Athletic apparel sales improved on the margin last week following 3 weeks of negative growth with the underlying two year trend accelerating. NKE and UA led the pack with notable gains in share.
Apparel Comps were incrementally more difficult last week vs. the week prior with trends getting increasingly less favorable through the end of April. The acceleration in underlying trends last week (and thus comping the comp) was driven by continued strength in Training apparel.
Overall, the 1.3% growth was driven by ASP which was up 3% (units down ~2%). In the athletic specialty channel however, both units and pricing drove the 7.2% growth. We will continue to monitor the 2 yr growth through April as well as ASP expansion given the industry just comp’d pricing being down 0.5% LY with pricing compares getting less favorable through May (see chart below), requiring unit volume to drive top line growth.
