Adidas sees rise in first-quarter profit, confirms full-year outlook

German sportswear maker Adidas on Wednesday reported higher profit in its first quarter with increased net sales.

Looking ahead for fiscal 2026, the company continues to expect profitability to further improve and projects operating profit to increase to a level of around €2.3 billion.

Adidas continues to expect currency-neutral sales to increase at a high-single-digit rate in 2026, reflecting growth of around €2 billion in absolute terms.

In the first quarter, net income attributable to shareholders climbed 12.6% to €482 million from €428 million last year. Earnings per share grew 13.5% to €2.72 from €2.40 a year ago.

On a continuing operations basis, net income increased 11% to €484 million from the prior year's €436 million. Earnings per share from continuing operations were €2.70, higher than €2.44 last year.

The company's operating profit increased 16% to €705 million from €610 million a year ago, representing an operating margin of 10.7%, up 0.8 percentage points from 9.9% a year ago.

The company's gross margin decreased 1 percentage point to 51.1% in the first quarter. While the underlying gross margin improved, the positive development was more than offset by unfavourable currency developments and negative impacts from higher US tariffs, the firm noted.

Net sales grew 7.1% to €6.59 billion from €6.15 billion last year. Currency-neutral revenues went up 14%, reflecting the strong momentum of the Adidas brand.

The company reported double-digit DTC increases in all markets, reflecting strong sell-out trends.