have no concerns for the second half. Secondly, it comes to accounts receivables. They are slightly up with 30%, a little bit higher than what you have seen on the wholesale growth and some timing effects in there. We, of course, work with some of our partners as well to make sure we support them in the right way during the World Cup, but that is also something that you will see coming down the third quarter as we're collecting post-World Cup. Payables have normalized, and of course, operating working capital is slightly up compared to inventories and accounts receivables if you combine these two. Talking about operating working capital, of course, that direction doesn't look good, but as you know, we invested into holding the inventory and receivables for the World Cup. It was the right decision to win this one commercially, and our guidance is 22 to 23%. And there's no reason to not believe that we get to that guidance until the end of the year. And you can hold me personally accountable for it, that we get to that guidance of 22 to 23%. So also that is going the right direction. To sum it all up, you see it also on the cash and cash equivalents, despite doing a share buyback of 500 million in the first tranche and then already 250 million on the second tranche and paying a dividend of 500 million. We added to our cash, and we are almost at $1.2 billion. Also, that is something where we made tremendous improvements in the first half compared to last year, and there's more to come. So I'm very optimistic from a cash flow generation point of view. There's another $1.2 to $1.3 billion cash flow coming in the second half and will help us to finish on a very strong cash balance for the end of the year. Talking about the share buyback and the dividends, $500 million has been done in the first tranche. We already did 250 million, around 250 million in the second tranche, with 1,380,000 shares being bought back. So together with the dividend, we will return to shareholders around 1.5 billion this year. And you all know we could not have done that without being in such a healthy situation as a company. So very, very happy where we are. You also see that with the cash and cash equivalents, how it's developing despite the share buyback and also the adjusted net borrowings. We are finally going the right direction again, moving from 5.5 to 5.2 billion. And what's important for our S&P and Moody's, that also leverage ratio is consistently remaining below our policy of 2.0. So we are actually improving from 1.7 to 1.6. So also there, we are very diligent on how we're using our cash and how we return to shareholders. And we are feeling very good about the second half. With that, talking about the second half, back to Bjorn.

Thanks Harm, yeah you've seen this slide many times when we started three and a half years ago we had some issues and we said that we needed that time to go through the process and that in 26 we will then be a healthy and a successful company and you know we can always do better but we felt that we have delivered what we told you and feel that the platform for this company is actually in great shape. The ambition, again, for each market should be the number one in the market. Of course, they will not all achieve it, but at least we're having a discussion what is necessary in the different markets. And it shouldn't be a surprise that outside of the U.S., we are starting to actually be number one in many markets. In the U.S., I've said many times it would be unrealistic knowing how far behind we are and that we have many, many years that we need to invest to kind of be competitive and The business model that we talk about, you've seen many times too, to be a global brand with a local mindset. I hope you agree that you have to start with the consumer and the athletes. and to do that you need to be close to him and her and that happens in most markets and regions and then you need a strong global headquarter that facilitates for innovation, concept systems and the frame and that we then need a network of people both local and global that work together and it's fair to say that we now have a leadership group globally of 32 people. We spent also two days after World Cup in New York I feel very, very strong about the team and feel that we have made many, many changes. Most of the people, if not almost all, are internal promotions, so they know Adidas. They have the right culture, which Adidas should stand for, and I feel we are a really, really good team. It should also not be a surprise that then we locally need a footprint in product and activations that fits the market and when you see on the left side we added the Penn State and Tennessee colleges, universities to be more visible in American sports and that's a journey that we probably should have done a long time ago but that we have started and John and his team are very aggressive on that side and that is the way then to be a real American sports brand. and the same goes for all the markets here you see you know Korea when it gets to baseball you see Ranveer Singh who's a cricket player that we then in India using also in our originals and lifestyle collection and in China which is on fire we even have a premium looks collection above everything because we clearly see that the consumer with a lot of money is also trending towards our brand because of what the local team is doing with our global concepts. And the same goes for stores. The rule is to activate what is relevant for the consumer. That's why at any point in time around the world there might be different activation. It should not be a surprise to you that Barcelona right now is still celebrating the World Cup and the win of Spain while in other areas we have turned into lifestyle or local partners and again, there's a lot more energy in the teams when they can do what they think is relevant. And the same goes for, I would say, normal activations. Why activate something in a market that is not relevant? And I think we have found the recipe for that and the energy in the markets are very, very, very high. Coming out of the World Cup, you might say, so what is happening now? Well, right now in soccer, we're launching all the club jerseys. And remember last year, the start of the sales of club jerseys was slow. Now it's actually the opposite. And I think it has to do, coming out of the World Cup, there's a huge interest in football again. And of course, when I look at our product, I think both with the home jersey and with the three-fold away jerseys,

