Nike’s India campus is a long-term growth bet amid turnaround

Nike is making a big bet on India.

The retailer, which has been struggling to revive its business and regain momentum under CEO Elliott Hill, is hoping the world’s most populous country can help it turn the page on its performance.

As it reported its fiscal first-quarter earnings on Oct. 1, the company announced it will create a new global campus in Bengaluru, India, as part of its growth strategy. Hill wrote in a letter to employees that the new facility would be a “long-term investment” to help position Nike for success.

“India is already an important growth market and manufacturing hub for Nike, with strong capabilities and access to talent,” Hill wrote.

The new campus is expected to open in the next few years and span corporate roles across the organization, including the namesake Nike brand, Jordan Brand and Converse. Nike plans to discuss its India campus in detail at its investor day next month.

In a statement to CNBC, a Nike spokesperson said expanding into India is a “natural” next step for the company as it looks to grow its global presence.

“As participation in running, basketball, football, fitness and other sports continues to grow across India, we see an opportunity to better serve athletes through stronger local capabilities, consumer insights, and innovation,” the spokesperson said.

India will be the world’s third-largest retail market by 2030, according to Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries. Its e-commerce market was valued at $159.25 billion in 2026 and is projected to reach $332.94 billion by 2031, according to IBEF, a business advocacy organization created by the Indian government.

Nike has endured a yearslong slump and is trying to right its business under Hill’s turnaround plan. Nike also announced this month that it would lay off workers across the company as part of what it has dubbed its Pace strategy, which includes supply chain changes and reorganization of the company’s geographic segments. Nike expects the effort to deliver approximately $2.5 billion in savings through fiscal 2031.

Nike’s decision to invest further in India as part of its comeback comes as the sportswear company sheds revenue in another critical international market: China. Though its fiscal first-quarter North America revenue came in just above Wall Street expectations, Hill said that performance wasn’t enough to offset pressures abroad.

Nike has been particularly struggling in the Greater China market, where its revenue dropped by 26% in its fiscal first quarter. It’s part of what experts have said is a broader trend of American companies losing relevance and traction to domestic brands as the once-lucrative market matures.

On a call with analysts earlier this month, Hill said the company was taking “deliberate actions” to strengthen its China business, though he said those effects will take time to materialize. Hill said the company plans to refresh its physical retail, spearhead a digital cleanup and create higher quality experiences for consumers.

The Nike spokesperson told CNBC the company is “deeply committed” to China and sees the region as one of its “most important long-term growth markets,” even as Nike expands its presence in India.

“China remains a long-term priority for Nike, while India represents another important opportunity to invest in the future of sport and the next generation of athletes,” the spokesperson said.

The company’s expansion in India may be coming at both an opportune and inopportune time, according to experts. Investing in a growing international market does not guarantee higher sales — it also requires persuading Indian consumers they want the Nike brand, a challenge the company has struggled to overcome in China.

“What Nike, I think, is doing right now is going region by region and working to reestablish what the brand stands for,” Simeon Siegel, a senior managing director at Guggenheim Securities, told CNBC.

Siegel said part of the dissonance for Nike is that each region and segment of the business is at a different stage of its turnaround. He said investing in India may set the company up for a more sustainable future if the China business continues to lag, but Nike needs to have a compelling product, solid storytelling and extensive distribution in the region to be successful there.

“I think the company needs to look inward and figure out what is the right way to reestablish profitability,” he said. “And that involves, in certain instances, shrinking and saving and cutting, and, in certain instances, investing and looking toward the future, because the goal here is not to shrink to oblivion; it’s to shrink to stability, and then ultimately growth.”

The global strategy may also focus too much on a long-term vision rather than more immediate fixes, according to Jessica Ramirez, co-founder and managing director at advisory firm The Consumer Collective, who specializes in retail and apparel. Ramirez said she already thought Nike and Hill’s vision were “out of touch” and the plan for the India campus didn’t necessarily help its case.

“I don’t know that this plan of India is an immediate solution to their problems right now,” she said. “They have to plan long term, right? But they also need to plan short term, which is continuously falling apart.”

She said Nike has not shared plans that are concrete enough to win back momentum in China and has to develop both regions hand in hand.

While Nike under Hill has improved its wholesale and performance categories, Ramirez said it has yet to master its direct-to-consumer and sportswear segments, which would allow the company to flourish in all of its markets.

The Nike spokesperson told CNBC the retailer is committed to investing in both countries as it tries to expand its global presence.

“Importantly, this is not an either/or decision between India and China,” the spokesperson said. “We always invest market by market based on long-term opportunities to serve athletes and grow sport around the world.”

Still, India presents an attractive opportunity for many companies looking to unlock growth abroad.

Ramirez said Nike is just the latest to join a cohort of American companies looking to establish their presence in the market. While many brands began investing in China years ago, she said that trend is now pointing toward India instead, as U.S. companies see more spending pressures in the Chinese market and navigate geopolitical tensions between the two countries.

“It’s to get in there for the long term and to make sure that they are there for when they can reap the positive effects,” she said. “I want to say this conversation started getting a bit more engaging in the last two to three years, when companies started investing more in India.”

India is one of the world’s strongest market performers, driven primarily by domestic demand, investment and supply-chain diversification, according to an analysis from Accenture. With a population of over 1 billion, the country presents a growth opportunity similar to the one China offered in the early 2000s.

“It’s going to be a fast-growing consumer base where we assume their income levels will continue to go up and they’ll have much more purchasing power, and so maybe could we be tapping in on that market from a consumer lens,” Chris Tomsovic, who leads Accenture’s macro foresight team, told CNBC.

Still, one of the biggest focus points for the Indian consumer is price sensitivity, which will pose a challenge for American companies trying to break into the market, he added. Even so, many domestic brands on the market are younger, meaning there could be more opportunities right now for Western companies to take market share.

Another challenge is that the Chinese consumer has historically been receptive to American brands, whereas it will still take more data to understand how Indian shoppers feel about those businesses, he said. For sportswear retailers, the focus of the sports most popular in each region will also factor into that equation.

“Can they really localize the product, make the price point work? Can they adapt to the local social media technology ecosystem? Can they adapt to the local cultural values and norms that the consumer wants?” Tomsovic said.

“If you’re able to nail that, then I think you’re right. Whether you’re a footwear brand, whether you’re an athleisure brand, I think there’s a huge opportunity there with a billion consumers,” he said.