Amer Sports - Earnings Call - Q2 2025
August 19, 2025
Transcript
Speaker 2
Thank you for standing by and welcome to the Amer Sports second quarter fiscal 2025 earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, again press star one. Thank you. I'd now like to turn the call over to Omar Saad, SVP, Capital Markets, and Investor Relations. You may begin.
Speaker 0
Welcome, everyone. Thanks for joining Amer Sports earning call for the second quarter of fiscal year 2025. Earlier this morning, we announced our financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2025, and the release can be found on our IR website, investors.amersports.com. A quick reminder to everyone that today's call will contain certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Federal Securities Laws. These forward-looking statements reflect our current expectations and beliefs only. They are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that cause actual results to differ materially. Please see the safe harbor statements in our earnings release and SEC filings. We will also discuss certain non-IFRS financial measures. Please refer to our earnings release for important information regarding such non-IFRS financial measures, including reconciliations to most comparable IFRS financial measures.
We'll begin with prepared remarks from our CEO, James Zheng, and CFO, Andrew Page, followed by a Q&A session until approximately 9:00 A.M. Eastern. James will cover key operational and brand highlights, and Andrew will provide a financial review at both the group and segment level, and also walk through our guidance for the third quarter and full year 2025. Arc'teryx CEO, Stuart Haselden, will join for the Q&A session. With that, I'll turn the call over to James.
Speaker 1
Thanks, Omar. Amer Sports' strong momentum continues in the second quarter as our unique portfolio of premium technical brands continues to create widespread and take share in sports and outdoor markets around the world. We remain confident in our ability to manage through higher tariffs and other near-term macro uncertainties. We are also ensuring that we develop each of our unique brands for higher quality, long-duration growth. The recent Salomon footwear acceleration accelerates continued momentum and steady results from our equipment franchise. Positioned as well for another strong performance in 2025 and beyond. In Q2, we delivered strong results across sales, margin, and EPS. We generated 23% sales growth, or 22% excluding currency impact. We also expanded our adjusted operating margin by 260 basis points.
Our performance was led by very strong growth and profitability in both outdoor performance and technical apparel, as well as a solid performance in ball and racket. Andrew will provide a more detailed update on our tariff exposure, but I'd like to emphasize that I believe we are well positioned to manage through a wide range of tariff scenarios, given our premium brands with pricing power, secular growth trends, and relatively low U.S. revenue exposures. As I mentioned, we believe Amer Sports is a uniquely positioned company within the global sports and outdoor space. Several factors give me confidence for our near, medium, and long-term outlook. First, we own a unique portfolio of premium innovation-driven sports and outdoor brands. Second, Arc'teryx is a breakout story with leading growth and profitability for the outdoor industry, driven by its disruptive direct-to-consumer model.
Third, Salomon sneakers has a unique performance and design positioning, and the brand is experiencing a global acceleration but still has a small share of the global sneaker market. Fourth, Wilson and our winter sports equipment franchises have high-performance products and a leading share, but we have delivered slower long-term growth, except for Wilson's soft goods, which has significant long-term potential. Fifth, we have a strong differentiated platform in Greater China, where we continue to deliver best-in-class performance across all three big brands. Before I turn it over to Andrew, allow me to briefly recap key brand highlights from our three segments. Starting with technical apparel, which is led by our largest brand, Arc'teryx. Arc'teryx delivered another quarter of broad-based strength across regions, channels, and categories, especially footwear and women, which continue to grow faster than the brand overall.
We are encouraged to see technical apparel momentum continue in the direct-to-consumer channel, where we generated a very solid 15% omnicom in Q2, despite facing the highest two-year omnicom comparison of 2025. Arc'teryx's stores continue to be critical to the growth strategy, especially how we engage with local consumers and the community. Arc'teryx opened seven net new stores in Q2, with 12 openings offset by a closure of five legacy locations as part of our ongoing strategy to optimize the quality and the productivity of our store fleet. Arc'teryx's store expansion strategy includes a mix of different formats, ranging from multi-level large-scale alpha flagship stores to small format very distinct mountain town shops. In EMEA, key new store locations this quarter include our first Arc'teryx stores in Milano and Stockholm.
In North America, we opened a new mountain town shop at the Banff Resort in Canada, which has been experiencing strong traffic since opening in April. It has been one of the top-performing shops in the region, another proof point that Arc'teryx can be relevant year-round, even in summer. We opened a new flagship in Vancouver on Lawson Street, the best location in the city, with excellent performance since opening in July. We are also very excited about our first store flagship opening in New York City in Q4, right on 5th Avenue at Rockefeller Center, one of the highest traffic shopping locations in the world. In China, we opened our first brand stores in the iconic Peninsula Hotel chain in Beijing. The store represents our most elevated expression of the brand, designed for top-tier luxury shopping experiences.
For 2025, we continue to plan to open approximately 25 net new Arc'teryx stores globally, with the most coming in North America. Our store opening plan incorporates a similar level of growth in new stores as in 2024, partially offset by the closure of certain outlets and other suboptimal locations. We believe a high-quality retail network is much more important to long-term success than chasing the fast-paced store expansion. In Greater China, we are focused on optimizing Arc'teryx's retail footprint rather than pushing new store expansion. This year, Arc'teryx will have net store closures in Greater China, including some legacy partner stores and the factory outlets. However, Arc'teryx will still meaningfully increase its presence in China with large-format, high-quality, more productive locations. Looking ahead to 2026, we are planning Arc'teryx to have net store opening in China, after years of rationalizing the store fleet in that region.
