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Good day, welcome to the Crocs, Inc. first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Abigail Ritter, Investor Relations and Strategic Finance for Crocs, Inc. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us to discuss Crocs, Inc.'s first quarter 2026 results. With me today are Andrew Rees, Chief Executive Officer, and Patraic Reagan, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Following their prepared remarks, we will open the call for your questions, which we ask you limit to one per caller. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that some of the information provided on this call is forward-looking and accordingly is subject to the safe harbor provisions of the federal securities laws. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors which may cause our actual results, performance, or achievements to differ materially. Please refer to our most recent annual report on Form 10-K, quarterly report on Form 10-Q, and other reports filed with the SEC for more information on these risks and uncertainties.

Certain financial metrics that we refer to as adjusted or non-GAAP are non-GAAP measures. A reconciliation of these amounts to their GAAP counterparts is contained in the press release we issued earlier this morning. All revenue growth rates will be cited on a constant currency basis unless otherwise stated. At this time, I'll turn the call over to Andrew Rees, Crocs, Inc. Chief Executive Officer.

Thank you, Abby. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. We delivered a better-than-expected first quarter, fueled by broad consumer relevance for both of our brands. Patraic will discuss our quarterly performance in more detail. First, I will share a few financial highlights and a review of our brand strategies. For the first quarter of 2026, we delivered better-than-expected enterprise revenue of $921 million, with the Crocs brand down 2% and HEYDUDE brand down 13% as we work to return both of our brands to growth. This included healthy direct-to-consumer growth, with the Crocs brand up 11% despite pulling back on promotional activity and HEYDUDE up 8% despite lower performance marketing spend.

International revenue for the Crocs brand was up 7% on a reported basis, consistent with our expectations, despite an unanticipated impact from the war in the Middle East. Best-in-class inventory management, with total footwear units down high single digits and overall inventory turning over more than 4 times. Our powerful value creation model continues to support meaningful return of cash to shareholders in the form of repurchases, with second-quarter repurchases now underway. Quarter to date, we have bought back 800,000 shares. Now, turning to a discussion by brand and starting with Crocs. We had a strong start to the year as consumers responded positively to product newness across all categories. We continued to make excellent progress against our 5 strategic pillars. First, we are driving brand relevance globally as a clog market share leader.

During the quarter, our focus clog franchises, Crocband, Crafted, and Echo, performed well, enabling diversification of our overall clog portfolio. The reintroduction of Crocband has been well-received, with strengths seen across channels, colors, and iterations. The Crafted franchise is building globally; consumer response has been strong with canvas and floral embroidery uppers. We continue to scale our existing Echo franchise with new Echo RO colorways and expanded distribution. Within our Classics franchise, we are prioritizing maintaining tight inventory control and driving further segmentation across our key partners in North America. Second, we are scaling our product pillars outside of clogs through new category expansion. Our sandal business started the year off strong; we expect this pillar to approach half a billion dollars in revenue this year, up double digits from 2025.

Our three core style franchises—Getaway, Brooklyn, and Miami—are capturing incremental shelf space and winning with consumers. Earlier this spring, we introduced our personalizable two-strap Saturday sandal across all channels and saw an exceptional response from both consumers and retailers. Moving beyond sandals, we launched the classic ballet flat. We saw a notable sell-out globally. In response, we're chasing supply, and we further strengthened our assortment within this trending style. Momentum was further amplified by our first-quarter LoveShackFancy collaboration, which sold out completely. Our broader personalization pillar saw standout performance within bags and accessories during the quarter, led by the Disney collaboration featuring Mickey Mouse on a number of products. We also saw continued strength in elevated Jibbitz during the quarter. Third, we are fueling consumer engagement through disruptive social and digital marketing.

In February, we kicked off a multi-year global partnership with the Lego brand by launching the highly disruptive Lego brick clog, which quickly became one of our best-performing partnerships on social media and drove significant consumer engagement and digital traffic. Also in February, we released "Charmed to Meet You," our first micro-drama miniseries on ReelShort, a platform where Gen Z consumers are increasingly spending time consuming bite-sized content. The launch drove over 10 million views, reinforcing our ability to engage with consumers through bold, innovative, and disruptive channels. Fourth, we continue to create compelling consumer experiences across all channels. Beginning with social commerce, we're continuing to scale and deepen our consumer touchpoints across both digital and social. In fact, Crocs was recently awarded "Top Seller of the Year" on TikTok Shop for '25, underscoring our ability to continue to reach consumers on their preferred social channels.

