HOKA’s growth rate has dropped to single digits, and the logic behind new product expansion has yet to be realized.

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HOKA’s growth rate is visibly slowing down.

On July 23, HOKA’s parent company Deckers Brands disclosed its results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2027, ending in June. The company’s revenue increased by 5.7% year-on-year to $1.02 billion, and diluted earnings per share climbed slightly from $0.93 to $0.94.

Among this, HOKA’s revenue grew by 7.7% year-on-year to $704 million, marking the first time in recent years that its growth rate dropped to single digits. In the same period last year, its revenue grew by 19.8%, and last quarter the increase reached 14.5%.

UGG’s revenue this quarter grew by 4.9% to $278 million, also slowing compared to last quarter’s 9.2% growth.

HOKA still contributes nearly 70% of Deckers’ revenue, but it is now difficult to maintain the rapid growth of past years. The company expects HOKA to only grow at a high single-digit rate in the second quarter, and to maintain a low double-digit growth target for the full year.

Management attributed part of the slowdown this quarter to the shipping schedule, rather than a significant weakening of end demand.

Deckers stated that the company adjusted the shipping schedules for international wholesale and distributor business, shifting the recognition of some revenue from the first half to the second half of the year.

HOKA’s accelerated growth in the second half will mainly come from these orders being shipped together.

Channel data somewhat supports this explanation. This quarter, HOKA’s Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) revenue increased by 17%, clearly outpacing the brand’s overall growth rate.

Management also emphasized that HOKA will not drastically increase supply just to maintain quarterly growth, and still aims to control inventory and discounts, sustaining a sales model driven by end demand.

As of the end of June, Deckers' inventory fell by 5% year-on-year, and quarterly gross margin rose by 0.6 percentage points to 56.4%.

To cover a broader customer base, HOKA is simultaneously expanding its professional running and lifestyle products, and is focusing on distributing different products to more segmented channels.

Clifton Pro targets professional running retailers, Clifton L enters sports lifestyle channels, and some shoes are aimed at general sports and department store channels.

But management also acknowledges that the current product portfolio is still in the early stages of strategic upgrade; the second half will benefit from a richer inventory, but larger-scale new product launches will gradually begin in the spring of 2027 and beyond.

HOKA’s growth will also not be completely linear. Deckers management stated that as the brand’s scale expands and international wholesale shipment schedules change, quarterly growth rate fluctuations will become more common.

Market concerns have not disappeared because of this.

Deckers did not raise its full-year revenue guidance, and only increased its earnings per share guidance by $0.05, mainly due to better-than-expected gross margin in the first quarter.

The company also raised its tariff cost assumption from 10% to 12.5%, expecting gross margin pressure in the second quarter.

With intensified competition in running shoes and a high brand base, the extent to which product renovation and channel expansion can bring incremental growth still needs to be validated by subsequent sales data.

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