Community engagement remains critical to elevating Arc'teryx's brand awareness. In July, we hosted the 14th Annual Arc'teryx Academy in Chamonix, France, drawing thousands of participants from around the world to our climbing clinics and also drawing strong sales to our local shops. Community engagement activities during Q2 included the fifth Arc'teryx Climbing Academy in Langdale Valley in the UK and our All-Rise climbing event in the San Francisco Bay Area. Shifting to product, footwear continues to be Arc'teryx's fastest growing category in Q2, growing faster than the brand overall despite comparing against triple-digit growth last year. This spring, we launched the Doran LD4, an elevation of the most popular model made for long-distance mountain running. We also launched the Vertex VT, which is a mountain running shoe designed to climb through technical vertical terrain.
Looking forward, Arc'teryx has an exciting pipeline for shoe launch in the second half of 2025, and I continue to believe footwear will be a large and profitable growth avenue for Arc'teryx. Women's also continues great momentum in Q2 with double-digit growth across all regions, outperforming the brand overall. We see a big opportunity to serve women in the outdoor differently through pinnacle design and performance. A great example of our design focus on women's is the Cerium, which has continued to see explosive growth in Q2, stocking out quickly across store and e-commerce. Arc'teryx is experiencing rising brand awareness and affinity with women in the U.S. and Europe, as we have improved the fit, style, and functions.
Moving to the outdoor performance segment, which delivered an outstanding quarter led by Salomon footwear and apparel, Salomon brand momentum continues to accelerate across all regions, with very strong momentum in both sportstyle and the performance side. By region, Salomon's soft goods continue very strong growth in Greater China and the APAC, where growth in both EMEA and Americas accelerates meaningfully. Direct-to-consumer remains the fastest growing channel for the brand, including a 28% omnichannel with strength in both stores and e-commerce. In addition to sneakers, Salomon apparel, bags, and socks are also experiencing great momentum, especially Salomon running vests. Sportstyle is doing very well globally and continues to lead footwear growth. The momentum of our first-ever global footwear launch of the XT-Whisper from Q1 continues into Q2 and is especially resonating with younger female consumers.
On the performance side, we are very pleased with our new Aero Glide 3 running shoe, one of the best footwear launches in Salomon history, including traction in the run specialty channel. Aero Glide 3 uses a foam called OptiFoam Evo, which we believe represents a disruptive new generation material, offering the runner a new level of rebound and comfort for running on road or trail. In May, we launched our new Gravel Line, which offers consumers a more versatile than ever running shoe that performs great on various types of terrain, from hard pavement to loose terrain in parks and on trails. While it's still very small, our Gravel Line is seeing strong early response from consumers and retailers. Another key launch for the quarter was the X Ultra 5, the latest update to our iconic X Ultra hiking boots, known for lightweight and stability and upgraded technology.
Regionally, EMEA has also experienced very strong consumer demand for Salomon sneakers, with strong sales through reorders and preorders driven by both performance and sportstyle. In Asia, direct-to-consumer continues to be the critical growth channel for Salomon, led by our highly productive Salomon compact shop format. We opened 16 net new Salomon shops in Greater China this quarter, including both owned stores and partner stores, bringing our total count to 234. We are on track to reach approximately 290 Salomon shops in Greater China this year, and we believe Salomon has the opportunity to grow to several hundred locations over time. We recently opened our second Salomon flagship in Shanghai, a 7,300-square-foot pinnacle expression of the brand, located in the French Concession District, known for its boutique shopping. The C-level store offers a more immersive experience for consumers and has performed very well in its first month.
In APAC, we opened 10 new Salomon stores in Q2, five in Korea and five in Japan, including prime locations in the Marunouchi neighborhood of Tokyo and Seongsu in Seoul. Overall awareness and demand for Salomon footwear is rapidly growing across Asia. In the Americas, we continue to lay the groundwork to support significant future growth, and Salomon's soft goods grow strong double digits in Q2. Our first U.S. store in New York City continues to show incredible traction with our consumers, and we plan to open three to four more in the Greater New York area this year or early next year, as well as continue to expand our presence in key wholesale accounts. New locations this quarter include Woodbury Commons and Williamsburg, Brooklyn. We are also opening stores in Chicago and West Hollywood this year, and we are focused on San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Miami in 2026.
From a wholesale perspective, Salomon is seeing growing demand across a variety of retailers, including IGI, Nordstrom, and the run specialty shops. Lastly, as we continue to elevate Salomon's brand awareness, we are excited about the upcoming Milano Cortina Olympics, where Salomon is a premium partner, outfitting all volunteers. This will be an especially important moment for the brand in its home markets of Europe. Before I discuss ball and racket highlights, let me cover the Wilson management transition. As you saw on our press release, Joe Dooley has decided to step down as President and CEO of Wilson to pursue new endeavors outside the company. Our Group CFO, Andrew Page, has been appointed interim President and CEO of Wilson and the ball and racket segment and will continue in his current role as Amer Sports CFO. The company has begun a comprehensive search for the next Wilson leader.