We look extremely good and our bookings for the time being also very, very good sales numbers.

In the women's training area, you have seen that many brands have had collections that have been either, you know, with collab partners or there has been brand that don't necessarily come from sport sport. Instead of doing a collab, we then decided to do original sport. We have that consumer to our fashion and especially on the footwear side. and we have then designed with her in mind an OG Sport collection with functional fabrics, great colors, very, very, I would say, functional and good-looking cuts. Been in the stores around the world for a week and the reaction both from what we can measure in interest but also in sales has been great. So another dimension of being very, very strong with her. You've heard about Hyperboost, which we started in comfort running. We are now extending the form into lifestyle. So here you see Hyperboost Euphoria and the same thing here, Initial Reaction Rate. And then we will build out bigger collections with the Hyperboost as we go forward. On the fashion side, we have a great cooperation with ASOS. You've probably seen it that we do test collections almost as fashion shows. and depending on the reaction we then scale certain items. We do this on a regular basis. So far it's only been for her but going forward it will now also be for him. And it's a very unique business model that has been very successful both for them and for us. So when we look at it both on the performance side and on the lifestyle side we feel that we have enough momentum to continue the growth. In addition to what I just told you about, we will also start to load up the FIFA Women's World Cup. That will happen in 27, but you will see activations already in 26. You know it's in Brazil, and I think we all agree we need to lift the activities around women's soccer. You will have a new RD Zero Pro 5 coming for Berlin Marathon, where I wouldn't be surprised if it runs another world record. and then we will have Anthony Edwards coming with his third version of a signature shoe. This is just part of it that we think will assure them the growth and the interest in the brand also in the second half of the year. When you look at the guidance, you know we started with high single digit and 2.3 billion in sales. We updated the guidance this morning and said we now believe in nine to 10% growth and we kept the profit at 2.3 billion. I'm sure in your spreadsheet you said, so this means then 6% growth in the second half. Yes, that's the math. The reason why we don't go higher is that if you look at our wholesale business, it's currently trending at 6-7% and you cannot plan your D2C business higher because you don't know. But there is a chance when I look at the trend that it will be higher and then of course there is an upside to this. I also will tell you that the 2.3 billion does not include any tariffs going into the future. There's a small booking in Q2 that is not really relevant. And as you know, there is about 300 million sitting there where there is a pretty high probability that you will get it. So far, we haven't booked it. I know competitors have, but we will of course tell you if we book it. That was through 26. We then told you that 27 and 28, we should continue the momentum. We as a company will not change our business plan because we believe in our business model. We believe that is the right one. But of course, there are improvements that we can do when it gets to continue to decrease complexity and optimize processes, systems, and organization. And we will, of course, utilize AI to help us on this. And I do think you also agree We need short-term to be successful, but without putting long-term in danger. And, you know, we feel, although looking at today, you might disagree, that we are delivering what we said, and that we're giving Adidas, you know, the platform to be a very successful company going forward. And then just to finalize, we still confirm that we believe we can grow 2 billion every year in 27 and 28, which will then bring us into the famous double-digit EBIT margin which again under the certain condition are not many brands who are doing. So I think with that we have kind of told the story and I'm handing back again to you, Sebastian.

Yeah, thanks very much Bjorn. Maura, we are now ready to take questions.

