By Geoffrey Smith
Investing.com -- For a company supposedly exposed to global trends of slowing growth and squeezed incomes, Adidas (DE:ADSGN) is doing remarkably well.
The German sportswear company’s shares hit a new all-time high on Friday, rising over 7% after it reported a 17% rise in net profit in the three months to March, despite a drop in sales in its home market in Europe and a slowdown in North America due to supply chain bottlenecks.
Adidas’ net income came in 11% above forecasts at 632 million euros ($708 million), a rise of 4% from a year earlier when adjusted for currency swings.
And there’s better to come, according to CEO Kasper Rorsted.
Rorsted told CNBC that the company will aim to deliver sales growth of just under 10% in future, when it has overcome what he hopes will be ‘temporary’ supply chain issues.
“We’re in a situation where the demand is higher than the supply,” Rorsted said. "We should have managed that better but still, a better situation to be in than the reverse where the supply is bigger than the demand.”
Elsewhere on Europe’s bourses this morning, markets are back in largely positive mood after consolidating near nine-month highs on Thursday. The benchmark Euro STOXX 600 is up 0.4% at 391.42 points, while the U.K. FTSE 100 is up 0.8% and Gemany’s DAX is up 0.4%.
Trading was generally quiet as the market awaited the U.S. employment report, due at 8:30 AM ET (1230 GMT).
Bank stocks have been lifted by better-than-expected earnings from Societe Generale (PA:SOGN) and Asia-focused HSBC (NYSE:HSBC), while Barclays (LON:BARC) was little changed after activist investor Edward Bramson was resoundingly defeated in his quest for a board seat.