Nike was founded June 25, 1964 by Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight, and is currently ran by Mark Parker. Nike's main headquarters in Beaverton, OR in the Portland metropolitan area. Nike was founded originally as an importer of Japanese shoes, and since then grown to be one of the worlds largest athletic footwear and clothing company in the world. It is a multinational corporation and is mainly engaged in athletic clothing and footwear.
Nike began its call to fame by developing track shoes in the 1970’s and particularly making one of the lightest track shoes available during that time (“Success Story,” 2018). This helped them to become popular with fitness fanatics and they eventually became the number one brand of athletic footwear by the 1980’s. Another famous trademark that made Nike popular was their famous swoosh symbol that distinctly marked each pair of shoes. By incorporating both an element of superior performance and a visual display of the shoe that people liked Nike continued to grow as one of the world's most popular brands still to this day.
Nike's main business activity and goal is to design, development and worldwide marketing of high quality footwear, apparel, equipment, and accessory products (“Company's Segment – CSIMarket,” 2013) They have recently developed and incorporated new carbon fiber technology into their shoes in order to achieve their goal of having the best athletic footwear out. Nike spends a lot of money on test products and endorsements with athletes to insure that what they make is approved by the best. Since their products are specifically designed for athletic use they make it important to test their products under the most strenuous conditions to ensure their quality and performance. They have released most recently FlyKnit technology that none of its competitors have in any of their products. New ideas and innovations like this help Nike stay ahead of the pack and continue to grow as the number one athletic apparel and footwear company in the world.
Nike's top three competitors are Adidas, Puma, and Reebok which are all three athletic suppliers of footwear and clothing just like Nike. Nike however is far above the competition with their closest competitor valued almost 10 billion dollars less in yearly revenue (Nike Competitors-Owler 2017). Even at Nikes lowest year of sales and revenue they still exceed that of their competitors which shows how far ahead they are compared to the competition. A recent report stated that, “NIKE has been the best performer in the Dow Jones Industrial Average thus far in calendar 2018” (“Value Line – Research,” 2018). With a fact like that it is clear why Nike is so far ahead of its competition and has so much more yearly revenue.
Nike has recently received a lot of heat and praise from making Colin Kaepernick the face of their promotion ads. The New York Times stated,”The ads have sent Kaepernick into a new realm of celebrity, quickly becoming among the most talked-about and successful campaigns in recent years” (“The New York Times,” 2018). By promoting Colin Kaepernick, Nike's sales surged 31 percent despite all the negative feedback received from customers who didn't agree with what Colin Kaepernick was doing. Kaepernick is just one of the many famous athlete and faces that Nike endorses in the sports world in order to promote their products. Among most professional sports Nike is the main sponsor and logo you will see on most professional jerseys and footwear that players and teams wear.
Despite Nikes decades of being the top sporting brand in the world they still find new innovations and ways to increase their cash flow and somehow become more and more popular each year. From a periodical written in a Forbes article it states that,”the company’s free cash flow has been following an upward trend growing at an annual rate of around 6% for the past ten years” (“The Intrinsic Value Of Nike,” 2017). A big reason for this is because Nike doesnt play it safe they take risks that usually reap big rewards, for example such as enforcing Colin Kaepernick like I discussed previously. With each year Nike creates new products and new innovations that allow them to have this steady increase of cash flow and continue to pull further ahead of the competitors.
Nike has a bright future and their plans moving forward are to keep innovating new athletic products to help athletes be their best. In an article by Giovanni Bruno states that, “The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its impressive record of earnings per share growth, compelling growth in net income, revenue growth, largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures and notable return on equity” (“TheStreet,” 2016). Nike all around is doing well and they have continued to thrive over the years with the addition of new athlete endorsements and innovative products unlike anything the competition has came out with. Nike will be number one for a long time to come at the rate they are going. re…