Afternoon, everyone. Just a quick disclaimer. For important disclosures, please see the Morgan Stanley Research Disclosure website at www.morganstanley.com/researchdisclosures. If you have any questions, please reach out to your Morgan Stanley sales rep, so thanks, everyone, for joining. I'm Megan Clapp. I'm one of the U.S. consumer analysts here at Morgan Stanley.
Really pleased to be here today with SharkNinja, the company's CEO, Mark Barrocas, and new CFO, Adam Quigley. SharkNinja probably needs no introduction. I'm sure everyone has one of their products in their homes, but global product design and technology company specializing in household appliances and consumer lifestyle products operates under two flagship brands, Shark and Ninja, so Mark and Adam, thanks so much for joining.
Thanks for having us.
Thank you.
Mark, maybe we can start, just zoom out. SharkNinja on track for mid-teens growth this year on the top line, low teens in the U.S., high teens internationally. Really, really impressive. And a backdrop that clearly has not been easy, for the category or the consumer. Well, maybe you can just start with what's meaningfully exceeded your expectations this year that's allowed you to deliver another year of record growth? And then maybe on the flip side, what are some of the challenges where you maybe had to navigate a bit more friction than anticipated?
Sure. Well, challenges are easy. I mean, you know, listen, I go into your first part of your question. It all starts with product. I mean, the business is maniacally focused on solving consumer problems and developing products that solve consumer problems. And we do that across 38 different product categories. We do that globally. In the third quarter, as an example, I mean, we came out with an outdoor heater fire pit.
We came out with a cordless stain cleaner. We came out with a facial product that extracts, de-pufts, and moisturizes your skin. I mean, and that's one, you know, that's just one quarter of innovation that we brought to the market. And so for us, kind of everything starts with what's the problem for us to solve? What's the consumer problem for us to solve?
The second is, look, it's not good enough to just create a great product. I mean, you've got to create consumer demands for the product. And for us, you know, that is a sizable investment in media and marketing assets. And that could be everything from our partnerships with David Beckham and Kevin Hart and Tom Brady, you know, to macro influencers and micro influencers and experiential events and TV and out-of-home, a whole surround sound of how do we get the consumer excited about the products that we sell.
The third is, you know, a dominant omnichannel strategy. I mean, we've got a great direct-to-consumer business. We're the most searched brands on Amazon in our space. You know, and we're in every major brick-and-mortar retailer. So, I mean, we want to be relevant wherever the consumer chooses to shop for our products.
And then it's supply chain. You know, supply chain, I would put in kind of the opportunity and the challenging bucket this year, which is, you know, as challenging as it's been to move all of our U.S. production outside of China. I think it's made us a much more healthier business, a much more diversified business. You know, it's allowed us to be able to, you know, be now in six countries sourcing product instead of one, you know, which we were in four years ago. Look, we run towards problems. We don't run away from them. I think it's a business of problem solvers.
As you think about some of those challenges, again, of which there were many (tariffs, supply chain shifts, some uneven category trends in some of your markets), is there anything you learned about the organization that surprised you or any big strategic shifts you made that were long-term?
Look, I mean, I tell the story that kind of the day of, you know, April 2nd, of Liberation Day, where, you know, we got this news and said, "Okay, well, what do we do about it?" And, you know, it really took us kind of an hour to kind of shake it off and say, "Okay, we've got to run towards this. And we got to figure out how to turn, you know, lemons into lemonade." And, you know, within eight days, the organization had come up with 1,500 initiatives to mitigate the tariffs. And I think it's emblematic of a business that looks at a problem and sees it as an opportunity. And whether that is COVID, you know, and we came out of COVID stronger than when we went into it.
And whether that's, you know, the 2008, 2009 financial crisis, you know, we came out of it stronger than we went into it. And so it's a business that continues to keep reinventing itself. I mean, you know, if I go back 17 years ago, you know, 50% of our business was one product, you know. And today, you know, we're in 36 different categories and we're in 26 different countries. And, you know, we continue to just keep, you know, disrupting ourselves and reinventing ourselves and recognizing that, you know, the only thing constant at SharkNinja is that things are going to change.
