The group's three quarter results after Thursday's US stock market outperformed market expectations. Investors ignored group warnings that the current fourth quarter may be dragged down by the strength of the dollar, pushing its share price up sharply to 4.49% to 102.73 dollars.

Thanks to the strong demand of the largest market in North America, Nike Inc., Nike group's net profit in the three quarter ended February 28, 2015 increased by 16% to $791 million, or earnings per share of $0.89, exceeding the market forecast of $0.84, and the net profit and earnings per share in the 2014 fiscal year were 682 million US dollars and 0.75 US dollars respectively.

North America

The annual increase of $6% to $3 billion 250 million, excluding the exchange rate, resulted in a year-on-year increase of 15% in the futures orders delivered from March to July, far exceeding the 11.6% of the market forecast, while the overall futures orders of the group increased by 11%, and the expected growth rate was 9.9%.

Trevor Edwards, President of Nike Nike brand, pointed out that the growth of futures orders would be even higher if the last year's soccer World Cup was built on a high base.

Total quarterly revenue was $7 billion 460 million, less than $7 billion 620 million of the market forecast, but it was 7% higher than the 6 billion 970 million US dollars in the same period of the previous year.

Overseas sales have been affected by the strong dollar in varying degrees.

In the Greater China region, the rebound was strong, sales rose 15%, the exchange rate rose 17%, Western Europe performed better, and the sales increased 21% after the exchange rate was cut off, increasing by 10% according to the real exchange rate.

In the emerging markets, the growth rate before and after the exchange rate was 2% and 12% respectively. In terms of real exchange rates, sales in Japan and central and Eastern Europe fell by 6% and 10% respectively, and 8% and 7% after the exchange rate was removed.

Nike

Sales amounted to $6 billion 939 million, an increase of 5.9% over the same period of the previous year, accounting for 65.7% of the total, and the most profitable footwear sales recorded an increase of 8%, an increase of 3% in clothing categories and 9% in equipment category.

Trevor Edwards reveals that core runners are not as good as expected in North America, but are selling well with sports casual trends, such as Roshe Run, Huarache and Air Max.

Converse CONVERSE's brand performance continued strong, sales rose 28%, up from $420 million in the previous year to $540 million.

Driven by an increase in the proportion of high margin products in the product mix, the quarter increased by 140 to 45.9% annually.

The Group expects four quarter earnings to reverse 8%-9% because of the appreciation of the US dollar, while excluding the exchange rate effect, there will be a low double-digit growth.

Don Blair Blair, chief financial officer of Nike group, Nike, said in a conference call that the US dollar will continue to be strong enough to hurt the next fiscal year's revenues, gross margins and profits.

Nike Inc. (NYSE:NIKE) closed at $98.32 on Thursday, a slight increase of 0.83% throughout the day.