Columbia blames weather for sales dip
11/02/2013
Net income rose 8% but sales fell 5% compared with the fourth quarter 2011. Full year 2012 net income declined 3% and sales 1%.
Tim Boyle, Columbia's CEO, commented, "A year ago, coming off record-setting warm winter globally, we knew 2012 was going to be a difficult year for top-line growth. The management team acted quickly and decisively in the first quarter, implementing expense reductions and we maintained solid discipline around discretionary spending throughout the year in order to preserve profitability.
“Until the holiday shopping season began in late November, it looked as though we would achieve our outlook for a slight increase in full year operating margins despite a flat top line. However, December delivered mild weather causing us to fall short of our expectations in our North American wholesale and direct to consumer businesses.
“Over the past four years we have introduced differentiated technology platforms under our Columbia brand that help keep people warm, dry, cool and protected any time of the year, anywhere in the world. These innovations represent the platforms of our Columbia brand revitalisation and repositioning strategy and we now have the opportunity to leverage and expand upon each of these platforms.”
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