We are grateful for Joe Dooley's 30 years of service at Wilson and wish him well as he begins a new chapter. His contribution has been critical to the brand's success, especially the last six years as CEO. Looking forward, I have full confidence in Andrew Page to lead Wilson during this transition, where he will also continue to execute his responsibility as Amer Sports CFO. Now to the ball and racket segment. Ball and racket growth trends continue to be solid in Q2, with 11% growth driven by strength in sportswear and racket sports. Our Tennis 360 continues to resonate very well with consumers, from performing rackets to soft goods. On court, we are thrilled by the recent win by 18-year-old Canadian Victoria Embarkow at the National Bank Open in Montreal.
She's our first-ever Wilson head-to-toe Tennis 360 athlete to win a WTA 1000 tournament and is now ranked in the top 25 of the world. With consumers, Wilson performance rackets continue to shine, including the successful launch of our larger Federer Classic collections this quarter. In pickleball, we are also experiencing a strong response to our Westbrook pattern. Wilson soft goods continues its excellent growth, more than doubling in Q2 2025. We continue to see a strong response to the Intricate Women's tennis shoe, which was recently chosen as the best new tennis shoe by Women's Health magazine. We also continue to excel in China, and we will open approximately 50 more Wilson Tennis 360 shops in China this year.
In North America, the new Tennis 360 concept store in the Dallas North Park Mall continues to perform very well, and we are excited about our new shop in Beverly Hills. We continue to expand our Tennis 360 test at Dick's Sporting Goods and other retail partners. Beyond the racket sports, solid trends in baseball bats were offset by soft sales in gloves, inflatables, and golf. Now, I will turn it over to Andrew.
Speaker 0
Thanks, James. I will discuss tariffs in more detail when I provide guidance, but I want to start by saying that we are very confident that our fundamental business momentum, diverse global footprint, clean balance sheet, and strong brand portfolio with pricing power will give us significant flexibility to manage through a variety of tariff scenarios. More importantly, the inflection of Salomon footwear adds a strong second leg of growth to Arc'teryx's already exceptional sales and margin trajectory, significantly elevating the long-term value creation potential of our unique brand portfolio. Given our strong first half results and continued operating and financial momentum, and despite higher tariffs than assumed in our previous guidance, we are raising our full-year revenue and EPS expectations. This updated guidance assumes the current 30% U.S.
tariff on goods from China and that the latest tariff rates on all other countries will stay in place for the remainder of 2025. Although the impact of higher tariffs to our ball and racket segment will be slightly higher than expected, given the mitigation strategies already underway across brands, we still expect negligible tariff impact to our consolidated results this year and beyond. Okay, let's go through Q2 results. Amer Sports grew sales 23% in Q2 on a reported basis, or 22% excluding currency. The strong sales performance was led by outdoor performance, followed by technical apparel, and ball and racket also continued to deliver solid growth in the quarter. By channel, the group continued to be driven by direct-to-consumer, which grew 40% led by Salomon in Greater China and APAC, as well as Arc'teryx globally. Wholesale grew 9% at the group level, led by Salomon.
Regional growth was led by Asia Pacific, which increased 45%, and China, which grew 42%. EMEA accelerated to 18% growth, and the Americas grew 6% in Q2. The Americas deceleration was driven by normalizing growth in ball and racket and a tougher comparison due to the shift in wholesale shipments from Q3 into Q2 in 2024. Amer Sports continues to achieve very strong growth in China, and there are several reasons why we are confident in our future growth opportunities in this important consumer market. Number one, our brands compete in one of the highest quality, fastest growing consumer segments in China, the premium sports and outdoor market. The outdoor trend in China continues to be very robust, attracting younger consumers, female consumers, and luxury shoppers.
Additionally, our authentic brands are known for their expertise, quality, and technical innovation, which resonates well with Chinese consumers, and our brands are still small in China. Third, most important, we have a great team in China. Our deep expertise and unique scalable operating platform give us a significant competitive advantage across the portfolio. Turning to profitability, adjusted gross margin increased 250 basis points to 58.7% in Q2, primarily driven by favorable channel, geographic, product, and brand mix, as well as by lower discounts compared to the prior year and partially offset by the headwinds in transportation, logistics, and materials. Adjusted SG&A expenses as a percentage of revenues deleveraged by 140 basis points and represented 54.7% of revenues in Q2.
Outdoor performance achieved SG&A leverage on very strong growth, which was offset by slight deleverage at technical apparel due to retail expansion and ball and racket due to ongoing investments in sportswear. Led by gross margin expansion, we generated a 260 basis point increase in our adjusted operating margin from 2.9% last year to 5.5% in Q2. Note that we received $19 million of government grants in the second quarter of 2025, which were received in the second half of 2024. This benefited adjusted operating margin by approximately 150 basis points in Q2. Corporate expenses were $34 million, up from $25 million in Q2 last year. D&A was $81 million, which includes $39 million of ROU depreciation. Adjusted net finance cost in the quarter was $22 million, comprised of $30 million of interest expense, partially offset by $8 million of FX gains on the remeasurement of certain monetary assets.
