JD Wraps Up 2025 with a 2.2% Growth Despite Decline in Comparable Sales

The British group JD Sports is suffering from comparable sales. The company, dedicated to the distribution of sports equipment and owner of the Spanish Sprinter chain, has anticipated that it will end the 2025 financial year (ended January 3rd) with growth of 2.2%, although its like-for-like sales fell by 2.1%.

The company, which did not disclose total sales volume, reported growth in all the regions in which it operates except the United Kingdom, with an increase of 3.6% in North America, 4% in Europe and 8.7% in Asia Pacific. In its home market, however, the group’s business shrank by 2.7%.

On a like-for-like basis, JD Sports ended the year with negative figures in all markets except Asia. In North America, the group’s comparable sales fell by 1.5%, in Europe by 1.5% and in the United Kingdom by 4%. In Asia Pacific, on the other hand, the company posted a 0.5% increase in like-for-like sales.

Despite the negative balance for the year as a whole, the company highlighted the improvement in comparable sales trends in the fourth quarter in its largest market, North America.

JD Sports has anticipated that its gross margin will fall again for the full year

Regarding the performance in the fourth quarter, Régis Schultz, CEO of JD Sports, noted that “total sales during the peak period were in line with our expectations, against a backdrop of consumer volatility.“ “Black Friday saw strong customer participation in all regions, but demand weakened in the first half of December, especially in Europe and the UK,“ he said.

JD Sports anticipated that its gross margin will shrink for the full year, down around fifty basis points. In the first nine months of the year, the group’s gross margin fell by 60 basis points.

“In our April 2025 strategy update, we set out our view that the global sportswear market was likely to grow at an average rate of between 2% and 3% per annum over the medium term,“ the company said. Thus, for the current fiscal year, “based on the data and indicators currently available to us, and taking into account the weak spending outlook for our core customer demographic and the early stages of the innovation process for our key brand partners (especially in footwear),“ the company anticipates a period of moderate growth.