Thanks very much, Moira, and hello, everyone. Good evening, good afternoon, and good morning, wherever you're joining us today.

Welcome to our Q2 2026 results conference call. Our presenters today are our CEO, Bjørn Gulden, and our CFO, Harm Ohlmeyer.

Before Bjørn and Harm will take you through the key developments of the second quarter and share their expectations, let me just quickly remind you that you limit your initial questions to two during the Q&A session to allow as many people as possible to ask their questions. Now, without any further ado, over to you, Bjørn.

Thanks, Seb, and hello, everybody. You have seen our announcement.

We have seen the reaction. I'm sure we will have a lot of interesting questions.

Before we go into the update of the business, you have also seen the other announcement that says that Harm, that decided not to extend his contract when it goes out in March '28, have now announced that he will leave, and that we have found a successor together in Birgit. I think before I go into that in detail, I think I hand over to you, Harm, you can say a couple of words.

Thank you, Bjørn. Of course, it's one of our jobs as leaders to find a good successor, and I'm very, very pleased that we have found Birgit.

I'm even more pleased that it will be a smooth transition because I know her very well. Then secondly, we're handing over a very, very healthy business to her.

I'm really, really pleased with that transition. Of course, I'm also very privileged to talk about 29 years with the brand and 10 years of serving as the CFO.

That has to be a privilege. I always joke that my kids, who are 27 and 25, don't know anything else but adidas.

That has to change at some stage, but again, I'm very, very pleased with the support that I got from the board, from many of you over the last 10 years. Of course, I will be around for another quarter or a bit longer until the year-end, stay tuned for that one.

Of course, the timing is always something that you decide like any athlete does as well. As Bjørn said, when you're not going to extend your contract, you start thinking about what is the right timing.

I believe handing over a well-run company now, of course, we can always get better, but it feels very, very good. Having the right successor feels even better.

I'm really looking forward to the next couple of months, and then I'm very respectful for the time afterwards, but I'm also looking forward to that. Stay tuned.

Thanks, Harm, and I think also from my side, I'm sure we will talk about this later, but when I came on board, one of the requirements for me was that you would stay. I had a guy I knew and I could trust, we could start the process of bringing the company back again.

For now, also thank you, and I'm sure we will talk more about that later. In that process of finding a successor, we had then the luck, to be honest, to find Birgit, who spent 25 years with the company earlier, then left to learn retail being the CFO of C&A.

When she then had the chance to become available, we took the chance, and that is then the timing of this. Birgit will join us September 1st and then stay in the board.

Harm will be the CFO till the end of the year, and they will then work together to make a smooth transition. Very, very happy.

I think she knows the company, she knows the industry. Again, now having worked for a vertical retailer, she also brings with her the retail competence that is great to have.

To close that and move into the business update, it shouldn't be a surprise for you that we would like to celebrate also in your eyes a little bit the World Cup. Again, a great event, and here is a little bit reminder of our visibility in that tournament.

Hey, listen to me. What do I know about soccer?

Nothing. I know about football, and you know football.

The greatest show on turf, the biggest ever seen on planet Earth. ¿Por qué tanta emoción?

Si es solo fútbol. Solo fútbol.

The day a planet stops for a game. Lamine Yamal!

Oh, what a save! Yamal to pursue.

Oh, it's a beautiful first touch. Pedro Porro, Williams, and thundering for Spain!

Spain are the champions! Spain have seized their second star!

The kings of Europe have conquered the world!

I hope you agree it was a great tournament, and especially for us. Me, probably like you, feel I'm a soccer expert, and I summarize the tournament as follows: France had the best players, Spain had the best team, Argentina the best attitude playing for the flag, the country, and for Messi.

Then the most fun team was, of course, the Norwegians. I think it was a great pleasure to see my countrymen not only performing, but also being extremely visible.

I can tell you, it shows you how much impact a World Cup tournament has at home. I don't think Norwegians have been in such a good mood as long as I've been on this planet, it's good to add some speed.

Again, Spain winning the tournament, again having been with us, we have a fantastic relationship to the federation. I think you agree they look good.

One of the ways of showing how close we are is this picture the day after the tournament when they celebrated. Their bus was branded only with us and the team, and many, many of the players, of course, also playing in our shoes.

Our sports marketing has a great relationship with the federation that currently is by far the most successful one in soccer in general by male, female, and also in the youth. I am also, as I have wrote in my quote, extremely proud what the team has done in general when it gets to campaigns, planning the product, planning the activations.

I think I said I believe even Adi Dassler would have been proud. I probably think it's the best executed campaign that has ever happened in this industry when you look across the globe.

I would also quickly just summarize the tournament because there was a lot of criticism before: too many teams, three nations, too many cities. When you look at it, I think the additions of the teams only made it more interesting.

It was kind of cool to see Curaçao or Cabo Verde playing. The stadiums were full, the atmosphere was great, and for us, having 14 teams that I think we equipped well, two reaching the final.

That we sold close to 18 million jerseys, which again is far, far more than we have ever sold before. Of course, Mexico being the best, our friends in Argentina the second, and even Germany, who didn't have a great result, had commercially a much bigger success than we've seen before.

I have seen in the commentary that I think there is some misunderstandings on how a World Cup sales is being done. You have to remember that we started selling in World Cup product delivering into the trade already in Q4 last year, then had both sell-in and sell-out in Q1 and Q2.

To be honest with you, we still selling World Cup product, as you can imagine, especially now in Spain because the jersey now has two stars. The period for this €1.5 to €1.7 billion is, of course, not only in the summer month.

I think in some of your spreadsheets, this has been a misunderstanding. When you then look at the campaigns, again, yes, we spent €212 million more marketing in the quarter.

I think we told you that also upfront. Of course, that doesn't have a payback in commerciality in the same period.

We meant or was sure that for the brand heat going forward and also during the tournament, we had to invest in media, and we choose to do a lot of activations around the world to showcase the brand. If you also look at our campaign, the Backyard Legends, it was to bring back the beauty of soccer the way we used to play it at home and not so serious.

Everything that we can measure, the engagement around this campaign was great. The creatives are very proud that it's now even being nominated for an Emmy, let's see if we have a chance.

The way we looked on the pitch, I hope you agree designs both home and away great, Mexico even with a third jersey. We look fresh.

Remember, we did double branding. We had the performance logo and wider stripes on the home, and then we had the Trefoil and the narrower stripes on the away.

We did also for the first time in history equip the referees with a lot of variations. They all had three stripes, never happened before, and we gave them different colors depending on how the two teams were playing.

We did also change the Trionda ball for the semi-finals and the final into the gold version, and the referee then had black with gold logos. I think it's the first time where we started to get orders for referee jerseys around the world that people would like to buy.

Also, the event itself, and not only the game, but the opening, the what should I say, half-time and opening shows, the bull cap that you see in the right corner. We used our celebrities, our partners, and made it an event much, much bigger than only the two teams playing at each other.

I can assure you that everybody that was involved felt very, very, very happy being part of it. Then the culture around it, we had activations, as I said, all over the world.

