Rory McIlroy is not having a good season on the golf course. A year ago the wunderkind from Northern Ireland finished second in the rankings. This year he did not even qualify for the end-of-season Tour Championship. But he is not the only one fluffing his shots. Adidas, the German sportswear maker, has cut its full-year net income guidance by almost a tenth, to between 820m and 850m. That sent its shares down 4 per cent on Friday. One of the reasons it cited was the poor state of the global golf market.
来自北爱尔兰的高尔夫神童罗里•麦克罗伊(Rory McIlroy)本赛季发挥不好。去年排名第二的他，今年甚至未能获得赛季末巡回锦标赛的参赛资格。但他不是唯一搞砸了的人。德国运动用品制造商阿迪达斯(Adidas)将其全年净利润指引调低了近十分之一，目前预计在8.2亿至8.5亿欧元之间。这个消息导致周五阿迪达斯股价下跌4%。阿迪达斯提到的原因中，有一条就是全球高尔夫市场不景气。
It seems that golfers the world over are not stocking up on new drivers and irons. But that is not the only reason why Adidas revised its forecasts. Continued weakness in a range of currencies from the Russian rouble to the Argentine peso against the euro played a part. This is not surprising. Currency effects had already wiped 3 per cent off group sales in the first half from a year earlier. Adidas’ German rival Puma, which also books its sales in euros, is suffering too.
全世界的高尔夫球员看上去都停止了添置新球杆，不管是木杆还是铁杆。但这并不是阿迪达斯调低收益预期的唯一原因。还有一个原因是，从俄罗斯卢布到阿根廷比索等一系列货币对欧元比价持续走低。这并不令人意外。汇率效应已导致阿迪达斯今年上半年销售额同比下跌3%。阿迪达斯的德国竞争对手彪马(Puma)日子也不好过，彪马的销售额也以欧元计算。
More worrying for Adidas was a hiccup at one of its new distribution centres in Russia, its third-biggest market after the US and China. Its strength in Russia gives it an advantage that helps to offset the global superiority of its biggest rival, Nike. The US sportswear group commands more market share in all of its key markets and has operating margins of 13 per cent, nearly two-thirds more than Adidas. What is more, as Adidas moves away from its flagging Reebok brand, especially in the US, it is Nike, not Adidas, that is picking up the share.
对阿迪达斯而言，更令人担忧的是俄罗斯的一个新销售中心发展不顺利。俄罗斯是阿迪达斯仅次于美国和中国的第三大市场，俄罗斯业务的强劲增长曾是阿迪达斯相对于最大竞争对手耐克(Nike)的一个优势，而耐克在全球范围里领先于阿迪达斯。美国运动用品集团耐克在其所有关键市场上都占有更高的市场份额，营运利润率高达13%，比阿迪达斯高出近三分之二。此外，随着阿迪达斯逐渐放弃旗下江河日下的锐步(Reebok)品牌（特别是在美国），吞下锐步吐出的那部分市场份额的不是阿迪达斯，而是耐克。
In the circumstances, it is not surprising that the outperformance of Nike extends to the stock market. Traditionally the share prices of the two industry behemoths track each other closely. But this year Nike’s shares have gained a third, more than twice as much as Adidas’s, with most of the gains coming this month. That has widened the valuation gap. Nike now trades on 23 times forward earnings, a chunky 60 per cent ahead of Adidas. The latter still has room to grow in China, and it is sponsoring most of the big teams in next year’s Fifa World Cup in Brazil. Like Mr McIlroy, Adidas should not be written off yet.
在这种形势下，业绩优异的耐克在股市上跑赢也就不足为奇了。一般来说，耐克和阿迪达斯这两大行业巨头的股价走势不分上下。但耐克的股价今年累计上涨了三分之一，涨幅为阿迪达斯的两倍以上，大部分涨幅发生在本月。这拉开了双方的估值差距。耐克目前的预期市盈率为23倍，比阿迪达斯高出足足60%。阿迪达斯在中国市场上仍有增长空间，它也是明年巴西世界杯(Fifa World Cup)多数主要球队的赞助商。和麦克罗伊一样，目前阿迪达斯这只个股并非完全不值得考虑。