We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on your telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you've entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Questioners on the phone are requested to disable the loudspeaker mode and eventually turn off the volume from the webcast while asking a question. In the interest of time, please limit yourself to two questions. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question comes from the line of Grace Smully from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Hi, good afternoon. Thank you. My first question will be on the footwear business. If you could just go into further detail on what you're seeing in lifestyle footwear and how we should think about the outlook for the lifestyle footwear into the second half of this year and into 2027. When you look at the total footwear business, would you expect it to continue to decelerate from here and could it potentially turn negative into the second half? Or do you actually expect the business to improve from here as hopefully the kind of competitive dynamic changes? And then my second question would just be on the US. Very clear that you executed very well in the World Cup in the second quarter. Beyond sort of the short-term benefit from the World Cup, How are you thinking about the long-term impact and whether you've been able to use this event really as a catalyst to gain lasting consumers, but also, I guess, lasting shelf space with your U.S. retail partners as well? Thank you very much.

There are good questions. I do think when you do your store checks, you will see that the lifestyle footwear, especially for him, is currently pretty heavily discounted, and that is because Major brands have quite some inventory that have been sold in and very famous, what should I say, franchises that used to be full price are now currently at a discount. That means that newness onto the shelf for full price is not easy, at least not scaled. And we see that if we keep the styles in our D2C business, we are able then to keep a higher price. And then you know that this is a fine balance. I do think that you will see a flattish lifestyle shoe market in the beginning of the year and hopefully you will see an improvement in Q4, Q1. I guesstimate and you know I cannot tell you what will happen in D2C because I don't know but if I look at our order book we should turn into growth again in footwear in Q4 because that's what we see. and that could be accelerated if the inventory in general also from other companies in the chains are changing. When it gets to the World Cup, yes, it's clearly that many retailers in addition to us in the U.S. made money with us during this time and that when a retailer makes money with you, he or she would of course like to make more money, so there's a big chance that we will then have increasing buys and more shelf space with many retailers. Had the feeling that all the big retailers also in performance have a different view on our brand and our business than they've had before and that our local team with investments that they've done in college sport, in merchandise, but also the signing of baseball players and American football players and also doing local campaigns We are on the way of being also more seen as a sports brand for the consumer both him and her in the U.S. If you then add the OG Sport, which actually was targeting her in the U.S., it was kind of designed with an American female consumer in mind, I do think that you will see more tree stripes and more of our product also in the performance area. and I think on footwear we are already there with her and we of course hope with all the things we have in the pipeline that we can get more sales space also for him in American street retail and we are pretty optimistic coming out of a 15-17% growth in the US for the future but as you know that's also the market where we need more growth and of course it's the one that we are behind by a stretch and have a lot of work to do. But I would say positive development.

Great. Thank you very much. Next question comes from the line of Geoff Lowery from Rothschild & Co, Redburn. Please go ahead.

Hi there. Just coming back on this footwear performance. Is the performance of the footwear any stronger in your own DTC relative to your sell out in wholesale? I'm just looking for things that could give us encouragement about the potency of that product when the wholesale overstock completes. And then the second question is a rather basic one. For Q2, was 5% EBIT growth the profit plan or is there 50, 60 million of investment in marketing that came into the quarter that perhaps wasn't there three or six months ago in your plan? Thank you.

Yes, the sell-through in our own channel is higher than in wholesale, that's correct, but that's also because the offer is wider. and in Hingham Performance, I would actually say that the sell-through also in wholesale is strong. It's the lifestyle, both sell-in and sell-out, especially for him, which is lagging currently. And it has been lagging, I would say, for the last six months because of the discount that is in the market. When it gets to your second question on if there was any additional marketing, Yes, there were some activations that came on top. I think we said that we had an extra marketing of about $212 million, and I think the first guesstimate we had was around $150. So it is true that during the tournament, we took decisions to actually activate more based on local needs. That is correct. Great. Thank you very much.

Next question comes from the line of Anisha Sherman from Bernstein Societe Generale. Please go ahead. Thank you so much.

I have two questions, please. One kind of following on the prior question around wholesale, you've talked about holding back wholesale growth while competitors are being very promotional. As we're seeing some of those big promotional phases with big retailers starting to wind down, we've seen that in North America, we've seen that with some recent announcements in China, Are you more optimistic about opening up wholesale sell-in, and does that help Q3 at all, or is that more Q4 into Q1? And then a second, you know, related to this, a second question around operating overheads. You're currently very DTC heavy, which, as you mentioned, is higher cost in terms of overheads. How important is that wholesale DTC balance for you to be able to meet your midterm goal of reaching up 30% operating overheads? Thank you.