In March, we activated at the NBA All-Star Week and introduced our updated Echo Clog, the Echo 2.0, a key second-half product launch this year. We also released the Ripple, a bold silhouette designed to engage the sneaker community through a number of events, from ComplexCon in Hong Kong to our Soho store in New York City. Globally, we continue to expand our presence on TikTok Shop, as this is a critical social selling platform over the medium to long term. During the quarter, we scaled meaningfully in the U.K. and Malaysia, and looking forward, we'll be launching in Japan, landing Crocs as the first major footwear brand on the platform in the country. Fifth and finally, we're continuing to gain market share across the world in our international markets. In the first quarter, we saw broad-based strength across our tier 1 markets, led by direct-to-consumer channels.

We saw outsized growth in our high-priority markets: China, India, Japan, and Western Europe. In China, we hosted our first-ever Super Brand Day on Douyin, which not only outperformed our expectations but also drove strong consumer touchpoints through celebrity live streaming. In India, performance was led by growth in our digital traffic, stimulated by the "Let Them Talk" campaign, which introduced the Echo RO for local cricketer and celebrity KL Rahul. In Japan, performance was driven by strengthening brand presence in Tokyo retail, with high consumer affinity for personalization in our DTC channels. Lastly, Western Europe saw notable growth across the U.K., France, and Germany, led by digital marketplace performance. Sandals started the year strong in the region, and we see meaningful opportunity to scale this category going forward. During the quarter, we opened approximately 40 monobrand stores and kiosks, including 6 owned and operated stores internationally.

To strengthen our international opportunities further, on April 1, we converted our Malaysia distributor business to a directly owned and operated one, which resulted in the absorption of 21 highly productive retail stores. We see this as an opportunity to take further share in this vibrant market in 2026 and beyond. Now, turning to Hey Dude. The first quarter came in ahead of expectations, tied largely to outperformance in DTC, despite a significant reduction in performance marketing spend as we continue to deliver against our three-pillar strategic plan. First, we are building a community laser-focused on our core consumer. During the quarter, we launched several relevant collaborations, including our partnership with the Houston Rodeo. This was supported by a retail presence at the rodeo for the third consecutive year as we continue to drive authentic connections with our core HEYDUDE consumer.

We released collaborations with Chevy, Jelly Roll, and Naruto while accelerating the growth of our HEYDUDE community through scaling social commerce. During the quarter, HEYDUDE received the top gross seller of the year award on TikTok Shop, a nod to the progress and commitment we've made to scale this strategic channel. We are building the core and thoughtfully adding more. We're building our leadership within the slip-on category, led by our icons, the Wally and Wendy. Stretch Sox continues to drive our core business, and we are seeing momentum building in our newest Stretch Jersey franchise. This style, which we've only referred to as a T-shirt for your feet, launched in all channels during the quarter and outperformed expectations.

As we look into spring, we're seeing our sandal business start to gain material traction, with key highlights including the Maui Breeze franchise and sandal extensions of some of our already successful lines: the Austin Slide and the H2O Flip. Beyond sandals, we continue to see a strong response to our work offering, led by the Wally Compto, and we are excited to expand further into this category as we move throughout the year. Third, we are focused on stabilizing the North America marketplace. Our first-quarter outperformance signals a meaningful step in our journey to return the brand to growth in the back half of this year. During the quarter, direct-to-consumer revenues increased 8%, led by strength in digital marketplaces, which also declined as anticipated, while we remain laser-focused on managing our in-channel inventory levels. Wholesale sellouts are still below our aspirations but improved sequentially versus the fourth quarter.

Importantly, we're receiving positive feedback from our key partners regarding new products like our H2O work and sandals offering, as well as our core products like the Stretch Jersey franchise and new introductions of our Stretch Socks platform. Turning back to the enterprise, I wanted to address the conflict in the Middle East as it relates to our business. As of today, it's too early to fully quantify the impact. We see this affecting Crocs in three ways: 1. A reduction of revenues from our Middle East distributor business, which is being contemplated within our annual guidance. 2. Increased raw material and transportation costs associated with elevated oil prices. 3. A broader impact on the global macroeconomy, which is uncertain at this time. Patraic will speak to our guidance later in the call, which we feel prudently captures the current environment to the best of our ability.

Before concluding, I wanted to highlight the publication of our 2025 Crocs, Inc. Comfort Report, being released today. This annual report highlights our commitment to and progress against our purpose to create a more comfortable world for all. To conclude, we are focused on executing our near-term initiatives to drive diversified growth across both brands, DTC and wholesale, as well as domestic and international markets. We believe we have compelling strategies to grow both brands, enabled by a clear consumer focus, innovative product and marketing, and our global go-to-market capabilities. I will now turn the call over to Patraic.

Thank you, Andrew, and good morning, everyone. During the quarter, we made continued progress against both brands' strategic initiatives, which I'm confident will continue to lay the groundwork for sustainable long-term growth. We're off to a good start in 2026, finishing Q1 slightly ahead of our expectations on both the top and bottom line. While we're encouraged by the positive start to the year, we recognize work remains to return the business to growth. Now, let's move to our results. For the first quarter, we delivered enterprise revenue of $921 million, down 2% from the prior year on a reported basis or down 4% on a constant currency basis. Our results were led by the direct-to-consumer channel for both brands as consumers responded favorably to new product offerings across categories.

