Puma is a German sportswear company founded in Herzogenaurach in 1948 by the brother of the man who founded adidas, and in India its core shoes sell between about ₹7,000 and ₹10,000. It is also the strangest case in this category: Puma sells more in India than Nike or adidas do, prices its most famous shoe below what Germans pay for it — and lost €645.5 million globally in 2025. India is the market where Puma looks like a winner.
Puma is the second-largest sportswear brand in India by revenue, ahead of both Nike and adidas, and it got there by making roughly half of what it sells here in India rather than importing it. The Suede Classic costs ₹7,999 in India against about ₹9,996 in Germany. Globally the company is in trouble — a €645.5 million net loss in 2025 — but the Indian business is the strongest of the imported sneaker brands.
Snapshot
- Founded
- Registered as RUDA on 23 January 1948, Herzogenaurach, Germany; renamed PUMA that October
- Founder
- Rudolf Dassler
- Headquarters
- Herzogenaurach, Bavaria, Germany
- Current owner
- PUMA SE, listed on Xetra and Frankfurt in the MDAX. Groupe Artémis holds about 29%, which China’s Anta Sports agreed in January 2026 to buy for €1.5 billion — signed, not yet completed
- Global revenue
- €7.30 billion in 2025, down 13.1% — with a net loss of €645.5 million
- India entity
- Puma Sports India Private Limited, incorporated 23 September 2005, Bengaluru
- In India since
- 2005, as a wholly owned subsidiary — not a licensee
- Category
- Footwear and sportswear
- Price band in India
- ₹3,499 to ₹12,999 for shoes; Suede Classic ₹7,999, Speedcat OG ₹9,999
- Available in India
- Official — in.puma.com, exclusive stores, and authorised marketplace storefronts
How it started
Puma exists because two brothers stopped speaking. Adolf and Rudolf Dassler ran Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik in Herzogenaurach from 1919, and in December 1947 they agreed to dissolve it effective 1 January 1948. Both had joined the Nazi Party in 1933; both denounced the other before denazification committees after the war. That is the documented mechanism. The popular story about an air-raid shelter and a muttered insult is not in either company’s records and we have not used it.
Rudolf registered his new firm as RUDA — Ru-dolf Da-ssler — on 23 January 1948, and renamed it PUMA in early October the same year. Adi registered adidas on 18 August 1949. Puma came first, by nineteen months, which is the opposite of what almost every retelling says.
The first products were football boots: the ATOM in 1950, the SUPER ATOM with screw-in studs in 1952. The Formstrip — the swooping side stripe that is now Puma’s trademark — arrived in 1958, and it began as a functional midfoot stabiliser. It was engineering before it was branding.
The turning points
1968, Mexico City. Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised gloved fists on the 200m podium in one of the defining images of the twentieth century, and stood shoeless holding their Pumas. The shoes were not a stunt: Puma paid athletes at a time when Olympians earned nothing, and Smith later said the company had helped feed his wife and child. Note the detail most accounts get wrong — they ran the final in conventional four-spike Pumas, not the experimental “brush shoe” with 68 tiny spikes. That shoe had set records at the US trials and was banned by the IAAF on 28 September 1968 under the eight-spike rule. There is a persistent story that adidas engineered that ban. It rests on a single source and we are not repeating it as fact.
1970, Pelé. Puma says Pelé wore its KING boots and was named player of the tournament at the World Cup. No contemporary record carries the much-loved story that he stopped to tie his laces to give Puma a camera close-up, so we have left it as folklore.
1986, the listing. Puma went public on the Munich and Frankfurt exchanges. The precise mechanics of the Dassler family’s exit are not documented in any source we could accept, so we are not putting a date on it.
1993, Jochen Zeitz. He became chief executive at thirty, with the company in serious trouble, and did the thing that defines Puma to this day: he moved it out of price competition and into sport-lifestyle. Puma stopped trying to beat Nike at performance and started selling design instead.
