Following today’s release of JD Sport’s figures for the 13 weeks to 1 November 2025; Louise Deglise-Favre, lead apparel analyst at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, offers her view: “JD Sports’ performance remained muted in Q3 FY2025/26, as despite organic revenue rising 2.4%, like-for-like (l-f-l) sales fell 1.7%, as growth continued to be propped up by store openings and expansions. While this decline in l-f-l sales represents an improvement on H1 (-2.7%), it also highlights a weakness in JD Sports’ product assortment and its continued reliance on sportswear giant Nike, which has experienced disappointing sales. The group remained cautious regarding the full year, precising that its profit before tax and adjusting items is expected to reach £871m, with a range between £853m and £888m, which is significantly lower than the £923m it achieved in FY2024/25, citing macroeconomic difficulties and dampened consumer sentiment as reasons.
“Europe and North America recorded similar performances, with organic sales rising 4.0% and 3.0% and l-f-l sales falling 1.1% and 1.7%, respectively, aligning with the group’s topline performance as consumers remained cautious amid economic uncertainties. Its smallest region of Asia-Pacific performed the best, with organic sales rising 13.3% and l-f-l sales growing 3.9%, thanks to growing demand for sportswear in many of the region’s emerging markets where the athleisure trend remains immature. Organic sales in the UK fell 2.0%, while l-f-l sales declined 3.3%, with JD Sports blaming strong comparatives and the warm weather in October for missed sales in its outdoor categories. However, JD Sports failed to mention its struggles to capture consumer interest due to its inadequate product assortment, carrying too many end-of-cycle lines which need discounting to attract shoppers.
“The group’s core JD fascia saw the biggest organic uplift of 3.6%, boosted by the integration of prior acquisitions, such as Fishing Line in North America into the JD fascia, as l-f-l sales fell 2.0%. This can partly be blamed on its heavy reliance on Nike, which has been failing to capture consumer interest due to a lack of innovation, especially within its performance footwear categories. It will also have suffered from the rise in popularity of primarily direct-to-consumer brands such as On, Hoka, Lululemon and Alo. Its Complementary Concepts division experienced an organic sales decline of 0.4%, while l-f-l’s fell 1.9%, while its Sporting Goods & Outdoor division rose 0.5% on an organic basis, while l-f-l’s contracted 0.3%.”