Helpful. Maybe the question that's on everyone's mind. You talked about POS momentum exiting the third quarter. We're now through Black Friday, Cyber Monday. Can you share with us how demand has trended through the holiday season thus far?
So, look, we went into the fourth quarter with a strong guidance number. I mean, we guided with top line up 16%. And, you know, our Q4 for us kind of starts with, like, Prime Day 2. You know, we came out, we had a very strong Prime Day 2. You know, from there, Black Friday deal started as early as the end of October. I mean, they've been running now for the last couple of weeks.
You know, coming out of the Black Friday week, you know, we feel really good about our guidance. You know, growth in the, you know, domestic business, growth in the international business. The growth is pretty broad-based by product category. I think there's clearly pockets of the market that performed better than others over the course of the last, you know, two weeks.
We replatformed our direct-to-consumer site in the U.S. and Canada a couple of months ago, and we experienced great, you know, D2C growth. You know, we're excited about TikTok Shop. You know, we were the second largest brand on TikTok Shop in the month of October. So I think there's real pockets of strength in the business. But again, it's being driven by, you know, our innovation, our demand creation. And so overall, we feel good about the guidance number.
Great. Maybe just sticking with the U.S., had a great year in the U.S., Slushi had a breakout year, beauty, you continue to expand, but you also deprioritized some innovation when tariffs hit. So how, what does the innovation pipeline look? What does that look like into 2026 compared to 2025, to the extent you can share? And how do you think about, you know, maintaining the momentum you've seen in the U.S. this year?
Well, well, well, look, I mean, while the supply chain got disrupted, you know, we developed the 25 products that we expected to develop in the year. I mean, if you just look at the last, you know, let's call it eight weeks, I mean, we came out with the product The Ninja Blend Boss, and we came out with the FacialPro Glow, and we came out with this Shark StainForce, and we came out with new products in hair care and skincare. So we developed all the products. We just, as a challenge from a supply chain standpoint, we weren't able to get them to market in the scale that we wanted to. So what that means is that there's a good pipeline of innovation that's ready to go for the beginning of 2026.
You know, we'll get pipeline fills from retailers in January. It's not like we're going to be waiting for new products to launch in the second quarter or third quarter. We've got a great pipeline of new products in the first quarter for us to go to market with. On top of that, our 2026 roadmap, we'll launch 25 new products in 2026 into the market. And so, you know, I think 2026 is going to present an interesting opportunity for us globally where there's a lot, there's a lot of innovation that we've got across a lot of different categories. Now, investors have asked me, well, like, is there too much? Like, when is, when is enough? You know, when is it too much?
I think what's exciting about it is that, look, we have to be careful, for example, not to launch, you know, multiple Ninja products at the same time, but we're hitting different demographics of consumers. You know, we're hitting different price points of consumers. I mean, for us to launch a hair care product, you know, and a cooking product and a robot product, like, those can come roughly in similar timeframes. But 2026 has got a really robust pipeline of new innovation.
Got it. And obviously, this will, that will help international as well. But international has had some unique dynamics that have impacted various markets this year. Maybe you can break those out, talk about some of those things and just broadly whether you see a path for international growth to actually re-accelerate, as you maybe move past some of the headwinds you saw in the U.K. with the air fryer market, some of these distributor transitions, etc.
Look, I mean, in the third quarter, our international business grew 25%. I mean, I think in most companies, you would say, like, that's pretty good. You know, I think we expect, you know, our business, you know, to do roughly similar or a little bit better in the fourth quarter. So, I mean, the numbers that we're talking about here are, like, relative to SharkNinja, you know, not relative to the overall market.
Our U.K. business coming out of 2026, 2025 is going to be a much healthier business than it was coming out of the end of 2024. I mean, it's more diversified. It looks a lot like the North America business. You know, it's diversified from a channel standpoint, you know, from a consumer standpoint. Strong gross margins. Our average sell price is improving in the U.K.