You see on the upright corner, on the left side, the Home of Soccer in New York, which had more than a quarter-million visitors. We had basically activations in all markets where we then both made it an event, watched games, had concerts, and again, put color to the tournament, branded, of course, with our adidas product.

Then stores, and I think this is also important, of course, we then took more space to these kind of product in our stores, also in cities in countries that were not qualified. The reason for this was not only to increase sales, which happened in many places, but of course to celebrate the event.

Here is important that when you put World Cup products in, you have to take something out. That's why you cannot just add it on top because, of course, it's cannibalizing some other products that would have been there.

When the tournament is over and World Cup is out, then of course something else gets in. You can never take an event and just add it to the spreadsheet because that's not how retail works.

The activations, which had many different goals, here you see from Mexico where we had a huge event day before the opening, again to activate the moment. Same thing we talked about New York, where we had celebrities, concerts, games, youth tournaments.

The stores, here for example in Paris, we had even in China, who wasn't qualified, a huge activation celebrating our campaign and the tournament. We even had Pedri flying from Spain to China right after the tournament to continue the soccer culture heat that is building also in China.

The story goes on. Here is from Sydney, here is from Japan.

When you put it all together, the branding of the adidas campaign visible everywhere. Everything that we have control over, we were very happy.

Except for one thing, and this is this picture. You did probably notice that suddenly all the brands had pink boots, which, of course, none of us was happy with.

Cannot explain you how it happened. Probably retail should have told us.

They didn't, and we ended up in the first games looking the same. We then tried as quickly as we could to get our sports marketing to change into the new collection, which is now going into store.

As of the quarter-final, you would have seen many of the players going into the new colorway, which is then white, dark blue, and red. Again, I hope next time we are better at not having the same colors.

Not only soccer, in general, I think the visibility of our brand across many, many sports, being golf, being Formula 1, being tennis, being rugby, whatever, and running, has never been stronger. Again, we are investing in more partnerships to strengthen the visibility in sports because, as we reduced that some years ago, and I'm starting to be very, very happy on how we look in the different stadiums and arenas and also the content that is then being produced in media.

All that then caused a sale of €6.7 billion, which is the highest nominal value we have ever done in a quarter, and that is a 14% currency-neutral growth. The gross margin above 52%, of course, also led by the high share of D2C, which we will get back to, but also controlling the markdown and having a big share of full-price sales.

That gave us then the famous 574 EBIT, despite of us having invested €212 million more in marketing. As we have said now many times, this overinvestment in marketing will, of course, not continue in Q3 and Q4.

If you add Q2 into Q1, you get the €13.3 billion, which is also nominal the highest that we ever had, which then also for the full half-year gives you 14% growth. Margin a little bit lower in Q1, so that's at 51.8%.

Remember the share of D2C was then lower. That gives you then a half-year result of €1,279 million, which is an EBIT percentage of 9.6%, which is then also despite the €200 million more marketing still almost a 10% EBIT.

If you look at the geographies, you see Q2 on the left side and first half on the right side. North America, again, we know we have a lot of catch-up to do, but strong numbers with 17% and 15%.

Europe at only 6%, have to remind you again that the growth in Europe the last two years have been very strong, get back to what the numbers were in D2C. Greater China, in a market where big competitors are having negative numbers, very strong at 15% and 16%.

The combination of South Korea and Japan, 18% and 21%. LATAM on fire, especially in Mexico, but also, of course, in Argentina and Brazil, 28% and 27%.

Then emerging markets, despite 10 of the markets practically being in war, up 12% and 11%. Again, you summarize it, and you're then at the 14% both for the quarter and for the first half.

When you then look into the channel, the wholesale, and remember wholesale is where we sell into the trade, not out, but into the trade, at only 6%. This has been the pattern for a long time.

When we started the sell-in period for Q1 and Q2, it was actually flat. Then an unbelievable growth in the D2C business with 23% in our brick-and-mortar and even 27% in e-com.

Remember, this is sell-out to the consumer and then tells you the demand for the product with the consumers. That gives you then a split of 57/43.

Again, this is not a strategic move, but it's actually what the consumer is choosing. I'll give you now the D2C numbers per region just you understand how strong the demand was.

You see North America, the D2C in the quarter was even 39%, in Europe 12%, twice of what the sell-in demand was, Greater China at 22%, LATAM at 37%, Emerging at 24%, and the combination South Korea and Japan at 25%. I'm telling you this because it is a great situation to be in that your sell-out is stronger than sell-in.

I had never seen numbers like this before. Again, that's probably why we are celebrating a little bit more than you do because we clearly see that product and marketing and how we activate it is actually working for both her and him.

If you then look at the execution, same thing, both our e-com and our physical stores, of course with global concepts, but then localized depending on what is relevant. That's why you see front of stores and also the different pages in e-com then being targeting to the demand in the market.

If you then look at divisions, yes, footwear growing at only 1%, apparel growing at 35%, and accessory growing as 20%. I don't know if you remember, but we did flag this to you 6, 9 months ago that we would see a stagnation in footwear, especially on the lifestyle side, because of the amount of product in the market, but that we will see a demand for apparel growing dramatically, not only because of World Cup, but of course also because of World Cup.

I think you agree that when people are buying product to go to the stadium, they buy replicas and tops and not necessarily shoes, and the accessory business is following the heat of the brand. You will continue, in my opinion, when I look at the order book, to see footwear being flattish in third quarter, but then you will start seeing it growing again in the fourth quarter.

Again, you cannot plan this in details because you don't know what is happening in the D2C business, but the pattern has been known for a long, long time. That means that in the mix in the quarter, footwear is 52%, apparel at 40%, and accessory at 8%.

You will see this start to change again to be more footwear-led at the back end of the year. Then again, we are a sports brand first, that's what Adi Dassler gave us.

We are investing in performance. I told you 3, 4 years ago that we will try to create heat around the brand, sell lifestyle product, and then get the consumer into our performance product because they like the brand.

We thought already then that we will have technologies and product, what should I say, pipelines that would start to work as we were getting closer to '25 and '26. That's also what happened.

You see here the performance business is growing at 39%. Yes, football, of course, inflated by World Cup, but running now, I think for the third quarter, growing almost 30%, training almost double-digit, and motorsport growing 70%.

The only negative number here that I would be, what should I say, working hard on is the basketball, but I told you that that will take a little bit of time. Remember, this is performance basketball, the absolute number is actually very small.

If you then look at the different categories from the consumer point of view, I think it's fair to say that we're winning in running. We are winning competitions on the road, on the track.

We are sponsoring big events, and our running shoes in general are having great sell-throughs, which was not the case 3 years ago. The category training, again, everything that is hybrid training is growing fast.

Yes, we are not the partner of the events, but we sponsor a lot of athletes and are seeing a great demand both in HYROX and in CrossFit, and you see some of the winners on this picture. In general, the visibility in sports, winning events, and therefore getting the image of being a performance brand again is strengthening.

You see some of the sports here, and I will note, Sultans is the nickname of the Turkish women's volleyball team who won the Nations League, which is a new asset for us. Again, probably the most known team for women's sports in Turkey, again a great thing for us.

