Skechers Q4 global sales jump 27 percent

Shoe retailer Skechers posted a 27 per cent increase in sales in the last quarter, powered by a 40 per cent increase in international wholesale sales, and a strong performance in China.

“Last year was monumental for Skechers as we achieved sales of more than US$4 billion for the first time in our 25-year history,” said Robert Greenberg, Skechers CEO.

“This growth is due to our continued focus on efficiencies and infrastructure as well as innovation, comfort, and relevancy within our product design. In the US, we remained the No 1 walking, work, casual lifestyle, and casual dress footwear brand, and the No 2 casual athletic footwear brand.

“Furthermore, we grew our Skechers store base to 2570 locations at year-end and saw impressive growth across the globe – including record sales on Single’s Day in China,” said Greenberg.

“As we look ahead, with fresh styles shipping for spring, we believe we will remain a leader in the lifestyle footwear channel in the US, selectively expand our retail footprint, and continue our global growth as we see our international business becoming an increasingly larger piece of our total business.”

Global annual sales rose $600 million year-on-year to $4.16 billion, “a testament to the worldwide strength and relevance of our product, marketing and brand,” added COO David Weinberg.

In its own stores, Skechers achieve comparable same-store sales growth of 10.5 per cent in the US market and 16.5 per cent overseas. It added 75 stores during the year, 22 of them in the last quarter.

While the company reported a net loss of $66.7 million for the last quarter, this was hugely impacted by a $99 million tax charge linked to the Trump government’s taxation reform enacted in December. Earnings from operations increased 96.9 per cent primarily due to sales growth.

For the full year, Skechers earned $179.2 million, down 26.4 per cent on 2016’s $243.5 million, but that, too, is after the taxation impact.