adidas On the Up But Feeling Uncertain Over US Tariffs
have just announced their Q1 results for 2025, and they've had a – all without Yeezy! To be fair, this isn’t a surprising achievement for those on Team Trefoil; they've put plenty of steam behind their broadening lifestyle and performance catalogues.
The German powerhouse announced sales were up 13 per cent, with double digit progress in all global markets. Despite the positive signals, CEO is feeling some uncertainty around the current tariff situation in the United States.
‘A great quarter!', Gulden said in an official press release. 'Double-digit growth across all markets and channels in today’s volatile environment shows the strength of our brand and underlines the great job our people are doing.
'In a normal world, with this strong quarter, the strong order book and in general a very positive attitude towards adidas, we would have increased our outlook for the full year both for revenues and operating profit. The uncertainty regarding the US tariffs has currently put a stop to this.’
Boomin’ Lifestyle Catalogue
Footwear – especially on the lifestyle side – proved fruitful for Team Trefoil, with a revenue increase of 17 per cent over the past quarter. Throughout the first half of 2025, adidas continued to bolster their lifestyle catalogue with new models such as the , and , all introduced to the market with high-profile collaborations. Fresh-faced silhouettes like the Megaride, and Goukana continued to spur consumer intrigue, while their tried-and-true , and classics maintained great performance. Yeezy was mentioned, albeit briefly, referring to a slight decrease in e-commerce revenues and North American market share. But excluding the Yeezy business, eComm sales increased by 18 per cent, and the North American market share rose by 13 per cent.
Full Speed Ahead
Throughout the back-half of last year and into the beginning of 2025, adidas have gone full speed ahead with performance-geared footwear and partnerships. Its running categories in particular have seen high double-digit growth in the first quarter, especially among the Adizero footwear family. Marathon supershoes like the have garnered plenty of praise in the community, alongside the . Football kept up as one of the Three Stripes' top performers, and their new Motorsport partnership with Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team captivated fans.
An Uncertain Future
Like many other companies who rely on the US market, adidas are feeling a little unsettled about the imposed by US President Donald Trump. Currently, many of the major footwear manufacturing hubs like Vietnam, China and Indonesia are affected, prompting market uncertainty and for all the footwear giants.
‘Although we had already reduced the China exports to the US to a minimum, we are somewhat exposed to those currently very high tariffs,' said Gulgen. 'What is even worse for us is the general increase in US tariffs from all other countries of origin.
'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. Given the uncertainty around the negotiations between the US and the different exporting countries, we do not know what the final tariffs will be.’
This is proving to be a difficult spot for adidas, who are struggling to make a decision on the way forward regarding price increases for the US market. So far, they've said that increases on prices for products in North America won’t affect the rest of the world.
‘Cost increases due to higher tariffs will eventually cause price increases, not only in our sector, but it is currently impossible to quantify these or to conclude what impact this could have on the consumer demand for our products,’ Gulden added. ‘As always, we will try to manoeuvre through this uncertainty in the most pragmatic, agile and flexible way. We have all parts of the organisation involved and will do everything we can to assure that our US retail partners, and our US consumers will get the adidas product they want and to the best possible price.'
Read more about the business of sneakers , and find about how Trump's tariffs affect sneakers .