The recipe in performance we have told you: you launch technologies to win events and be visible with designs, and then you scale it into the commercial. Adizero, Evo 3, Evo SL, and here you see both the Evo SL from a running point of view and then stretched even into SL 72 that, yes, is the Evo SL construction with a zipper and with different stripes, like his execution going across the upper.

Many, many versions about this, and a huge success both in the running side and in the lifestyle side. In soccer, the same, here you see F50 Hyperfast Evo, which is the shoe that the professional player is playing at, and then the takedown in the new color where we take the same look and feel, almost the same last, even down to the price point of €60.

Hero to high-low in all categories. Also in training, here you see maybe the most innovative training shoe for hybrid training, meaning HYROX, and then the takedown, which is then a huge commercial shoe with bookings over a million pair already.

Same system. If you then look at in general, we have talked to you about printed technologies, and now we have a printed basketball shoes, which is being played in college and also will be played in NBA.

Some of the players are now having it in the summer season camp. The second shoe is the printed soccer boot that one of the MLS players, Cavan Sullivan, played already last week, fully printed shoe.

The technology of printed shoes is now also hitting the top athletes, which is new. First signature shoe on women's, it's a long, long time.

You see it here from Sophie Cunningham, same thing again, dedicated to her, selling very well already in retail. Then because of the investment in volleyball, the Crazyflight 7, same thing.

Innovation also in apparel, you've seen the cooling vest and the cooling jacket that we had in Formula 1 was now transferred into the World Cup, the teams were wearing the same equipment. We even had cooling boots for the players so they could actually wear while they were sitting before the games or during the game if you're on the bench.

We had Zverev in our 3D Climacool winning the French Open. Of course, we have now many versions of the Hyperboost hitting the market, which in my opinion is the best foam that you can have in comfort running.

I think we told you before that the 23rd and 24th of September, we will have an Innovation Day, which you will be invited, where our innovation people will then take you through the pipeline of innovation, both conceptually and also finished product, so that you can ease the believe that we have lack of innovation, because we don't. Then we know that the performance sides over time drive the lifestyle side.

You also know that we have had a great success on the lifestyle side of the last 3 years. The lifestyle business in the quarter was, of course, less, only 2%.

Now we need to be honest that part of the football product that you saw is growing almost 80% are, of course, lifestyle product, but it's classified as football. I think if you're really honest, the consumer that used to buy a Sportswear and Originals product in this quarter has also bought football product.

Maybe that is a little bit misleading, but it's very hard to classify this accurate. If you then look at it here, yes, we are using our athletes also in lifestyle activations, but we also have a lot of non-athletes or people coming from different, I would say, parts of entertainment that are then used for marketing lifestyle product.

You see Timothée Chalamet, you see Kendall Jenner, you see Bad Bunny, and. The activations here is, of course, both global and local, and there's a huge amount of activities going on.

We would still say that, especially for her, we have the hottest shoes and silhouettes in the market. Many of them has been stretched into new silhouettes, the Samba, for example, into both ballerinas, into mules, into Mary Janes.

We have a lot of low-profile, and we have running shoes built on old constructions and on new constructions. Again, have not the feeling that there's anything else in the marketplace that is hotter than we have across the globe.

Then I would mention to you that court is coming back, especially triple white, again, the Stan Smith sector will start to grow again, and you will see many versions in addition to the OG Stan Smith, and you will see many activations with many different partners. Apparel, huge growth, not only in World Cup, but also in modern silhouettes and, of course, fabrics.

I think, especially online, we look extremely fresh, and we do see the heat, especially with her, all over the world, although some of the product vary from region to region. Then when your brand is hot, your apparel is hot, and your footwear is hot, you automatically then sell more accessories.

This is also what has happened with us, also in addition to soccer balls, which of course has been growing because of World Cup, but we have fixed most of the sourcing issues we have, and therefore you saw a 20% growth in accessories. With that kind of background, I hand back to you, Harm, where you can take them through more of the financials.

Thank you, Bjørn. Of course, you're looking forward to get some more details on the financials, and I want to start, as always, with the top line.

As Bjørn already said, 14% currency-neutral growth has been not just a record quarter from a top-line point of view, but also has been a record first half. In addition to that, we also had highest retail sales ever in a quarter.

All of these are credit to the teams that created the product and executed on the sales side. Very, very pleased with the top line.

When it comes to the gross profit, I would like to go a little deeper on this one and have a little bridge. I want to go on the right-hand side starting from the bottom to the top.

Of course, we had U.S. tariffs already last year in this second quarter, but this year a little bit higher, giving the full impact of it.

There's some mix effect on the sourcing cost, a little bit on freight, and I'm just really saying a little bit on freight because it's links to the war surcharge that we get into the Middle East. Then when it comes to FX, it's actually neutral.

You might be surprised, but there's benefits on the U.S. dollar, as we hedged on this one, but there are also other currencies like the Korean won, the Japanese yen, Argentine peso, Turkish lira, whatsoever.

These countries are meanwhile pretty significant, it's eating up the benefits on the dollar, it's fairly neutral. We had a small amount of U.S.

tariffs refund. I know the different phases.

We only have recognized the first phase. We got some cash returned already.

It has been a small amount, and we will talk later about the remaining phases that you saw it in the notes already. There's probably something in the second half that we haven't recognized in the second quarter in the amount of $250 to $300 million U.S.

dollar that we still would expect to come towards us at some stage. The biggest piece that is actually moving the gross margin second quarter was very disciplined pricing, very disciplined on promotions.

Of course, when you're growing 27% in e-commerce and 23% in retail, it has a positive channel mix as well. The upper two are actually the moving part of the 51.7% to 52.5%.

Very well done, and very happy with the D2C growth that we are seeing. Of course, what you're interested in is the increase in the marketing and POS expenses and the operating overheads.

With the 30% growth in marketing and the 12% operating overheads, I want to immediately go a little deeper, even so we have some leverage on the operating overheads overall, but I want to explain that step by step, starting with the marketing. Of course, in marketing, we always said we want to make the World Cup not just winning it commercially, which we no doubt did with the teams that we had and the two teams in the final, but we also wanted to make sure that we use that platform to win as a brand.

That's why we invested significantly, more than €200 million. The exact amount is actually €212 million, as Bjørn said.

Yes, we indicated around €150 million earlier what we want to invest, but it has been so successful with two teams in the final, having the ball, having sell-out records in North America and Latin America, we decided then short term to invest even more to pave the opportunity for the future. Secondly, yes, with growth in e-commerce of 27% and growth in retail 23%, there's a lot of variable cost in D2C.

Especially in e-commerce, there's platform fees, there's freight costs to the consumer, there's customer service fees. When you're growing that much, you might even pay a little bit more on customer service.

This is what we see in e-commerce, there's a lot of variable fees. Of course, in retail, we leverage much more, but we also built up some pop-up stores, we also had extra staffing in the DCs, we had a lot of things that we did in order to fulfill the needs of the consumers and kept investing into this one.