In the quarter, our adjusted income tax expense was $5 million, which equates to an adjusted effective tax rate of 12%. A discrete item related to a return to provision adjustment benefited our ETR in Q2. Adjusted net income in Q2 was $36 million, compared to $25 million in the prior year. Adjusted diluted earnings per share was $0.06 compared to adjusted diluted earnings per share of $0.05 last year. Now, turning to segment results. Technical apparel revenues increased 23% to $509 million, led by Arc'teryx. Growth was fueled by 31% D2C expansion, including a 15% omnichannel, a solid result facing the toughest two-year stacked comp comparison of 2025. Lower levels of outlet sales had a negative impact on the technical apparel omnicom, as Arc'teryx continues to shift more focus on full-price sales and limiting online and in-store outlet sales.
The D2C momentum continues to be fueled by both new and existing consumers across all regions, channels, and product categories. Technical apparel wholesale revenues grew 4%, negatively impacted by a shift in shipments from Q3 into Q2 last year. Regionally, the technical apparel growth rate was led by Asia Pacific, followed by Greater China, the Americas, and EMEA. All regions grew strong double digits. Technical apparel adjusted operating margin declined 10 basis points to 13.9%, as slight gross margin expansion and higher other operating income was offset by growing SG&A investments. Lastly, we recently entered into an asset purchase agreement to acquire substantially all of the assets and certain liabilities of Nelson Sports, Inc., the exclusive distributor for Arc'teryx and Valance products in Korea since 2001.
We expect the transaction to close in the second half of 2025, after which the country will be operated fully brand direct versus a traditional distributor model. Korea is a large sport and luxury consumer market, still with strong growth potential for Arc'teryx. Moving to the outdoor performance segment, which saw revenues increase 35% to $414 million, driven by very strong performance in Salomon footwear, apparel, and bags and socks. By channel, outdoor performance D2C grew 63%, led by new doors and higher productivity across markets, especially Greater China and APAC. E-com is also growing across regions, driven by higher traffic. Wholesale grew 18%, driven by strong sell-through in reorders and soft goods. Regionally, the outdoor performance growth rate was led by Greater China and APAC, followed by accelerating growth in both EMEA and Americas.
As James alluded to, the popularity of Salomon footwear is inflecting globally, and we are well positioned to appropriately and fully develop this unique opportunity over time. We believe we have very significant growth opportunities in all three major consumer regions and have the right talent and team structure in place to take a meaningful share of the global sneaker market over time. For our winter sports equipment brands, while Q2 is by far the smallest quarter of the year, we have solid preorders for the upcoming winter season as we continue to take market share in skiing. We also see growth opportunities in both snowboarding and protective equipment. Winter sports equipment is expected to represent only 28% of the outdoor performance segment in 2025, down from 46% in 2022. Outdoor performance adjusted operating profit margin expanded 720 basis points from last year to 5.1% in Q2.
Margin expansion was led by gross margin thanks to positive channel, region, and product mix, as well as favorable product costs due to our footwear cost optimization initiatives. This margin expansion was also driven by SG&A leverage on very strong revenue growth. Before I get into the results of ball and racket, I'd like to thank Joe Dooley and acknowledge his distinguished 30-year career with Amer Sports and the Wilson franchise. Joe was instrumental in many key achievements of the brand, most recently growing the brand to over $1 billion in annual revenues and setting the stage for its next growth inflection, driven by Tennis 360. Now moving to results. Ball and racket revenue increased 11% to $314 million, driven by soft goods and racket sports.
We are pleased with the continued growth in ball and racket, but would caution that double-digit growth is not sustainable long term, and we continue to expect ball and racket to grow low to mid-single digits long term. By category, the growth was led by soft goods, which now represents approximately 15% of segment sales and also our racket sports franchises. We continue to see very strong momentum in Tennis 360 across the globe, especially in China. Golf, inflatables, and baseball were all down slightly. Golf grew strong double digits in EMEA, but this was offset by lower sell-in in the U.S. However, for H1 overall, golf had solid growth. The inflatables market conditions are challenging, and the weaker baseball glove sales are offsetting growth in bats. Regionally, the ball and racket growth rate was led by China, APAC, and EMEA, while Americas was roughly flat.
Ball and racket segment adjusted operating profit margin increased 200 basis points to 3.1% due to higher gross margin driven by favorable product, channel, and region mix, which offset higher duties and fight SG&A deleverage on continued soft goods investment. Turning to the balance sheet, we ended the quarter with $640 million of net debt. Using the midpoint of our 2025 adjusted operating profit guidance, our net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio was approximately 0.6 times at the end of Q2. Our balance sheet is in a healthy position to support our company as we navigate tariff and other external uncertainties. Looking forward, paying down debt, which carries non-deductible interest, remains an effective use of excess cash. We exited the quarter with inventories up 29% year-over-year, higher than our 23% sales growth, mainly driven by Arc'teryx.
