A client carries a Nike bag in San Francisco, Dec. 17, 2025.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Pictures
Nike is making an enormous guess on India.
The retailer, which has been struggling to revive its enterprise and regain momentum underneath CEO Elliott Hill, is hoping the world’s most populous nation can assist it flip the web page on its efficiency.
Because it reported its fiscal first-quarter earnings on Oct. 1, the corporate introduced it’ll create a brand new international campus in Bengaluru, India, as a part of its progress technique. Hill wrote in a letter to workers that the brand new facility can be a “long-term funding” to assist place Nike for achievement.
“India is already an essential progress market and manufacturing hub for Nike, with sturdy capabilities and entry to expertise,” Hill wrote.
The brand new campus is anticipated to open within the subsequent few years and span company roles throughout the group, together with the namesake Nike model, Jordan Model and Converse. Nike plans to debate its India campus intimately at its investor day subsequent month.
In an announcement to CNBC, a Nike spokesperson stated increasing into India is a “pure” subsequent step for the corporate because it appears to be like to develop its international presence.
“As participation in operating, basketball, soccer, health and different sports activities continues to develop throughout India, we see a chance to higher serve athletes by means of stronger native capabilities, shopper insights, and innovation,” the spokesperson stated.
India would be the world’s third-largest retail market by 2030, based on Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries. Its e-commerce market was valued at $159.25 billion in 2026 and is projected to achieve $332.94 billion by 2031, based on IBEF, a enterprise advocacy group created by the Indian authorities.
Nike has endured a yearslong droop and is making an attempt to proper its enterprise underneath Hill’s turnaround plan. Nike additionally introduced this month that it could lay off staff throughout the corporate as a part of what it has dubbed its Tempo technique, which incorporates provide chain adjustments and reorganization of the corporate’s geographic segments. Nike expects the trouble to ship roughly $2.5 billion in financial savings by means of fiscal 2031.
Nike’s resolution to take a position additional in India as a part of its comeback comes because the sportswear firm sheds income in one other vital worldwide market: China. Although its fiscal first-quarter North America income got here in simply above Wall Road expectations, Hill stated that efficiency wasn’t sufficient to offset pressures overseas.
Nike has been significantly struggling within the Larger China market, the place its income dropped by 26% in its fiscal first quarter. It is a part of what consultants have stated is a broader pattern of American firms shedding relevance and traction to home manufacturers because the once-lucrative market matures.
On a name with analysts earlier this month, Hill stated the corporate was taking “deliberate actions” to strengthen its China enterprise, although he stated these results will take time to materialize. Hill stated the corporate plans to refresh its bodily retail, spearhead a digital cleanup and create increased high quality experiences for customers.
The Nike spokesperson advised CNBC the corporate is “deeply dedicated” to China and sees the area as certainly one of its “most essential long-term progress markets,” at the same time as Nike expands its presence in India.
“China stays a long-term precedence for Nike, whereas India represents one other essential alternative to spend money on the way forward for sport and the subsequent era of athletes,” the spokesperson stated.
Investing in a long-term imaginative and prescient
The corporate’s enlargement in India could also be coming at each an opportune and inopportune time, based on consultants. Investing in a rising worldwide market doesn’t assure increased gross sales — it additionally requires persuading Indian customers they need the Nike model, a problem the corporate has struggled to beat in China.
“What Nike, I feel, is doing proper now could be going area by area and dealing to reestablish what the model stands for,” Simeon Siegel, a senior managing director at Guggenheim Securities, advised CNBC.
Siegel stated a part of the dissonance for Nike is that every area and phase of the enterprise is at a special stage of its turnaround. He stated investing in India might set the firm up for a extra sustainable future if the China enterprise continues to lag, however Nike must have a compelling product, stable storytelling and intensive distribution within the area to achieve success there.
“I feel the corporate must look inward and work out what’s the proper option to reestablish profitability,” he stated. “And that includes, in sure situations, shrinking and saving and chopping, and, in sure situations, investing and searching towards the long run, as a result of the objective right here is to not shrink to oblivion; it is to shrink to stability, after which finally progress.”
The worldwide technique can also focus an excessive amount of on a long-term imaginative and prescient somewhat than extra quick fixes, based on Jessica Ramirez, co-founder and managing director at advisory agency The Client Collective, who makes a speciality of retail and attire. Ramirez stated she already thought Nike and Hill’s imaginative and prescient have been “out of contact” and the plan for the India campus did not essentially assist its case.
“I do not know that this plan of India is a direct resolution to their issues proper now,” she stated. “They need to plan long run, proper? However additionally they must plan brief time period, which is repeatedly falling aside.”
She stated Nike has not shared plans which might be concrete sufficient to win again momentum in China and has to develop each areas hand in hand.
Whereas Nike underneath Hill has improved its wholesale and efficiency classes, Ramirez stated it has but to grasp its direct-to-consumer and sportswear segments, which might enable the corporate to flourish in all of its markets.
The Nike spokesperson advised CNBC the retailer is dedicated to investing in each international locations because it tries to broaden its international presence.
“Importantly, this isn’t an both/or resolution between India and China,” the spokesperson stated. “We at all times make investments market by market primarily based on long-term alternatives to serve athletes and develop sport around the globe.”
A rising market alternative
Nonetheless, India presents a beautiful alternative for a lot of firms seeking to unlock progress overseas.
Ramirez stated Nike is simply the most recent to hitch a cohort of American firms seeking to set up their presence out there. Whereas many manufacturers started investing in China years in the past, she stated that pattern is now pointing towards India as a substitute, as U.S. firms see extra spending pressures within the Chinese language market and navigate geopolitical tensions between the 2 international locations.
“It is to get in there for the long run and to guarantee that they’re there for after they can reap the optimistic results,” she stated. “I need to say this dialog began getting a bit extra participating within the final two to 3 years, when firms began investing extra in India.”
India is without doubt one of the world’s strongest market performers, pushed primarily by home demand, funding and supply-chain diversification, based on an evaluation from Accenture. With a inhabitants of over 1 billion, the nation presents a progress alternative much like the one China supplied within the early 2000s.
“It should be a fast-growing shopper base the place we assume their earnings ranges will proceed to go up and so they’ll have rather more buying energy, and so possibly might we be tapping in on that market from a shopper lens,” Chris Tomsovic, who leads Accenture’s macro foresight workforce, advised CNBC.
Nonetheless, one of many greatest focus factors for the Indian shopper is worth sensitivity, which is able to pose a problem for American firms making an attempt to interrupt into the market, he added. Even so, many home manufacturers in the marketplace are youthful, that means there may very well be extra alternatives proper now for Western firms to take market share.
One other problem is that the Chinese language shopper has traditionally been receptive to American manufacturers, whereas it’ll nonetheless take extra knowledge to know how Indian buyers really feel about these companies, he stated. For sportswear retailers, the main target of the sports activities hottest in every area will even issue into that equation.
“Can they actually localize the product, make the worth level work? Can they adapt to the native social media know-how ecosystem? Can they adapt to the native cultural values and norms that the buyer desires?” Tomsovic stated.
“In the event you’re capable of nail that, then I feel you are proper. Whether or not you are a footwear model, whether or not you are an athleisure model, I feel there’s an enormous alternative there with a billion customers,” he stated.