Our business in Germany is performing great. Germany is looking very diversified, but there's also some structural changes that we're making with the international business to move from distributor markets to direct markets. And I think we learned a lot, you know, with our transition of Mexico earlier on in the year where we probably shouldn't have done a big bang approach as we did. There is a role for distributors in all of these markets. You know, we want to kind of sell directly to larger retailers and the direct-to-consumer and we want to control the direct-to-consumer business.
So the decision we've made is that, you know, we're going to go and convert markets like the Nordics and Poland and Benelux and Q3 and Q4 of this year, Spain and Italy in the first and second quarter of next year. We're going to just flow those numbers through our international business. There'll be some blips, but by the end of Q2 of next year, we'll have a right-sized, you know, portfolio of where do we want to be direct versus where do we still want to maintain distributor shifts.
Can you just talk a little bit about the strategic decision to move direct in certain markets versus not others, perhaps? Maybe Adam, you can talk about, help us understand the margin implications of some of the transitions.
Yeah, listen, there's a role, and there has historically been a role for us with using distributors to kind of learn the market and understand the market, but you know, we've come to realize in Europe that, you know, look, the retailers are cross-border retailers. Like us being an American company that comes in and says, you know, MediaMarkt, we're going to sell you in Germany.
Well, MediaMarkt says, well, what about our stores in Italy and Spain and Turkey and all these other markets? And, you know, our answer historically has been, well, you'd have to go speak to our distributors in all these other markets. Well, that's not a good answer, so there's logical reasons why we want to control the larger retailers and the direct-to-consumer market. And we also want to control the marketing.
I mean, we've put local content creators into, you know, places like the Middle East. We put local content creators into Paris and Frankfurt, and we, you know, we have them in Madrid, and we're expanding them into Milan. And so we want to control the marketing. We want to control the demand creation. We want to control the larger retailers. We want to control the direct-to-consumer business. And the only way to do that is for us to take back these distributorships and have a direct model.
Yeah. And then on the gross margin front, certainly there's a structural benefit from going, excuse me, going from distributor to direct, right? Just from fundamentally different structure there. As we look at the benefit of that, we can now get in with the retailer and start to negotiate some of the terms, start to leverage some of our scale. We've done a lot of that in the U.K. this year.
We did a lot of that in the U.S. prior to that. And it's a matter of, you know, looking across our entire category set and understanding where do we want to partner with the retailer to better drive product, to better drive, you know, the promotions and have a lot more efficiencies there. And so over time, we can then improve that gross margin now that we've become direct in that market.
As a result, we do have outsized OPEX expense that we'd be investing in. We'd be bringing on the media ourselves, which, you know, we're controlling, as Mark mentioned, also building out the local teams. And so OPEX, you're going to have an increased gross margin. You're going to have an expansion. Net-net, you're going to have an EBITDA rate expansion, which is what our goal is at the end of the day.
The other benefit is you look at, you know, this past Black Friday, our teams, something that we do really well is, you know, making changes on the fly, toggling between media, between prices, between promotions. You can't do that if you're operating in a distributor-type structure. You can do that when you're direct. That allows us just to react to what we're seeing very quickly in the moment rather than having to wait until the end of the season and then maybe get it right the next year.
Makes sense, and maybe, Adam, sticking with you, just bigger picture on gross margin. You've managed it quite well this year despite all of the tariff headwinds and supply chain challenges thrown at you. What’s, I mean, simple question, but like, what’s been the primary driver of the impressive gross margin performance?
I think the primary driver of the gross margin performance is everything, and it's honestly, you know, Mark's comment on April 2nd when we kind of put everything on the table, you know, that was one moment in time. But really the work against it began, you know, years prior when we started the diversification effort outside of China. And that wasn't just for tariffs, right?
