Amer Sports 2Q26 Immediate Call Postmortem
What is there to say other than wow. Difficult to criticize anything for this quarter. At some point people are going to start wondering if they will have enough inventory to satisfy the insatiable demand for all three of their business segments. Keep in mind that massive gross margin expansion included tariff refunds (GM still would have been up more than 300 basis points without that).
Arc’teryx broad based strength across regions, channels, and categories. Exceptional performance in women’s which grew faster than any other category. They attributed expanded colors as a big driver of that. Footwear strong double-digit growth. Veilance solid growth on a small base – sounds like still lots of work to do here with product development and distribution.
New partnership for Arc’teryx at Dick’s Sporting Goods with 15 House of Sport locations for fall/winter 2026. Tone sounds like they finally going more after wholesale (test and learn though), where they really don’t exist much in the US.
Sportstyle critical to developing Salomon’s position as modern outdoor sneaker brand. James highlighted the XT-6 and XT-Whisper as resonating with a younger audience. Performance lines are also working well. Epicenter strategy is working and plan to adopt this approach to new major cities including Berlin, SF, Chicago, and Boston. Strong demand in Europe with reorders, preorders, etc.
James made point to say carefully expanding Salomon footprint and shelf space at Nordstrom, JD Sports, and Foot Locker. To be fair those are the exact retailers to expand into when chasing the lifestyle business (technical product not so much though). Laurent asked how many doors at these retailers in Q&A and they didn’t specifically answer. Rather said longest partner is Nordstrom, then they have JD Sport, and just started with Foot Locker in July.
Potential for 400 to 500 Salomon shops in Greater China over time, with 45 doors added in 2026. APAC is another region where Salomon is experiencing “explosive” growth. Salomon footwear is continuing to see a “material growth acceleration” in the Americas.
Wilson had a couple of big racquet launches this Spring. Softgoods continued trajectory with “very strong” growth aross all four major regions. Wish James would have talked more on the Softgoods point – he only have the topic one sentence. Andrew later mentioned in Q&A they don’t expect high growth rates for Wilson to sustain given the new launches and Dick’s expansion.
The company has “extensive” store opening plans for Wilson in Greater China. Will open 40 new Tennis 360 shops in China split between owned and partner. Tennis 360 now in 450 Dick’s locations.
US brand awareness of Arc’teryx is up 50% versus last year, driven by top of funnel marketing. As an aside, why is every brand proactively talking about top of funnel marketing all at the same time when they never really did before? Wolverine Worldwide did this just last week and they aren’t only ones. It’s like they all use the same strategy/marketing consultant.
Strong topline momentum has continued into 3Q26. Boss got James to expand on that in Q&A. Regarding guidance (much lower than current trends), he made sure to say that’s on top of a much higher base than before and is one of the largest quarters in cross border this year. Andrew stepped in to make sure we know they “strive to provide ambitious yet responsible guidance”. Stuart made sure to say the same thing and refer to Andrew’s comment later in Q&A as well.
The European market is challenging overall but Salomon is gaining traction in running (specifically gravel running) and outdoor sneaker market where the brand is building this space (new space).
*These are our unabridged quick thoughts and notes from the call. We get them out as soon as possible after the call ends. Management has given some topics to dig deeper into and will circle back afterwards with much more in depth work on what was mentioned. You can find that work (and more on Amer Sports and other retail/consumer research) at our website here: M Squared Capital
Originally posted on X and Substack.