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Adidas shares drop close to a fifth after profits hit by World Cup marketing spend

Net profit growth of 6% in second quarter undershoots expectations

Adidas World Cup 2026 footballs on display in a store, with a person holding one ball and Adidas jerseys in the background.Shares in the German sportswear group fell 17% in early trading© Alex Kraus/Bloomberg

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Florian Müller in Frankfurt

Published4 hours ago

Updated05:30

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Adidas shares are in line for their biggest one-day decline after the sportswear giant missed quarterly profit expectations following higher marketing spending around the football World Cup.

Net profit from continuing operations rose 6 per cent year on year to €398mn in the second quarter, below analysts’ expectations of €430mn. Adidas said marketing expenditure was 30 per cent higher than a year earlier, reflecting increased spending on World Cup campaigns.

Shares in the German sportswear group fell 18 per cent in early trading, the biggest intraday-drop on record.

“In absolute terms [the second quarter] was a good quarter but against a rising tide of World Cup expectations this is going to disappoint investors,” said analysts at Deutsche Bank.

Chief executive Bjørn Gulden said management was “very surprised” by the share-price reaction. “We have delivered what we promised,” he said, adding that the second quarter was “stronger than we expected”.

The €212mn surge in spending around this summer’s World Cup in North America came as Gulden sought to close the gap with rival Nike.

Adidas had decided that, given the teams and products it had assembled for the World Cup, it should “spend real money on it”, he said. Marketing expenditure would return to more normal levels in the coming months, he added.

Adidas sold four times as many jerseys and twice as many footballs compared with the tournament in Qatar four years earlier, generating about €1.5bn in World Cup-related sales. Mexico’s shirt was its best-selling national-team jersey, while the final between Spain and Argentina featured two Adidas-sponsored sides.

The profit miss came despite record second-quarter revenues of €6.7bn, up 14 per cent at constant currencies. Growth was driven by strong demand for running and football products, as well as gains in Latin America and China, where Nike has been struggling with falling sales.

Nike, the world’s largest sportswear group, recently reported its lowest quarterly revenue in more than four years.

Footwear sales rose just 1 per cent as the broader lifestyle market became more volatile and promotional, even though Adidas said demand for its sales drivers, the retro trainers Samba and Gazelle, remained healthy. Gulden said the enormous growth previously generated by those styles “was not sustainable”, although he argued the trend had broadened, including through collaborations with artists such as Bad Bunny.

Clothing sales, meanwhile, jumped 35 per cent as football shirts increasingly crossed over into streetwear.

Adidas adjusted its full-year 2026 sales guidance, saying it now expected currency-neutral revenues to increase between 9 and 10 per cent, compared with a previous forecast of high single-digit growth. It maintained its operating profit target of about €2.3bn.

Gulden said those targets “might be conservative”, saying the company did not assume that the 25 per cent growth in sales through its own stores and websites would continue.

Adidas said it had recognised only a “small” benefit from initial US tariff refunds received in the second quarter. Potential further refunds of between $250mn and $300mn were not included in its full-year guidance.

The company also said chief financial officer Harm Ohlmeyer would leave at the end of the year after deciding not to extend his contract, which had been due to run until early 2028. He will be replaced by Birgit Kretschmer, who rejoins from clothing retailer C&A, having previously worked at Adidas until 2020.

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