The second question is that should you only be D2C then your margin is higher and your overhead is higher then you know the 30% doesn't mean anything so the 30% is based on a 60-40 split so you have to remember that if you sell D2C your margin is much higher but then also your cost percentage is higher but your EBIT should also be higher so We're not dependent on holding the 30 should the split go to a higher D2C part than the 40. But again, I have to admit that there wasn't any goal to actually accelerate D2C, but it was the bond that was so strong. And as we said before, the order book from retailers the last six months was very cautious. And as you probably have seen yourself, you know the reason. Again, this is not a strategy that we're driving, but it's actually the result of where the consumer is shopping. Should this be a pattern that continues, then the split between wholesale retail would then move from 60-40 to something else, then you should expect a growth in the gross margin and therefore also a growth in the overhead, but then the EBIT should also grow to be more than 10%. This is the way the math works. When it gets to the cleaning up the wholesale, I mean, first of all, what you talk about China and competitors, that will not happen in the next month because, remember, when you're switching off part of a wholesale channel, that takes more time. So I'm not sure that will have an impact, and you also probably know that our business in China is on fire, so we don't need any help there. I think the wholesale community that is, you know, difficult right now on foot has been in Europe and in the U.S., and you know we hope and we believe when we look at the order book that Q4 would actually be an improvement but again we don't control it alone right so yes wholesale footwear should start to improve if that is Q4 or Q1 I don't know and as always what we try when we see that something shouldn't work that we don't get the growth then we will try to get the growth somewhere else important for us is that we have enough growth to actually hit our targets and that is what we have done and then without doing anything that actually hurts the brand. And I do think you agree that Q2 there was nothing in distribution or activations that would hurt the brand. I think everything that you can measure was the opposite, that the brand came out of World Cup and the quarter strong and then it went into it. So we are internally, with what we can control, actually very happy. I'm not a little bit sad that we don't been able to actually explain it to you in a way that you would be happy to. But maybe over time, or I'm pretty sure that will actually change.

Thank you. Very clear.

Next question comes from the line of Jurgen Kolb from Kepler Chevrolet. Please go ahead.

Thanks very much indeed. First one on China. In China you reached a 27.6% EBIT margin in H1 if my calculation is correct here. So we're getting closer to the 30% again or about 30% what used to be the peak margin or the strong margin in China. Initially, I think in the past you indicated that you think high 20s could be possible. This is where we are right now. What do you think is still in China? How much margin potential do you see given the fact that obviously your brand is on fire, you're adding a luxury component, one of the main competitor is making some strategic decisions which may open up possibilities. So maybe some words on that. Thank you very much.

Your calculation on China is correct. Your conclusion that we have a brand on fire is also correct. I would like to add that the diversity in the product that we have in China today is much stronger than when it peaked at 30. I think when you go back to those days, the best-selling brands were selling, I call it, commodities with logos on. And you know that the margin on cotton hoodies and t-shirts and stuff are very high. If you look at the product now, the local team is investing in sports and they're investing in a big variety of segments. So I think that the solidity of our business is much, much stronger. And I still do think that the high 20s is a realistic, what should I say, margin. You also have to remember that we're now sourcing local.

So we're sourcing in China with Chinese currency.

So the variances we have on hedging and stuff in China is almost zero. And at the same time, because we're sourcing in China, we are closer to the market. So there's a lot more replenishment and changes in the buy, which then takes the risk down, which again should then reduce the markdowns and in the wholesale business, reduce the take-backs. and we see all these things currently happening and I can also say to you that we are balancing much more the business from a quarter to quarter you know we used to have filling in the wholesale partners and then do a lot of take backs in Q4 and what we are trying to do now is of course reduce the amount of take backs totally and then actually if there are managing that month by month and quarter by quarter so I think their local team has the business much more under control than they had before. The impact of a competitor's action in China is unknown. I mean, of course, we have seen and heard what they're doing, but I think it's far too early to say how that's going to be executed and the impact that that will have. And again, as soon as we know and we see, you will probably see it and hear it from us. but I think we will first have to see if it happens and how it happens. Gross margin, I think I'll leave it up to you. Harm?