Rest assured, maybe we could have said that earlier, but very clearly in the second half, you will see a normalized marketing spend, and on the full year, you should calculate in your spreadsheets around the 12%, and you will see a much lower growth in Q3 and Q4 on the operating overheads. It was really related to the D2C growth in the second quarter, and again, I take it on me that I could have probably explained that earlier.

That's definitely learning on my side. When we go further down the P&L, I talked about the operating profit already, still an 8.5% operating profit with the €574 million, 5% up.

Again, it's primarily as the gross margin is compensating for the operating overhead increase in D2C, it's primarily attributed to the marketing where we have been opportunistic to spend and potentially even overspend on the event. When we go further down the line, no surprises on the financial expenses or on the income taxes.

Income tax is around 25%, similar to Q1, which leads to a net income growth that is similar to the operating profit growth: operating profit 5%, net income 6%. Far to the P&L, very happy where we are, very happy what we've achieved in Q2, but also in the first half, which leads to the balance sheet.

I want to start with inventories again, currency-neutral up 12%, but I want to immediately go into the details of that. Again, I said on the last call, we will be around the same as end of Q1.

We came in a little higher. Some of that is linked to the Middle East where we are not selling through as much as we would have wished.

Counted a double-digit amount there. Of course, some FX plays into the absolute amount as well.

The most important point for me is that the composition of that inventory, and 90% of that inventory is current of future seasons or goods in transit as we have it on the boat, and only 9% is previous seasons. That is not even enough to clear in our factory outlets, and our planned buy for the factory outlets globally is north of 50%, which gives you an indication the inventory is very, very healthy, and I have no concerns for the second half.

Secondly, it comes to accounts receivables. They're slightly up with 13%, a little bit higher than what you have seen on the wholesale growth.

There's some timing effects in there. We, of course, work with some of our partners as well to make sure we support them in the right way during the World Cup, but that is also something that you will see coming down the third quarter as we collecting post-World Cup, payables have normalized, and of course, operating working capital is slightly up compared to inventories and accounts receivables, you combine these two.

Talking about operating working capital, of course, that direction doesn't look good, but as we invested into holding the inventory and receivables for the World Cup, and it was the right decision to win this one commercially. Our guidance is 22% to 23%, and there's no reason to not believe that we get to that guidance until the end of the year, and you can hold me personally accountable for it that we get to that guidance of 22% to 23%.

Also that is going the right direction. To sum it all up, you see it also on the cash and cash equivalents.

Despite doing a share buyback of €500 million in the first tranche and then already €250 million on the second tranche and paying a dividend of €500 million, we added to our cash, and we're almost at €1.2 billion. Also that is something where we made tremendous improvement in the first half compared to last year, and there's more to come.

I'm very optimistic from a cash flow generation point of view. There's another €1.2 to €1.3 billion cash flow coming in the second half and will help us to finish on a very strong cash balance for the end of the year.

Talking about the share buyback and the dividends, €500 million has been done in the first tranche, we already did €250 million, around €250 million in the second tranche with 1,380,000 shares being bought back. Together with the dividend, we will return to shareholders around €1.5 billion this year.

You all know we could not have done that without being in such a healthy situation as a company. Very, very happy where we are.

You also see that with the cash and cash equivalents how it's developing despite the share buyback, and also in the adjusted net borrowings, we are finally going the right direction again, moving from 5.5 to 5.2 billion. What's important for our S&P and Moody's, but also leverage ratio is consistently remaining below our policy of 2.0.

We are actually improving from 1.7 to 1.6. Also there, we are very diligent on how we're using our cash and how we return to shareholders, and we're feeling very good about the second half.

With that, talking about the second half, back to Bjørn.

Thanks, Harm. You've seen this slide many times.

When we started 3.5 years ago, we had some issues, and we said that we needed that time to go through the process and that in '26 we will then be a healthy and a successful company. We can always do better, but we felt that we have delivered what we told you and feel that the platform for this company is actually in great shape.

The ambition again for each market should be the number one in the market. Of course, they will not all achieve it, but at least we're having a discussion what is necessary in the different markets.

It shouldn't be a surprise that outside of the U.S., we are starting to actually be number one in many markets. In the U.S., I've said many times it would be unrealistic knowing how far behind we are and that we have many, many years that we need to invest to kind of be competitive with the leader, but we still believe that we have plans, investments, and resources then to double our business.

I think you saw growing 15%, 17%, we are on the way also to get closer to that. The business model that we talk about, you've seen many times too, to be a global brand with a local mindset.

I hope you agree that you have to start with the consumer and the athlete. To do that, you need to be close to him and her, and that happens in most markets and regions.

Then you need a strong global headquarter that facilitates for innovation, concept, systems, and the frame. That we then need a network of people both local and global that work together.

It's fair to say that we now have a leadership group globally of 32 people. We spent also 2 days after World Cup in New York, and I feel very, very strong about the team and feel that we have made many, many changes.

Most of the people, if not almost all, are internal promotions, they know adidas, they have the right culture which adidas should stand for, and I feel we had a really, really, really good team. It should also not be a surprise that then we localize the footprint in product and activations that fits the market.

When you see on the left side, we added Penn State and Tennessee college and universities to be more visible in American sports. That's a journey that we probably should have done a long time ago, but that we have started and John and his team very aggressive that side, and that is the way then to be a real American sports brand.

The same goes for other markets. Here you see Korea when it gets to baseball.

You see Ranveer Singh, who's a cricket player, that we then in India using also in our Originals and lifestyle collection. In China, which is on fire, we even have a premium Luxe collection above everything because we clearly see that the consumer with a lot of money is also trending towards our brand because of what the local team is doing with our global concepts.

The same go for stores. The rule is to activate what is relevant for the consumer, and that's why at any point in time around the world there might be different activation.

Should not be a surprise for you that Barcelona right now is still celebrating the World Cup and the win of Spain, while in other areas we have turned into lifestyle or local partners. Again, there's a lot more energy in the teams when they can do what they think is relevant.

The same goes for, I would say, normal activations. Why activate something in a market that is not relevant?

I think we have found the recipe for that, and the energy in the markets are very, very, very high. Coming out of the World Cup, you might say, what is happening now?

Right now in soccer, we're launching all the club jerseys. Remember, last year the start of the sales of club jerseys was slow.

Now it's actually the opposite, and I think it has to do coming out of the World Cup, there's a huge interest in football again. Of course, when I look at our product, I think both with the home jersey and with the Trefoil away jerseys, we look extremely good, and our bookings for the time being also very, very good sales numbers.

In the women's training area, you have seen that many brands have had collections that have been either with collab partners or there has been brand that not necessarily come from sport. Instead of doing a collab, we then decided to do Originals Sport.

We have that consumer through our fashion and especially on the footwear side, and we have then designed with her in mind an OG Sport collection with functional fabrics, great colors, very, very, I would say, functional and good-looking cuts, been in the stores around the world for a week, and the reaction both from what we can measure in interest, but also in sales, has been great. Another dimension of being very, very strong with her.

