Good Week: Apple – The iPhone X goes on sale in Apple stores today. While sales of the recently released iPhone 8 were tepid, the latest iteration has enough new features – larger screen, wireless charging, facial-recognition – that Apple ran out of phones to ship in 15 minutes once pre-orders were available online earlier this week. If you didn’t camp outside your local Apple store, expect to wait several weeks until you too can drop $999 so you can share an animated poop emoji with your friends and family.
Bad Week: Papa John’s – The founder of the “better ingredients, better pizza” chain – the official pizza sponsor of the NFL – claimed this week that the ongoing take-a-knee protests by NFL players is behind the recent slump in the company’s sales, which triggered a sharp drop in its stock price. The chain removed the NFL shield logo from its print and online ad campaigns.
Worse Week: Under Armour – The one-time darling of the athletic apparel industry saw its stock take a 24 percent nosedive earlier this week on news that sales were down for the first time since 2005. According to analysts, a confluence of challenges – lack of traction among female consumers, bankruptcy filings by key retail distributors, flagging customer loyalty and competition from lower-priced rivals Nike and Adidas chief among them – created the perfect storm that’s roiling the UA waters.
