Puma posts strong third quarter sales and raises full year forecast
Puma saw its third quarter currency adjusted sales increase by 20.4% to €1.9 billion year-on-year after it experienced particularly strong demand in its North American and Latin American markets.
Currency adjusted sales in the Americas region grew by 31.2% in the period as sales in the EMEA region rose by 22.3%. Meanwhile, sales in the Asia Pacific region edged up 1.7%.
Puma’s wholesale business also performed well with a sales uplift of 22.6%, while direct-to-consumer sales across across owned and operated retail stores climbed by 13.3% currency adjusted to €429.9 million.
Bjorn Gulden, Puma chief executive, said: “The third quarter was another very strong quarter for us. Despite a lot of operational problems, we grew our sales by 20% and were able to increase our EBIT from €190 million to €229 million in the quarter.
“A Covid-19 related lockdown of production in South Vietnam, an overheated global freight market with high rates and a lack of capacity, port congestion and a very difficult market situation in China were hurdles we had to overcome in the quarter. Demand for our products was high, our teams worked very hard to deliver as much product as possible and we continued to be as flexible and service-minded for our partners as we could be.”
The company is now forecasting that its full year EBIT will come in at between €450 million and €500 million, which is €50 million more than predicted earlier in the year.
Gulden added: “We foresee the high demand for our products to continue, but we also see supply constraints continue to be a problem for the rest of the year. We will continue to manoeuvre through the operational problems as well as possible, but we will also continue to invest in our brand, products and infrastructure for the mid and long term. The outlook for our industry in general and for Puma in particular is in my opinion very positive.”