You have heard about Hyperboost, which we started in comfort running. We are now extending the foam into lifestyle, here you see Hyperboost Euphoria.

The same thing here, initial reaction great, and then we will build out bigger collections with the Hyperboost as we go forward. On the fashion side, we have a great cooperation with ASOS.

You've probably seen it that we do test collections almost as fashion shows, and depending on the reaction, we then scale certain items. We do this on a regular basis.

Far, it's only been for her, but going forward, it will now also be for him. It's a very unique business model that has been very successful both for them and for us.

When we look at it both on the performance side and on the lifestyle side, we feel that we have enough momentum to continue the growth. In addition to what I just told you about, we will also start to load up the FIFA Women's World Cup that will happen in '27, but you will see activations already in '26.

It's in Brazil, and I think we all agree we need to lift the activities around women's soccer. You will have a new Adizero Pro 5 coming for Berlin Marathon, where I wouldn't be surprised if it runs another world record.

Then we will have Anthony Edwards coming with his third version of a signature shoe. This is just part of it that we think will assure then the growth and the interest in the brand also in the second half of the year.

When you look at the guidance, we started with high single-digit and €2.3 billion in sales. We updated the guidance this morning and said we now believe in 9% to 10% growth, and we kept the profit at €2.3 billion.

I'm sure in your spreadsheet you said, this means then 6% growth in the second half. Yes, that's the math.

The reason why we don't go higher is that if you look at our wholesale business, it's currently trending at that 6%, 7%, and you cannot plan your D2C business higher because you don't know, but there is a chance when I look at the trend that it will be higher, and then of course there is an upside to this. I also would tell you that the €2.3 billion does not include any tariffs going into the future.

There's a small booking in Q2 that is not really relevant, and as there's about €300 million sitting there where it is a pretty high probability that we will get it. Far, we haven't booked it.

I know competitors have, but we will, of course, tell you if we book it. That was through '26.

We then told you that '27 and '28, we should continue the momentum. We as a company will not change our business plan because we believe in our business model, we believe that is the right one.

Of course, there are improvements that we can do when it gets to continue to decrease complexity and optimize processes, systems, and organization, and we will, of course, utilize AI to help us on this. I do think you also agree we need short term to be successful, but without putting long term in danger.

We feel, although looking at today, you might disagree that we are delivering what we said and that we're giving adidas the platform to be a very successful company going forward. Then just to finalize, we still confirmed that we believe we can grow €2 billion every year in '27 and '28, which will then bring us into the famous double-digit EBIT margin, which again, under the certain condition are not many brands who are doing.

I think with that, we have kind of told the story, and I'm handing back again to you, Sebastian.

Thanks very much, Bjørn. Moira, we are now ready to take questions.

Hi. Good afternoon.

Thank you. My first question will be on the footwear business.

If you could just go into further detail on what you're seeing in lifestyle footwear, and how we should think about the outlook for the lifestyle footwear into the second half of this year and into 2027. When you look at the total footwear business, would you expect it to continue to decelerate from here and could it potentially turn negative into the second half, or do you actually expect the business to improve from here as hopefully the kind of competitive dynamic changes?

Then my second question would just be on the U.S. Very clear that you executed very well on the World Cup in the second quarter.

Beyond sort of the short-term benefit from the World Cup, how are you thinking about the long-term impact and whether you've been able to use this event really as a catalyst to gain lasting consumers, but also I guess lasting shelf space with your U.S. retail partners as well?

Thank you very much.

Good questions. I do think when you do your store checks, you will see that the lifestyle footwear, especially for him, is currently pretty heavily discounted.

That is because major brands have quite some inventory that have been sold in, and very famous, what should I say, franchises that used to be full price are now currently at a discount. That means that newness onto the shelf of full price is not easy, at least not scaled, and we see that if we keep the styles on our D2C business, we are able then to keep a higher price.

Then you know that this is a fine balance. I do think that you will see a flattish lifestyle shoe market in the beginning of the year, and hopefully you will see an improvement in Q4, Q1.

I estimate, and I cannot tell you what will happen in D2C because I don't know, but if I look at our order book, we should turn into growth again in footwear in Q4 because that's what we see, and that could be accelerated if the inventory in general also from other companies in the chains are changing. When it gets to the World Cup, yes, it's clearly that many retailers, in addition to us, in U.S.

made money with us during this time. That when a retailer makes money with you, he or she would, of course, like to make more money, there's a big chance that we will then have increasing buys and more shelf space with many retailers.

Had the feeling that all the big retailers also on performance have a different view on our brand and our business than they've had before, and that our local team with investments that they've done in college sport, in merchandise, but also the signing of baseball players and American football players and also doing local campaigns, we are on the way of being also more seen as a sports brand for the consumer, both him and her, in the U.S. If you then add the OG Sport, which actually was targeting her in the U.S., it was kind of designed with an American female consumer in mind, I do think that you will see more three stripes and more of our product also in the performance area.

I think on footwear, we are already there with her, and we, of course, hope with all the things we have in the pipeline that we can get more shelf space also for him in American street retail. We are pretty optimistic coming out of a 15%, 17% growth in the U.S.

for the future. As that's also the market where we need more growth, and of course, it's the one that we are behind by a stretch and have a lot of work to do.

I would say positive development.

Great. Thank you very much.

Hi there. Just coming back on this footwear performance issue at the moment, is this performance of the footwear any stronger in your own D2C relative to your sell-out in wholesale?

I'm just looking for things that could give us encouragement about the potency of that product when the wholesale overstock completes. Then the second question is a rather basic one.

For Q2, was 5% EBIT growth the profit plan, or is there €50, €60 million of investment in marketing that came into the quarter that perhaps wasn't there 3 or 6 months ago in your plan? Thank you.

Yes, the sell-through in our own channel is higher than in wholesale, that's correct, but that's also because the offer is wider. In performance, I would actually say that the sell-through also in wholesale is strong.

It's the lifestyle both sell-in and sell-out, especially for him, which is lagging currently. It has been lagging, I would say, for the last 6 months because of the discount that is in the market.

When it gets to your second questions on if there was any additional marketing, yes, there was some activations that came on top. I think we said that we had an extra marketing of about €212 million, and I think the first estimates we had was around €150 million.

It is true that during the tournament, we took decisions to actually activate more based on local needs. That is correct.

Great. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much. I have two questions, please.

One, kind of following on the prior question around wholesale, you've talked about holding back wholesale growth while competitors are being very promotional. As we're seeing some of those big promotional phases with the big retailers starting to wind down, we've seen that in North America, we've seen that with some recent announcements in China, are you more optimistic about opening up wholesale sell-in, and does that help Q3 at all, or is that more Q4 into Q1?

Then, related to this, a second question around operating overheads. You're currently very D2C-heavy, which as you mentioned, is higher cost in terms of overheads.

How important is that wholesale-D2C balance for you to be able to meet your mid-term goal of reaching sub-30% operating overheads? Thank you.

The second question is that should you only be D2C, then your margin is higher and your overhead is higher, then the 30% doesn't mean anything. The 30% is based on a 60/40 split.

