Adidas increases sales by 6% in 2019

Currency-neutral sales of Adidas in the fiscal year 2019 increased by 6 percent to 23.6 billion euros compared to the previous year, the German sportswear manufacturer announced on Wednesday.

At the same time, net income from Adidas' continuing operations grew 12 percent to 1.9 billion euros, according to the company.

"In 2019, we proved our resilience and delivered a strong year yet again," said Kasper Rorsted, chief executive officer (CEO) of Adidas. "We recorded revenue increases across all regions and our direct-to-consumer business grew double-digits driven by e-commerce, one of our strategic growth areas."

Adidas noted that it had increasing revenues despite supply chain shortages following a "strong increase in demand for mid-priced apparel".

The combined currency-neutral sales of the Adidas and Reebok brands continued to expand at double-digit rates in Asia-Pacific with 10 percent, driven by a 15 percent increase in China, as well as emerging markets by 13 percent.

For 2020, Adidas is expecting currency-neutral sales to increase between 6 and 8 percent and net income from continuing operations to increase between 10 and 13 percent.

Adidas' business in China "performed strongly" in the first three weeks of 2020. However, revenues in China had been around 80 percent below last year's level between Chinese New Year and the end of February as a result of a significant number of temporary store closures.

Since then, Adidas had started to see a "slight improvement" in its China business activity, with stores and warehouses gradually opening and consumer traffic slowly picking up.

As the situation with the new coronavirus was still evolving, Rorsted stressed that "we cannot yet reliably quantify the magnitude of the overall financial impact in 2020."

Following the announcement, shares of Adidas dropped by more than 10 percent on Wednesday, making Adidas the biggest loser of Germany's 30 largest companies listed in the DAX.