That was for a better geographic diversification for our supply base, which as we sit here today gives us a lot of pricing power, a lot of negotiation power with our retailers, with our factories to be able to, you know, make sure that our dual sourcing is giving us the best possible price. And so as I look across the gross margin spectrum, a lot of that is coming through on the buy side.
So what we're buying the actual cost set, actual products at. On the sell side, you know, to what I mentioned earlier, it's the retailer partnerships. It's renegotiating legacy terms. It's optimizing, you know, the prices, the promotions. We did take price, and we took price early on in this year. That wasn't just the result of tariff. That was taking price on innovation. And I was looking at price where the consumer was willing to pay for the innovation. Slushi is a great example of that. That launched a year ago at $280 within 40 hours-48 hours. It was at, you know, about $300 when we took another, you know, price increase in Q1.
That was unrelated to tariffs. That was just a matter of what's the innovation, you know, worth to that consumer. Same thing was seen in a couple other categories across beauty and others. The other component is mix. You know, we've seen a lot of great mixed benefit as we've entered some of these new categories like beauty, espresso, that, you know, structurally that's not going away. And so we're going to annualize the tariff impact going into next year. As we have a full year of tariffs this year, we only had about half of that. But some of these structural changes that we started to make mid-year this year will also annualize into next year.
Right. So it's fair to say there's some tailwinds, some headwinds as we think about gross margin in 2026. Any other way you'd frame the puts and takes without giving guidance, of course?
That's right. There's lots of puts and takes. We're in the middle of our plan. I think we feel really good about, you know, where the puts and takes are landing, but, you know, certainly still a lot to work through. But the other thing I'll mention is it's not just the gross margin story. You know, you've seen from us the last few quarters our ability to leverage OPEX. We said we were going to leverage OPEX. We did leverage OPEX. And so that remains, a primary lever of ours as well to make sure that, again, it's the EBITDA rate expansion that we're achieving at the end of the day.
Mark, back to you. You know, investors, this is a question you've probably answered a million times, but I think it's an important one because I think investors often view small appliances as a category as competitive, promotional, price-driven. I think you've proved you have a competitive moat. But, you know, there's been certain instances in the U.K., for instance, where, you know, competition has come in and you've moved through that and, you know, you've perhaps proved that the diversification, you've definitely proved that the diversification matters from that perspective. But sitting here today, you know, how do you, how should investors think about kind of handicapping that risk in broader categories and, you know, you maintaining that competitive moat broadly?
Look, I mean, let's start off with, like, while we've been a U.S. public company for 10 quarters, I mean, I've been doing this for 17 years. I mean, over the last 17 years, you know, the business has grown at a compounded growth rate of 21% a year in the last 17 years. So, I mean, this story, like, didn't just start. I mean, like, we didn't, you know, I was asked the same question when the business was $300 million or $500 million. How are you going to keep growing it? You know, we're at a point now where, you know, as you look at next year, you know, if we were to grow double digits next year, I mean, we have to grow our business, you know, $700 million, and you know, where's that growth going to come from?
And, you know, we've never acquired a dollar of revenue in the company's history. And I don't think we need to acquire a dollar of revenue. I mean, I think there's still a lot of organic pathways for growth for the business. I think, you know, there's still lots to share in existing categories that we're in. There's lots of categories that we're, you know, single-digit market share in. We've got a really unique ability to not just enter a category and find the white space in a big definable category and get our fair share in the market, but we also have the ability to go and to create the market. I mean, take a category like LED infrared face masks. You know, last year in 2024, total market size in the U.S. was $35 million.
You know, this year, I mean, the Shark CryoGlow alone in the U.S. will do $70 million. I mean, so we've enlarged the size of these markets. There's lots of new categories to expand into. I mean, you know, if you would have asked me five years ago, where else can we go in the home? You know, today it's like, where can we go outside the home? I mean, outside the home, there's so many places for us to expand into. How do we look at products that can be used inside or outside the home? And then when it comes to international expansion, you know, I think in the short to medium term, 50% of our business coming from outside of the U.S., you know, is a realistic number for us to think about.
