Nike vs. Lululemon: The Turnaround and the Stall
Nike's fiscal 2026 and Lululemon's fiscal 2025 income statements side by side, as one brand's rebuild starts to hold and the other's growth story cracks.
Athleisure's two flagship income statements are moving in opposite directions. Lululemon's September 3 release showed revenue down 4% with comparable sales off 10%, and the company cut its full-year outlook to a decline of 5% to 7%, according to its release and CNBC's coverage, which sent the shares down about 18% after hours. Nike is headed the other way. A year into Elliott Hill's rebuild, it reports first-quarter results on Thursday, and the two charts below show the score at each company's last full-year line, before the divergence fully arrived.
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NIKE, Inc. (NKE), Fiscal 2026
NIKE, Inc.'s FY2026 revenue was $46.4B, up 0% year over year; gross margin 43%; net income $3.1B (7% margin).
Nike's chart is wide and thin. Revenue of $46.4 billion runs more than four times Lululemon's, but only 43 cents of each dollar survives cost of goods and 7 cents reach net income, with the year flat overall. The mix underneath moved sharply, per the earnings release, with wholesale up 6% to $27.5 billion while NIKE Direct fell 6% to $17.7 billion on a 12% drop in digital.
One margin line comes with a footnote. Gross margin of 43% got help from a $986 million tariff recovery, booked after the Supreme Court ruled in February that the IEEPA tariffs were unauthorized, per the earnings release, worth about $0.52 of earnings per share on its own. Chief executive Elliott Hill said the company took decisive actions to strengthen its foundation and pointed to progress in performance product. Thursday shows whether the wholesale-led stabilization is a floor or a pause.
Open the interactive NKE chart →
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Lululemon Athletica Inc. (LULU), Fiscal 2025
Lululemon Athletica Inc.'s FY2025 revenue was $11.1B, up 5% year over year; gross margin 57%; operating margin 20%; net income $1.6B (14% margin).
Lululemon's chart is the opposite build. Fiscal 2025 revenue of $11.1 billion grew 5% and the margins stayed rich, with 57 cents of gross profit per dollar, a 20% operating margin, and a net margin double Nike's. The strain was visible even then, per the earnings release, as international revenue grew 22% while the Americas shrank 1% and gross margin gave back 260 basis points, with the interim leadership talking about winning back full-price selling in North America.
The year since has been rougher than that chart. September's second-quarter release showed the Americas down 8% and companywide revenue down 4%, and management cut the full-year earnings outlook to a range of $9.48 to $9.73 per share, per the press release, from roughly $11 at the midpoint before. A brand built on scarcity and full price is now fighting for both in a soft North American market. Nike knows that fight.
Open the interactive LULU chart →
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Set side by side, the two charts read like a trade halfway through. Lululemon still owns the richer income statement, earning twice Nike's margin on a business a quarter its size, but nearly every number it has reported since that fiscal year closed has come in worse. Nike's chart is thinner and carries a one-time tariff refund inside its margin, yet growing wholesale and a stabilized top line are the first measurable signs the rebuild is taking. Thursday adds the next data point. The more interesting chart to redraw a year from now may be Lululemon's.
_Every chart on this page is generated live by Sankify from the company's own SEC filings. Nothing here is illustrative or mocked up._
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