March 20 (Reuters) - Nike NKE.N posted a smaller-than-expected drop in quarterly revenue on Thursday, benefiting from a holiday season bump and an uptick in demand for its new Pegasus Premium and Vomero 18 sneaker lines.

The sportswear giant has discounted key lifestyle franchises Air Jordan 1, AirForce 1 and Dunk as it looks to clear out old inventory and focus on innovation. That sweetened the pot for buyers, who had waited all year to splurge during the holiday season.

Newly launched sneakers, fast-tracked by new CEO Elliott Hill, also performed well enough to give the sportswear maker some breathing room after several quarters of weak demand.

The company's third-quarter revenue fell 9% to $11.3 billion, compared with analysts' expectation of an 11.5% drop to $11.01 billion, according to data compiled by LSEG.

Nike's $2 billion savings plan including job cuts, tightening the supply of some products and reducing management layers helped it report a quarterly profit per share of 54 cents.

Analysts on average were expecting 29 cents per share.

(Reporting by Ananya Mariam Rajesh in Bengaluru and Nicholas P. Brown in New York; Editing by Pooja Desai)

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