Despite ongoing geopolitical risks, muted consumer sentiment, macroeconomic headwinds, and the speed of recovery in the U.S. and Greater China markets, Puma says it’s continuing to gain market share worldwide and will continue to concentrate on soccer, performance running, basketball, and golf. The company is maintaining its full-year outlook that calls for currency-adjusted sales growth in the high single digits and income before interest and taxes (EBIT) in the range of $626.5 to $711.4 million.

The company is intent on amplifying its brand noise in market, lessening its reliance on the off-price channel, and making a bigger play in the retail run specialty segment. Puma’s focus on growing its U.S. business is reflected in the recent hiring of Andrew “Rudi” Rudolph as its new SVP of U.S. Sales. Rudolph, who joins Puma from Cole Hann, previously spent 20 years at Adidas, including as VP of U.S sales.

In the third quarter, Americas’ sales on a currency adjusted basis rose by 2.5 percent to approximately $907.4 million on strong growth in Latin America. North America sales fell by an unspecified percentage due to macroeconomic headwinds and the brand’s dependency on the off-price wholesale business. Direct-To-Consumer sales rose by high-single digits but wholesale revenues declined by 12 percent. Year-to-date North American sales were off by 12.4 percent for the nine months ended Sep. 30. Puma senior management confirmed that the U.S. athletic shoe market will sell fewer overall units in 2023 than it did in 2022.