German sportswear brand Puma reported sales rose 18.9% last year to bring in 8.46 billion euros.
In the fourth quarter, currency-adjusted sales grew 21.1% to 2.2 billion euros.
“We accelerated our growth across all product categories and worldwide despite a volatile market environment,” Puma’s new CEO Arne Freundt said in a statement. “This success is thanks to our amazing Puma family team and to our great partnerships with athletes, retailers and suppliers.”
Former boss, Bjorn Gulden, who is largely credited with seeing Puma grow at such a rate over the past nine years, left Puma last December to take the reins at larger rival Adidas.
Fourth-quarter sales in the Americas grew 29% to 997.6 million euros. This fed into total annual sales worth 3.69 billion in the Americas, an increase of 28.3%, for all of 2022. This was the first time Puma had broken the 3 billion euro mark in this sales territory, the company reported.
Puma has been deliberately focused on the basketball sector in the U.S. and this has paid off. Business in the Americas now makes up just over 43% of the brand’s total sales. In 2018, the year that Puma appointed Jay-Z to be its creative director for basketball, it only made up around 35% of all sales.
Sales in Puma’s home market – Europe, the Middle East and Africa – rose 26.1%, currency adjusted, to bring in 727.1 million euros over the last three months of 2022.
In the Asia-Pacific territory, the company said lockdowns in China as well as geo-political tensions were still impacting Puma’s business there, even as sales in other parts of the region increased. Sales in Asia recovered slightly in Q4 to rise 1.1%, currency adjusted, and 471.9 million. Full-year sales in the region fell 2.2%, currency adjusted, to hit 1.66 billion euros.
In terms of product categories, Puma reported some slight decreases in the fourth quarter, with apparel and accessory sales falling 1.6% and 5% respectively, reflecting what the company described as “softer demand in North America and Greater China.”
The mild decreases did not detract from full-year growth though, with apparel sales rising 10.1% over 2022 to total 2.9 billion euros and accessories increasing 5.4% to reach 1.12 billion euros.
Puma’s footwear continues to bring in the most money. Sales growth of 53.3% in the fourth quarter fed into total sales of 4.32 billion euros over all of 2022. The company reported an increase of 30.8%, currency adjusted, in footwear sales for the full year.
Puma’s earnings before interest and taxes, or EBIT, fell 37.6% in Q4 to 40.5 million euros. EBIT was still positive for the whole of 2022, increasing by 15%, currency adjusted to 640.6 million euros. This was slightly below market expectations of 644 million euros and Puma shares fell slightly in early trading in Germany.
“Despite the strong growth in 2022, we continue to face a high degree of geopolitical, macroeconomic and commercial uncertainty,” the company said, citing “high inflation and high interest rates … volatile retailer and consumer demand” as well as higher freight and raw material costs.
Puma expects currency-adjusted sales to grow in high single-digits for 2023 and somewhat static EBIT, with earnings coming in somewhere between 590 million and 670 million euros.
This story was reported by WWD and originally appeared on WWD.com.