This higher inventory is primarily driven by three factors: one, early receipt of fall 2025 merchandise, which included tariff mitigation tactics; two, higher goods in transit from lower air freight usage, which means we carried the goods on our books much longer; and three, FX translation from the weaker U.S. dollar. While we expect inventory growth to remain moderately elevated through the end of 2025, we are very comfortable with the quality of Arc'teryx's goods and expect to work it down and return to normal inventory growth rates as we progress through 2026. Driven by strong profit growth and disciplined working capital management, we generated $108 million of operating cash flow in the first half. For the full year 2025, we expect to generate solid operating cash flow growth from 2024 levels.
Now, moving to guidance, we remain confident that we are well positioned to manage through a variety of tariff scenarios, given our low exposure to the U.S., our high-end consumer base, the untapped pricing power of our brand portfolio, and our clean balance sheet and strong cash flow dynamics. Given mitigation strategies underway, we continue to expect negligible impact to our group P&L from higher tariffs in 2025 and beyond. For the full year of 2025, given the upside in Q2 and our continued momentum, and despite a slightly higher tariff impact, we are raising our full-year revenue and EPS expectations. This guidance assumes incremental U.S. tariffs on imports from China remain at 30%, Vietnam at 20%, Europe at 15%, and the rest of the world at the latest rates.
We are raising our 2025 revenue growth guidance from 15% to 17% to 20% to 21%, including an approximate 100 basis point benefit from favorable FX impact at current exchange rates. By segment, we are raising our technical apparel revenue growth guidance from approximately 20% to 22% to 22% to 25%, including continued strong omnicom growth. We are also increasing our outdoor performance sales growth expectations from mid-teens to 22% to 25%, and ball and racket from mid-single digits to 7% to 9% growth. We are raising our full-year adjusted gross margin guidance from 56.5% to 57% to approximately 57.5%, and we're also raising our adjusted operating margin guidance from 11.5% to 12% to 11.8% to 12.2%. By segment, we continue to expect an adjusted operating margin of approximately 21% for technical apparel. For outdoor performance, we are raising adjusted operating margin guidance from approximately 9.5% to 11% to 11.5%.
For ball and racket, we are maintaining our adjusted operating margin guidance of 3% to 4%. Ball and racket will experience a slight drag from higher tariffs in the second half because of a few factors. Number one, the termination of the steel and aluminum exemption under which Wilson rackets and bats previously fell. Number two, higher actual tariff rates in Vietnam and other sourcing markets than the 10% rest of the world assumption we last guided. Number three, some shipments of Wilson soft goods had unfavorable timing and were hit by the temporary 145% China tariff. We are now assuming full-year net finance costs of approximately $105 million and an effective tax rate of 28% to 30%. The lower effective tax rate is primarily driven by higher profit generation from low tax jurisdictions, as well as the discrete item in Q2 that I mentioned.
Other operating income will be approximately $20 million for the full year, and net income attributable to non-controlling interest will be approximately $10 million. We now expect adjusted diluted EPS of $0.77 to $0.82 versus our prior guidance of $0.67 to $0.72, which is based on 561 million fully diluted shares outstanding. Also, we are assuming D&A of $350 million, including approximately $180 million of ROU depreciation. CapEx is expected to be approximately $300 million, primarily to support new store expansion, ERP optimization, and distribution and logistics investments. Turning to third quarter guidance, we expect reported revenue growth for the group to be approximately 20%, which includes an approximate 150 basis point benefit from FX. We expect adjusted gross margin to be approximately 56.5% in Q3 and an adjusted operating profit margin between 12% and 13%.
Our net finance cost for the quarter should be between $30 million and $35 million, and the effective tax rate should fall between 28% and 30%. We expect adjusted diluted EPS of $0.20 to $0.22 per share. Our updated guidance implies slower growth in two waves than one wave. However, as we've said before, should strong trends continue and better than anticipated demand materialize, we believe we will be well positioned to deliver financial performance ahead of these expectations. Lastly, before Q&A, we will be hosting our first ever Investor Day on September 18th in Vancouver at Arc'teryx headquarters, which will be webcast. Although we will provide a high-level group update, the primary focus of the meeting will be a deep dive into the Arc'teryx brand and its many unique opportunities. With that, I'll turn it back over to the operator for questions.
Speaker 2
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, simply press star one again. Your first question comes from the line of Matthew Boss from JPMorgan. Your line is open.
Speaker 0
Thanks, and congrats on another nice quarter.
Speaker 1
Thank you.
Speaker 0
James, could you elaborate on the momentum that you're seeing in the third quarter supporting the 20% outlook, speak to drivers of the growth inflection at Salomon and the accelerated back half opportunity? Stuart, could you expand on the raised expectations at Arc'teryx, maybe specifically trends you've seen third quarter to date relative to the second quarter, 15% omnicom?
Speaker 1
Thanks, Matt. Okay. Based on the very strong Q2 result, we see our growth momentum still carry on in Q3, especially for Salomon footwear. Cross-border, as we just introduced to you guys, our strategy works and especially our new products really resonate in the markets. We created a very unique category we call the outdoor sneakers, which really gives us a very strong competitive edge in sneaker markets, especially for female consumers, younger female consumer sectors. We really created a wide space for us, and we see very strong growth trends for outdoor performance segment. On the other side, I also will say Arc'teryx is also on the right track, and the momentum still carries on. I still will give you more detailed elaboration on that. Wilson Tennis 360 formats continue to work well, especially in China and Southeast Asia.
