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Adidas has warned that new US tariffs will lead to higher prices for its popular trainers such as the Samba and Gazelle, as the German sportswear group said trade turmoil had “put a stop to” an outlook upgrade.
“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,” chief executive Bjørn Gulden said in a statement on Tuesday.
He added that “cost increases . . . will eventually cause price increases, not only in our sector”, and it was “currently impossible” to quantify the rises or gauge what impact they might have on demand.
Sports shoemakers like Adidas are among the companies hit hardest by the Trump administration’s tariffs owing to their heavy reliance on countries such as China and Vietnam for manufacturing. The US lacks factories with the specialised equipment to make running shoes and workers who can operate them.
Although Adidas has already scaled back exports from China to the US, Gulden said the company remained “somewhat exposed” to the “currently very high tariffs”. He warned that broader tariff increases affecting key sourcing countries in south-east Asia, including Vietnam, had an “even worse” impact.
Gulden said that in a “normal world”, Adidas would have upgraded its full-year revenue and operating profit targets after a strong first quarter, but uncertainty over US trade policy had “put a stop to this”.
Adidas last week reported preliminary results showing operating profit had almost doubled to €610mn in the first three months of the year, marking its strongest sales performance for the period in company history.
Sales rose by double digits across all markets except the US, where the termination of its Yeezy partnership with rapper Kanye West continued to drag on revenues. Growth was led by strong demand for retro footwear lines such as the Samba and the newly launched Taekwondo model.
Adidas shares were largely unchanged in early Frankfurt trading on Tuesday. The stock had recovered most of its earlier losses after steep US tariff increases announced earlier this month were partially suspended.
Adidas shares were down just 6 per cent over the past 12 months, outperforming both local rival Puma and US peer Nike, whose shares have each fallen 47 per cent and 39 per cent respectively amid a wider slowdown in sales.