2018, the Kering distribution — and here is what almost every article gets wrong. Kering did not sell Puma. It held about 86%, and in 2018 it distributed around 70% of Puma’s share capital in kind to its own shareholders, keeping about 16%. Because the Pinault family’s holding company Artémis was itself a large Kering shareholder, it received its pro-rata slice and ended up with roughly 29%. Free float went to about 55%. The family did not exit; it changed which vehicle held the stake.
2025–26, the reset. This is where Puma is now, and it is ugly. Sales fell 13.1% to €7.30 billion in 2025. Gross margin dropped 270 basis points to 45%. The company swung from a €281.6 million profit to a €645.5 million net loss. Arne Freundt left as chief executive in April 2025 over “differing views on strategy execution”, replaced from 1 July by Arthur Hoeld — who, like Bjørn Gulden going the other way, came straight from adidas, where he had built Originals into a €7 billion business.
Hoeld’s stated diagnosis is worth quoting because it is unusually blunt for a chief executive: he wants to make “the PUMA brand less commercial”. That is an admission that discounting and over-distribution damaged it. Puma has formally designated 2026 a transition year and is guiding to a second consecutive operating loss, of between €50 million and €150 million, with a return to growth targeted from 2027.
Who owns it now
PUMA SE trades on Xetra and Frankfurt under PUM, with 148,007,926 shares. One correction first, because it is everywhere: Puma is in the MDAX, not the DAX. It was demoted on 19 December 2022 and replaced by Porsche.
The ownership is mid-transition and needs care. On 26 January 2026 China’s Anta Sports agreed to buy 29.06% of Puma from Groupe Artémis for €1.5 billion in cash — €35 a share, funded entirely from Anta’s own cash. Artémis had wanted more than €40 and settled at 35 after negotiating an anti-embarrassment clause: if anyone bids for Puma shares or takes it private within fifteen months of closing, Anta owes Artémis more. Anta stated it “currently has no plans to make a takeover offer” and said it valued Puma’s independent governance as a German-listed company.
As of August 2026 that deal is signed, not closed. Puma’s own shareholder page still describes it as subject to conditions precedent, and completion is expected by the end of 2026 subject to regulatory approval. So the honest statement is that the Pinault family is on its way out and a Chinese sportswear group is on its way in, and neither has happened yet.
- Groupe ArtémisThe Pinault family vehicle, about 29% of Puma
- Sale agreed, 26 January 2026€1.5 billion cash, €35 a share
- Anta Sports of ChinaSigned, not closed — approvals expected by end-2026
Nothing has changed hands yet, which is why the ownership line above is written the way it is.
How Puma came to India, and why it won here
Puma Sports India Private Limited was incorporated in Bengaluru on 23 September 2005 as a wholly owned subsidiary. That is the first reason it is ahead: it never entered through a licensee, so it never had to unwind one.
The revenue figures circulating for Puma India are widely confused, so here they are with their years attached. ₹2,980 crore is calendar 2022. ₹3,274 crore is calendar 2023 — precisely ₹3,274.81 crore, up 9.89%. They are consecutive years, not rival estimates for the same one, and any article using them interchangeably is wrong. Accounts for calendar 2024 have been filed but sit behind paid access and have not been reported in the Indian press, so ₹3,274 crore remains the most recent citable figure.
When Puma crossed ₹2,980 crore in 2022, Storyboard18 reported from registrar filings that this exceeded the combined Indian revenues of Nike, adidas and Reebok. That claim comes from Indian trade press rather than a line-by-line comparison of filings, and Puma reports January to December while its rivals report April to March — so treat it as the market’s shape, not a measurement.
Why does Puma win here when Nike does not? Three reasons, all documented.