We see a very clear growth pattern for our Wilson Tennis 360. In the U.S., we are also on the way to really test different formats in the markets we are sitting, and we also have very good confidence to unlock the potential for our Wilson Tennis 360 in the United States. Pretty much like this. Stuart?
Speaker 0
Thanks, James. Yeah, Matt, the outlook that we offered really reflects the trends that we're seeing in the business across regions and channels. Specifically, as we look at the second quarter into the third quarter, total revenues, we had a wholesale shift last year that was a headwind for us in the second quarter of this year, and that was reflected in the wholesale sales increase that we had posted single digit. That's a tailwind for us now as we go into Q3 this year, as we lap an easier compare last year in the wholesale channel. Overall, though, our direct-to-consumer business is very strong. I would say the 15% comp that we posted, we feel really good about that. The comparison was tough compared to last year. We've also seen a reduction in markdown sales.
Our markdowns are down about 500 basis points in retail and about 100 basis points in e-commerce. Much higher full-price business, much healthier that benefits our margins. We're seeing just strong underlying trends in our business. From a KPI standpoint, traffic trends remain very strong, which is the KPI that is the driver of our revenue growth. We have a strong inventory position, as was noted, coming into the back half of the year. What we're seeing so far in the third quarter is very encouraging. We're seeing really strong initial sell-through in the first few weeks of the third quarter. That connects to the guidance that we just gave.
Speaker 2
Your next question comes from a line of Brooke Roach from Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.
Good morning, and thank you for taking our question. Can you speak to the next levers of growth at the Salomon brand following the recent inflection? How should we be thinking about the pace and magnitude of additional distribution point expansion in the U.S. relative to your other key international regions, both on an owned door and partner wholesale door basis? Thank you.
Speaker 1
Yeah, thank you for your questions. First of all, Salomon is really on a fast-growing pattern. In the past two Qs, obviously mainly driven by strong momentum in China and Asia Pacific, together with the EMEA. In the U.S., we are still, literally, we are still on the way to build the foundation. Right now, we only got one shop in New York City. We plan to open four to five shops by the end of the year in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles to further validate our so-called Salomon compact shop format, which has been proven in China and Europe. We have very good confidence because in terms of the retail format and the product assortment, we already got a very solid base to support our U.S. market. Meanwhile, we also continue to try to find a good way to strengthen our B2B business in the United States.
Especially, we are on the way to build a very strong partnership with the top accounts like REI and Nordstrom, and that will give us a good base to continue to see what's the right model for us to accelerate our business in the U.S. We also, together with a very strong performance line being introduced in the markets, right now, we also try to find a good model in our running, especially in the United States. In summary, I will say we are still, in Salomon in the U.S., we are still on a preliminary stage. We are still on the way to build out a foundation. Given the successful model we built up in Europe and China, we have a very high confidence to build a very strong business model for Salomon footwear in the United States in the future.
Great. Thanks so much. I'll pass it on.
Thank you.
Speaker 2
Your next question comes from a line of Lorraine Hutchinson from Bank of America. Your line is open.
Thank you. Good morning. I wanted to get your views on pricing at each of the brands. What type of price increases are you embedding to mitigate the tariffs, and what has the customer response been to those?
Speaker 0
Yeah, thanks, Lorraine. Yeah, with regard to pricing increases, I mean, we have, across the brands, we would have leaned into some pricing increases in the Wilson brand. We talked about that a little bit earlier this year. As far as Salomon and Arc'teryx, we continue to acknowledge that we have untapped pricing flexibility that we will definitely lean into should we need to. We've been able to navigate and mitigate the tariff impact without taking price thus far in those other two brands. With regard to the quant, with regard to Wilson, for certain products, it's been approximately 10%.
Thank you.
Speaker 2
Your next question comes from a line of Paul Lejuez from Citi. Your line is open.
Speaker 1
Hey, thanks. Hey, Stuart, can you talk about how Arc'teryx stores are competing for full-price stores versus how much of a drag you're seeing on comp from the outlet stores? Then just separate inventory in terms of dollars versus units, and if you can give any color as to places that might be too light, might be restricting sales versus any regions or categories that might be a bit too highly expensive.
Speaker 0
Yeah, thanks, Paul. The comp store trends in our full-price stores are robust. It's probably a mid-single-digit drag on the overall comp based on the outlet sales declines that I mentioned. We're happy to see that shift happening. We're happy to see a stronger full-price mix, even though it may weigh on the headline comp number. From an inventory standpoint, in certain of our footwear categories, we've stocked out quickly, especially new models that we're introducing where we're still trying to find the edge of demand. The Clarkia pant that James had mentioned is a good example of that. We're still chasing the market there. Much of our spring-summer apparel line also, we're still painfully out of stock in a number of regions. We really don't know how high is high yet in that part of the business, and it gives us encouragement for the spring-summer period specifically.
We're in a good position, I would say, from a fall-winter as we head into, as we're now in the third quarter. What I had mentioned in terms of the trend quarter to date in Q3 gives us confidence in the guidance that we had given. I would further say, if demand continues to materialize, there's the potential to outperform. We think we're well positioned, nothing structural that would prevent us, and we're in a strong inventory position at this point. That's the most color we can give right now. Yeah.