Yeah, hearing on the gross margin, of course we are very happy with what we have achieved in the first half and of course in the second quarter but there was a significant part on D2C and the football business, the jerseys and full price so we want to continue to be disciplined in the second half and the puts and takes is, I mean, yes, there will be less DTC. There will be less football business. But on the other hand, what Bjorn just explained, maybe the promotion levels with some of our competitors will ease a little bit in the second half. That should be a benefit. And again, I'm not going to talk about the Middle East or whatsoever. That's hopefully under control. It's more important for the next year. For next year, we are very clearly getting some tailwind from the US dollar. And most importantly, what we got probably to a little bit of a surprise with some of the currencies of Japanese Yen, Korean Won, some of Argentinian Peso and Turkish Lira. Many of these currencies have actually stabilized. You saw it on our top line development as well when it comes to reported and and the currency neutral. So we're very optimistic that we get a full benefit of the tail end from the US dollar and not so much headwind from the other currencies going into next year. But that's an early indication, but definitely we would expect the margin going up next year compared to whatever we deliver this year.

Very good. Thanks very much, guys.

Next question comes from the line of Wendy Liu from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. I have two also. One is on marketing. I appreciate that you invested a bit more taking obscenity from the World Cup. How do you evaluate the ROI from marketing investment? has the investment in marketing translated to interest in Adidas more broadly and beyond the World Cup and how do you track that? And the second question on lifestyle footwear, I was wondering if you have any, if you reflect back on your strategy on terrorists and on superstar, What are your takeaways and how much of the perhaps very successful playbook with Semba can be replicated to Stan Smith?

Your first question, again, we decided to overinvest in Q2 because the event, the World Cup, was a platform for us to show the DNA of the brand. It's not to show the brand only in the world of soccer or football, but actually showcase the brand. That's why we invested so much in it. To calculate an ROI doesn't really work because if it worked, we would all do the same, right? So I think you have to look at it in many aspects. Everything that you can measure, the awareness, the engagement around the brand are very, very positive. But to transfer that into conversion, and then into monetary is something you do in school, but it doesn't really work in the real business. What it has done, and I think you agree, is that to grow 14% in this environment, we will see what other people report, shows you that it has actually worked also short term. How much of that is marketing and how much of that is organic and how much is that because we have the distribution is very, very difficult to measure. Everything that we do measure, and you know digital you can measure much more accurate than you can in other parts, everything that is up a funnel has actually helped us all the way down to the lower funnel. And I do think that the brand in almost all markets are much stronger today than it was three years ago. And the peak of the measurements were actually done just before the tournament. We have no measurements now after the tournament. So I would say that our marketing people have done a great job. But remember, that doesn't necessarily only be paid media. It is also the organic and what the consumer sees, hears, and not only what the marketeers then sell you as paid. The lifestyle success that we had on Taras with different models is of course a playbook that we're using Remember, when we are testing things, what we do is that we are launching products at the higher end in limited quantities. We are seeding products, and then we try both brick and mortar in the market and also digital to measure where the demand is, and then we scale. And that is a playbook that we're using everywhere, but you have to do it locally. You cannot measure these things global because the demand and the timing of demand in Europe might be different than the U.S. and Korea, which is Leading on the trend side might be ahead of everybody. This is a network of information that our people are using all the time. The playbook might vary, but the logic is always the same. I do think that Stan Smith, we have big indications from fashion shows, from consumer groups, from research that this direction is coming. The initial sales of the product that we have in limited is also working very well. and remember we took all these products out of the market so that there shouldn't be any discount that Stan Smith's around. So I feel that we have, what should I say, done the work in parallel with what we have done on all the launches. And then, you know, it's not only Stan Smith. That's one thing that I think you should look at, but I think also on Running Lifestyle, if you see the development of EYSL, if you see what is happening around the jellyfish, which we're now opening up in distribution with Pharrell, if you look at what we're doing with Hyperboost there's many many elements that in our opinion deserves a wider role with our retailers and as long as we don't get it we will then hold back and do it in our own distribution both digital and brick and mortar and that's why I think when we get to Q4 you will start to see stronger growth in footwear again but we didn't expect footwear to grow in Q2 and we knew that The World Cup would put the focus on apparel and not on footwear. So I'm not sure why that was a surprise, but we never thought that anything else would happen, to be honest.