This was offset by planned wholesale declines as we continue to optimize and manage this channel for long-term profitable growth. For the quarter, Crocs brand revenue of $767 million was down 2%. Results were led by our international segment, up 7% on a reported basis, including strength in China, India, Japan, and Western Europe. North America was down 6%, including DTC up 5%, despite a meaningful reduction in promotional activity, offset in part by wholesale declines. The HEYDUDE brand delivered revenue of $154 million, down 13% from the prior year. DTC was up 8%, driven by outsized digital marketplace performance and new store opening contributions. Notably, this growth was delivered against a continued lower level of performance marketing spend, thus driving higher profitability.

The wholesale channel was down 26% as we continue to carefully manage our inventory to sell-through levels consistent with our return-to-growth plan. I'll now move to adjusted gross margin. Enterprise-adjusted gross margin of 56.9% was down 90 basis points from the prior year, driven by 100 basis points of incremental tariff impact as well as product mix, offset in part by brand mix. As Andrew mentioned, we saw accelerated success in our new product offerings in both brands. This success is an important driver of top-line performance and is key to our diversification strategy. As a reminder, select new products come with slightly lower product margins. Crocs brand adjusted gross margin was 59.5%, down 120 basis points, and HeyDude brand adjusted gross margin was 44.5%, down 210 basis points.

Moving to expenses, adjusted SG&A dollars were flat compared to the prior year as we recognized the partial benefit from our 2025 and 2026 cost savings initiatives, offset in part by thoughtful direct-to-consumer channel investments aimed at driving revenue. An adjusted operating margin of 22.3% was down 150 basis points from the prior year. This excludes $5 million of specific costs related to the implementation of our cost savings initiatives. Adjusted diluted earnings per share of $2.99 was ahead of our expectations and flat compared to the prior year. Our non-GAAP effective tax rate was 18%. Turning to a discussion of our strong balance sheet and exceptional cash flow, we ended the quarter with $131 million of cash and cash equivalents and over $800 million of borrowing capacity on our revolver.

Our inventory balance as of March 31st was $398 million, up 2% from the prior year, including the impact of higher tariffs. Inventory footwear units were down high single digits from the prior year, reflecting our actions to manage inventory flow into the marketplace. Enterprise inventory turns were above our goal of 4 times on an annualized basis. While we ended the quarter with $747 million remaining on our existing share repurchase authorization, our powerful value creation engine has enabled our second-quarter repurchases to be underway. Quarter-to-date, we have repurchased 800,000 shares for $74 million, and we continue to deliver against our commitment to return meaningful cash to shareholders. Net leverage ended the quarter at the low end of our target range of 1-1.5 times.

Moving on to our full-year 2026 outlook. Based on our better-than-expected first-quarter results, we now expect enterprise revenue growth for the full year to be up 1% to down 1% on a reported basis, assuming currency rates as of April 27th. Our updated guidance also reflects the country-specific impact from the war in the Middle East, as well as related pressure from elevated distribution and logistics costs. Moving on to revenue guidance by brand. For the Crocs brand, we continue to expect revenue to be flat to up 2%, led by international growth and offset in part by declines in North America. Our guidance continues to anticipate direct-to-consumer outperforming wholesale globally, as evidenced by our first-quarter results.

For Hey Dude, we now expect revenue to be down approximately 5%-7%, an improvement from our previous guidance of down 7%-9%. This revenue range embeds our increasing confidence in both direct-to-consumer and wholesale channels returning to growth in the second half of the year. We continue to expect adjusted gross margin for the year to be slightly up versus last year, despite the impact of tariffs, which are partially offset as a result of cost-saving initiatives, primarily in our supply chain. Adjusted SG&A dollars are implied roughly flat to the prior year, in line with our prior guidance as we recognize the benefits of our previously announced cost-savings programs while also investing in growth drivers for the business.

Taken together, we continue to expect the adjusted operating margin to expand modestly from the 22.3% level we reported in fiscal year 2025. This excludes approximately $25 million of non-recurring costs. Moving to tax, we expect the underlying non-GAAP effective tax rate, which approximates cash taxes paid, to be 18% and the GAAP effective tax rate to be 23%. We are raising our expectations for adjusted diluted earnings per share to be in the range of $13.20 to $13.75. Consistent with our previous guidance policy, this range does not assume any impact from future share repurchases. For the year, we continue to expect capital expenditures to be in the range of $70 million-$80 million.