Speaker 1
Paul, this is Andrew. I would elaborate a little bit on the inventory as Stuart talked about in our prepared remarks. Definitely comfortable with where we are with inventory and, in fact, a bit encouraged that we're able to get ahead of some of the floor sets that Stuart had to chase in previous years. In addition, as we have started to optimize our supply chain and get ahead of some of that, we're taking ownership of our inventory a bit earlier because we have less air freight and actually vessel freight. We have normalized that supply chain process, which is, again, I'm encouraged by the improvements that we're making in our supply chain and encouraged by the fact that we're going to get ahead of some of that demand that we've been chasing in previous periods.
Speaker 0
Got it. Thank you, guys. Good luck.
Speaker 1
Thanks, Paul.
Speaker 2
Your next question comes from a line of Jay Sole from UBS. Your line is open.
Great, thank you so much. Two-part question. One, Stuart, can you just talk about the women's business at Arc'teryx and how you've seen that develop over the last 90 days? Then on Salomon, just with the super strong growth, you know, probably above what you talked about at the time of the IPO, what's really gotten better, big picture at Salomon, that's allowed you to deliver this big inflection and the big growth? Thank you.
Speaker 0
We'll start with Stuart on Arc'teryx and go to James for Salomon. Hey, Jay. Yeah, thanks for the question. The women's business, we saw continued strength in the second quarter. Our revenues in women's was up over 30% in the quarter. We saw continued increases in our penetration, our mix of business. We're pleased to see just the strength of our women's business growing in importance. There was some explosive growth in certain models. James had mentioned the Clarkia. We also introduced recently a couple of new models, the Nia pant and the Altera crops hard shell that are seeing fast sales out of the gate as well. We're excited to see women's-only specific models performing well as we expand the assortment for women's. This is an important sort of validation of the product strategy.
While we're seeing our core products continue to sell well also with our female guests, we really feel like we're just getting started. More to follow, and we look forward to sharing more at the Investor Day in September on women's specifically.
Speaker 1
Hey, Jay. I will highlight several key drivers to make Salomon at this stage grow so faster in the markets. First of all, I will say, I just mentioned it's all coming from our unique product proposition. We make a very successful story on the category we call the outdoor sneakers, which many are driven by our sports style business, FT sales. That franchise really demonstrates very strong performance among the younger, I would say younger in the female consumer sectors. I think this gives us a very unique angle to unlock the potential for the very highly competitive unique markets. On the other side, the product side is also we consistently provide, introduce a high-performance running product in the market, which also receives extremely strong positive feedback from our B2B partners.
The sales group also listed on the top in all the shops to the point of sales we are sitting. That's number one. The second one is, I think we also really built up a strong business model in China. Three years ago we only got five shops, and today, by the end of the year, we will have close to 300 shops. All these shops are profitable and really give us a very strong confidence to drive the whole business the right way. These kinds of direct-to-consumer channels build up, also give us the chance to leverage overall brand awareness and also make the consumer understand what Salomon stands for, how they can get the right level of service from our, from in the shop they are working, they are, in the shop environment they are in. I think it's a quite amazing situation.
On the other side, I will say the overall strategic move on our B2B partners' optimization, especially in Europe. We really built a very strong alliance with the top B2B retailers, the top retailers cross-border in European markets, and JD Sports, Foot Locker, and the customer. They all give us a very strong, very strong exposure in the shops so that we can really deliver the result in the markets. That's the main drivers for Salomon in the current high growth pattern in the markets.
Got it. Very helpful. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2
Your next question comes from the line of Laurent Vasilescu from BNP Paribas. Your line is open.
Good morning. Thank you very much for taking my question. Outdoor performance is implied to grow 20% in the second half. Can you unpack that a bit more? Any nuances between 3Q and 4Q revenues, especially heading into the Winter Olympics? Andrew, should we still assume that winter goods grows low single digits for the year? I have a quick follow-up on margins. Thank you.
Speaker 1
That's part of the question. I missed the last part. The last part of your question?
The second part.
Yeah, winter goods, should they still grow low single digits for the year?
Winter sports equipment will continue to be a low single-digit grower for the rest of the year. The outdoor performance implies 20% growth in the second half, it's pretty level between the third and fourth quarter. There's no cadence that you need to build in that we're signaling.
Okay, very helpful. The last quarter, Andrew, you were very helpful providing a color around 1,000 basis point improvement in margins for the outdoor performance. I think 700 bps was from gross margin. Can you kind of give us that bridge for the 700 basis point improvement? Then longer term, are there any structural reasons why this segment margin can't get to mid-teens over time?
Yeah, with regard to the gross margin improvement in the second quarter, it's primarily gross margin. With regard to whether or not this business can get to, you know, we're going to be obviously very competitive. As we continue to drive soft goods and footwear, you would expect this business to start to approach the area that you're talking about. I'm going to give a much longer-term update on the margin profile of each of our segments when we come up at Investor Day. You're in the zip code.
Very helpful. Looking forward to Vancouver.
Speaker 2
Your next question comes from a line of Jonathan Komp from Baird. Your line is open.
