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Frankfurt, Germany: German sportswear maker Adidas missed profit expectations on Thursday after it reported results weighed by the costs of World Cup marketing, putting its shares on track for their largest ever one-day decline.
Core profit came in at 574 million euros ($657 million) for the three months to the end of June, Adidas said, higher than last year but about eight percent below expectations when compared to a poll of analysts by financial platform FactSet.
The company's shares were down almost 18 percent as of 1030 GMT.
Adidas spent over 200 million euros more on marketing than this time last year as it developed a World Cup campaign that brought in footballing stars like Lionel Messi, Lamine Yamal and Jude Bellingham -- bringing total marketing outlays to almost one billion euros for the quarter.
Speaking on an earnings call, Adidas' outgoing finance boss Harm Ohlmeyer said the money spent would pay off in the long-run.
The company wanted not just "to win the World Cup commercially, but we also want to invest in that platform, to pay for (the) future, not just for the North American, but for the Latin American market, for the brand," he said.
Higher transport costs and US tariffs also weighed on the result, the maker of Gazelle and Samba trainers said.
Adidas also took in about 1.5 billion euros of World Cup-linked sales since the end of 2025, it said, selling four times as many football jerseys and twice as many balls as during the last event.
Mexico shirts sold best, Adidas said, followed by those of Germany.
Overall sales in the second quarter rose 13 percent to 6.74 billion euros.
Adidas slightly raised its guidance for the year, saying it sees sales growth of between nine and 10 percent, up from a previous forecast of high single-digit growth on last year's sales of 24.8 billion euros.
It kept its core profit target of 2.3 billion euros.
