The first batch of Yeezy shoes released since Adidas severed its partnership with the rapper formerly known as Kanye West have been a win for the company, racking up around $565 million in sales, the Financial Times reported.
Ye, as West is currently known, initially partnered with Adidas in 2015, with Yeezys generating an estimated $2 billion per year, equivalent to about 10 percent of Adidas’ annual revenue.
But Adidas split ties with Ye in October after he made a series of antisemitic remarks, including a tweet that threatened he was going “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE” and comments made in an unaired portion of a Fox News interview that advanced several antisemitic conspiracy theories.
However, consumers are now apparently content to focus on the shoe itself, the FT reports, making recent buy-ups of the company’s unsold inventory so popular that Adidas was flooded with orders.
The online sales of about 4 million pairs of sneakers “exceeded the company’s most optimistic forecast,” which meant Adidas could not meet the strong demand of orders, according to the Financial Times.
The influx of orders has lowered the risk that Adidas would have endure a hefty write-down on its unsold Yeezy inventory, possibly undercutting the company’s worries that Ye’s string of antisemitic comments last year would make the Yeezy brand “too toxic” in the eyes of consumers, the newspaper said.
Adidas was quick to distance itself from Ye’s comments last year.
“Ye’s recent comments and actions have been unacceptable, hateful and dangerous, and they violate the company’s values of diversity and inclusion, mutual respect and fairness,” the company said in an October statement that has since been removed from its website.