You have to remember that if you sell D2C, your margin is much higher, but then also your cost percentage is higher, but your EBIT should also be higher. We're not dependent on holding the 30% should the split go to a higher D2C part than the 40%.

Again, I have to admit that there wasn't any goal to actually accelerate D2C, but it was the demand that was so strong. As we said before, the order book from retailers the last 6 months was very cautious.

As you probably have seen yourself, you know the reason. Again, this is not a strategy that we're driving, but it's actually the result of where the consumer is shopping.

Should this be a pattern that continued, then the split between wholesale, retail will then move from 60/40 to something else, then you should expect a growth in the gross margin and therefore also a growth in the overhead, but then the EBIT should also grow to be more than 10%. This is the way the math work.

When it gets to the cleaning up the wholesale, first of all, what you talk about China and competitors, that will not happen in the next months because, you remember, when you're switching off part of a wholesale channel, that takes more time. I'm not sure that will have an impact.

You also probably know that our business in China is on fire, we don't need any help there. I think the wholesale community that is difficult right now on footwear has been in Europe and in the U.S.

We hope and we believe when we look at the order book that Q4 would actually be an improvement, but again, we don't control it alone, right? Yes, wholesale footwear should start to improve.

If that is Q4 or Q1, I don't know. As always, what we try when we see that something shouldn't work, that we don't get the growth, then we will try to get the growth somewhere else.

Important for us is that we have enough growth to actually hit our targets, and that is what we have done. Then without doing anything that actually hurts the brand.

I do think you agree that Q2, there was nothing in distribution or activations that would hurt the brand. I think everything that you can measure was the opposite, that the brand came out of World Cup and the quarter stronger than it went into it.

We are internally with what we can control actually very happy, and a little bit sad that we don't been able to actually explain it to you in a way that you would be happy too, but maybe over time, or I'm pretty sure that will actually change.

Thank you. Very clear.

Thanks very much indeed. Two ones.

First one on China. In China, you've reached a 27.6% EBIT margin in H1 if my calculation is correct here.

We're getting closer to the 30% again or about 30% what used to be the peak margin or the strong margin in China. Initially, I think in the past you indicated that you think high 20s could be possible.

This is where we are right now. What do you think is still in China?

How much margin potential do you see given the fact that, obviously, your brand is on fire, you're adding a luxury component, your one of the main competitor is making some strategic decisions which may open up possibilities? Maybe some words on China if you have.

Then secondly, the gross margin, obviously, in the second quarter was strong with all the puts and takes that affected the business, but led to a very strong gross profit margin and indication for a brand heat. What do you think is possible for the second half, but also maybe a first look into 2027 with your indications on hedging again and all the other impacting factors?

Thanks very much.

Your calculation on China is correct. Your conclusion that we have brand on fire is also correct.

I would like to add that the diversity in the product that we have in China today is much stronger than when it peaked at 30%. I think when you go back to those days, the Western brands were selling, I call it, commodities with logos on, and you know that the margin on cotton hoodies and t-shirts and stuff were very high.

If you look at the product now, the local team is investing in sports, and they're investing in a big variety of segments. I think that the solidity of our business is much, much stronger.

I still do think that the high 20 is high 20s is a realistic, what should I say, margin. You also have to remember that we now sourcing local.

We're sourcing in China with Chinese currency, the variances we have on hedging and stuff in China is almost zero. At the same time, because we're sourcing in China, we are closer to the market.

There's a lot more replenishment and changes in the buy, which then takes the risk down, which again should then reduce the markdowns and in the wholesale business reduce the takebacks. We see all these things currently happening, and I can also say to you that we are balancing much more the business from a quarter to quarter.

We used to have filling in the wholesale partners and then do a lot of takebacks in Q4. What we're trying to do now is, of course, reduce the amount of takebacks totally, and then actually if there are, managing that month by month and quarter by quarter.

I think the local team has the business much more under control than they have before. The impact of our competitors' action in China is unknown.

Of course, we have seen and heard what they're doing, but I think it's far too early to say how that's going to be executed and the impact that that will have. Again, as soon as we know and we see, you will probably see it and hear it from us, but I think we will first have to see if it happens and how it happens.

Gross margin, I think I leave up to you, Harm.

Jürgen, on the gross margin, of course, we are very happy what we've achieved in the first half and, of course, in the second quarter, but there was a significant part on D2C and the football business, the jerseys, and full price. We want to continue to be disciplined in the second half.

The puts and takes is, yes, there will be less D2C, there will be less football business, but on the other hand, what Bjørn just explained, maybe the promotion levels with some of our competitors will ease a little bit in the second half, that should be a benefit. Again, I'm not going to talk about the Middle East or whatsoever.

That's hopefully under control. It's more important for the next year.

For next year, we are very clearly getting some tailwind from the U.S. dollar, and most importantly, what we got probably to a little bit of a surprise is some of the currencies of Japanese yen, Korean won, some of Argentine peso and Turkish lira.

Many of these currencies have actually stabilized. You saw it on our top-line development as well when it comes to reported and the currency-neutral.

We're very optimistic that we get the full benefit of the tailwind from the U.S. dollar and not so much headwind from the other currencies going into next year.

That's an early indication, but definitely we would expect the margin going up next year compared to whatever we deliver this year.

Very good. Thanks very much, guys.

Hi. Good afternoon.

Thanks for taking my questions. I have two also.

One is on marketing, and I appreciate that you invested a bit more taking opportunity from the World Cup. How do you evaluate the ROI from marketing investment?

Has the investment in marketing translated to interest in adidas more broadly and beyond the World Cup, and how do you track that? Then second question on lifestyle footwear, I was wondering if you reflect back on your strategy on Terrace and on Superstar, what are your takeaways, and how much of the perhaps very successful playbook with Samba can be replicated to Stan Smith?

Your first question, again, we decided to overinvest in Q2 because the event, the World Cup, was a platform for us to show the DNA of the brand. It's not to show the brand only in the world of soccer or football, but to actually showcase the brand.

That's why we invested so much in it. To calculate an ROI doesn't really work because if it worked, we would all do the same, right?

I think you have to look at it in many aspects. Everything that you can measure, the awareness, the engagement around the brand, are very, very positive.

To transfer that into conversion and then into monetary is something you do in school, but it doesn't really work in the real business. What it has done, and I think you agree, is that to grow 14% in this environment, we will see what other people report, shows you that it has actually worked also short term.

How much of that is marketing, and how much of that is organic, and how much is that because we have the distribution is very, very difficult to measure. Everything that we do measure, and digital you can measure much more accurate than you can in other parts, everything that is upper funnel has actually helped us all the way down to the lower funnel.

I do think that the brand in almost all markets are much stronger today than it was 3 years ago. The peak of the measurements were actually done just before the tournament.

We have no measurements now after the tournament. I would say that our marketing people has done a great job, but remember, that doesn't necessarily only be paid media, it is also the organic and what the consumer sees, hears, and not only what the marketeers then sell you as paid.

