Overview 2023

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‎In 2023, we celebrated PUMA’s 75th anniversary with events around the world which highlighted our proud history with our employees and our brand ambassadors. PUMA’s founder Rudolf Dassler had the vision of making products that would provide athletes with the agility and speed of a puma and through this vision, PUMA has left a firm mark on sports and culture since 1948.

Even though we faced many global uncertainties during the year, PUMA was able to sustain its strong brand momentum as we launched significant new products and initiatives.

In Teamsport, the Women's World Cup in Australia and New Zealand was an important moment to emphasize our commitment to women’s football and to demonstrate our leading product offer for women: PUMA is the only sports brand to offer all boots in women’s specific fits. On pitch, PUMA supplied more than 100 players and the fact that more than 90% of them chose our women’s fit shows that there is a real demand for these products.

We introduced new versions of the successful boots ULTRA and FUTURE and redesigned the KING without kangaroo leather. Instead, PUMA uses K-BETTER, a completely new, vegan material for the upper which contains at least 20% recycled material. K-BETTER has proven to outperform the previous versions of the KING in testing for touch, comfort, and durability. The performance characteristics of K-BETTER were so convincing that PUMA committed to stop producing football boots with kangaroo leather altogether in 2023 as the first company in the industry.

In club football, PUMA team Manchester City won the treble for the first time in its history: the UEFA Champions League, the Premier League and the FA CUP, showcasing that it’s currently the best football team in the world. Manchester City was also the first team in PUMA’s history to win the Treble.

Many PUMA teams were among the best in their respective countries: In Germany, Borussia Dortmund was a close runner up in the Bundesliga, in France, RC Lens and Olympique de Marseille finished second and third in Ligue 1, in Sweden, Malmö FF won the Allsvenskan and in the Netherlands, PSV Eindhoven once again won the KNVB Cup. Elsewhere, the young talents of PUMA team Uruguay became world champions at the FIFA U-20 World Cup in Argentina.

To extend our global reach in football, we signed agreements with South American football federation CONMEBOL and the African football federation CAF. As part of these agreements, PUMA will become very visible during the tournaments organised by these federations, for example by supplying the official match ball, equipping referees and officials and also conducting exciting marketing campaigns which will engage with football fans on these continents.

On the players’ side, PUMA welcomed some of the most inspirational talents of their generation as brand ambassadors in 2023 such as Kai Havertz, the Arsenal and Germany midfielder, Jack Grealish, the Manchester City and England playmaker, and Xavi Simons, the RB Leipzig and Netherlands midfielder.

In track and field, the World Athletics Championships in Budapest were an immense success for us, as PUMA-sponsored athletes won 22 medals, including six gold medals, twice the medal count achieved in Eugene in 2022. PUMA athletes also won 17 medals at the European Indoor Championships in Istanbul. Armand “Mondo” Duplantis once again set a new pole vault world record of 6 meters 23. For his outstanding performances, Mondo was named Male Athlete of the Year 2023 – the third time he received this award in four years’ time. At the World Para Athletics Championships in Paris, PUMA athletes took 13 medals, with Cuban sprinter Omara Durand adding to her status as one of the most successful para-athletes of her generation with three gold medals.

We built on our impressive portfolio of brand ambassadors by welcoming Marcell Jacobs, the current Olympic 100 m Champion, and Julien Alfred, the current NCAA 100m Champion to the PUMA Family.

In our Running category, we continued to focus on establishing our NITRO™ foam technology in the market. With our supercritical NITRO™ foam, PUMA has one of the best foams in the industry and we are fully determined to become a sought-after brand in road running. We continue to see a strong growth trajectory in our third year after the launch of our first NITRO™ running shoes and further underlined our credibility with signings of new running ambassadors: European 5,000 m Champion Konstanze Klosterhalfen, marathon legend Edna Kiplagat and European marathon Champion Aleksandra Lisowska.

In basketball, we introduced the third signature shoe for PUMA Hoops ambassador LaMelo Ball, the MB.03, following the tremendous success of his first signature products. The MB.03 launched in several colours, including a version inspired by the popular cartoon series Dexter’s Laboratory.

PUMA teamed up with NBA rookie and the 3rd NBA Draft Pick Scoot Henderson to present the new All-Pro NITRO™, PUMA’s newest basketball silhouette, which features our NITRO™ foam technology. Later in the year, Scoot became the youngest player ever to receive his own signature shoe, the Scoot Zeros. Breanna Stewart, our WNBA ambassador, introduced several versions of her signature shoe Stewie 2 throughout the year.

Our athletes also achieved tremendous success on court, as Breanna Stewart became the most valuable player for the WNBA for the second time and Dennis Schröder became the MVP of the tournament at the Basketball World Championships in Southeast Asia, when he led Germany to its first title.

After the strong success of PUMA in basketball over the past years, we decided to broaden our reach and further strengthen our connection to the younger consumers. Partnering with NXTPRO gives PUMA access to one of the top 3 Amateur Basketball circuits with 15,000 players.

In golf, we introduced the AEROJET family of clubs, which feature a raised skirt, symmetrical shaping and streamlined edges. Designed to achieve new levels of speed not believed to be possible until now, the AEROJET was named best driver for distance by Golf Monthly.

To underscore our credibility in this sport, PUMA ambassador Rickie Fowler captured his sixth PGA Tour victory at the Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit, while Patricia Isabel Schmidt secured her maiden European Tour win at the Belgian Ladies Open.

