Some of the world’s most popular brands have together made around US $260 million from the sale of their respective NFT, according to a study by Dune Analytics. Leading sportswear brand Nike topped the list with a whopping US $185 million revenue from the sale of its NFT.
The cumulative feat also suggests that NFT are turning out to be a gem for fashion brands and an exciting revenue channel for businesses. Not surprisingly, companies worldwide are making NFT a key ingredient in their overall marketing and business strategies. Some of them are lured by the chance to establish deeper connections with their fans while others are keener on optimizing the revenue per user through NFT drops and merchandise.
Amidst the divergent objectives, Nike seems to have found the perfect mix by blending virtual experiences with its iconic branding rights and netted a whopping US $185 million from the sale of its NFT. In December, Nike acquired NFT start-up RTFKT to bolster its Web 3.0 strategy.The latter is the creator of the CloneX NFT collection and Nike acquired it barely two weeks after it launched CloneX for auction.
Nike has reportedly generated US $1.3 billion in transaction volume from secondary trading of its NFT to add to US $93 million worth of primary sale of its NFT. It earned royalties worth US $92 million through its NFT sales.
CloneX has topped Nike’s list of collections and generated the highest royalty fees worth US $39.93 million and was followed by Nike Sneakers-themed NFT collection, MNLTH which generated US $24.22 million for the brand.
The other collections that have generated royalty fees of at least US $1 million include Mint Vial, MNLTH2, CryptoKick, Skin Vail, EVOX, RTFKT POD X and RTFKT Bonus items. Although the transaction volumes of Nike’s NFT has slowed down over the past three months, it still managed to register 6,362 ETH last month, which is almost equivalent to US $1.07 million at current prices.
Other fashion brands such as Dolce & Gabbana (D&G), Tiffany, Gucci and Adidas also feature in the top five fashion brands that are leading a wave of businesses that are looking to take advantage of the rapid growth and adoption of NFT into the mainstream.D&G generated revenue worth US $25.6 million, Tiffany amassed US $12.6 million while Gucci made US $11.5 million and Adidas made US $10.9 million through NFT.
Tiffany generated sales worth US $12.6 million in NFT-related sales since launching the NFTiff token, which enables CryptoPunk holders to create unique necklaces. NFT became widely popular in recent times with collections such as Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and CryptoPunks generating lifetime sales in billion of dollars.
Major brands eventually became interested in the hype surrounding the NFT and started experimenting with the technology to connect with their customers, fans and improve their relationship with therm.
Even though the hype has since subsided, companies such as Nike and Adidas plan to expand the reach of their brands into the virtual worlds by pursuing their NFT plans in the metaverse. According to some studies, the worldwide NFT business is expected to be worth US $230 billion by the end of the decade.
The total number of NFT transactions globally is likely to rise from 24 million in 2022 to 40 million by 2027, according to a new report by Juniper Research. It also said that metaverse-linked NFT will be the fastest-growing NFT segment over the next five years and will increase from 600,000 transactions in 2022 to 9.8 million transactions by 2027.
In order to take advantage of this growth opportunity, the report urged consumer-facing businesses to create NFT-based content to meet the changing demands from a younger, tech-savvy population, who are more open to purchasing novel forms of digital content.