Regarding capital allocation, as I highlighted earlier, we are committed to, first, investing behind both of our brands to fuel long-term growth and second, returning our significant free cash flow to shareholders through share repurchases. Now, turning to our second-quarter outlook. For the second quarter, we expect revenues to be down slightly at currency rates as of April 27th. Within this, Crocs brand revenues are expected to be up 1%-3%, and HEYDUDE revenues are expected to be down 12%-14%. Adjusted operating margin is expected to be approximately 24.7%, which embeds adjusted gross margin down approximately 150 basis points to prior year, driven by the impact of tariffs consistent with the commentary on our last call.

Adjusted diluted earnings per share is planned to be in the range of $4.15-$4.35. Before closing, I want to provide an update on the February Supreme Court rulings on tariff refunds. While we believe we are well-positioned to collect refunds on the incremental tariffs we paid in 2025 and into this year, we have not currently embedded any upside from this within our guidance. To close, while we are pleased that our first-quarter results exceeded our expectations, we continue to remain focused on managing the business for long-term profitable growth while generating and deploying our exceptional free cash flow enabled by our best-in-class value creation model. At this time, Andrew and I are happy to take your questions. Operator?

We will now begin the question and answer session. Hello, Jonathan. Is your line on mute?

Yeah. Hi, can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay, great. Good morning, everyone. Andrew, could you talk more about the recent trends you're seeing in sell-through for the Crocs brand in North America in both channels? How are you thinking about DTC, particularly looking forward here? Do you see any risk that momentum slows as you get past the core sandal season? Patraic, just more broadly, the financial outlook as you get closer to the embedded second-half ramp in revenue and profitability. Could you highlight the factors that are giving you confidence in the second-half projections here? Thank you.

Thank you, Jonathan. Let me kick that off. I think the biggest and most important thing I'll address is for Crocs, but it frankly is also true for HeyDude, right? It's newness. The consumer is responding to newness. As we've introduced newness, I'll keep my comments focused on Crocs for a second. I'm sure we'll get to Hey Dude. As we've introduced newness in sandals, in clogs, and I think we also talked in our prepared remarks about ballet flats and other styles. We definitely see the consumer responding. We see they're responding here in North America with accelerated demand and strong sell-through.

Frankly, we're also seeing a response for the Crocs brand and those same new products in many of our international markets. I think that gives us some strong underlying confidence. I would emphasize, as you kind of alluded to in your question, some of that newness is in sandals, but some of that is outside of sandals. It's in clogs, and it's in other silhouettes. I think that's really important. I also think from a DTC perspective, we're continuously, as you would hope any company would, continuing to get better at how we execute our DTC business, whether it be digital, whether it be stores, or whether it be selling on TikTok and social selling. That's been a nice driver of consumer engagement.

I think there's evidence that some of our marketing activation, some of our storytelling relative to Gen Z or younger, more influential consumers, is working. I think what I would say is we have a lot of confidence in our newness, in the trajectory of our business, you know, despite some headwinds that we do see in the global marketplace. Then I'll let Patraic talk a little bit more about the specific elements of the guide.

Yeah, Jonathan, great question. You know, let me kind of level this up and start just from a strategic standpoint. You know, we've now effectively communicated the five strategic pillars for Crocs and the three strategic pillars for HEYDUDE over the course of the last many quarters. I think if you look into what is inherently in that, it is appealing to our consumers, driving product newness within those pillars. A key component of that is diversification, which ultimately, from a product standpoint, translates into new products, both within Crocs and within HEYDUDE.

You know, we're seeing that really come to life in terms of green shoots within both businesses, you know, beginning in Q4 of last year and accelerating into Q1. That really kind of gives us, you know, the basis of confidence in terms of the second half. While we feel, you know, great about that, the second component is really going back to last year. If you recall, during the second half of last year, the team took, you know, several strategic actions, but very painful in the moment, to pull back on promotions, pull back on paid search, pull back on inventory going into the marketplace for both Crocs, particularly in North America, and Hey Dude, more broadly. In the second half, we start to lap those actions.

As we lap those actions, those also provide a tailwind for us as we get into the back half of the year. If you take those two together, number one is continuing on our product newness and diversification strategies. Secondly, combine that with starting to anniversary the actions we took last year. We feel really confident in terms of where we're headed from a second-half perspective.

Great. Thank you.

Appreciate it, John.

The next question comes from Rick Patel with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Can you unpack the impact of higher costs that you alluded to? First, how do we think about how much of a drag freight surcharges could be presenting on gross margins for the year? Second, does guidance contemplate an impact from higher resin costs given the increase in oil prices, or do you see this as more of a 2027 event?

Yeah. I think, maybe, you know, I think you're obviously alluding, you're driving at the impact of high oil. Maybe I'll just kind of start off by setting this up with what I see as the impacts of the Middle East conflict, you know, on our business, which are threefold, right? Number one, we do see some drag in revenue associated with selling directly to our Middle East distributors. You know, they simply can't take receipts at this point, right? We have embedded that in our guidance. If you like, if you think about our kind of Crocs, and that really only impacts Crocs, you know, we're maintaining our guidance despite some negative impact from revenue that we anticipated in the Middle East that we have no longer put into our future forecast.

