Adidas' net income plunges 96% in Q1 due to COVID-19 pandemic

German sportswear manufacturer Adidas said Monday in a statement that its first-quarter net income was 26 million euros, down 96 percent from the same period last year.

Its first-quarter net sales fell by 19 percent year on year to 4.75 billion euros.

"Coronavirus causes standstill of majority of Adidas' business after a good start to 2020. More than 70 percent of the company's global store base still closed" as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the company said.

"Our results for the first quarter speak to the serious challenges that the global outbreak of the coronavirus poses even for healthy companies," Adidas CEO Kasper Rorsted said in the statement.

Adidas' e-commerce was the only channel that had remained fully operational in most parts of the world and continued to grow revenues by 35 percent in the first quarter. However, e-commerce had "only partially" compensated for the loss of wholesale and retail revenues.

"At the moment, we are focused on managing the current challenges and doubling down on the recovery in China and the opportunities we see in e-com," Rorsted said.

Business in China had continued to "sequentially recover" in the first three weeks of April while global e-commerce revenues in March had increased by 55 percent and showed a "significant acceleration," the company said.

For the second quarter of 2020, Adidas is expecting an even more pronounced decline in revenues and profits than in the first quarter.