Great, thank you. The next question comes from the line of Adam Cochrane from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, and just like to say thanks for all your help, Harm, over the last year. Well, not for me 20 years, but certainly for you that long. The questions I've got really relate to, first of all, on the wholesale performance. I do understand that the sales being weaker into the channel, maybe both in Q2 and into the second half. I just want to really confirm how much of this is Adidas' choice to limit The second question is, Your implied sales growth of around 6% does seem quite a slowdown from what you achieved in the first half, especially with some World Cup sales still to come through in the third quarter. It should probably be a couple of hundred million euros still coming through. And you talk about the recovery in footwear in the fourth quarter, inventory up 13%. Are you seeing anything with regards to a slowdown in current trading in July, either on DTC particularly or wholesale, that has made you more cautious on the outlook? Thanks.

No. The answer to your last question, no. July was strong. But, you know, we're only sitting on an order book that mirrors the wholesale business. And as you see, that was trending around 6%. And DTC to forecast that for the third and fourth quarter is very difficult. I don't think you have any retailers in the world that forecast a double-digit like-for-like growth. Yes, it might be cautious, and the max is 6%. Should we reach 9.5%, 9.9%, then what you need in the second half is 6%. Is there an upside to it? Yes, there is. But again, you know us. We're trying to tell you what we're sure about. It's the same with EBIT. We could have booked now, you know, tariffs back like all the brands do and then look better. Maybe we should. We didn't because we want to make sure that we actually deliver what we say. When it gets to the wholesale business and holding back versus conservative buys, that's very different from market to market. I think it is fair to say that in Europe, The general retailer was very, very careful booking. So it wasn't necessary that we hold back volumes. But what we did is that when we sold the environment, we were holding back models because we didn't want to go into a discounted environment. In other markets, we are holding back because we saw that the demand in our D2C was so high that we decided to hold back. But this is a decision that the markets are taking. and it's very very different from market to market. I am sure that many retailers around the world when they see these numbers and also when they saw what was happening were trying to get more merchandise and would like to have more merchandise but as you know the availability then is necessarily sitting in what they want and again I think when you check with the retailers, I think we were very good during Q2 to replenish what was available. I think we also had big volumes of the relevant products. But of course, there were also products that were high in demand that were running out of inventory. So there is a mix. I also think that Thank you very much. with the uncertainty that we had around tariffs and supply chain issues and freight increases and oil price. It hasn't been that easy to actually to get where we are. So we might be a little bit more happy with ourselves than you guys are and we apologize for that. Maybe you, me and all the people should have communicated differently. but there's no doubt that the platform where the brand is standing going out of Q2 is much stronger than it was going into Q1 and Q2 because the World Cup has added another dimension in many markets because people have made money with us. We have attracted both the male and the female consumer to our brand that we didn't have before and the soccer culture, we don't know how long it will last but products that are connected to soccer are also much higher in demand than it's been before and we see ironically that coming out of World Cup replicas, the club replicas is also starting to work. And when you then add that we certainly are a running brand again, which we haven't been for a long time, we have another big category that is growing 30%, which not only in performance running has the potential, but you know, if you have running styles that do well on performance, it's easier to also, I mean, some tweaks of the product to get it on the shelf for lifestyle. Again, comparing apples by apples and going back to where we were a year and two years ago, we are much, much further. But of course, we are dependent on that we are in an environment where we can grow and that we do a good job, which I actually think that our people are doing constantly.

Thanks.

Next question comes from the line of Andreas Riemann from OdoBHF. Please go ahead.

