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Running is more than a fashionable sport, it is a way to achieve social statusa lifestyle that not everyone understands. As with anything that has a large fan base, there is an industry making a profit and in the case of running the number one object of desire is shoes. When we think about sports shoes, the brands that come to mind for almost everyone are Nike and Adidas. However, for a long time have been ceding the throne to new brands. Asics is one of those brands and has already managed to take advantage of them in a highly coveted segment: that of running shoes over $90. Asics is going like a shot. They tell it in Nikkei Asia. In the last investors dayAsics boasted of having been crowned the public’s favorite running shoe brand in the premium segment. In the first nine months of the year they achieved a 17.4% market share in Japan, the United States and Europe, which places it in first place in the ranking. Asics has been able to take advantage of the running boom that occurred in the pandemic and its share price has increased eight-fold in the last five years. In August, Asics reached a market capitalization of 3 trillion yen (about $19.4 billion). Forecasts are very optimistic and indicate that profits this year will grow by 17.9%, reaching 800 billion yen ($5.17 billion). Source: Google Finance Margins. Nike and Adidas remain much larger in terms of total revenue, at $46.3 billion and $27.3 billion respectively. What is truly striking is that Asics’ profit margin is much higher. This year’s forecasts put it at 17.5%, more than double that of Nike, which posted an 8% margin in 2024. Adidas is at 5.6%. Rudder turn. Things weren’t always so good for Asics. In 2012 there was criticism of the brand because its athletes did not achieve good results at the London Olympics, there was even talk that one of them He retired due to a shoe problem. They also did not do very well in Rio 2016 or Tokyo 2020, so they created a new development team taking into account the feedback from the athletes and They defined their strategy for the coming years. Variety. Asics has opted to diversify and offer a wide variety of models within the premium running segment. Where the competition offers a handful of models, Asics has five large categories, each focused on a specific characteristic (rebound, stability, speed…) and within each category it has at least three models, making its catalog one of the most extensive and covering everyone from casual runners to professional athletes. Cheap shoes don’t sell. A curious detail is that, at the same time that they have increased their offer of sneakers above $90, they have reduced their catalog of cheaper models because sales are going down. It so happens that, after the pandemic, the running shoes that sold the most were the cheapest, but now what sells best is high-performance footwear. It makes sense: those who started running in 2020 have greatly improved their level and cheap shoes are no longer worth it. High-end running. Asics’ most cutting-edge running model is the Metaspeed Ray. They cost 300 euros and their main attraction is that they weigh only 129 grams, but the most popular running shoes They are the Novablast, which cost half the price. Nike has always been the benchmark in sports footwear and competes with the Pegasus 41 and the Vaporfly 4, but in the running shoe showcase it is no longer the queen. In addition to Asics, there are other brands such as Brooks, Saucony or Hoka that have also made a name for themselves in recent years. Image | Dmitry on Pexels In Xataka | With the Vaporfly Nike already made us run “faster”: with Amplify it literally wants to give us a motor