Number 2 is an increase in costs. At this point, the biggest impact of increased cost is really transportation. So it's fuel surcharges, relative to inbound and outbound freight, in all of our key markets. That cost is embedded in the guidance we have provided, right? The third impact that we don't really see today, but if this drags on for a sustained period of time, it is inevitable it will happen, right, is a slowdown in the macro global economies, right? Our global economies are not built to sustain $120 oil, and that will have an impact. We don't really see that impact today.

As we look closely at consumer behavior here in North America, in Europe, and in Asia, we're not seeing a discernible trend relative to what is reported as weak consumer confidence. We're not seeing a discernible trend. Obviously, that risk and concern remain.

Rick, just to jump in and add a little more color and context. First and foremost, as Andrew mentioned, any impact from the Middle East is fully contemplated in the guidance that we provided today. I think within that, a couple of things. One, really at Crocs, we pride ourselves on being both agile and resilient. I think what you see happening with us right now is we're leaning into that agility; we're leaning into that resiliency as we kind of read and react to what's happening in that part of the world. Everything Andrew said in terms of the three buckets is obviously absolutely true in how we're thinking about it.

The only thing I would add is that, within our supply chain, we're really always on offense to continue to create and seek out efficiencies that we can either drop to the bottom line or potentially reinvest back in the business. The second component I would say is, you heard us talk over the last couple of quarters about some of the cost efficiencies that we're putting in place and going after, both within SG&A as well as within COGS. At the time, we talk about choices that we make within that in terms of accelerating our business or dropping dollars at the bottom line.

It's actions like those that we take that give us the ability to continue to raise our guidance, as we did today, despite the fact that we see unanticipated conflicts like the Middle East. I think it testifies to who we are as a company and our ability to be both agile and resilient.

Thanks very much.

The next question comes from Adrienne Yih with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Great. Thank you very much. I guess my first is just a quick clarifying question on the tariffs. What level of tariffs are you still embedding in the rest of your guidance? I know that the statutory is collecting 10% right now. Just the differential between collecting 10% on the, I guess, Section 232, and then what's embedded in the overall guidance. And then in terms of inventory into the channel, are you seeing any changes in either conversations or the willingness to buy on the forward order book? Thank you very much.

Hey, Adrienne. I'll take your second piece first, and then Patraic will give you chapter and verse on tariffs, which is.

Thank you. Thank you so much very much.

It continues to be an interesting and complicated situation. Inventory into the channel, I would say, is very consistent with exactly what we said last quarter and the quarter before. We have put a tremendous amount of time, effort, and money into cleaning up our inventory and channel, primarily in North America for both of our brands. We feel really good about where we are. In terms of their posture, we find most of our major wholesale customers being appropriately prudent, right? Their biggest controllable is inventory, and they're managing their inventory closely. They're certainly not being very assertive with their plans. They are looking to brands to support them with at-once inventory.

We feel great about where we are relative to our inventory levels, and certainly, they are responding to newness and chasing and reordering units that are selling well.

Adrienne Yih, moving on to the question about tariffs. As Andrew Rees said, chapter and verse on this, quite a few chapters. We frankly continue to see the tariff landscape evolving. What we're trying to do is again, as I mentioned in response to the question earlier, we're trying to continue to adopt and lean into our mentality of being agile, resilient, and responsive as we continue to manage it. That being said, where we are right now, speaking specifically to Q2, we're essentially managing through a blended rate.

You know, if you think about how tariffs have evolved over the past year, we've had a few chapters in terms of how they've been announced, how they've evolved, and how they've landed. We had the Supreme Court ruling. We had a response. What we're trying to do is just be extremely agile in terms of managing our way through that. What we do have is a bit of a blended mix that's in front of us right now. As we get into the second half, though, what we feel better about, although, regarding tariffs, we don't feel great about anything, but what we do feel better about is that tariffs now become part of our base. That's really important.

It's really important because it reduces the degree of variance we're managing, as those costs are now embedded in our base. As we think about the second half, and as it relates to tariffs, while I'm not providing any specific guidance right now, you can think of it at a high level: if we receive good news regarding tariffs from the administration, we'll have a bit of a tailwind. If we receive more challenging news in terms of escalation, then we'll have a little bit of a headwind.

You know, I think, though, the more important thing around this is that everything that we know today, that is included within tariffs and is embedded in our outlook, is embedded in our guidance. As we continue to see more clear direction coming through, we'll update and make sure that we're providing clarity to the investment community. Hopefully, that helps.

Great. Thank you. Very helpful. Thank you so much.