So I think that, you know, when people look at our business, you know, they look at some of the hit media products that we have. The fact is that we have a very strong, healthy-based business, you know, that drives a lot of gross margin. There's a lot of embedded losses in our business. You know, we're funding every new category that we enter into. We lose money for a period of time. Every new market we go into, we lose money for a period of time. That's all being funded within the existing business. There's lots of seeds that have been planted, you know, that will come to fruition, you know, and grow over the coming years. But I think you put all of those pieces together and our track record has shown us that, you know, we can keep reinventing ourselves, you know, and continue to keep driving growth.
It's helpful. You said if we grow double digits next year. I'm not asking for guidance, but maybe you can just, you're planning. You talked about gross margin. Innovation seems to potentially be a tailwind to next year. Just your comments from earlier. Mexico was a, you know, perhaps a challenge that you'll lap through. The U.K., you'll lap through that in the first half of this year. So seems to be like you could lap through some challenges and you'll have some nice tailwinds on the innovation side. So just any comments on, you know, puts and takes that I'm missing as you kind of think about the growth algo in 2026?
I mean, I think there's a lot of puts and takes. I think what you've mentioned are some of the, you know, tailwinds that we certainly have. I think as we look at 2026, certainly not, you know, giving guidance now, but as we look across growth in existing categories, growth in new categories, growth in international, I think we have an incredible balanced portfolio going forward and kind of looking at, you know, where we're at right now in our 2026 planning process.
There's a lot to be excited about in each of those different pillars. And I think that's when we're at our best is when we've got that diversified portfolio to choose from because, you know, who knows what the macro, you know, issues will be next year, but that's something that we've never, you know, blamed any business results on. And so for us, it's a matter of controlling what we can control. So long as we have a diversified portfolio in front of us, I think we're really excited about what 2026 is going to bring.
Got it. That's helpful. Mark, you made an interesting comment in a meeting earlier about beauty tech and how when you went into haircare, there was a clear, you know, premium player, and or competitor with beauty tech that wasn't necessary, that hasn't necessarily been the case. So with the CryoGlow, you know, in some of these new categories you've gone into, how have you approached the category from a pricing perspective, from a marketing perspective that's maybe been different than what you did with haircare? And yeah.
Yeah. Look, look, I mean, we entered haircare a couple of years ago. And as you said, I mean, I think, I think the world market today is a two-horse race, you know, when it comes to premium haircare. But I think our aspirations were kind of, well, more than haircare because, I mean, we're not taking a technology and applying it into a product. We're trying to find the next consumer problem to solve. And so, you know, as we started getting into the beauty space, we said, okay, well, where else, where's the next problem for us to solve? And for us, kind of inspiration is either, you know, finding something the consumer has a problem with or finding something the consumer is doing outside their home that they're not able to do inside the home.
So we went ahead and, as you said, we went into the Shark CryoGlow. It was not just our first skincare product. It was our first medical device. I mean, it's an FDA-approved device. You know, it's approved, you know, by the European board, as a medical device. And so it put us into a whole new category and technology of products. We followed that up with the FacialProGlow. And what I pointed out was like our desire wasn't to be the best haircare company. It was our desire is to be the best beauty tech company. And I think as a result of that, there's lots of other places for us to explore from a beauty tech perspective.
I mean, we have LED technology competency. We have medical device, you know, development competency now. We have Peltier technology of having heating and cooling technology. There's so many other places to go. Could we go into the scalp? Could we go into nails? Could we go into other places within beauty? That's really what you'll see kind of roll out over the next couple of years from us, of how do we kind of think of Shark Beauty, you know, as not a single category, but as a beauty tech provider for consumers.
Got it. Good segue because I see these products all over TikTok with social media influencers. So not just that, but David Beckham, Kevin Hart, Tom Brady, your marketing strategy and engine is something that really stands out. What are you doing differently? Maybe I just mentioned it, but what are you doing differently in demand generation that makes it hard for others to copy or where others just aren't going?
