Puma Revises Full-Year EBIT Loss Range as Q3 Sales Fall 5%

By Marcus Bennett

Puma reported third-quarter sales of €1.78 billion, down 5%, and revised its full-year operating-profit outlook to a loss of €80 million to €130 million. The three months ended Sept. 30 also produced a 6.3% decline on a currency-adjusted basis.

CEO Arthur Hoeld said: “Our third-quarter performance was in line with expectations as we continued to move Puma through this transition year while laying the foundation for future growth.”

Hoeld took over in July 2025 and promised to clean up inventory and stop over-discounting at mass merchants. He described 2026 as a year of transformation and said the brand should return to growth in 2027. Those remain management plans, not reported outcomes.

What drove the sales decline?

Puma attributed the fall to reset measures initiated during the same period a year earlier and to volatile geopolitics that hurt consumer sentiment. It gave no contribution figures for either factor, leaving the regional and product shifts as the clearest indications of where the reset is taking effect.

• Europe, Middle East and Africa: Sales fell 12% to €801.2 million. The region includes Puma’s home market and was its largest.
• Americas: Sales declined 2% to €580.4 million. North America performed worse than Latin America, where Puma retained growth.
• Asia Pacific: Sales rose 7.5% to €394.6 million, making it the only reporting region with positive growth.

Asia Pacific benefited from continued momentum for low-profile designs, including the Speedcat family, footwear originally created for motor racing in the 1990s. Puma also cited demand linked to its Hyrox fitness partnership. The company described business around Asia as good, although momentum in China proved slower.

Which categories limited the damage?

Footwear sales fell 3.3% to €1.01 billion. Puma linked the decline to muted performance in certain core styles, offset somewhat by growing momentum for low-profile designs and new running shoes. Footwear therefore provided more support than apparel, whose contraction was 5.6 percentage points steeper.

Apparel sales slumped 8.9%, while accessories declined 2.1%. Puma released no revenue amounts for the latter two categories. It also disclosed no order-book, factory, lead-time or unit-volume data. For brand and sourcing teams, the results show sell-through direction rather than a reliable production forecast.

What does Anta’s investment change in China?

Anta, described as China’s third-largest sportswear company, became Puma’s largest shareholder when the transaction closed in the month of the results announcement. Puma said China momentum slowed because of its new relationship with Anta. The company prefers a direct-to-consumer model, and Hoeld previously noted that Puma’s partners and distributors in China had become more cautious since the deal’s announcement.

The slower China performance contrasts with Asia Pacific’s 7.5% growth. Analysts said the Anta deal could drive Puma’s growth next year, although that remains a forecast rather than a measured result. Hoeld called the investment “a strong vote of confidence in our strategy, our management team and our future” in Friday’s statement.

How did profit and guidance change?

Puma’s operating profit swung from €16.2 million in the same quarter of 2024 to an €11.4 million loss in 2025. The company attributed the deterioration to one-off effects connected with its cost-efficiency program. The quarter broadly met market expectations: analysts had forecast €1.76 billion in sales, a 6.2% decline and EBIT of roughly minus €10 million.

Full-year sales guidance still calls for a low- to mid-single-digit percentage decline, without a euro value. The EBIT range changed from a loss of €50 million-€150 million to a loss of €80 million-€130 million. Puma worsened the lower bound by €30 million while improving the upper bound by €20 million, narrowing the range around a slightly worse midpoint.

That comparison matters more than the headline revision. The range now offers less downside protection than Puma’s earlier forecast, while management’s inventory and discounting promises remain unproven. The next test is whether Asia’s growth and the Anta relationship can offset weaker EMEA sales and apparel demand before the 2027 growth target.