PUMA further added to its dominant position in motorsport by signing a landmark agreement with Formula 1 to become the sport’s official licensing partner and exclusive trackside retailer. While PUMA will equip F1 officials and our subsidiary stichd will operate the fan retail stores during race weekends, we will also produce exciting collections for the growing number of F1 fans around the world.

The PUMA x F1 collections will be designed by A$AP Rocky, whom PUMA presented as the creative director for F1 in a game changing announcement. As one of the biggest cultural influencers of his day, A$AP has the vision and the talent to really provide a new perspective on this category. The first successful capsule collection was launched during the Las Vegas Grand Prix with many more products to come in 2024 and beyond. The extension of PUMA’s long-term partnership with Ferrari and a new contract with Williams Racing further increased our dominance in motorsport.

In Sportstyle, global superstar Rihanna returned to PUMA in 2023 and the first joint product of the FENTY x PUMA collection, the Avanti, created a huge buzz and sold out on PUMA.com immediately. At the end of the year, she followed up on the Avanti with the launch of the Creeper Phatty, a remake of the plateau style she pioneered during her first collaboration with PUMA, which was named “Shoe of the Year” by Footwear News in 2016.

PUMA’s Sportstyle offering also benefited from our strong take on the terrace trend. We reintroduced our classics Palermo and Super Team to the market and saw strong demand for the first drops. To mark 50 years of hip-hop, PUMA took a journey through time with the iconic Suede, and we created several versions which showed how hip-hop evolved and left its unmistakable impact on culture. On time with the ongoing skate trend in the market, we also launched the all-new Suede XL at the end of the year.

With styles such as the CA Pro, Slipstream and Doublecourt, we continued to have the right proposition for the ongoing demand for white court shoes, with our RS-X and the Velophasis we further built on our Progressive Running offer and with our Mayze we continued to excite our female consumers.

Our Sportstyle offer was complemented by several successful Select collaborations with partners such as Noah, Palomo Spain and Rhuigi.
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In financial year 2023, PUMA found itself in an increasingly difficult geopolitical and macroeconomic environment. The conflict in the Middle East, the war in Ukraine, persistent inflation and risks of recession had a negative impact on the consumer sentiment and led to volatile retail demand. For this reason, the Management saw 2023 as a transitional year in which PUMA focused entirely on the factors that could be directly influenced. The main focus was on operational flexibility, the normalisation of inventories and ongoing cost discipline. The purpose of this was to overcome the short-term challenges without compromising the medium and long-term success of PUMA. In this respect, sales growth and increasing market shares took priority over short-term profitability optimisation.

Despite the difficult market environment, PUMA was able to further increase its sales and set a new sales record in financial year 2023, based on continued strong brand momentum, exciting product launches, strong partnerships in all areas of the value chain and a focus on flexibility in operating activities. Currency-adjusted sales increased by 6.6%. Due to strong negative currency effects this corresponds to an increase in sales in the reporting currency, the euro, of 1.6% from € 8,465 million in the previous year to € 8,602 million in 2023. The positive sales development was achieved despite the significant devaluation of the Argentine peso and was therefore largely in line with the outlook of currency-adjusted sales growth in the high single-digit percentage range.

Unfavourable currency effects, industry-wide sales promotion measures and fluctuating sourcing prices and freight costs had a negative impact on the gross profit margin in 2023. These negative effects were more than offset by price adjustments and a favourable regional and distribution channel mix. Overall, this led to an improvement in the gross profit margin from 46.1% in the previous year to 46.3% in 2023. The net expenditure of other operating income and expenses increased by a total of 3.3% in financial year 2023 to € 3,403 million (from € 3,296 million in the previous year). The increase was mainly due to higher sales-related distribution and other variable costs, the strong growth in our direct-to-consumer sales and higher marketing investments. This development was partially offset by operational leverage in other cost areas and favourable exchange rate effects. Due to the continued cost control, the cost ratio increased only from 38.9% in the previous year to 39.6% in 2023.

Despite the sales growth and the improvement in the gross profit margin, the slight increase in the cost ratio during the past financial year led to a slight decline in operating result (EBIT) of 3.0% to € 621.6 million (from € 640.6 million in the previous year). Despite the significant devaluation of the Argentine peso, operating result was therefore well within the € 590 million to € 670 million range. However, the EBIT margin fell from 7.6% in the previous year to 7.2% in 2023. The devaluation of the Argentine peso had a particularly negative effect on the financial result. Because of this, consolidated net income amounted to € 304.9 million compared to € 353.5 million in the previous year. This corresponds to a decrease of 13.7%. Earnings per share therefore decreased from € 2.36 in the previous year to € 2.03.

The positive net income enables the Management Board and the Supervisory Board of PUMA SE to propose the distribution of a dividend of € 0.82 per share for the financial year 2023 at the Annual General Meeting on 22 May 2024. This corresponds to a payout ratio of 40.3% of consolidated net income according to IFRS. The higher payout ratio results from the strong improvement in free cash flow and reflects the underlying positive operating business development. In general, PUMA's dividend policy continues to provide for a payout of 25% to 35% of consolidated net income. In the previous year, a dividend of € 0.82 per share was paid out (payout ratio for previous year: 34.7%).

The PUMA share had a negative performance in financial year 2023. Based on the share price at the end of the previous year, the PUMA share started 2023 at a price of € 56.70. In the following twelve months, the price of the PUMA share ranged between € 67.22 (February 2023) and € 44.36 (May 2023). At the end of 2023, the price of the PUMA share was € 50.52, which represents a decline of 10.8% compared to the previous year. The market capitalisation of the PUMA Group amounted to around € 7.6 billion at year-end 2023 (previous year: € 8.5 billion).
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