CEO Bjørn Gulden Affirms adidas Will Not Be Selling Any YEEZY Designs in the Future
Bjørn Gulden, CEO of adidas has firmly denied any possibility of the sportswear brand selling YEEZY products without the branding in the future. Shortly after adidas confirmed it will be parting ways, last November Gulden did mention that YEEZY designs will still be sold, with rollouts beginning in 2023. With rollouts well on their way and adidas and the artist formerly known as Kanye West agreeing to sell the remaining YEEZY products and donate portions to charity, Gulden has now said on an earnings call last week that selling YEEZY products without the name attached "is not an alternative." Retail Dive reports that Gulden continued to affirm there is no future between adidas and YEEZY in the call stating, "The YEEZY product is something that [Ye] created, he's the inventor of it and we have been his partner. To take his designs and sell them off later, which we technically legally could do, is not part of our strategy. Our task now is to limit the damage, get rid of the inventory, use the proceeds to good...and build a business later without YEEZY."The executives at the company have said that the first sale of YEEZY products this year accounted for $441 million USD worth of sales. The sale saw the company rid of 20% of its YEEZY inventory. Gulden confirms that the company will continue to gradually sell off the current inventory but is not making any assumptions on how the sales will be, "The uncertainty on each of these drops is so big and we don't want to have people believing that we have sales and profits in the pocket." Sales in North America has seen a 16% decline for adidas, with executives acknowledging that if they had not sold the YEEZY inventory, it would have been worse -- "We also saw gross margin in our core business improving strongly compared to the first quarter. The operating profit of €176 million EUR was substantially higher than our initial plans. The sale of the first part of the YEEZY inventory did of course help both our top and bottom line in the quarter." In Q1, adidas saw a loss of €400 million EUR for not selling YEEZY merchandise. In case you missed it, here is an official look at the Nike Sabrina 1 "University Gold."Click here to view full gallery at Hypebeast
Bjørn Gulden, CEO of adidas has firmly denied any possibility of the sportswear brand selling YEEZY products without the branding in the future. Shortly after adidas confirmed it will be parting ways, last November Gulden did mention that YEEZY designs will still be sold, with rollouts beginning in 2023. With rollouts well on their way and adidas and the artist formerly known as Kanye West agreeing to sell the remaining YEEZY products and donate portions to charity, Gulden has now said on an earnings call last week that selling YEEZY products without the name attached "is not an alternative."
Retail Dive reports that Gulden continued to affirm there is no future between adidas and YEEZY in the call stating, "The YEEZY product is something that [Ye] created, he's the inventor of it and we have been his partner. To take his designs and sell them off later, which we technically legally could do, is not part of our strategy. Our task now is to limit the damage, get rid of the inventory, use the proceeds to good...and build a business later without YEEZY."
The executives at the company have said that the first sale of YEEZY products this year accounted for $441 million USD worth of sales. The sale saw the company rid of 20% of its YEEZY inventory. Gulden confirms that the company will continue to gradually sell off the current inventory but is not making any assumptions on how the sales will be, "The uncertainty on each of these drops is so big and we don't want to have people believing that we have sales and profits in the pocket."
Sales in North America has seen a 16% decline for adidas, with executives acknowledging that if they had not sold the YEEZY inventory, it would have been worse -- "We also saw gross margin in our core business improving strongly compared to the first quarter. The operating profit of €176 million EUR was substantially higher than our initial plans. The sale of the first part of the YEEZY inventory did of course help both our top and bottom line in the quarter." In Q1, adidas saw a loss of €400 million EUR for not selling YEEZY merchandise.
In case you missed it, here is an official look at the Nike Sabrina 1 "University Gold."
Click here to view full gallery at Hypebeast