Yes, good afternoon. The first topic, the World Cup again. So far it sounds like the remaining World Cup business in Q3 will be gross margin accretive or is there some World Cup product left that you have to discount now that certain teams didn't make it that far? Probably an easy one. And the second topic is oil. The high oil price now affects transport costs and later probably also input costs. So would you say it is unlikely that the sports brands can raise the prices in this environment So that it will hurt the brand's margins at one point, maybe in 27. Or do you say oil is not as relevant as we all think?

I mean, you're German, right? So I have to say that the only place where there might be inventory based on performance is the German inventory. I think all other inventories compared to what we bought are fine. But then we all know, and this is important to say, that Germany is playing the Nations League in September, October with a new coach, which happens to be our partner. So we will be pretty active in celebrating the German team also in the second half. So I don't think we will have a huge amount of inventory that will be dangerous for the margins. When it looks to the rest of the business in Q3, then I think Spain and Argentina are the two markets that will ask for new products. A, Spain, because of the success, and as I said, they now have jerseys with two stars, and you know there's a difference between two stars and one star, and there are then developments around that. And then Argentina, of course it will depend on what Messi is doing, but should it be, should it be, I don't know, but should it be that he will then play a goodbye game or then of course there will be a lot of activities around him. I think all other federations, maybe with the exception of Italy, who are restocking everything because they're going to qualify, I would assume that they, with Mancini as a coach, would also have a demand which is higher. and then as I said the amount currently from everything with Real Madrid for example you know with Mourinho back and Bayern Munich and all the federations are actually clubs are very positive so I would see that the apparel trend on soccer can actually continue also with full margin when it gets to the oil price you have to remember that the oil price have varied a lot and we've had peaks on the oil price much higher than we have today So when you look at the input price, there has been price increases and then decreases again in this period when it gets to the cost of the product. The freight hasn't been that bad when it gets to inbound because we have long-term contracts. So we haven't been hit that much. But on e-com, where you're actually shipping to the consumer, and with the growth we have, we have, of course, had increases. So this is, what should I say, a very... Thank you very much. and that seems to be stabilized. When it gets to raising prices, you know, it's easy to raise the prices for the shoe box or the price ticket. The question is what discounts do you need to actually sell the product? Because, you know, the relevant prices are always what the consumer pays, not what's on the price tag. And I think we have seen, especially in the US, that discounts aid up a lot of the tariff increases. I think when you look at our margin, we have been pretty good or lucky, depending on how you see it, by actually getting the prices that we need for the cost of the product. And that's why you're running gross margins above 52, which I don't think RD has done very often without EC. So we feel that we have the different components of the margin pretty good in control right now.

Very good. And if the German jersey gets cheaper, you can tell me.

Okay, I will.

Maura, we have time for two more questions.

Yes, sir. The next question comes from the land of Peralta Dania from RBC. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good afternoon. So my first question is on the guidance for 26, please. I'm just wondering if we look at the 2.3 billion euros of... targeted EBIT. If you get incremental revenue contribution from DTC in the second half of the year, is there any drop through to earnings from that or there isn't any leverage from DTC sales given the higher run rate OPEX that's required to fulfill that? And just related to that, I'm just thinking, are we still on track to reach 10% margin by 27, which doesn't leave a lot of heavy lifting to do into next year from a margin perspective. and then just secondly on Stan Smith, I think Bjorn you mentioned that this is a trend that you're seeing kind of building. Could you maybe give us a bit more indication about which regions or markets you're seeing that in and what your timings are around scaling this franchise into next year? Thank you very much.

Your EBIT The leverage on D2C is, of course, dependent on where it is. There are markets that are extremely profitable on D2C, and there's also a difference between e-com and concept stores and factory outlets. It depends on where it is, but in general, a D2C business, if you do it good, should be higher EBIT than wholesales. I think we are in line to do the 10% EBIT going forward. I'm not sure if you said it means that we need to do heavy lifting. I didn't catch it. There's always heavy lifting to do in this industry to deliver double-digit EBIT. But I think we're closer to it than we ever have been. So I'm not sure if it's heavy, heavy compared to what it's been before. And to be honest, if we do a decent job with everything we can measure, we should deliver it. and then when it gets to Stan Smith, Stan Smith had always been a product that when it goes, it actually goes global, normally driven first of Europe, then going to Asia and then less, of course, to a certain target group in the US, although right now, ironically, the higher end in the US has actually been very strong in demand and the triple white thing, even triple white superstar, which is kind of a different, what should I say, type of shoe is doing very well. So the triple white look is definitely coming back and I would say globally, which of course is what we like with these kind of franchises.