Okay. Well, let's start with this is not about just spending money. Like you have to have a product that has a story to tell. I mean, if I go back 16 years ago, you know, my partner and I made infomercials because like that was telling the story about our product. Like how did we develop it and what did we develop and how did we demonstrate it and how do we show it to consumers? So you need a product that you can, that has a story to tell. I mean, that has a reason for being. I mean, I think what's so exciting about what we do is, you know, our products are in over a thousand consumer homes before we even launch the product. I mean, we're getting so much insights and feedback from consumers.
And so now we've got this story to tell. So the question is, how do you tell the story? We tell the story through kind of a pyramid approach. Like at the top of the pyramid is what you talked about, which is, you know, celebrity partners. I mean, David Beckham and Kevin Hart and Tom Brady. And because our products really have become part of culture. I mean, if you see what Kevin and David did in these neighborhood skits and, you know, I mean, it really is kind of bringing our products to life in terms of how they're used in the home. Underneath that, you know, there's macro influencers, you know, and those macro influencers could be, you know, local influencers that have anywhere from 500,000 to multiple millions, and then underneath that, there's micro influencers.
Those micro influencers can have really niche followership, but very high engagement. When we go into developing a product, we look at that product and say, like, what's the right mix? Who are the people we want to partner with to go and develop, you know, and promote the product? Then that gets coupled with still a lot of traditional advertising. I mean, TV commercials and out of home and billboards and experiential events and things like that. It's all meant to kind of authentically communicate to the consumer, how is this product going to change your home, your life? How are you going to engage with it? How do you learn more about it?
I mean, I go back to like years ago, you know, when I was a kid, you know, there was a store in New York called Syms and they would say the educated consumers are best customer. I want educated consumers buying Shark and Ninja products. That's why I'm so excited about TikTok Shop. Okay. I think TikTok Shop is like the reinvention of QVC and HSN. I think the more consumers can be educated about what they're buying and what they're investing in.
I think the more satisfied consumers we're going to have, the more evangelists for our products. And by the way, they're going to start the organic flywheel. I mean, yes, you know, while the fire might get lit by a Tom Brady, you know, or by a macro influencer, the fire keeps going by just the everyday person that buys our products and then goes and tells 10 million of their closest friends with a TikTok or an Instagram video, you know, why they like this Shark or Ninja product.
How are you thinking about the role of agentic AI evolving in terms of driving demand and commerce broadly?
I think it's going to massively change our approach. I think consumers are going to search, you know, on, you know, whether it's, you know, ChatGPT or any of the other platforms. I think ultimately the consumer is going to transact on those platforms. I mean, they're already starting to transact on those platforms. Look, you know, you have to follow where the consumer is going. Like it's not our job to pick which retailers are going to win and lose. It's our job to watch where the consumer is going.
I mean, I think what TikTok did was so interesting because they had all these people on the platform and they said, well, how do we keep them on the platform and how do we get them to transact? There's hundreds of millions of people every day that are on ChatGPT. Ultimately, they're going to come up with a way of how do we keep them on the platform? How do we get them to transact on the platform? It's our job to make sure that when they're on there, you know, they get the information that they need and, you know, where the brands of choice for them to choose from.
Right. Helpful. Adam, maybe we can go back to, you know, newly stepped into the CFO role officially, but you've been deeply involved in the finance organization for more than a decade. As stepping into the role, you know, how are you thinking about your priorities looking ahead and maybe even touch on capital allocation and within that?
Yeah. No, absolutely. I've been here almost 11 years now. And so I think, I feel like I've, I've gone through a lot of, different events in the company's history and seen, you know, a lot of the incredible growth, a lot of incredible, you know, category expansion. I think what is most exciting is looking at kind of what's ahead of us in terms of, you know, the three pillars that I talked about earlier, but also just how much white space still exists out there. So I think in terms of my priorities, it's a matter of making sure that, you know, my finance team continues to be that strategic partner to the business to then unlock those opportunities, to light up those opportunities. We're a business that moves fast.