The next question comes from Kendall Toscano with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Hi, thanks for taking my question. The return to growth in North America, D2C for the Crocs brand, was obviously a very positive surprise. It sounds like a lot of that was driven by a strong response to new product offerings. I'm curious now how you're thinking about the balance of the year and whether that level of growth, 5% for North America D2C, could continue.

Yeah. I mean, what I would say, Kendall, we're obviously not guiding channels by country, et cetera, in terms of giving you specific numbers on that. What I would say is, look, I think the underlying drivers of that performance, and we agree it was great to see it as an important signal of what we're doing as a brand from a product marketing and distribution perspective, an important signal that it's working. We feel like they're at the fundamental level and should continue, right? The drivers of the DTC performance, as I kind of alluded to in an earlier question, were, I think, the introduction of newness, and it's broad-based newness.

It's clogs, it's sandals, it's new products, it's personalization, it's accessories. We do believe that DTC will continue to outperform wholesale. I think there is also some element of effective execution within that as well, right? You know, we feel good about it. We think it's an important signal. We hope it continues, but we're not providing specific guidance at that level.

Got it. Okay, that's helpful. Another question was just on gross margin. The first quarter came in down 90 basis points versus the expectation for flat year-over-year trends. It sounded like the tariff headwind came in line with the 100 basis points that you expected. I'm curious what drove the downside. Was it all in relation, or was it mostly in relation to new product offerings you called out carrying a lower gross margin? If so, how should we think about the impact of that for the remainder of the year?

Yeah, Kendall, it's, you know, it's a bit of that, and let me elaborate just a bit. I think first and foremost, you know, we were really happy with Q1 performance in both brands. And, you know, a lot of it really goes back to talking through, you know, what we discussed earlier in terms of new products and the green shoots that we're seeing and consumers responding favorably. You know, as it gets into the gross margin results for the quarter, there are really two components that we're driving at. Number one is new product mix, as you alluded to.

You know, it's important from a strategic standpoint, and I want to make sure that I emphasize this: it's extremely important from a strategic standpoint as we execute on our diversification strategy that new product is hitting for us. You know, from that, we can start to look into the profitability of new products, etc., over the longer arc of time. First and foremost, from a growth standpoint, it's important that we're landing new products and an innovation perspective. That turned out to be a little bit more of a headwind than we thought it was going to be when we planned the quarter. Not necessarily a bad thing. The second component is related to brand mix.

During the quarter, as it relates to what we thought 90 days ago, we saw the Hey Dude brand outperform our expectations. Again, although a drag on the gross margin rate within the quarter, it is very much aligned with our return to growth strategy within Hey Dude, and it gave us the confidence to actually raise our guidance on Hey Dude revenue growth for the balance of the year. As you think about the two key components of the margin performance versus what we talked about in our last quarter call, those are the two key drivers in the quarter.

Thank you.

The next question comes from Tom Nikic with Needham. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks very much for taking my question. I wanted to follow up on North America wholesale. I recognize that you're not guiding by channel geography, etc. Obviously, it's been negative for quite a few quarters in a row, and I think by the end of this year, depending on how the rest of the year shakes out, it'll be something like 30% below peak. Do you feel that given some of the improvements that you've seen in the DTC business, that potentially you've got line of sight into the North America wholesale business stabilizing, potentially over the near to medium term?

Yeah, I think the short answer is yes, right? We feel like the North American wholesale business is exactly where we expected it to be at this point in time, right? The work that we've been doing with our partners in the channel is, I would say, moving along exactly as we thought it would, which is right-sizing inventory in the channel, making sure that inventory is turning at the appropriate rate, introducing newness, whether it be sandals, clogs, or other styles. Also working with them effectively on what they're going to pre-book and making sure that we have an appropriate inventory to be able to capitalize and maximize at once. We think it's playing out exactly as we thought it would.

The short answer is we definitely see it stabilizing, and as we continue to build and diversify the brand, and provide more and more reasons for consumers to purchase, we're quite confident we can grow the business for Crocs in North America.

Great. Thanks very much, Andrew, and best of luck the rest of the year.

Thank you.

The next question comes from Brooke Roach with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you for taking our question. I wanted to follow up on Rick's question about the Middle East. Is there any way you can unpack your expectations for input costs if higher oil prices persist? If oil remains at this level, how long would it take you to begin to see those higher product costs flow through the P&L? Can you frame the magnitude of the potential cost headwind that you might see? Then, lay out the key levers that you're thinking about pulling to protect profitability. How important would price be in this situation relative to other levers of opportunity? Thank you.

Okay. That's a very detailed question, Brooke. We're not going to provide all that detail. We can give you some, you know, qualitative input that hopefully helps you to understand it a little bit, right? What I would say is that, absolutely, you know, high oil prices for a sustained period of time do provide some upward cost pressure to the resin component of the business. I actually probably might point you to transportation as a bigger cost pressure, to be quite honest. 'Cause if you look at transportation both in and out, I think that's potentially a bigger impact.

