Strong key figures from Adidas catapulted the sporting goods manufacturer’s shares to the top of the leading index on Wednesday with significant gains.
At midday she placed in the slightly weaker Dax
In general, however, things are still looking rather poor for Adidas. Looking at the start of the year, there is still a loss of almost 13 percent. Since the downward trend began in mid-February 2025, the loss has been 44 percent.
Analyst Richard Edwards from the US bank Goldman Sachs does not expect any changes to market estimates given that the annual targets have only been confirmed, but praised Adidas’ surprisingly strong operating result in the first quarter. This was further underpinned by the currency-adjusted sales growth.
However, Piral Dadhania from the Canadian bank RBC pointed out that the growth in revenue was unevenly distributed and was particularly low in the shoe sector. While sales in this category only increased by 4 percent on a comparable basis, the increase in the clothing sector was around 31 percent. There, double-digit percentage growth rates in the areas of football, running, training, motorsport and originals drove revenue.
After the strong first quarter, the debate about Adidas among investors could now shift in a more constructive direction, wrote Jefferies analyst James Grzinic, who rates the paper as “Buy” and has a price target of 190 euros.
Above all, he positively emphasized the company’s robustness, which is evidenced by the growth dynamics, the resilience of the gross margin despite high tariffs and exchange rate pressures, and by cost control.
“However, we may have to wait until the third quarter to get a clearer, non-event-driven impression of Adidas’ brand popularity,” he said. Before that, however, it could become clearer to what extent the latest innovations, in particular the Hyperboost and Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3 running shoes, can reduce the risk of the Terrace segment’s increasing market maturity.
Grzinic is aware that skeptics could also attribute part of the strong business development to temporary sales effects due to the upcoming World Cup this year. In addition, the further build-up of inventories is likely to be examined more closely, although, according to him, the supply chain uncertainties justify the early procurement of products.