And so, where finance has the best role to play is by moving at the same speed of the organization, but helping, you know, those in the organization move faster, helping those in the organization make better decisions. So, you know, that's something I'm keenly focused on within the team itself. I'm really excited about the team that we have on board. I think we've got, you know, a great group to kind of continue to face the challenges that we have ahead. You know, working capital optimization and capital allocation, that's an area that I feel like we haven't even tapped into the opportunity there.
You know, I think, you know, one of the first opportunities that maybe we did lean into was last year with our balance sheet in terms of bringing on more inventory ahead of tariffs and be able to bring on an incredible amount of tariff pre-build that really we're just now, you know, seeing the end of in Q4. You know, looking ahead, our number one priority for capital allocation is internal.
It is investing in the new geographies. It's investing in R&D. That's definitely the number one priority that we'll continue to look at. Mark said it earlier, we've never acquired a dollar of growth. It's all been organic. And so, you know, I don't see that changing. That said, we're, you know, we'd be opportunistic, right? We are well positioned if something did come along that made sense.
But at this point, it's not getting distracted by the shiny object. There's so much opportunity for us to capitalize on in front of us. But other things across the balance sheet, I mean, you know, share repurchase, that's always an opportunity that could be out there for us and is one that I think we'd look at going into 2026 as a great way to, you know, return value to the shareholders. You know, there's a lot of other working capital initiatives that are already underway.
You know, I talked about earlier moving from distributor to direct and the opportunities that that unlocks. Same thing on payment terms. Same thing on, on, you know, accounts receivable. There's a lot of other, you know, working capital optimizations that we're going to be after, going into next year. And so again, I think starting from a position of strength with the balance sheet is a great position to be in, but then also respecting that we've got a lot of opportunity that we could still go from here.
As the rise of TikTok Shop and your DTC business grows, do you foresee any distribution strategic changes or needs arising as those, you know, not alternative, but those channels continue to grow and maybe have a bit of a different distribution model?
I think it'll accelerate our continued improvement across our distribution. Our distribution network has been a constantly evolving organism over the last, you know, 11 years that I've been in there. One of the first projects I worked on was setting up, helping set up an East Coast distribution center to be able to get product to consumers quicker. That's not to put Amazon out, right? You know, that, that's to be able to ensure that we're delivering, you know, great, service to our consumers. That's within the US, within Europe, you already have the ability to get product to consumers rather quickly.
It's really more a matter of making sure that, you know, we've set up the distribution network there to then capitalize on the new markets that we're going into and be able to set up for the growth that's to come in those markets. The other thing is looking at, you know, distribution centers that traditionally were shipping, you know, truckloads and now having distribution centers that can do both truckload and individual parcels. Having the TikTok business on top of our DTC business is just a greater amount of volume for us to put through those warehouses, which just gives us more opportunities to continue to optimize and again, leverage that scale.
Right. We've got a little over five minutes left. I wanted to open it to the room to see if there are questions. Any brave souls? No one? Okay. Well, feel free to raise your hand if you have any questions. Maybe we can go back, just stick with the DTC business. You've talked about at the beginning, Mark, you relaunched as a unified platform. How are you thinking about the role of DTC broadly going forward? Is it still mostly insights? You know, is it, what, what is the role broadly for that segment look like?
Look, I mean, a credible destination for the consumer. I mean, up until, you know, eight weeks ago, I mean, you had to go to three platforms if you wanted to transact with us. There was Ninja Kitchen, there was Shark Beauty, there was Shark Clean. I mean, this holiday season now is the first time you could actually put in your cart a Ninja product and a Shark product together.