It makes its product here. Puma’s own annual report lists India as its sixth-largest sourcing country at 3% of global volume, and describes it as “only serving the local market” — explicitly framing local sourcing as a way to counter Indian protectionist policy, which is to say import duty. Puma India has said roughly half of what it sells here is made and sourced locally. Those two numbers are consistent: 3% is India’s share of Puma’s global sourcing, 50% is the share of Puma India’s range made in India. A shoe made in India pays no 38.5% import duty.
Puma is winning India by manufacturing in it, not by marketing at it.
It went online early. E-commerce was about 44% of Puma India’s business in 2022, against roughly 20% for Nike India at a comparable point. In a country where organised retail reaches a fraction of the population, that is a structural advantage rather than a channel preference.
It built a store estate rather than shrinking one. Puma had 490 exclusive stores generating 46% of offline sales as of the 2022 accounts, and opened 75 more in 2023 across Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Guwahati, Surat, Dehradun, Jaipur and Indore. Over the same period Nike closed roughly 200.
One thing to update if you read it anywhere else: Virat Kohli is no longer a Puma athlete. The eight-year relationship, which included the one8 sub-brand, concluded in 2025. Kohli turned down a Puma extension — reported at ₹300 crore — and joined Agilitas Sports as ambassador and co-creator, taking one8 with him. Sources differ on money: SportsPro puts the rejected extension at ₹300 crore, afaqs values the concluded eight-year deal at ₹110 crore. Those are different things and may both be right. Confusingly, Puma remains Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s kit partner, so Kohli still appears in Puma-made kit. That is not an endorsement.
Puma India’s managing director since December 2025 is Ramprasad Sridharan, previously of Benetton India, Clarks and Reebok India.
- 2005Enters as a wholly owned subsidiary, not a licensee
- 2022₹2,980 crore; 490 exclusive stores; 44% online
- 2023₹3,274 crore, up 9.9%; 75 more stores opened
- 2025Virat Kohli leaves after eight years
Revenue figures are calendar years, so they do not line up with rivals’ April–March reporting.
The models that matter
Puma lists roughly 7,000 items across men’s, women’s and kids’ on in.puma.com as of 20 August 2026, of which about 2,100 are shoes. Four models carry the brand.
| Model | Launched | What it changed |
|---|---|---|
| Suede | 1968, originally as the CRACK | Puma’s own designated first lifestyle shoe — the deliberate move away from purely functional athletic footwear. Adopted by the New York City Breakers and Rock Steady Crew as a b-boy shoe |
| Clyde | Endorsement signed 1971, shoe launched 1973 | The signature athlete shoe: a named model built to one player’s spec, with a new colourway for every game. That template runs the entire signature-sneaker industry |
| RS-Computer | 1985 running system; computer shoe from 1986 | Puma’s most underclaimed first. A heel-mounted computer that logged runs against goals — wearable running tech a generation before Nike+ or Fitbit |
| Speedcat | 2001 | Brought motorsport design language into lifestyle footwear. Its 2024–25 revival made the ultra-slim silhouette dominant after a decade of chunky shoes |
| Palermo | 1980s, reissued July 2023 | A terrace shoe rather than an athlete shoe — a spectator’s shoe, and one of the drivers of Puma’s lifestyle run before the 2025 downturn |
One honest disagreement inside Puma’s own archive: it says a black-and-white Suede was “worn by Tommie Smith and other athletes during the podium ceremony”, while Sports Illustrated‘s reporting is that the two men stood shoeless holding their shoes. Both accounts are on the record, and we are not picking between them.
What Puma costs in India
Prices checked on in.puma.com, us.puma.com and Puma’s EU storefront on 20 August 2026.
| Model | India | United States | Germany |
|---|---|---|---|
| Suede Classic | ₹7,999 | $90, about ₹8,618 | €89.95, about ₹9,996 |
| Speedcat OG | ₹9,999 | $100, about ₹9,576 | Not obtained |
The Suede Classic is about 7% cheaper in India than in the United States and 20% cheaper than in Germany — on the sticker, before you even adjust for the fact that Indian MRP includes 18% GST while the American price excludes sales tax. The Speedcat runs the other way, about 4% above the US price.
