Nike is still working through a turnaround, but some of the pressure reflects a difficult backdrop for the category as well. Consumer Edge data shows Footwear/Athletic Apparel has been one of the softer discretionary categories in U.S. spending in recent months, as these purchases can be easier for consumers to defer as they become more selective about where they spend.
Within that environment, Nike continues to cede share of Apparel, Accessories & Footwear spending across age groups. There are some signs of improvement: share losses among 18–34 year olds have moderated from their 2025 lows, even as they remain negative.
One opportunity that stands out in our data is women. The share of Nike spending coming from women continues to under-index the broader Footwear/Athletic Apparel subindustry. That gap narrowed modestly year over year in Q3, with Nike’s female spend mix reaching 0.91x the subindustry average compared with 0.89x a year ago. There’s still meaningful room to close it – lululemon and Fabletics have female spend mixes around 1.2x the subindustry average, while Brooks Running is above average and HOKA and On are close to it.
That makes this week’s Caitlin Clark launch particularly interesting. Nike called women’s basketball one of its most powerful growth opportunities, and described the Caitlin 1 as its largest women’s signature shoe launch ever. Reports indicated that the shoe was nearly sold out less than two hours after its U.S. release, and Nike said on the call that it was seeing strong sell-through.
Nike is clearly putting more behind the opportunity. We’ll be watching whether that starts to show up more meaningfully in the mix of consumers spending with the brand and whether that leads to a broad, sustained recovery in U.S. sales growth.
How business leaders use this data
- Brand marketing teams track the gender mix of their customers quarter by quarter to see whether athlete partnerships and product launches are reaching new shoppers, instead of waiting for quarterly results.
- Strategy teams benchmark their female spend mix against peers across the subindustry to size the gap and the opportunity in a specific consumer segment.
- Category managers monitor share of category spending by age group to measure whether a turnaround is gaining traction with the cohorts that matter most.
Notes: Female spend mix measures the share of a brand’s spending coming from women, relative to the Footwear/Athletic Apparel subindustry, where 1.00x equals the subindustry average. Based on Consumer Edge U.S. credit and debit card data. Nike’s quarterly series excludes wholesale.