I would say we have a very well-diversified supply chain, sourcing engine, transportation, contracts, relationships, etc. We are very well-equipped to manage this. There are some components that will provide upward cost pressure. I would also say we've been extremely proactive over a number of years now, and we'll continue to be proactive about looking for opportunities to save costs in our supply chain, whether that be cost of goods based on country of origin, whether that be tariff optimization due to tariffs, differential tariffs by country, or whether that be investing in automation and robotics within our DCs. We have lots of strategies to mitigate costs.

What I would say is that, you know, I think Patraic mentioned earlier, we've kind of baked all of that into the guidance we're providing, and I think we're well able to manage this.

Yeah. Brooke, just to kind of add on to Andrew's comments, you know, as you said at the tail end, everything that we know today, you know, has been fully contemplated in our guidance, you know, which is why we alluded to it in prepared remarks. You know, I think the other thing to think through is, you know, as we've gone through the last year in terms of leaning into our, you know, our agility, flexibility within how we manage the business, you know, we've now got a track record of having very demonstrable success in terms of squeezing out efficiencies within, you know, both supply chain and within SG&A.

You know, while we don't necessarily want to be leaning into those areas, you know, based on what's happening in the Middle East, we know that we can. I think, you know, we're in the same boat as a lot of other, you know, companies where we're, you know, anxiously waiting to see, you know, what happens over the next, you know, 30, 60, 90 days or so, and we'll continue to adjust accordingly. I think that, you know, the big message here is that, you know, all that we know today is reflected in our guidance for 2026.

Great. Thank you so much.

The next question comes from Anna Andreeva with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Great. Thank you so much. Good morning. We wanted to follow up on international wholesale at Crocs. It's come in softer for the past couple of quarters now. You guys have mentioned controlling the sell-in. Can you just elaborate on that? Is there any door rationalization that's taking place internationally? Just how should we think about the progression in this channel in 2026? Just to follow up on gross margin, should we expect the Crocs brand to continue to pull back on promotions in DTC? You will have the beginning of those actions, I believe, next month. Obviously, a lot of the newness you guys talked about, that's resonating. Just additional color on that. Thanks so much.

Thanks, Anna. What I would say about our Crocs international business is it remains very strong. Our overall Crocs international business, we see growing strongly for the remainder of the year, and frankly, we see a multi-year pathway for continued growth in our significant international markets. I was just recently in both Japan and China. I'm really pleased with how our brand is performing in those markets, and we highlighted that in our prepared remarks: very strong growth in both of those markets and obviously two of the largest international markets. DTC's growth has been stronger than wholesale, and some of that is a result of the countries where we're seeing the most growth.

Because some of the countries where we're seeing the most growth rely on a DTC-driven distribution model and have very strong digital penetration, the overall digital penetration is really high in those markets. In most places where we're operating digitally, we manage that ourselves and have the DTC revenue. I think the wholesale business has been exactly on track with where we expected it, with one exception. We do see impacts from the Middle East, right? Our business in the Middle East is a distributor business. That was a wholesale sell for us. That's a drag. It was a small drag in Q1, and it will be a drag through the remainder of the year. We've anticipated that and built that into our guidance.

I think those are the things I'd probably highlight from an international perspective. Okay. I'll let Patraic address your additional question on gross margin.

Yeah. From a gross margin standpoint, it relates specifically to promotional cadence and overall promotionality. What we're seeing, maybe more broadly, in the marketplace is that the consumer is stressed and retailers are leaning into promotions as a way to drive both traffic and sales. As it relates to us, it's slightly different in terms of where we are. As we think back to the second half of last year, we made a conscious decision in both of our brands to pull back on discrete promotional components within both Crocs and Hey Dude.

We are still on that journey as we, you know, kind of go through the first half of this year. We expect that as we get into the second half of the year, we'll continue to, you know, kind of, you know, function at a more, you know, what we call normal level of promotionality, which is what we're executing on today. I think, you know, the way to think about it is we've been on this journey, which is a multi-quarter journey, in terms of pulling back in the second half. We also feel that effect in the first half of this year, which also, you know, has an impact on revenue compares on a year-over-year basis.

We'll start to see that more normalized as we get into the second half of this year.

Terrific. Very helpful. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

The next question comes from Peter McGoldrick with Stifel. Please go ahead.

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Andrew, you discussed consumer resilience in Europe, Asia, and North America despite Middle East disruption. In the past, you've given some really helpful commentary around the consumer backdrop. This commentary sounds like things are holding up better than anticipated. I'm curious if you could tell us how the consumer backdrop has evolved to today and any changes that are embedded in the outlook, if any?