That split is the clearest evidence for everything in the India section above. The Suede is an old silhouette Puma can make in India; the Speedcat is a newer one it more likely imports, and an imported shoe carries 20% basic customs duty plus an 18.5% cess on landed value — 38.5% before margin. We cannot prove which specific models are locally made, so treat that as a strong inference rather than a fact. But the pattern is exactly what local manufacturing would produce.
One caution before you buy. Puma India runs stacked promotions constantly — on the day we checked, an extra 5% for online payment, an extra 10% above ₹4,999, and catalogue markdowns of up to 50%. That is pleasant for a shopper and it is precisely the problem the new chief executive says he wants to fix. Never pay a Puma MRP in India; there is almost always a code.
- Suede Classic in Germany
- €89.95, about ₹9,996
- Suede Classic in India
- ₹7,999
- Gap
- 20% cheaper in India
- Checked on
- 20 August 2026
Who Puma is actually for
Puma is for the Indian buyer who wants a global sneaker brand without paying an import premium. On the Suede that is not a marketing claim, it is arithmetic — it costs less here than in the country that makes it famous. For everyday wear at ₹7,000 to ₹8,000, nothing else in this category offers that.
It also has the deepest cricket presence of any global brand here, through the Royal Challengers Bengaluru kit partnership and a roster of Indian cricketers, and it kits over 400 track and field athletes through the Athletics Federation of India.
Skip Puma if you want resale value or scarcity. The constant discounting that makes it good value new is the same thing that means a Puma holds nothing on the secondary market, where an adidas Samba or a Nike Air Force 1 does. Skip it too for serious running — Puma’s performance running line is credible but thin in India compared with what Asics or Nike stock here.
Reputation and controversies
Cambodia, 2011. 101 workers collapsed at the Huey Chuen footwear factory in Phnom Penh over 9 and 10 April 2011. What makes this item serious is that the damning language is Puma’s own: its investigation attributed the mass fainting to “excessive hours of work as well as multiple occupational health and safety violations”.
Xinjiang, and a contradiction Puma has never resolved. In written evidence to a UK parliamentary committee in October 2020, Puma stated flatly that it “has no direct or indirect business relationship with any manufacturer in Xinjiang” and committed to 100% Better Cotton Initiative cotton by the end of that year. In May 2022 the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights reported that isotope analysis had detected cotton originating in Xinjiang in Puma garments, alongside adidas and Hugo Boss.
Two things follow, and both matter. There has been no finding of wrongdoing against Puma. And the BCI commitment is worth less than it sounds, because the Better Cotton Initiative suspended its own activities in Xinjiang over labour-abuse concerns and later removed its Xinjiang forced-labour statement from its website.
Greenwashing: nothing to report, and we checked. We searched for regulatory findings, advertising rulings and litigation against Puma’s sustainability claims and found no adverse ruling. Its “Forever Better” strategy and its 90%-by-2030 operational emissions target are company claims, unaudited by us, but no regulator has ruled against them. On a site like this, the absence of a finding is worth stating rather than implying one exists.
In India, Puma is the plaintiff. On 10 March 2025 the Delhi High Court awarded Puma ₹11 lakh in damages and costs plus a permanent injunction against a counterfeit manufacturer, finding a “blatant act of counterfeiting”. A separate Delhi High Court matter awarded ₹8 lakh. The consumer point is simple: counterfeit Puma is a real problem in India, and the courts have consistently sided with the brand.
What it gave sport and fashion
Puma’s contribution is consistently first and consistently under-credited.
It invented the signature athlete shoe. The Clyde — one player’s name, one player’s spec, a new colourway every game — predates Air Jordan by more than a decade and is the exact template the entire signature industry now runs on. Nike scaled it. Puma built it.
It built the first lifestyle sneaker on purpose. Puma’s own archive calls the 1968 Suede its first lifestyle shoe, which makes it a deliberate category invention rather than an accident of adoption — even though b-boy crews then did the adopting.