Speaker 1
Yeah, hi. Good morning. Thank you. Stuart, just two follow-ups if I could. The outlook drag on comps for technical apparel or Arc'teryx, should we expect that to continue equally throughout the year? Maybe could you frame up a little more the opportunity you see bringing the Korea business fully in-house? Just separately, Andrew, you raised the operating margin again. It was a little bit less than the raise to the gross margin rate. Could you maybe just share where you're driving incremental investment and some of the payoff that you expect to see?
Speaker 0
Yeah, thanks, Jonathan, Stuart. The outlet drag, I don't expect it will get worse than what we have seen in the first half of the year. There could be an opportunity for that to moderate to a degree, but, you know, probably more like what we've seen in the first half than not, if that makes sense. Probably more consistent into the back half than any change per se. The Korea opportunity we believe is exciting. It's an incredible outdoor market. We've had a strong relationship for a number of years with our partner there, but we believe we can invest in the business in a new way and really capture meaningful upside, building on the strong start that our partner had created there. We see upside for sure in Korea. We think it could be bigger than Japan, even in terms of revenues.
We've got a great start so far.
Speaker 1
Hey, Jonathan. Yeah, really excited about the performance in the second quarter. Think about it, you know, really strong momentum as we go into the third quarter. We're going to seize this opportunity to continue to invest in the growth of the business. As you think about things like new store openings, marketing, you know, there was a previous question around Salomon footwear growth and that inflection and continue to invest in that inflection, brand awareness. With all of those key initiative investments, we're still going to deliver 100 basis points of expansion to the bottom line. It's thoughtful and it's prudent and it's responsible growth.
Speaker 0
Certainly paying off. Thanks again.
Speaker 2
Operator, we have time for one more question. Certainly. Your final question comes from a line of Michael Binetti from Evercore. Your line is open.
Hey, guys. Congrats on a great quarter. Can I just ask, Stuart, it sounds like a few categories stocked out quickly, and that's not the first time. It's good to see the demand there. I don't know, it sounds like the drag to the outlets is kind of the same through the year. Could you just help us understand what we should expect for the evolution of that omnicom in the rest of the year? Is mid-teens a more consistent run rate from here? You also pointed to the high comparison a year ago. I guess just backing up, I know you guys don't look at the business in geos, but maybe just unpack the 6% in the Americas there a little bit by brand and channel. Give us a sense of whether that's the right range to think about.
I know there's some categories like in ball and racket and maybe hard goods that mix higher in the U.S., but is that the right cadence to think about what we'll see in that mid-single-digit range for the rest of the year?
Speaker 0
Yeah, Michael and Stuart, I'll take the first part of your question. The omnicom for Arc'teryx, our comparisons get easier into the second half. As I said, the underlying trend is strong. What we're seeing in the first few weeks of Q3 is very encouraging. We're very pleased with the overall trends, including our omnicoms, and that's reflected in the guidance that we had shared. We certainly see the trends in the first half from an omnicom standpoint being something that we would see continuing at least at this level or higher into the second half of the year. As I mentioned, strong inventory position, nothing structural that would prevent us from delivering upside should demand materialize.
Speaker 1
Yeah, and Michael, hey, this is Andrew. Just coming back to your North American question, really excited about what we're seeing, especially with Arc'teryx and Salomon. Strong double-digit growth for both of them in North America. Where you see, obviously ball and racket is predominantly North America, and there was slower growth in the U.S. with ball and racket. Tennis 360 continues to grow strong, and we're excited about that. We had strong results in rackets. Where you saw some slower trends were baseball, gloves, golf, and inflatable balls. We continue to do well with bats, but it was a little bit offset by the gloves. The last thing is we do see some sporting goods retailers being cautious with regard to their ordering, and that's driving a little bit of that slowdown that you see.
Andrew, can I follow that real quick?
I guess, Michael, the last thing that I want to remember is that we pointed this out, and Stuart alluded to it a little bit, is that last year, you know, we had a pull forward out of Q3 into Q2. That was wholesale driven. What happens is it's a tougher comp this year. Excluding that pull forward, you would have saw a slight increase in the current. Yeah.
Speaker 2
In the wholesale channel, excluding that drag, wholesale would have actually accelerated slightly overall at the group level.
Speaker 0
Okay. I followed that with the reminder about low to mid-single-digit growth long-term on ball and racket. It sounds like you're feeling very good about the Tennis 360 initiatives and a few things in the past. Stores are starting to grow in China. Is there an obvious category that you expect to be persistently negative that would offset some of the emerging excitement I hear from you on some of the initiatives there in ball and racket?
Speaker 1
Yeah. I mean, the business is still 90%, 90%, 85% equipment. That's number one. Number two, it just really depends on the velocity of our Tennis 360. As James talked about, you know, we really found a nice format in APAC and Greater China. We're still searching for it in the early stages of that format in North America.
Speaker 0
Okay, thanks a lot. Appreciate it, guys.
Speaker 1
Thank you.
That concludes our question and answer session. I will now turn the call back over to management for some final closing remarks.
Speaker 2
Thanks, everyone, for joining. Look forward to seeing you on the third quarter call in November. Have a great week.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.