Yeah. Thanks, Peter. Yeah, I think, I think what I said, and I'll just reiterate that, I wouldn't say resilience is quite the right word. I said, like, we don't see a discernible negative trend, is probably the way I would say it, right? Given that, I think, our potential to, you know, to succeed, to do well, to drive sales and profitable sales, I think is good, right? We, in an environment when the consumer is not discernibly negative, we believe we offer incredible value to the consumer. We have a great roster of new product introductions that are clearly gaining traction with the consumer.

If we offer them great value, a compelling new product, new colors, new colorways, new augmentations, and the ability to personalize that product, we can get them to transact and purchase. We do feel good about that, I think.

Sustained $120 oil does provide a drag, a differential drag on some different markets. I think the ones that we are, you know, most concerned about or thinking a little bit, you know, or I would say observing closely, would be kind of Western Europe and some parts of Southeast Asia, where we see, you know, governments putting in place some degree of energy control measures. You know, what I would say is that, look, they do appear to be holding up, right? We see that here in North America, we see that in many of our markets. We continue to succeed. I think we're focused on doing what we need to do to succeed in this consumer environment.

Very helpful. Thank you.

Thank you.

The next question comes from Aubrey Tianello with BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. I wanted to follow up on Crocs International. Is the 10% revenue growth for the year that you guided to 90 days ago still the right way to think about it? Then what does guidance assume in terms of FX? I think it was about a 120 basis points benefit at the enterprise level last time you guided. Thanks.

Yeah, I'll take that question. Let me just kind of level it up a little bit on an international basis. International, as we continue to talk about, is a key strategic pillar for us. It's a key growth area for us. In 2026, it'll be the first year that Crocs, Inc., is predominantly an international-driven company. Our revenues will be slightly more international this year for the first time than North America, and we feel great about that. From an international perspective, before I get into guidance, I just want to also reiterate that we feel like we had a really strong quarter from an international perspective.

When we think about our Tier 1 growth countries like China, Japan, et cetera, we're seeing double-digit growth in our key Tier 1 countries. We continue to see and believe that we've got a lot of white space in those areas. As it relates to guidance, I think roughly about a quarter ago, we guided to 10%. I would say that we're still very much in the high single digits, approaching 10% within international. The only area that I would say has given us a little bit of friction is what Andrew alluded to earlier: the Middle East. I think that's how we're thinking about it.

You know, we're very bullish on international and continue to be bullish. The other example I would give, just from a quarter standpoint, is our continued commitment to taking back our Malaysia distributor business. I was actually in the market towards the end of last year, and I got to see a number of the over 20 stores that come with that take-back, and we're really excited about this. It's a very productive, very profitable business in an area of the world that has a high affinity for Crocs. I think if you consider those few components, Peter, we feel really good about where we are.

As it relates to FX, in terms of where we are today versus 90 days ago, FX is slightly worse, but it's not impacting our guidance and outlook on the year in a meaningful way.

Thank you.

Great.

The next question comes from Janine Stichter with BTIG. Please go ahead.

Thanks so much, and good morning. Just on the flat SG&A dollars guide that includes the cost-saving program, maybe speak to some of the areas you're reinvesting in and some of the benefits you're seeing. How should we think about your willingness to reinvest more if you see a return, or on the flip side, are there areas where you could still pull back? On wholesale, you talked to your retail partners doing more at once. Maybe just speak to your supply chain flexibility in the case that there is more demand, and your ability to meet that. Thank you.

Yeah. I think the most important thing from an SG&A perspective is the couple of different rounds of cost-saving initiatives that we've talked to you about have all been completed, right? We have attained those cost-saving goals. Some of those are in SG&A, and some of those savings are in cost of goods or in COGS relative to going up in gross margin. We've achieved those cost savings. That has given us some flexibility as we go into the year to invest in some critical areas. Those areas are generally some of our DTC capabilities, whether that be physical stores or more importantly, digital selling.

We're investing in a higher proportion of DTC sales, which carries more SG&A, but also carries strong gross margin and strong operating profit. We're also investing in marketing for both brands to ensure that we create future demand for a lot of those new product introductions that are working. I think, in terms of supply chain flexibility, look, I think, you know, this is a bit of a balancing act. We're really good at managing our inventory and managing our supply chain. We keep lean inventories, which I think is an overall strength of the company. It allows us to flow a lot of our operating profit through to cash flow and use that to reward shareholders.

We also try to forecast some of our newer products and best-selling items to have some backup inventory to lean into at once. That's on both brands. I think our entire conversation this morning has been on Crocs. Nobody has asked a single question about Hey Dude. Those capabilities apply to both, and we are able to capture nice additional business based on our at-once performance.

Great. Thanks very much.

This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to management for any closing remarks.

Thank you. I would just like to thank everybody for their great questions, their attention, and their interest in our incredible company. Much appreciated.

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.