Winners and Losers: 2025's Financial Footwear Story

The footwear financials of 2025 played out with some of the highest stakes the industry has ever seen. While the giants navigated a volatile landscape of shifting consumer loyalties, smaller players got resourceful with their survival tactics. From soup to nuts, it was a year of collisions between global economics and brand resilience.

As we pivot into 2026, the dust is far from settled – so let's get reacquainted with how it all unfolded. Here's our breakdown of the triumphs, bail-outs, and tariff-induced tremors that defined the sneaker industry over the last 12 months.

Q1: Big-Dog Results Arrive and Boutiques Stay Alive

burst the year open with , marking their fourth year in a row with a growth rate over 20 per cent. President and CEO Joe Preston said at the time: ‘Quite frankly, we could be bigger if we wanted to, but we use a selective distribution approach to manage the brand and not oversaturate… We show up how we want to show up.’

Both and also came through with robust numbers for 2024. The former that their footwear sales for the full year increased by 28.5 per cent year on year, and they also boasted a number of milestone moments in 2024, such as the unveiling of their groundbreaking (pictured above) – which saw Hellen Obiri in the – and the opening of 50 new stores. The Three Stripes for revenue growth , with an improvement in their operating profit of just over €300 million. Footwear championed the growth, with an increase of 17 per cent compared to the previous year.

Over at the , positive growth wasn’t quite enough to meet expectations, and PUMA subsequently initiated their ‘nextlevel’ cost efficiency program. CEO Arne Freundt said, ‘While we achieved solid sales growth in 2024 and made meaningful progress on our strategic initiatives, we are not satisfied with our profitability. With a heightened focus on translating top-line growth to increased profitability growth, we have initiated “nextlevel”, a comprehensive efficiency program targeting cost optimization and operational improvements.’

In the community retail landscape, legendary Swiss retailer was by investment firm Reziprok Ventures, and announced that co-founder would return as CEO (read our interview with Erik ). Across the North Atlantic, treasured boutique remained in the game despite some cruel setbacks – and you can read our interview with owner Jay Gordon right .

Q2: Tariff Terror

April signalled the arrival of US President Donald Trump’s on goods imported from specific countries, slapping 34 per cent on China, 46 per cent on Vietnam and 32 per cent on Indonesia (on top of the tariffs already imposed earlier in the year). , adidas and were set to be by these tariffs, as over 90 per cent of their manufacturing occurs in the three impacted regions. New Balance were least affected thanks to their , Maine and Massachusetts factories. Investors were predictably spooked by the news and Nike stocks immediately by 14.4 per cent, while adidas and PUMA dropped by 11.7 and 11.1 per cent respectively.

While we Nike’s ability to bring its manufacturing to the United States, and footwear companies with the US government for exemptions, the media’s predictions that customers would see an effect on prices by the end of the fiscal year were proven. In late May, , with some models seeing an increase of $5 while others were smacked with the warily-predicted $10 hike.

While adidas reported a strong start to 2025, CEO Bjørn Gulden about future results. ‘Although we had already reduced the China exports to the US to a minimum, we are somewhat exposed to those currently very high tariffs,' he said. 'Since we currently cannot produce almost any of our products in the US, these higher tariffs will eventually cause higher costs for all our products for the US market.’

Q3: PUMA Rumours and Sneakersnstuff Speaks

In late August, reports emerged that the billionaire Pinault family – owners of Groupe Artémis, an investment company with multiple high-profile interests including Christie’s Auction House, Creative Artist Agencies, , , and more – were looking to in PUMA. Following the news, PUMA’s shares surged as much as 20 per cent, their biggest upward movement since October 2001… and that wouldn’t be the end of the story for 2025!

August was also the month we published our afore-mentioned with Sneakersnstuff's Erik Manzano Fagerlind (pictured above), in which the freshly reinstalled CEO spoke about January's bankruptcy, closed stores and layoffs – as well as the retailer's renewed focus on community and curation.

Come September, Montreal-based global online retailer , upsetting devotees of high-end luxury goods, streetwear, sneakers and accessories the world over. Just two weeks later, the Québec Superior Court approved a lifeline that secured around $40 million in emergency funding to keep the lights on, the servers running, and the jobs of more than a thousand employees safe.

Q4: Fresh Financials and More PUMA Prognostication

As Q4 opened its doors, Nike announced their numbers were on the up. The brand’s Beaverton HQ quarterly profits that beat expectations, with sales up buy 1.1 per cent year-on-year, to $11.72 billion. The rise was attributed to the Swoosh prioritising the rebuilding of its presence with wholesale partners, and bringing sport back into the core of the business. adidas’ results , with global revenues rising 3 per cent to a record €6.63 billion, but the US/North American market emerging as a significant weak spot. It was a cautionary tale, proving that while robust growth elsewhere offers a cushion, the structural issues in North America mean even heavyweight players must adapt to changing consumer and retail fundamentals.

The Big Cat’s Q3 2025 report of their ‘reset phase’ – a recalibration to rebuild the brand’s bite. Sales fell 10.4 per cent, a figure PUMA chalked up to a strategic clean-up of their distribution network – reducing exposure to mass merchants and phasing out low-margin channels. However, direct-to-consumer sales grew 4.5 per cent to €570 million, making up 29.1 per cent of total sales. As for Japanese giants ASICS, a across net sales, operating profit, ordinary profit and net profit was buoyed by a wave of global demand and solid regional wins. Their presence on the world stage was elevated by at the World Athletics Championships in , as well as the major marathons in , and – the latter of which saw Ethiopian runner Hailemaryam Kiros in the .

And just before the year came to a close, hit the ‘sphere, this time suggesting that Chinese heavyweights Anta Sports and Li-Ning were sniffing around for a potential takeover – and we even heard ASICS floated as a dark-horse candidate! The to send PUMA shares rocketing more than 13 per cent – a rare W in a brutal year that saw the brand lose over half their market value. Where will the Big Cat bend its paws next? Keep it locked, because we’ll be keeping track of the story as well as other sneaker-adjacent financial news as we head further into 2026.

To brush up on 2025's big corporate reshuffles, .