(Reuters) -Under Armour Inc raised its annual profit and sales forecasts after reporting a 35% jump in quarterly revenue on Tuesday, as reopening markets in the United States and Asia fuel demand for the company’s sports shoes and apparel.
Shares of the Baltimore-based company rose 3% in premarket trading.
The rollout of COVID-19 vaccines and new rounds of government stimulus lifted consumer confidence for discretionary spending in the first few months of the year, helping Under Armour post a 32% increase in revenue from North America.
The pandemic also led to a rise in the adoption of outdoor exercises such as jogging and biking, boosting demand for Under Armour HOVR running shoes and easing some of the pain from the closure of gyms and loss of sales to college and high school sports teams.
Revenue from the company’s smaller international segment rose 58%, helped by recoveries in markets including China.
The company said it expects full-year revenue to rise by a high-teen percentage, compared with a previous outlook of a high-single-digit increase.
The sportswear maker lifted its full-year adjusted earnings per share forecast to between 28 cents and 30 cents, from 12 cents to 14 cents.
The company’s net revenue rose to $1.26 billion in the first quarter ended March 31, beating analysts’ average estimate of $1.13 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
Under Armour said on Monday it had agreed to pay a penalty of $9 million to settle Securities and Exchange Commission charges relating to its accounting practices.
Excluding certain items, the company earned 16 cents per share in the first quarter, beating estimates of 3 cents per share.
(Reporting by Uday Sampath and Mehr Bedi in Bengaluru;Editing by Vinay Dwivedi)