It made the first wearable running computer. The RS-Computer of 1986 logged runs against goals from a heel-mounted unit, a generation before Nike+ and two before Fitbit. Almost nobody credits Puma for this.
And it paid athletes when nobody paid athletes. That is why two American sprinters chose to hold Puma shoes on an Olympic podium in 1968 in the most politically charged photograph in sport. The company did not stage it, and it did not own it.
Buying it in India
Buy from in.puma.com, a Puma exclusive store, or the official Puma storefronts on the marketplaces. Puma’s Indian retail is direct rather than franchised through a licensee, so the authorised network is unusually clean.
Counterfeit risk is moderate to high — lower than Nike or adidas, but real, and the Delhi High Court cases show the scale. The tells on a Suede: nap that looks painted rather than brushed, a Formstrip whose curve flattens near the sole instead of tapering, a heel logo with uneven letter spacing, and a foam midsole that is too light in the hand. The Suede is the model to check hardest, because it is the one most often copied.
The nap on the suede
Real suede has a brushed nap that changes shade when you run a finger across it. A fake looks painted and stays flat.
The Formstrip
The side stripe should taper cleanly as it runs down towards the sole. On fakes the curve flattens out near the midsole.
The heel logo
Letter spacing on the heel wordmark is even on a real pair. Uneven gaps, especially around the U and M, are a reliable tell.
The weight
A genuine Suede feels dense in the hand. A midsole that feels too light for its size is usually cheaper foam.
The seller name
On marketplaces, match the seller against Puma’s official storefront rather than trusting the listing page. The listing can say anything.
There is no case for importing Puma. The Suede Classic is already cheaper here than in Germany or the US.
Common questions
Is Puma bigger than Nike in India?
On the most recent citable figures, yes. Puma India reported ₹3,274 crore for calendar 2023 against Nike India’s ₹1,180 crore for the year to March 2024. Indian trade press reported that Puma’s 2022 revenue alone exceeded Nike, adidas and Reebok in India combined. Note that Puma reports on a calendar year and its rivals to 31 March.
Why is Puma cheaper in India than in Germany?
Because much of what Puma sells in India is made in India. Puma’s own annual report names India as a sourcing country serving the local market, and Puma India has said around half its range is locally sourced. A locally made shoe does not pay the 38.5% import duty an imported one does.
Is Virat Kohli still with Puma?
No. The eight-year partnership, including the one8 sub-brand, ended in 2025. Kohli declined an extension and joined Agilitas Sports as ambassador and co-creator. He still appears in Puma-made Royal Challengers Bengaluru kit because Puma remains RCB’s kit partner — that is not an endorsement deal.
Who owns Puma now?
PUMA SE is listed in Frankfurt. The Pinault family’s Groupe Artémis holds about 29% and agreed in January 2026 to sell it to China’s Anta Sports for €1.5 billion. That deal is signed but not completed, with closing expected by the end of 2026 subject to regulatory approval.
Are Puma and adidas the same company?
No, but they were. Rudolf and Adolf Dassler were brothers who ran one shoe factory in Herzogenaurach until they dissolved it in 1948. Rudolf’s firm became Puma, Adi’s became adidas, and both are still headquartered in the same small German town.
Is Puma good quality for the price in India?
For lifestyle footwear at ₹7,000 to ₹10,000, yes — and better value than the alternatives because you are not funding an import premium. For serious running, look elsewhere; Puma’s performance range in India is thinner than its lifestyle one.
