Shares in several major US sports chains hit 52-week lows on word that Nike Inc might soon be selling its gear directly through Amazon.com Inc.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc on Wednesday said it believed the deal would give Nike better exposure to Amazon’s huge retail channel and customer base, especially millennials.
Nike goods can already be found on Amazon subsidiary Zappos.com, and its shoes and gear can be found through third-party sellers on Amazon.com.
Goldman believes the deal would give Nike better control of its brand’s presentation on the site.
However, investors mostly saw the gravitational pull of Amazon, sending shares of Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc, Hibbett Sports Inc, Big 5 Sporting Goods Corp, Finish Line Inc and Foot Locker Inc plummeting between 5 percent and 7 percent on Wednesday.
It is the third sector in less than a week that has been ravaged over fears that Amazon would soon become a disrupting force.
Amazon on Friday last week said that it would buy Whole Foods Market Inc for US$13.7 billion, pummeling shares of grocers such as Kroger Co.
Retail clothing companies, already in danger as people increasingly shop online, or just elsewhere, took a dive on Tuesday when the online behemoth announced its Amazon Wardrobe program for members of its Prime program.
Wardrobe essentially creates a dressing room at home, allowing customers to order clothes with no money up front, keep them for a week and send whatever they do not want back in a resealable, postage-paid box.
Deep hurting felt by those sectors spread to sports chains on Wednesday on the Goldman Sachs report.
However, it does not take much to spook investors in the sporting goods sector. The years since the 2008 recession have not been kind. Sports Authority Inc, MC Sports, Sports Chalet and Eastern Outfitters have all filed for bankruptcy since then.
Those that remain are hoping a sector consolidation will ease competition. The sale of Nike goods on Amazon.com is unlikely to make anything easier for sports retailers.
Gudeng Precision Industrial Co (家登精密), the sole extreme ultraviolet pod supplier to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), yesterday said it has trimmed its revenue growth target for this year as US tariffs are likely to depress customer demand and weigh on the whole supply chain. Gudeng’s remarks came after the US on Monday notified 14 countries, including Japan and South Korea, of new tariff rates that are set to take effect on Aug. 1. Taiwan is still negotiating for a rate lower than the 32 percent “reciprocal” tariffs announced by the US in April, which it later postponed to today. The
MAJOR CONTRIBUTOR: Revenue from AI servers made up more than 50 percent of Wistron’s total server revenue in the second quarter, the company said Wistron Corp (緯創) on Tuesday reported a 135.6 percent year-on-year surge in revenue for last month, driven by strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers, with the momentum expected to extend into the third quarter. Revenue last month reached NT$209.18 billion (US$7.2 billion), a record high for June, bringing second-quarter revenue to NT$551.29 billion, a 129.47 percent annual increase, the company said. Revenue in the first half of the year totaled NT$897.77 billion, up 87.36 percent from a year earlier and also a record high for the period, it said. The company remains cautiously optimistic about AI server shipments in the third quarter,
ELECTRONICS: Strong growth in cloud services and smart consumer electronics offset computing declines, helping the company to maintain sales momentum, Hon Hai said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) on Saturday announced that its sales for last month rose 10 percent year-on-year, driven by strong growth in cloud and networking products amid the ongoing artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The company, also known internationally as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), reported consolidated sales of NT$540.24 billion (US$18.67 billion) for the month, the highest ever for the period, and a 10.09 percent increase from a year earlier, although it was down 12.26 percent from the previous month. Hon Hai, which is Apple Inc’s primary iPhone assembler and makes servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s AI accelerators, said its cloud
APPRECIATION: The central bank stepped in to stabilize the NT dollar after a surge in foreign institutional investment, triggered by optimism about tariffs and US Fed policy Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves hit a record high at the end of last month, as the central bank intervened in the currency market to curb the New Taiwan dollar’s appreciation against the US dollar. Foreign exchange reserves increased by US$5.48 billion from May, reaching an all-time high of US$598.43 billion, the central bank said on Friday. While the central bank did not disclose the scale of its intervention, Department of Foreign Exchange Director-General Eugene Tsai (蔡炯民) said that the currency market remained relatively stable until the middle of last month. However, a shift occurred following the US Federal Reserve’s signal of a
RSS