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IKEA profits plunge more than a quarter after tariff uncertainty

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IKEA profits plunge more than a quarter after tariff uncertainty


With the fiscal year ending in August, Sweden’s Inter IKEA – which supplies furniture to IKEA stores globally – said its annual operating profit dropped 26% due to the impact of U.S. tariffs driving up costs.

Operating profit for the fiscal year ended on Aug. 31 was 1.7 billion euros ($1.98 billion), down from 2.3 billion euros the year before, while revenue fell to 26.3 billion euros from 26.5 billion euros, after it cut prices, according to the IKEA brand owner.

IKEA stores across 63 markets around the world fell for a second year in a row to 44.6 billion euros ($52.01 billion), the furniture maker announced.

Inter IKEA said in a statement that commodity prices and logistics costs had risen in the second half of the financial year due to uncertainties following U.S. tariff announcements.

While IKEA has cut prices overall, higher U.S. tariffs have forced it to increase prices on some products in the United States, which it imports from factories in Europe and China. Lithuanian furniture manufacturer SBA, which supplies IKEA, last month launched its first U.S. factory, in North Carolina, manufacturing IKEA products such as its BILLY bookcases and KALLAX shelving units.

Empty IKEA parking lot (Getty/iStock)

The factory was planned well before U.S. President Donald Trump embarked on his tariff-hiking policies, Henrik Elm, chief financial officer at Inter IKEA, told Reuters.

But it is “very timely, of course, since that is also helping us to mitigate the effects of the tariffs on those top-selling products,” Elm said in an interview.

Inter IKEA said wholesale sales volumes rose by around 6% compared to the previous year as shoppers responded to lower prices by buying more.

U.S. Supreme Court justices raised doubts on Wednesday over the legality of Trump’s tariffs in a case that has broad implications for how Trump governs. The president, who has warned that a decision stripping him of the right to set tariffs would be a disaster, said on Thursday his administration would need a Plan B of sorts if the court’s ruling went that way.

During a back-and-forth with journalists in the Oval Office about the issue, a reporter noted that Chief Justice John Roberts had asserted that tariffs were actually taxes paid by Americans.



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Nike shares fall 9% on weak outlook, expected 20% sales decline in China

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Nike shares fall 9% on weak outlook, expected 20% sales decline in China


A Nike logo is displayed at a Nike store in Austin, Texas, Feb. 5, 2026.

Brandon Bell | Getty Images

Shares of Nike fell in extended trading Tuesday after the retailer warned sales will fall for the rest of the calendar year, led by an expected 20% decline in its key China market during the current quarter.

Chief Financial Officer Matt Friend said during the company’s earnings call that Nike expects sales for its current fiscal fourth quarter to drop between 2% and 4%, compared with Wall Street estimates of a 1.9% increase, according to LSEG.

For the duration of the calendar year, Friend said, the company expects sales to fall by a low single-digit percentage, led by growth in North America and offset by declines in China. That outlook wasn’t comparable to estimates.

Nike beat expectations across the business on both the top and bottom lines for its fiscal third quarter, but its guidance left investors with more questions about how long its turnaround will take. Friend also cautioned that Nike’s guidance was based off of where the global economic picture stands today — and it could change given recent geopolitical volatility.

“We also recognize that the environment around us has become increasingly dynamic, and we could experience unplanned volatility due to the disruption in the Middle East, rising oil prices and other factors that could impact either input costs or consumer behavior,” said Friend. “We are focused on what we can control.”

Shares fell more than 8% in extended trading.

Here’s how the world’s largest sneaker company did for its fiscal third quarter, compared with estimates from analysts polled by LSEG:

  • Earnings per share: 35 cents vs. 28 cents expected
  • Revenue: $11.28 billion vs. $11.24 billion expected

The company’s reported net income for the three-month period that ended Feb. 28 was $520 million, or 35 cents per share. That’s a 35% decline from $794 million, or 54 cents per share, a year earlier. That plunge came as Nike’s gross profit margin slid 1.3 percentage points to 40.2%, “primarily due to higher tariffs in North America,” the company said.

Sales were flat at $11.28 billion, compared to $11.27 billion last year.

While Nike beat expectations on the top and bottom lines, it posted a mixed picture regionally. Nike’s largest market of North America continued to show steady growth, as revenue climbed 3% to $5.03 billion, but that was just shy of Wall Street’s expectations of $5.04 billion, according to StreetAccount.

Meanwhile, Nike’s Greater China market continued to shrink, with revenue down 7% to $1.62 billion during the quarter. Still, that total beat analyst estimates of $1.50 billion, according to StreetAccount.

Nike is continuing to work through a colossal turnaround under CEO Elliott Hill. About a year and a half into his tenure, Hill has made strides in repairing parts of the business, but has been clear that it’ll take time for the entire company to improve given the retailer’s scale and complexity. 

He reiterated that expectation on Tuesday, saying in a news release that “the pace of progress is different across the portfolio.”

“The areas we prioritized first continue to drive momentum,” Hill said. “The work is not finished, but the direction is clear, our teams are moving with focus and urgency, and our foundation is getting even stronger to build the future of NIKE.”

Friend said Nike’s turnaround efforts “will continue to impact results over the balance of the calendar year.”

Nike’s recovery was already coming at a tough time as a global trade war dented its efforts to improve profitability and drive sales from inflation-weary shoppers. But now the athletic company will have to contend with a new war in the Middle East that’s already led to rising gas prices and is expected to send consumer prices even higher, which could push shoppers to cut back on nice-to-haves like new clothes and shoes to save money elsewhere. 

“We continue to be encouraged by the momentum in North America. We’ve got a strong order book for summer,” Friend said. “We’re seeing positive signs and sell through. We’re not seeing a consumer reaction to what’s going on in the Middle East at this point in time, in North America.”

Hill has focused in part on revitalizing Nike’s business with wholesale partners as opposed to direct sales on its website and in stores. Wholesale revenue climbed 5% to $6.5 billion.

Meanwhile, direct sales slid 4% to $4.5 billion.

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Tech giant Oracle makes ‘significant’ job cuts

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Tech giant Oracle makes ‘significant’ job cuts



It is thought that thousands of people may have lost their jobs at Oracle, one of the world’s largest tech companies.



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Oil nears highest price since start of Iran war

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Oil nears highest price since start of Iran war



The US-Israel Iran war has halted almost all traffic in a key waterway and the price Brent crude has surged.



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