Dr Martens upbeat on strong US holiday sales

Bengaluru — Dr Martens said on Thursday that the northern hemisphere’s autumn-winter festive season had got off to an encouraging start, after the struggling bootmaker had earlier swung to a first-half pretax loss on weak demand in the US, its biggest market.

Its shares, which have lost about a quarter of their value so far this year, rose 16% in early trade.

The British company, whose chunky lace-up boots popularly known as “Docs” or “DMs” were originally made for workers before becoming a fashion statement in the 1960s, had been contending with a weak North American market and was betting on the festive season to shore up its sales and profit.

Dr Martens expects to make cost savings of about £25m in its financial year to end-March 2026 with about two-thirds of that coming from job cuts.

The company reported a pretax loss of £28.7m for the six months ended September 29, compared with a profit of £25.8m a year earlier. Revenue dropped 18% to £325m.

To halt the decline in profit at a time when consumers are shying away from pricey items such as the brand’s $170 classic boots, Dr Martens has sought to cut costs while also increasing spending on US marketing.

“Our new marketing campaigns are showing encouraging early signs, with strong sales of new product, giving us confidence that we will return US (direct-to-consumer) to positive growth in the second half,” outgoing CEO Kenny Wilson said in a statement.

Wilson, who announced in April that he would step down, will be replaced by chief brand officer Ije Nwokorie on January 6, the company confirmed on Thursday.

It maintained its financial 2025 outlook of a single-digit percentage year-on-year revenue drop, with a worst-case scenario of pretax profit at about one-third of the previous year’s profit.

Reuters