Skechers posts buoyant annual results, outlook upbeat

Net sales for the fourth quarter of 2015 at Skechers USA were 722.7 million dollars compared to 569.7 million dollars in the fourth quarter of 2014. Gross profit for the quarter was 329.9 million dollars or 45.6 percent of net sales compared to 45.2 percent of net sales in the fourth quarter of 2014. Fiscal year 2015 net sales were a record 3.147 billion dollars and gross profit was 1.424 billion dollars or 45.2 percent of net sales compared to 45.1 percent of net sales in 2014. Earnings from operations were 350.8 million dollars compared to 209.1 million dollars in 2014.

Commenting on the results, Robert Greenberg, Skechers CEO, said, “Surpassing 3 billion dollars in annual sales is a remarkable accomplishment and to achieve this growth across both our domestic and international businesses speaks to the global strength of the Skechers brand.”

Detailed summary of Q4 and annual results

Net earnings for the fourth quarter were 29.4 million dollars compared to net earnings of 21.9 million dollars in the fourth quarter of 2014. Net earnings per diluted share were 0.19 dollar based on 154.6 million weighted average shares outstanding compared to 0.14 dollar based on 154.1 million weighted average shares outstanding in the fourth quarter of 2014.

Net earnings for 2015 were 231.9 million dollars compared to 138.8 million dollars in 2014. Net earnings per diluted share were 1.50 dollars based on 154.2 million weighted average shares outstanding compared to 0.91 dollar based on 153.1 million weighted average shares outstanding in the prior year.

“Skechers achieved record fourth quarter sales of more than 722 million dollars in 2015. This resulted in earnings from operations of 54.7 million dollars in the quarter, which is an increase of 65.7 percent from the same prior year period, and record annual revenues of 3.147 billion dollars for 2015, an increase of 32.4 percent compared to 2014,” said David Weinberg, Skechers COO and CFO.

Gains momentum across regions

In the United States, Skechers was named the 2015 Company of the Year and received the Athleisure Design Excellence award by Footwear Plus magazine. While the company continues increase shelf space across existing stores worldwide, the Skechers retail store count has also grown to more than 1,300 company-owned and third-party owned locations at year-end.

With an additional 330 to 340 Skechers retail stores opening worldwide this year, the company expects to operate more than 1,650 Skechers stores by the end of 2016, of which approximately 575 stores will be company-owned.

“The record net sales growth we achieved for 2015—both the gains of 22 percent in our domestic wholesale channel and 59 percent in our international distributor and subsidiary business channel over 2014—is very significant given the sluggish domestic retail environment in the back half of 2015, as well as declining currencies in several key countries. As we look at the coming year, we believe our company-owned retail stores are on target with mid- to high-single digit retail comps in January,” added Greenberg.

Skechers has witnessed a very strong start to the first quarter with January sales up approximately 35 percent compared to January 2015 as well as a strong first week of February. During the fourth quarter, its distributor sales increased 91.6 percent as compared to the same period last year. The company expects a very strong double-digit growth in 2016 at the company-owned stores.

“Looking at 2016, we plan to continue to grow worldwide and believe we will see strong double-digit and, in some cases, triple-digit gains in countries around the world. We remain comfortable with the majority of the analysts’ current consensus range of 885 million dollars to 920 million dollars in net sales and 0.50 dollar to 0.55 dollar in earnings per share for the first quarter,” he concludes.