Adidas AG (OTC:ADDYY) Q3 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

And as I said, Q2 shall be the first significant growth quarter next year, as Q1 was still a significant quarter Q1, 2022 in China. So the second half is definitely what we’re looking towards, in China, with inventory being normalized.

Geoff Lowery: Great. Thanks very much.

Operator: Next question is from the line of David Roux from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

David Roux: Good day Harm. And thanks for taking my questions. So just two from my side. Firstly , on Yeezy. You spoke about the same store costs supporting the Yeezy business away from the marketing and royalties, which I think was €300 million. On the same store costs, I mean, what flexibility do you have to perhaps reduce these costs in the event that you don’t perhaps get the revenue recovery on some of those Yeezy products that you’re anticipating? And then my second question is on the China turnaround plan. I assume this will take some time to implement. How should we think about the cash costs associated with this plan and what are you, how are you thinking about the returns on this in terms of whether it’s marginal improvements or growth? Thank you.

Harm Ohlmeyer: Yes. First on the Yeezy and the central cost. Of course, there’s some flexibility in it, but not all the flexibility. But it was important for me to explain that we’re always looking at the profitability of Yeezy and we got to look at that as an incremental profit. And that’s really important because we have built an infrastructure. If we now scale, after being somewhat muted on Stan Smith. For example, if you bring Stan Smith back, it’s also an incremental profit at a very attractive margin with no additional cost. That’s why I think we shouldn’t get carried away of the single profitability of Yeezy, because all incremental on the platforms that we have built and any other products that we are scaling right now, whether it’s a forum or Stan Smith going forward or new products, we get the same benefit, as we are incorporating with the Yeezy that’s it.

And again, on top of it, if we will not be able to accommodate it fully, there are some flexible in the cost, but there’s definitely some fixed costs as well. On the China piece, do not expect additional cash impact on this one. We have built the plan already. It’s in full motion, it’s already underway, and will come to the fruition next year. The most important thing in China is, of course, on the one hand, getting normalized from an inventory point of view, and then getting our sport portfolio in the right place. And hopefully after zero COVID policy in some opening of China did we have a better ability to get the one of the influencers back as well. And that’s just needs to be the first one. And we were very confident than the second and third one that come very quickly as well, which will help us to represent it as the western brand and a successful brand in China again.

So that’s pending zero COVID and all the influencers how quickly they will come back. But everything that we showed today is in full motion with no extra cost in 2023.

David Roux: That’s helpful. Thank you.

Operator: Next question is from Thomas Chauvet from Citi. Please go ahead.

Thomas Chauvet: Good afternoon. My first question is a follow up on Yeezy. So you suggest your compensates the vast majority of the revenue and profit shortfall by rebranding the product not being the royalties and marketing, if that’s the credible base case scenario, with a way, what was the rationale for doing this partnership in the first place and become so dependent on one single partnership, if you could have achieved the same results without these artists. So keen to understand also how you want to approach collaborations in the future with existing or new partners? Secondly, what was the dedicated marketing spend for Yeezy as percentage of sales, and will you reallocate a significant portion of that spend towards other lines.