Despite dropping Kanye West, Adidas has managed to sell a ton of Yeezy sneakers.– over $565 million worth.
A good portion of that revenue will be donated to charity.
via Complex:
Adidas held their 2023 Q2 earnings call today, where the brand’s CEO, Bjørn Gulden, announced that sales from the summer’s Yeezy relaunch generated $437 million in revenue and $164 million in operating profit for the brand, putting the total at just north of $600 million. Gulden confirmed that the releases, which took place during May and June, accounted for 20 to 25 percent of Adidas’ remaining Yeezys.
“We will continue to carefully sell off more of the existing Yeezy inventory,” Gulden said. “This is much better than destroying and writing off the inventory and allows us to make substantial donations to organizations like the Anti-Defamation League, the Philonise & Keeta Floyd Institute for Social Change and Robert Kraft’s Foundation to Combat Antisemitism.”
Adidas’ chief financial officer, Harm Ohlmeyer, also said on the call that the brand has stuck to its word of donating a “significant amount” of the proceeds from Yeezy sales to selected organizations working to combat discrimination and hate, including racism and antisemitism. Ohlmeyer said the company had already donated over $10 million to various charity groups including the aforementioned organizations and will donate an additional $120 million as a result of the recent Yeezy sales. He adds that future donations are possible depending on the performance of Yeezy sales.
Since Adidas terminated its partnership with Kanye West in November 2022 after a string of antisemitic comments and publicly voicing his dissatisfaction with the Three Stripes, the brand has been evaluating its options on what to do with its remaining Yeezy stock.
The brand finally landed on releasing its remaining Yeezy sneakers in May before announcing a second drop taking place this week. In addition to the aforementioned donations, Adidas has included blue square pins with the Yeezy sneakers sold directly by the brand in North America to highlight the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism’s #StandUpToJewishHate campaign that launched earlier this year.
We hate that Kanye ended up being…Kanye…because we really enjoyed Yeezys.