References
- PUMA, corporate timeline — the 1948 separation, the ATOM and SUPER ATOM, the Formstrip, the Clyde launch year, Speedcat 2001
- PUMA corporate, on the RUDA registration — December 1947 dissolution, registration 23 January 1948, renamed PUMA in October
- Sports Illustrated, 15 November 2019 — the 1968 podium, the four-spike shoes, the brush shoe ban of 28 September 1968, and why the blackmail claim is unproven
- PUMA archive, history of the Suede — the 1968 CRACK, the first lifestyle shoe, the b-boy crews, the Clyde endorsement in 1971
- PUMA archive, history of RS — the 1985 Running System and the RS-Computer
- PUMA, 7 July 2023 — the Palermo reissue and its terrace origins
- PUMA and Kering, 11 January 2018 — the distribution in kind, Kering retaining ~16%, Artémis ending at ~29%
- Deutsche Börse / STOXX, 5 December 2022 — Puma moved from the DAX to the MDAX
- ANTA Sports, 26 January 2026 — the 29.06% purchase for €1.5 billion and the no-takeover statement
- Reuters via Malay Mail, 4 February 2026 — €35 a share and the anti-embarrassment clause
- PUMA, shareholder structure — the Anta agreement described as subject to conditions precedent
- PUMA FY2025 results, 26 February 2026 — €7.30 billion sales, €645.5 million net loss, 2026 as a transition year, “less commercial”
- PUMA Annual Report 2025 — margin, EBIT, regional and divisional sales
- PUMA Q1 2026, 30 April 2026 — guidance reconfirmed, India named among offsetting growth regions
- PUMA, 3 April 2025 — Arthur Hoeld appointed, Arne Freundt’s departure over strategy execution
- Puma Sports India Private Limited, MCA record — incorporation 23 September 2005, Bengaluru, December year-end, CY2023 revenue
- Storyboard18, 13 April 2023 — ₹2,980 crore in CY2022, exceeding Nike, adidas and Reebok combined; 490 stores; 44% e-commerce; ~50% local sourcing
- Apparel Resources, 21 August 2024 — ₹3,274.81 crore for calendar 2023, up 9.89%
- PUMA Annual Report 2023, sourcing — India at 3% of global volume, serving only the local market, framed against protectionist policy
- IndiaRetailing, 6 March 2024 — 75 new India stores in 2023
- SportsPro, 14 April 2025 — the end of the Kohli partnership and the move to Agilitas
- afaqs — the ₹110 crore valuation of the concluded eight-year deal
- Indian Retailer, 2 April 2021 — the Royal Challengers Bengaluru kit partnership
- SportsMint, 16 May 2024 — the Athletics Federation of India deal covering 400-plus athletes
- Business Standard, 26 November 2025 — Ramprasad Sridharan appointed India managing director
- ABC News, 19 June 2011 — 101 workers fainting at Huey Chuen and Puma’s own findings
- PUMA written evidence to the UK Parliament, October 2020 — the categorical Xinjiang denial and the BCI commitment
- ECCHR, 5 May 2022 — isotope analysis finding Xinjiang cotton
- Business & Human Rights Resource Centre — the Better Cotton Initiative suspending its Xinjiang activities
- LiveLaw, 10 March 2025 — the Delhi High Court awarding Puma ₹11 lakh and a permanent injunction
- PUMA sustainability targets — the Forever Better strategy and the 90%-by-2030 operational emissions target
How we research and verify brand audits:
our methodology.
Puma is the best-value global sneaker brand in India, and it earned that position by doing the one thing none of its rivals did — making its product here. Nike imports and prices accordingly. adidas absorbs the duty. Puma sidestepped it. That is why a Suede Classic costs ₹7,999 in a country where an Air Force 1 costs ₹9,695, and it is why Puma outsells both.
The discomfort is that the global company is in trouble. A €645.5 million loss, a second loss year guided for 2026, a chief executive publicly saying the brand became too commercial, and a 29% stake moving from a French luxury family to a Chinese sportswear group. None of that changes the shoe on your foot in 2026. It does mean the constant discounting that makes Puma good value today is a symptom the company has decided to treat — so the discounts are more likely to shrink than deepen.
Buy it now while the price is still an accident of a strategy Puma is trying to abandon.
