Nike shares dropped 6% after hours on Tuesday as the company withdrew its annual revenue forecast and postponed its investor day, weeks before a new CEO takes the helm to steer the sportswear giant through an ongoing strategy reset.

"We are withdrawing our full-year guidance ... This provides Elliott the flexibility to ... evaluate the current strategies and business trends and develop our plans to best position the business for fiscal 2026 and beyond that," Nike CFO Matthew Friend said.

Nike had earlier forecast a mid-single-digit percentage range decline in annual revenue.

Hill, who was at Nike for 32 years before retiring in 2020, will take over on Oct 14 and is expected to help the company begin from scratch and rebuild wholesale partnerships that had tapered under outgoing CEO John Donahoe.

Donahoe's focus on bolstering sales through the company's own stores and website had led US retailers like Foot Locker and Dicks Sporting Goods to quickly fill the shelf space Nike had vacated with fashionable competitors like Roger Federer-backed On, Hoka and New Balance.

The company is yet to see sales benefits from its drive to fast-track innovation with the launch of new product lines such as Air Max Dn and Pegasus 41 to revive demand.

Its footwear sales in the US and Europe dropped 14% each in the first quarter, while Greater China fell 3%. Overall net revenue declined 10.4% to US$11.59 billion . Analysts had expected a 10% fall to US$11.65 billion, according to estimates compiled by LSEG.

"I am pretty disappointed by the revenue number here ... this is not a great report whatsoever by any stretch of the imagination from a quantitative standpoint, but also from a qualitative standpoint of canceling the investor day," said Dave Wagner, head of equities at Aptus Capital Advisors, which has a stake in Nike.

Nike's investor day was earlier scheduled for Nov 19.

However, the company reported a 120-basis-point jump in gross margins to 45.4%, thanks to attempts to cut costs through layoffs and reducing supply of some underperforming products.

First-quarter profit per share of 70 cents also beat estimates of 52 cents, according to analysts' data compiled by LSEG.

  - Reuters