So I think, you know, it's not to say that we're tipping the scales towards direct-to-consumer. I mean, we want to be relevant wherever the consumer chooses to shop for our products, but the experience we've been providing on our site has not been great. I think we've upgraded it tremendously. I think that Amiya will be up and running by the beginning of the second quarter of next year and I think that, you know, the consumer should be going to one destination to get all the information they want about our products, content about our products. And if they so choose to want to buy on the site, great, you know, but it's totally, totally up to them.
Helpful. I'll open it again. Anyone? Okay. Adam, maybe a bit of a housekeeping item, but you've been, you know, discussing the becoming a domestic filer. That's been the goal, by the beginning of next year. Can you give us any update on just how that's going? Anything investors should keep in mind around the transition?
Yeah. No, I would say it's going well. And I would also say that, look, this has been the intent, you know, since the spin back in July of 2023. And so it's a work stream that we've been preparing for. We've resourced against, you know, we've got our weekly meetings against it. And so I think we're on track January 1st, you know, domestic filer, you know, you'll see a 10-K from us. And so I think, you know, you're going to see the same level of disclosures that you get from, you know, any other domestic filer.
Great. Maybe we can, you both mentioned it briefly, but just pricing. You know, you've taken, you can tell me how many times you've taken it and pushed prices up. I think it's been a lot. Tariffs, obviously that was a lever you chose to pull this year. What's been the reaction from retailers as you've done some of those things? What's been the reaction from consumers and what have you learned about, you know, your pricing power broadly this year?
Look, I mean, we started focusing on pricing, you know, before the election. I mean, I have said publicly, like I, you know, was listening to a founder's podcast on LVMH and was inspired by, you know, Arnault's approach to pricing. And I came back and kind of said to my team, like, you know, do we really know what consumers are willing to pay for our products? And that started November of last year. And so we were kind of well down the path on this. We have taken price, but we've made sure that we maintain what we call extraordinary value for our products. I mean, we think we need market-leading performance, high-quality products at a great value.
And, you know, of the 80 or 90 price increases that we've taken across different products, look, some have stuck and have not had any demand impact. Some, you know, we've decided that we'll pulse more promotions, but we'll keep the price points up. And some we've had to roll back or kind of change out the products and put products in that we can afford. I mean, there's certain price points. For example, I mean, if you have a $99 blender at Walmart, that consumer is not looking for the $114 blender. I mean, they're looking for the $99 blender. And so, you know, our ability to kind of say, hey, we can't sell you that same product at $99. We could sell you another product, you know, to fill that slot at $99.
So I think to the point both Adam and I brought up of the 1,500 initiatives, I think SharkNinja goes through, you know, exhaustive detail that many other companies would just find exhausting. Okay? I mean, we have, you know, an initiative that takes place every week that we spend five hours on, which is a meeting called Obsessed with Winning. I mean, we go through every single subcategory in every market, and all of our executives kind of sit through that meeting. I think you might look at other companies. You might say like, do you do that once? No, we do that every single week. Like every week we do that.
I think that kind of maniacal focus on the details is what's needed. That, you know, if I think about kind of last week with Black Friday, I mean, there's people that are hands-on keys all day long, like updating Amazon and DTC and our media strategy. And, you know, we're making changes today for media that we're going to run this weekend based upon ROI that's coming in. But it's that level of detail that I think differentiates us.
Oh, yeah. Getting in under the wire. Is there a microphone somewhere? Up in the front.
Thank you. Your largest shareholder has been selling shares on a kind of consistent basis. Is this something, I mean, you obviously don't have any control over this, but is this something that we should be concerned about?
He still has a lot of shares. I know. Yeah. But I mean, it's, that's up to him, but I mean, he's still a very strong believer in the business and still has a sizable share position and has done it in a very orderly, organized way and, you know, provided, you know, a lot of transparency to it. So, look, I think it's a good thing. You know, I think he's, you know, he has sold down his shares. I think it's enabled other people to come into it. But it's totally up to him as to how that will transpire as we move forward.
Okay. I think we've got to wrap there. Mark, Adam, thank you so much for being here. Thanks everyone for joining.
Thank you.