The lifestyle success that we had on Terrace with different models is, of course, a playbook that we're using. Remember when we are testing things, what we do is that we are launching products at the higher end in limited quantities, we are seeding products, and then we try both brick-and-mortar in the market and also digital to measure where the demand is, and then we scale.

That is a playbook that we're using everywhere, but you have to do it locally. You cannot measure these things global because the demand and the timing of the demand in Europe might be different than the U.S.

and Korea, which is leading on the trend side, might be ahead of everybody. This is a network of information that our people are using all the time, and the playbook might vary, but the logic is always the same.

I do think that Stan Smith, we have big indications from fashion shows, from consumer groups, from research that this direction is coming. The initial sales of the product that we have in limited is also working very well.

Remember, we took all these products out of the market so that there shouldn't be any discounted Stan Smiths around. I feel that we have, what should I say, done the work in parallel with what we have done on other launches.

Then it's not only Stan Smith, that's one thing that I think you should look at, but I think also on running lifestyle. If you see the development of Evo SL, if you see what is happening around the Jellyfish, which we're now opening up in distribution with Pharrell, if you look at what we're doing with Hyperboost, there's many, many elements that, in our opinion, deserves a wider wall with our retailers.

As long as we don't get it, we will then hold back and do it in our own distribution, both digital and brick-and-mortar. That's why I think when we get to Q4, you will start to see stronger growth in footwear again.

We didn't expect footwear to grow in Q2, and we knew that the World Cup would put the focus on apparel and not on footwear. I'm not sure why that was a surprise, but we never thought that anything else would happen, to be honest.

Great. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Just like to say thanks for all your help, Harm, over the last well, not for me 20 years, but certainly for you that long.

The questions that I've got really relate to first of all on the wholesale performance. I do understand that the sales being weaker into the channel, maybe both in Q2 and into the second half, just want to really confirm how much of this is adidas's choice to limit the retailer demand for the products compared to retailers actually ordering less product?

Within that, if you have taken the decision not to chase volume, especially in Europe, great for the full-price sort of sell-through, but is there any risk that you lose the shelf space that you've worked so hard to regain with the retailers over the last couple of years? Then the second question is, your implied sales growth of around 6% does seem quite a slowdown from what you achieved in the first half, especially with some World Cup sales still to come through in the third quarter.

It should probably be a couple of hundred million euros still coming through. You talk about the recovery in footwear in the fourth quarter, inventory up 13%.

Are you seeing anything with regards a slowdown in current trading in July either on D2C particularly or wholesale that has made you more cautious on the outlook? Thanks.

No, the answer to your last question, no. July was strong, but we only sitting on an order book that mirrors the wholesale business.

As you see, that was trending around 6%, and D2C to forecast that for the third and fourth quarter is very difficult. I don't think you have any retails in the world that forecasts double-digit like-for-like growth.

Yes, it might be cautious, and the math is 6%, right? Should we reach 9.5%, 9.9%, then what you need in the second half is 6%.

Is there an upside to it? Yes, there is, but again, you know us, we're trying to tell you what we're sure about.

It's the same with the EBIT. We could have booked now tariffs back like other brands do, and then look better, maybe we should, we didn't, because we want to make sure that we actually deliver what we say.

When it gets to the wholesale business and holding back versus conservative buys, that's very different from market to market. I think it is fair to say that in Europe, the general retailer was very, very careful booking.

It wasn't necessarily that we hold back volumes, but what we did is that when we saw the environment, we were holding back promos because we didn't want to go into a discounted environment. In other markets, we have holding back because we saw that the demand in our D2C was so high that we decided to hold back.

This is a decision that the markets are taking, and it's very, very different from market to market. I am sure that many retailers around the world, when they see these numbers and also when they saw what was happening, were trying to get more merchandise and would like to have more merchandise, but as the availability then is necessarily sitting in what they want.

Again, I think when you check with the retailers, I think we were very good during Q2 to replenish what was available. I think we also had big volumes of the relevant product, but of course, there were also product that were high in demand where we're running out of inventory.

There is a mix. I also think that growing 14% in the first 6 months of this year in this environment is not something that you do easily.

It's maybe a little bit surprising that people don't think this is good, especially when you see the numbers from our competitors, which I think had zero growth. It is a little bit difficult to understand.

Again, we are conservative in the way we look at things, and especially with the uncertainty that we have had around tariffs and supply chain issues and freight increases and oil price, it hasn't been that easy to actually get where we are. We might be a little bit more happy with ourselves than you guys are, and we apologize for that.

Maybe you, me, and all the people should have communicated differently, but there's no doubt that the platform where the brand is standing going out of Q2 is much stronger than it was going into Q1 and Q2 because the World Cup has added another dimension in many markets because people have made money with us. We have attracted both the male and the female consumer to our brand that we didn't have before.

The soccer culture, we don't know how long it will last, but product that are connected to soccer are also much high in demand than it's been before. We see ironically that coming out of World Cup replicas, the club replicas is also starting to work.

When you then add that we suddenly are a running brand again, which we haven't been for a long time, we have another big category that is growing 30%, which not only in performance running has the potential, but if you have running styles that do well on performance, it's easier to also with some tweaks of the product to get it on the shelf for lifestyle. Again, comparing apples by apples and going back to where we were a year and 2 years ago, we are much, much further, but of course, we are dependent on that we are in an environment where we can grow and that we do a good job, which I actually think that our people are doing constantly.

Great. Thanks.

Yes, good afternoon. The first topic, the World Cup again.

Far, it sounds like the remaining World Cup business in Q3 will be gross margin accretive, or is there some World Cup product left that you have to discount now that certain teams didn't make it that far, probably an easy one? Second topic is oil.

The high oil price now affects transport costs and later probably also input costs. Would you say it is unlikely that the sports brands can raise the prices in this environment, so that it will hurt the brands' margins at one point, maybe in '27, or do you say oil is not as relevant as we all think?

You're German, right? I have to say that the only place where there might be inventory based on performance will be the German inventory.

I think all other inventories compared to what we bought are fine. Then we all know, and this is important to say, that Germany is playing the Nations League in September, October with a new coach, which happens to be our partner, we will be pretty active in celebrating the German team also in the second half.

I don't think we will have a huge amount of inventory that will be dangerous for our margin. When it looks to the rest of the business in Q3, then I think Spain and Argentina are the two markets that will ask for new product.

A, Spain because of the success, and as I said, they now have jerseys with two stars, and there's a difference between two stars and one stars, and there are then developments around that. Then Argentina, of course, it will depend on what Messi is doing.

Should it be that he will then play a goodbye game, then of course there will be a lot of activities around him. I think all other federations, maybe with the exception of Italy, who are re-stocking everything because they were not qualified, I would assume that they with Mancini as a coach should also have a demand which is higher.

Then as I said, the demand currently for everything with Real Madrid, for example, with Mourinho back, and Bayern Munich and all the clubs are very positive. I would see that the apparel trend on soccer can actually continue also with full margin.

When it gets to the oil price, you have to remember that the oil price have varied a lot, and we've had peaks on the oil price much higher than we have today. When you look at the input price, there has been price increases and then decreases again in this period when it gets to the cost of the product.