Thank you, that's great.

Today's last question comes from the line of Warwick O'Keen from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.

Thanks very much. I just want to ask two questions that come back on topics we've already talked about. Bjorn, just to come back on wholesale, you said the second half is trending at 6.7, so similar to the first half, but you're seeing a better Q4 footwear order book. So what exactly is it that you're seeing in footwear? Is that the broader range getting traction or particular styles? And is there anything that's slowing to balance out that growth to be similar to the first half? and then if I may, one for Harm on operating overheads. I take your point about the growth in D2C and Q2 driving a particular amount of cost growth, but actually D2C was pretty strong in Q1 as well and the growth in cost was very different in Q2. So what drops away in the second half to give you confidence that OPEX will be under control in H2? Thank you.

First of all, of course, we see the order book from Q3, Q4 and the wholesale business then growing in footwear. So we know there's a higher demand coming in Q4. And it's a combination of performance, so running strong, soccer strong, and I would say also training strong. And then there is certain units on the lifestyle side that is getting bigger bookings. I do think the pattern is also, if you're really honest, that There was an apparel boom among our retailers that gave them more open to buy for apparel. And given that the freshness in apparel was less discounted, it was easier for them to book more apparel than footwear. And that when we get to Q4, I assume that the assumption is that they will have less inventory of what they have too much of and that they will guide more open to buy again back to us on the lifestyle side but again you never have all this data but as you can see we have a momentum in footwear in the performance side and there's no reason why that should stop and the three major categories is football running and training and then on the lifestyle side with the launches we have and leading into 27 We see an increased interest both on men's and women's again that should correspond then to a growth again in Q4. I'm more uncertain about footwear in Q3. It might be that it will turn stronger positive, but that is of course then dependent on that the inventory and the discounting goes down. So again, it's not a negative picture at all to be honest.

and again, the 6% is just the math.

It's not saying that people will be happy with 6%, but that is the math to get into our guidance.

Here on the operating overheads, yes, I'm very confident that it will be different in Q3 and Q4. What is the reason for that? First of all, yes, we had good growth in D2C in Q1 as well, Warwick, but e-commerce was growing double the pace in Q2 versus Q1. And, of course, this is where we have more variable costs compared to retail. And on retail, it's really the one-time thing with pop-up stores in the U.S. during the event. There's a lot of logistics and operating orders linked to the World Cup that we invested just in Q2, event-related logistics, and again, staffing and retail stores to replenish every day twice and all these things. And then lastly, it will continue in the second half, but just Q2 compared to Q1, we do the salary increases starting in April. and that, of course, as a global company, that's something you feel Q2 versus Q1, but you don't see that, you know, versus prior year when it comes to Q3 or whatever, so it's normalized. So just rest assured, Q3 and Q4 will be normalized both from a marketing but also from an operating or over point of view, whatever the D2C growth will be. And to the question earlier, if D2C will be better, we will make sure that it drops to the bottom line and will be reflected in the guidance. So that's where we are.

very good thank you yeah thanks very much Warwick thanks very much also Maura and thanks very much to Bjorn and Harm and of course thanks to all of you for participating in our call today as always if you have any follow-up questions and I have the feeling that there may still be some please feel free to reach out anytime to Adrian, Philip, Chiara or myself or any other member of the IR team we very much look forward to speaking to you Before we wrap up, I just want to send out a quick reminder that we look forward to hopefully welcoming many of you here to our Home of Innovation event on September 23 and 24. Bjorn mentioned it. We think if you come and look at the strong pipeline that we have for 27 and also 28, hopefully you will be able to Thank you very much again for joining us today we wish you a wonderful summer great rest of the day and look forward to catching up with you bye bye

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