Nike Q1 earnings expectations for Thursday

Nike (NKE) is set to report its fiscal first quarter 2023 earnings results on Thursday, September 28. Wall Street analysts expect the sports apparel giant to post revenue of approximately $13 billion for the quarter with earnings per share forecasted at $0.75 on an adjusted basis. In addition, analysts estimate Nike's gross margin for the quarter to come in at 43.7%, compared to 44.3% in the same period last year.

Yahoo Finance's Josh Schafer previews Nike's first-quarter earnings and gives insights into what could impact these earnings.

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Video Transcript

JOSH LIPTON: Nike set to report its quarterly results after the bell on Thursday. And here to break down what Wall Street is looking for from that retailer is Yahoo Finance's own Josh Schafer. Josh.

JOSH SCHAFER: Hey, Josh. Yeah, so we got Nike set to report earnings after the bell on Thursday. And I want to just run through the numbers first that we are expecting from the retail giant. When you take a look at what we're expecting for Nike on a revenue basis, we're expecting nearly $13 billion in revenue. That's what the Street's expecting. Now, that's versus $12.69 billion in the same period last year.

On an adjusted EPS basis, we're expecting Nike to report $0.75 of adjusted earnings. That's actually down from what they reported in the same period last year. Last year, Nike reported $0.93 of EPS in that first quarter. And then when you take a look at gross margins, the estimate is for a gross margin of 43.7%. That is also down from what Nike reported last year at 44.3%.

So clearly, analysts expecting not necessarily a slowdown for Nike on the top line, but certainly some of these headwinds to come to play for the retailer, some of those headwinds that we think about when we think about the Nike story right now. A general consumer slowdown in North America, is that starting to materialize for Nike? Last quarter, they said it wasn't. Do we hear a little bit different commentary on that earnings call? I'm going to be interested to hear that.

Then with Nike, of course, we always think about China, right? China's been a big part of Nike's growth story. They do almost $2 billion a quarter in China alone. But China has struggled coming out of COVID, and it hasn't been as robust as people had thought. That's weighed on shares. What do we hear about greater China tomorrow is a big part of that story.

And then a final thing that I'm curious about when it comes to Nike is what they say about wholesale. Nike is a big, big part of Foot Locker's business. And we know Foot Locker has struggled this year. Over half of Foot Locker sales are Nike shoes. Foot Locker is struggling, does that mean they're buying less Nike shoes and, therefore, Nike's wholesale department is struggling a little bit? Analysts right now are expecting Nike's wholesale revenue to fall 4% in the quarter. That's going to be a closely watched number tomorrow after the bell.

JULIE HYMAN: Right. If it makes up for it in direct-to-consumer or if it's still relying on wholesale, really a lot of interesting questions around Nike. Thanks for laying it all out for us so comprehensively, Josh Schafer. Appreciate it.