Puma: Holding on to its market gains – just – planning more local production, but a declining independent retailer sector

Puma SA MD Luke Barrett-Smith…size matters.

Cape Town, W. Cape, SA – Puma – along with Adidas, its arch rival here, globally and in their joint hometown, Herzogenaurach – has a long history in South Africa.

Next year marks 25 years of Puma Sports SA (Pty) Ltd as a wholly owned subsidiary of Puma SE, following a decade or more under licensee Jagsports. “It’s a very different business now,” Puma SA MD Luke Barrett-Smith said this month. “We’ve come a long way.”
Indeed. In those days, Puma was primarily a soccer boot brand, Adidas a rugby (in SA) and soccer boot brand, and Nike a running shoe brand. Then athleisure turned the footwear world on its head.

When Nike and Adidas started their withdrawal from swathes of retail in 2023, it did more than hurting those retailers. To borrow a phrase, business abhors a vacuum, and for the long list of sport and lifestyle brands that had lived in their shadows, spindly companies grew into much bigger entities in the absence of suffocating dominance.
None more so than Puma, which was already the third biggest brand, globally and locally. If it didn’t grow most by percentage, it did by numbers, and certainly so in SA.
Now, however, having learnt that greed has its limits, the big two are coming back to a broader group of retail, and the question is whether the green shoots of their competitors have their heads above the incoming tide, or whether they will be washed away by a tsunami.

Puma SA’s head office and warehouse, Cape Town.

“We grew substantially in that period,” Barrett-Smith said. “We haven’t lost that business, but at the moment I’d say we’re flat, especially in footwear, which is the biggest of our 3 categories [with clothing and accessories]. Other brands have lost significant market share. We haven’t.”
But he says size matters, because the bigger you are, the more money you have to buy success.
Globally, Nike’s turnover for fiscal year 2024 was US$51.4 billion, Adidas’s was €23.6 billion (US$27.5 billion), and Puma’s €8.8 billion (US$10.2 billion). The next biggest globally is Lululemon, which doesn’t have an SA distributor, followed by Under Armour, on US$5.3 billion.

Puma International is official sponsor of EPL soccer balls.

Market share is also affected by product, especially on the lifestyle side. “With trends, sometimes you get it right, sometimes not. One moment it’s slides that are flying, then it’s EVA. None of the brands always dominates,” he said.
Sponsorships are dictated by financial strength. The competition to sign leading sports teams and sports people requires both money and time to garner a slice of the replica kit market, the big prize for sportswear brands. Puma SA’s major sponsorships are Mamelodi Sundowns, currently third in the PSL soccer table and having recently won their 8th straight title, and the Blue Bulls, not doing so well in the rugby Currie Cup, “but with several stars injured or on Springbok duty”, he said loyally. The national netball team and the national athletics team also wear the Puma logo.
Internationally, Puma’s sponsorships of Manchester City and Dortmund have been extended, and Puma sponsors the English Premier League soccer balls.
More rarely, technical sportswear developments also influence the overall picture.
Until recently, Puma hasn’t had a strong presence in running. “We never had the competitive technology,” he said. "Now we have a lot more athletes experimenting with our running shoes, locally as well. From not being in the top 10, we’re tracking in the top 10, and we’re very proud of that. Our goal is to be in the top 5 eventually.”

Doctor Khumalo and Jomo Sono King soccer boots have been locally made for decades. More technical local product is planned.

‘Local sourcing’ by international brands in SA generally means clothing, and especially basics like T-shirts.
“I believe in the necessity for local manufacturing,” he said, “both to provide work and to give back to the country. I’m comfortable with the programmes that we have. I believe that in our category, we have the biggest local sourcing programmes – it would be interesting to compare.”
Certainly Puma is alone in sourcing soccer boots locally. Its Doctor Khumalo and Jomo Sono King boots date back to the 1980s, with updates, including a recent collab with Khumalo.
“We’re limited as to what we can make locally in terms of footwear,” he said, “and we use the opportunities we have to the fullest extent. I have a personal interest in making local manufacturing work. If the costings are the same, I will endeavour to source it here.
“At the moment, the biggest percentage of the footwear we source locally is sandals of various kinds, but we’re looking at more technical product.
“Novita Shoes has been a great partner in terms of initiatives beyond manufacture, like installing solar panels which helped them through load shedding and improved our sustainability rating.”
He said to make footwear locally successfully, a style needed to offer a consistent 5- to 10-year demand to make investment in moulds worthwhile.

Does Puma SA have any other planned strategies? “Looking for pots of gold at the end of the rainbow,” he joked.
But with a declining number of retail customers. “There used to be many promising independent retail businesses. Not now. The key accounts with >50 or more doors dominate the ZA landscape. The growth will come form product increase in the key accounts and looking after our loyal partners.”