In this economy, innovation still sells. No company exemplifies that more than SharkNinja. It’s core to their success and how they’ve had 12 straight quarters of double-digit organic net sales growth.

Listen, I mean the key building blocks for domestic growth are a strong base business and layering on new innovation on top of that. I think it’s a very clear formula.

Mark Barrocas, President and CEO of SharkNinja

It’s a simple formula that many companies try to replicate but SharkNinja has done it masterfully. They do it well by leveraging their brand that they’ve built their base business to expand into adjacent categories, and then go deeper into those categories. They have a goal of entering two new sub-categories every year.

They’ve done it across the home, and more recently, into outdoor cooking with the Woodfire Grill and the FlexFlame. This led to outdoor fire pits with the Fireside360. I’d expect more innovation in both categories.

To drive innovation in the company, SharkNinja has developed a culture that’s focused on using AI technology to help solve consumer problems.

To unleash this vision, we’ve launched a company-wide initiative called JailBreak SharkNinja. JailBreak means hacking through limitations to enable full access to a technology. It’s the perfect description of how we’re leveraging our unique culture to maximize our opportunity with AI. Some companies are hiring AI consultants and taking months to develop a top-down solution. We see other companies reluctant to get started at AI. We’re only granting access to very few. We don’t think either of approach is right for SharkNinja. Instead, our program incentivizes broad-based experimentation by proliferating AI tools and trainings company-wide. It’s purpose-built for everyone to participate at all levels, an opportunity for early talent to contribute meaningfully and gain senior leadership visibility.

We believe that putting technology in the hands of our people, the ones who live in the details of our business every day can maximize the insights we capture. What started off in a small way is now growing exponentially and early signs are that it can have a transformational impact on the business.

JailBreak SharkNinja aims to drive real business impact and reward employees who deliver breakthrough solutions. This impact is showing up in multiple ways. Our product innovation engine is benefiting from deeper consumer insights all the way through the development process. We’re getting smarter at creating consumer demand with tools to improve our content and the efficiency of our media dollars. Operationally, we’re discovering meaningful productivity gains. And across the business, we’re unlocking intelligent insights we couldn’t access before. Most importantly, we’re freeing up time spent on mundane tasks to focus on strategic thinking to deliver real insights.

Mark Barrocas, President and CEO of SharkNinja

International Growth and DTC

International growth is deliberate at SharkNinja, being one of their three growth pillars. They’ve focused on it, and they’re seeing results from their efforts. On the grill side of the house, they recently brought the FlexFlame grill to the UK.

Our third pillar: International expansion, saw robust results across multiple geographies. I spoke last quarter about how our model can scale globally, particularly as we become a direct operator in more countries. Q1 showcased strong international performance even as we work through business model transitions in certain EMEA countries, like Italy and Spain. Net sales growth in the U.K. business accelerated this quarter to over 18% year-over-year after a very strong second half of 2025. We’re winning in multiple ways with category and channel diversification, both driving success. We see a lot of excitement for SharkNinja products in the U.K. and expect continued strength for the remainder of the year.

Mark Barrocas, President and CEO of SharkNinja

The headline isn’t just that they’re expanding internationally, it’s how they’re doing it. It mixes with where they’ve been successful domestically. They’ve refreshed their DTC websites and are invested in TikTok Shop.

Last fall, we meaningfully improved our capabilities by rolling out new DTC sites in the U.S. and Canada. In the first half of ’26, we’re bringing this enhanced experience to all our major international markets, including the U.K., France, Germany and more. In parallel, we’re activating our presence on TikTok Shop in several countries within EMEA. Our success within TikTok Shop in the U.S. and the U.K. allows us to launch confidently in Germany, France, Spain and beyond. The combination of these elements, a healthy and growing retail presence our new DTC platform and further TikTok Shop penetration fortifies our international omnichannel strategy with additional opportunities to come in the back half.

Mark Barrocas, President and CEO of SharkNinja

Other brands in hardlines have been pulling back on DTC shopping and pushing more into retail. It’s interesting that SharkNinja has seen success with the opposite.

I think there’s a lot of mix movement going on in our business. Our international business is growing faster than our domestic business. Our D2C business and TikTok Shop business is growing faster than our retail business. So I think there’s a lot of different things at play here within gross margin, but it’s just another problem that SharkNinja, I think, is so good at managing through. We’ve demonstrated that year after year.

Mark Barrocas, President and CEO of SharkNinja

I think a big part of the reason that they’re successful with DTC, when other brands aren’t, is because of their aggressive release schedule of new innovations and their marketing strategy. They generate excitement with their product releases, then partner with a wide net of celebrities, influencers, and media to get the word out. Much of this is done online where they can also convert sales.