How Has 77-Year-Old ASICS Achieved Such Explosive Growth?

Today's sporting goods market presents a starkly divided landscape, with some segments booming while others struggle.

During the National Day holiday, Nike released its financial report for the first quarter of fiscal year 2027. The data shows that Nike recorded revenue of 11.2 billion US dollars, down 4% year on year; net profit reached 712 million US dollars, down 2% year on year. Revenue in the Greater China region stood at 1.18 billion US dollars, plummeting 26% on a currency-neutral basis, marking the ninth consecutive quarter of decline.

Meanwhile, other popular sports giants are also facing a challenging situation. On, known as the "new favorite of the middle class", posted a 13.5% year-on-year increase in net sales in the second quarter of this year, with its growth rate slowing down for five consecutive quarters. HOKA, dubbed as "Footjoy for young people", saw its year-on-year growth drop to single digits.

Against the backdrop of sluggish growth across the entire industry, Asics, the 77-year-old veteran brand from Japan, is surging ahead at full speed.

The financial report for the first half of 2026 shows that Asics' net sales reached 534.483 billion Japanese yen, up 32.7% year on year; operating profit hit 120.486 billion Japanese yen, up 48.5% year on year, with an operating profit margin of 22.5% hitting an all-time high.

Is the sports shoe and apparel market about to undergo a major shift?

The 77-year-old veteran brand outperforms all trending internet-famous brands

The story of Asics dates back to 1949. Kihachiro Onitsuka founded Onitsuka Co., Ltd. in Kobe, Japan, initially building its business mainly on basketball shoes.

At the Boston Marathon in 1953, an athlete wearing the brand's running shoes won the championship, making this niche Japanese brand known to the outside world for the first time. In 1977, Onitsuka Company merged two competitors and renamed the brand "Asics", which implies "a sound mind in a sound body".

In 1986, Asics ushered in a real turning point. It officially launched the GEL cushioning technology, whose resilient and supportive foot feel became the golden signature of Asics, and the brand gradually joined the ranks of the "world's top four running shoe brands".

In fact, the rapid growth of Asics did not just start this year. According to past financial reports, Asics' net sales increased by 19% and 19.5% year on year in 2024 and 2025 respectively. It is worth noting that the company still recorded a loss of nearly 4 billion Japanese yen in 2020, and its market value has now reached 3.65 trillion Japanese yen.

While professional running shoes are a driving force, the fastest-growing segment under Asics is SportStyle sports fashion.

According to the financial report, Asics' sports fashion segment achieved net sales of 123.19 billion Japanese yen in the first half of this year, up 83% year on year, and its profit even skyrocketed by 103% year on year. Onitsuka Tiger, another retro brand under its banner, also saw a 35.9% increase, with a gross profit margin of nearly 40%.

Quite interestingly, a large number of people who buy Asics products do not run at all in their daily lives. Chunky sneakers like GEL-KAYANO and GEL-NYC perfectly align with the retro commuting style that has been extremely popular among young consumers in the past two years, and have transformed into fashion items.

To put it bluntly, Asics itself has not undergone fundamental changes, but consumers' aesthetic preferences have swung back.

Asics has managed to stand out from numerous giants in the Chinese market also thanks to more localized solutions.

Public information shows that Asics China has introduced two local executives in recent years. With more than 20 years of experience in brand marketing, Gu Xiaojie focuses on narrowing the distance between the brand and consumers; Ma Xinling is mainly responsible for brand and channel management, while deploying emerging e-commerce platforms.

With localized business strategies, plus increased investment in marathon events and in-depth operation of running communities, China has become Asics' third largest market in the world outside its home market of Japan. In the first half of the year, sales in the Greater China region reached 81.05 billion Japanese yen, up 30.7% year on year; operating profit was 19.7 billion Japanese yen, up 32% year on year.

Hidden worries emerge behind the thriving performance

While brand influence and sales are growing rapidly, doubts have also emerged.

On social media platforms such as Xiaohongshu, complaints about "holes appearing on Asics shoe uppers after three months of use" can be seen everywhere. A sports brand that became famous for its GEL technology has unexpectedly been dragged down by the quality control problems of its own shoe uppers.

If the holes in shoe uppers may be related to different people's wearing habits, Asics' bigger hidden worry is probably hidden in its financial report.

The most intuitive manifestation is the impact of exchange rates. Of the 32.7% revenue growth Asics achieved in the first half of the year, about 10 percentage points actually came from the exchange gain brought by the depreciation of the Japanese yen. Excluding the impact of exchange rates, the actual growth is about 22%.

Exchange rate fluctuations are uncontrollable. Once the Japanese yen starts to appreciate, the growth rate on Asics' financial report will naturally decline accordingly.

Secondly, the growth rate of the professional sports segment is lower than expected. In the first half of this year, the company's fashion line surged by 83%, while the growth rate of functional running shoes was only 19.3% in the same period.

In simple terms, the growth of the core running shoe business is slowing down, and it is those people who do not run that contribute more to Asics' revenue. But fashion trends are like a gust of wind, usually coming and going quickly. When the retro commuting style gradually fades away, it remains to be seen whether Asics' professional product line can maintain the momentum.

Furthermore, the competition is becoming increasingly fierce. After nine consecutive quarters of revenue decline in Greater China, Nike has officially launched a new strategy of "taking sports as the lead", planning to return to the professional sports field; local brands including Anta, Li-Ning, and Xtep have continued to increase R&D investment in professional running shoes, and the price of carbon-plate racing shoes has long been pushed down to below 1,000 yuan.

Asics, which operates on the dual tracks of "professional products + retro style", is in a track that is becoming more and more crowded.

Can Asics hold on to what Nike has lost?

Over the past decade, the growth of sports shoe brands has mainly been driven by classic models, limited-edition marketing, and celebrity endorsements. The most typical examples are Nike's AJ and Dunk series.

The underlying logic of the current sports shoe market has changed. Consumers will research their running posture, foot shape, cushioning technology and other information by themselves before buying shoes, and there are countless recommendation notes on social media platforms about which series of running shoes are suitable for people of different weights and foot shapes.

According to data from Frost & Sullivan, the number of domestic running groups in China has increased from 82 million to 139 million in the past 10 years. Runners can be divided into four levels from entry-level to heavy users. Serious runners consume 3 to 5 pairs of running shoes on average every year, which is undoubtedly a positive signal for brands like Asics that focus on technology development.

But competitors have not been idle. Take Nike as an example, it reduced the proportion of classic models in its product portfolio in fiscal year 2026, shifting its focus back to the professional sports field. For the Greater China market, Nike has also appointed a local vice president of product innovation to shift to localized operations.

Not to mention, there are many domestic brands that have already lowered the price of professional sports running shoes.

In response, Asics' coping strategy is, on the one hand, to further strengthen the public's perception of its professional sports attributes with the 2026 Nagoya Asian Games, and on the other hand, reposition its Walking foot care business as a high-end brand. While prioritizing the expansion of the Greater China market, it also plans to expand its business from running to multiple scenarios such as walking, commuting, and products for the elderly group.

Nike has proven from its own experience in the past two years that even the most core previous growth engine may stall. Although Asics has caught up with the current retro aesthetic trend, no one knows when this trend will disappear completely.

The only constant can only be product strength. After all, once the market consumption trend changes suddenly, consumers will vote with their feet faster than any brand can complete its transformation.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Zebra Consumption" (ID: banmaxiaofei), written by Shen Tuo, and published with authorization from 36Kr.