The freight hasn't been that bad when it gets to inbound because we have long-term contracts, we haven't been hit that much. On e-com, where you're actually shipping to the consumer and with the growth we have, we have of course had increases.

This is, what should I say, a very diversified picture on the impact of oil price. I think the oil price now around $90, if it goes a little bit more down, we shouldn't have any input increases because of that because we were actually at the same level before all this uncertainty.

I'm not really concerned about the oil price right now. It was a lot more concern 2, 3 months ago because then we were looking at completely different pricing on materials, and that seems to be stabilized.

When it gets to raising prices, it's easy to raise the prices for the shoe box or the price ticket. The question is what discounts do you need to actually sell the product, because the relevant price is always what the consumer pays, not what's on the price tag.

I think we have seen, especially in the U.S., that discounts ate up a lot of the tariff increases. I think when you look at our margin, we have been pretty good or lucky, depending on how you see it, by actually getting the prices that we need for the cost of the product.

That's why you're running gross margins above 52%, which I don't think Adi has done very often without Yeezy. We feel that we have the different components of the margin pretty good in control right now.

Very good. If the German jersey gets cheaper, you can tell me.

I will.

Moira, we have time for two more questions.

Thank you. Good afternoon.

My first question is on the guidance for '26, please. I'm just wondering if we look at the €2.3 billion of targeted EBIT, if you get incremental revenue contribution from D2C in the second half of the year, is there any drop-through to earnings from that, or there isn't any leverage from D2C sales given the higher run-rate OpEx that's required to fulfill that?

Just related to that, just thinking, are we still on track to reach 10% margin by '27, which doesn't leave a lot of heavy lifting to do into next year from a margin perspective? Then just secondly, on Stan Smith, I think, Bjørn, you mentioned that this is a trend that you're seeing kind of building.

Could you maybe give us a bit more indication about which regions or markets you're seeing that in, and what your timings are around scaling this franchise into next year? Thank you very much.

Your EBIT leverage on D2C is, of course, depend on where it is. There are markets that are extremely profitable on D2C, and there's also a difference between e-com and concept stores and factory outlets.

It depends on where it is, but in general, a D2C business, if you do it good, should be higher EBIT than wholesale. I think we are in line to do the 10% EBIT going forward.

I'm not sure if you said it means that we need to do heavy lifting, I didn't catch it. There's always heavy lifting to do in this industry to deliver double-digit EBIT, but I think we're closer to it than we have ever been, I'm not sure if it's heavy heavy compared to what it's been before.

To be honest with you, if we do a decent job with everything we can measure, we should deliver it. Then when it gets to Stan Smith, Stan Smith has always been a product that when it goes, it actually goes global, normally driven first of Europe, then going to Asia, and then less, of course, to a certain target group in the U.S., although right now, ironically, the higher end in the U.S.

has actually been very strong in demand. The triple white thing, even triple white Superstar, which is kind of a different, what should I say, type of shoe, is doing very well.

The triple white look is definitely coming back, and I would say globally, which of course is what we like with these kind of franchises.

Thank you. That's great.

Thanks very much. I just want to ask two questions that come back on topics we've already talked about.

Bjørn, just to come back on wholesale, you said the second half is trending at 6%, 7%, similar to the first half, but you're seeing a better Q4 footwear order book. What exactly is it that you're seeing in footwear?

Is that the broader range getting traction or particular styles? Is there anything that's slowing to balance out that growth to be similar to the first half?

Then if I may, one for Harm on operating overheads. I take your point about the growth in D2C in Q2 driving a particular amount of cost growth, but actually D2C was pretty strong in Q1 as well, and the growth in costs was very different in Q2.

What drops away in the second half to give you confidence that OpEx will be under control in H2? Thank you.

Of course, we see the order book from Q3, Q4 in the wholesale business growing in footwear, we know there's a higher demand coming in Q4, and it's a combination of performance. Running strong, soccer strong, and I would say also training strong.

Then there is certain units on the lifestyle side that is getting bigger bookings. I do think the pattern is also, if you're really honest, that there was a apparel boom among our retailers that gave them more open to buy for apparel.

Given that the freshness in apparel was less discounted, there was easier for them to book more apparel than footwear. That when we get to Q4, I assume that the assumption is that they will have less inventory of what they have too much of, and that they will guide more open to buy again back to us on the lifestyle side.

Again, you never have all this data, but as you can see, we have a momentum in footwear in the performance side, and there's no reason why that should stop. The three major categories is football, running, and training.

Then on the lifestyle side, with the launches we have and leading into '27, we see an increased interest both on men's and women's again that should correspond then to a growth again in Q4. I'm more uncertain about footwear in Q3.

It might be that it will turn stronger positive, but that is of course then dependent on that the inventory and the discounting goes down. Again, it's not a negative picture at all, to be honest.

Again, the 6% is just the math. It's not saying that we would be happy with 6%, but that is the math to get in to our guidance.

Harm?

On the operating overheads, yes, I'm very confident that it will be different in Q3 and Q4. What is the reason for that?

Yes, we had good growth in D2C in Q1 as well, Warwick, but e-commerce was growing double the pace in Q2 versus Q1. Of course, this is where we have more variable costs compared to retail.

On retail, it's really the one-time thing with pop-up stores in the U.S. during the event.

There's a lot of logistics and operating overheads linked to the World Cup that we invested just in Q2, event-related logistics, and again, staffing in retail stores to replenish every day twice and all these things. Then lastly, it will continue in the second half, but just Q2 compared to Q1, it's also we do the salary increases starting in April, and that's of course as a global company, that's something you feel Q2 versus Q1, but you don't see that versus prior year when it comes to Q3 or whatsoever, it's normalized.

Just rest assured, Q3 and Q4 will be normalized both from a marketing, but also from an operating overhead point of view, whatever the D2C growth will be. To the question earlier, if D2C will be better, we will make sure that it drops to the bottom line and will be reflected in the guidance then.

That's where we are.

Very good. Thank you.

Thanks very much, Warwick. Thanks very much also, Moira, and thanks very much to Bjørn and Harm, and of course, thanks to all of you for participating in our call today.

As always, if you have any follow-up questions, and I have the feeling that there may still be some, please feel free to reach out anytime to Adrian, Philip, Chiara, or myself or any other member of the IR team. We very much look forward to speaking to you.

Before we wrap up, I just want to send out a quick reminder that we look forward to hopefully welcoming many of you here to our Home of Innovation event on September 23 and 24. Bjørn mentioned it.

We think if you come and look at the strong pipeline that we have for '27 and also '28, hopefully you will be able to better understand our confidence in our ability to continue to grow high single-digit in '27 and deliver on our 10% margin target. If you haven't registered yet, there's still some time to do so.

We will keep the registration open for a few more days, and we would be very happy to be able to welcoming you here on our beautiful three stripes campus in the fall. With that, thank you very much again for joining us today.

We wish you a wonderful summer, great rest of the day, and look forward to catching up with you. Bye-bye.