Amer Sports has found a winning formula.
The outdoor space “has a tailwind that’s here to stay,” said Andrew Page, the CFO of Arc’teryx and Salomon parent Amer Sports. He said that people’s prioritization of health is a benefit for the company’s three key categories: technical performance led by Arc’teryx, outdoor performance led by Salomon, and the equipment arm led by ball and racquet specialist Wilson 360.
“As long as we continue to remain focused and continue to build these technically superior products for the core athlete, I think it has this compounding halo impact to the broader population,” Page said. “That’s where I think you look to ’26 and ’27 [that I think] that trend will continue, and that thesis will remain intact.”
Footwear News spoke with Page on Tuesday after the company posted first quarter results.
“We’re double digit growth in all four of our primary regions around the globe,” he said, citing “massive growth” in both the Arc’teryx and Salomon brands. Each saw “well over 30 percent” increases. Those increases in part have been driven by what Page described at “unaided awareness,” essentially community chatter about the brands.
Page spoke about marketing to the core consumer, from hiking clubs to community runs to multiple events three to four months leading up to a store opening. All those initiatives lead to what the CFO describes as a “compounding effect with regard to how our core consumer talks about the brand, how they introduce the brand to the community.” That in turn has a “halo effect” on the weekend warrior who goes climbing once or twice a year” to folks who may never go climbing at all, but still want some product from the brand because of what they’ve heard about quality.
That also means that as brand awareness grows for Arc’teryx and Salomon, about 80 percent of buyers for either brand are probably not the core mountain climber or the core trail runner as awareness. And whether it’s Arc’teryx or Salomon, that non-core consumer group is the one that “growing the fastest,” Page said, adding that the validation of the authenticity of the brands and their respective products by that core consumer is what’s now attracting the non-core consumers to Arc’teryx and Salomon.
By gender, Arc’teryx initially had a male bias, but that’s shifted in the last two years. Page said that women’s has been the fastest growing category of the Arc’teryx brand. At Salomon, the gender preferences are more differentiated, largely dependent on shoe style. The market tends to be younger and more female, particularly for the Salomon XT-6 line, a trail running shoe that the CFO describes as a “technically elegant shoe.”
The company said on Tuesday that net income for first quarter ended March 31 rose 22.3 percent to $164.6 million on a revenue gain of 32.1 percent to $1.95 billion. The company was one of the firms cited by Wall Street analysts as a one to watch in 2026.
In the fourth quarter report in February, Page said that the Salomon brand was at an “inflection point,” while noting there was no slowdown in the footwear growth momentum at the Arc’teryx brand. The good news during the first quarter conference call Tuesday was that neither brand showed any signs of slowing down.
According to Jie Zheng, Amer’s CEO, the Arc’teryx and Salomon brands “are still only small to medium size with significant room to grow globally.” He also noted the company’s confidence in the women’s opportunity for the Arc’teryx brand, noting brand affinity with women rising as “we improve fit, style, and function while building expanded assortment.” He also noted that footwear had another great quarter with strong growth across regions.
At Salomon, Zheng said the investments to grow brand awareness and the distribution footprint are paying off, both with its footwear expanding across regions and channels, and particularly a “clear acceleration in North America as we leverage rising brand awareness to expand distribution with both new and existing wholesale partners.” He also called out Salomon’s Grvl franchise in the run category, and how the brand is “gaining traction in the run specialty channel in South America.”
