Which athletic brands are top of mind for consumers?
UBS’ Global Sportswear Consumer Survey, which includes footwear, takes a look at a number of categories that include brand awareness, purchase intentions and loyalty.
Brand awareness is measured in two ways, unaided and aided. Unaided is how often consumers think a brand when asked about a category, while aided indicates how often consumers have heard of a brand when asked directly about it.
“High unaided awareness shows a brand is ‘top of mind’ for consumers. This is one of the best characteristics a brand can have,” the UBS report noted, adding that aided awareness is important but “less valuable.”
The 11th iteration of the annual survey was conducted online with 3,013 consumers across four countries: China (1,013 respondents), Germany (500), the U.K. (500) and the U.S. (1,000). Respondents had to have purchased sportswear, either apparel or footwear, over the past 12 months in order to qualify for the survey, which was conducted from Aug. 25, 2025, to Oct. 17, 2025.
Below are some of the key data points from the survey results.
Awareness factor
For athletic footwear, when it comes to unaided awareness, the top brand is Nike at 68 percent, followed by Adidas at 55 percent and Puma at 25 percent. New Balance at 16 percent and Li-Ning at 11 percent round out the top five.
Of the top three by geography, Nike’s unaided awareness in athletic footwear was highest in the U.S. at 72.4 percent and lowest in China at 65.6 percent. Adidas had the highest recognition in Germany at 69.8 percent and the lowest in the U.S. at 47.1 percent.
Puma’s highest percent recognition was in Germany at 45.2 percent, followed by the U.K. at 38.2 percent. Puma didn’t fare as well outside of Europe, with the U.S. at 22.9 percent and lowest in China at 11.2 percent. New Balance has some catching up to do, unaided awareness the highest in the U.S. at 21.8 percent and the lowest in china at 11.8 percent. Li-Ning registered responses only in China at 33.6 percent.
The leaderboard for athletic apparel has Nike again in the lead at 71 percent, followed by Adidas at 57 percent and Puma at 25 percent. Under Armour at 16 percent and Li-Ning at 14 percent round out the top five.
For Nike, the percent recognition scores were within range across the four countries, with the U.K. edging out Germany at 74.8 percent and 73.2 percent, respectively.
Adidas was highest in Germany at 76.8 percent, with the U.S. the lowest at 45.7 percent. And for Puma, the highest was Germany at 49 percent, and the lowest in China at 11.9 percent. Under Armour fared the best in the U.S. at 27.8 percent, and was lowest in Europe.
Aided awareness, global
Adidas was tops in this category at 93 percent, beating out Nike at 91 percent. Puma takes the third spot at 71 percent, followed by New Balance at 63 percent and Reebok at 59 percent.
There’s a three-way tie at 53 percent among Air Jordan, Under Armour and Converse for the fourth, fifth and sixth spots. Rounding out the top 10 are Asics at 50 percent, North Face at 49 percent, Skechers at 48 percent and Vans and Champion tied at 39 percent.
Brand purchase intentions
Nike, at 49 percent, heads the list of the five top brands that consumers said they plan to purchase in athletic footwear within the next 12 months.
Adidas wasn’t that far behind at 41 percent. The purchase intent drops for the third place spot held by New Balance at 17 percent. Puma at 14 percent and Air Jordan at 12 percent completed the top five.
For athletic apparel, Adidas beat out Nike for the top spot at 62 percent and 53 percent, respectively. Puma was third at 16 percent, followed by Under Armour at 14 percent and both North Face and New Balance tied for fifth place at 13 percent each.
Loyalty matters
Nike garnered the top spot for loyalty at a rate of 67 percent, followed by Skechers at 48 percent. Adidas, which was second in most categories, came in third at 46 percent.
Brooks Sports took fourth place at 41 percent, followed by Asics at 34 percent to found out the top five.
In the UBS survey, the loyalty rate statistic measures how much consumers bought a brand more than any other versus how much consumers bought a brand at least once in the last 12 months. It is calculated as the percentage of consumers who bought a brand most often in the last 12 months divided by the percentage of consumer who bought the brand at least once in the last 12 months.
“This tells us how much consumers are concentrating their spend on one brand. We believe this is a good measure of how loyal consumers are to a brand,” UBS said.
The UBS survey also measured the conversion rate, calculated by the percentage of consumers who bought a brand at least in the last six months divided by the percentage of consumers who have purchase the brand at least one time in their lifetime. This statistic shows how much a brand is converting people who bought a brand once into recent customers of the brand.
For conversion rate, Nike once again took the top spot at 72 percent, this time followed by Adidas at 68 percent. Li-Ning was third at 63 percent, followed by Lululemon at 60 percent and Anta Sports at 54 percent.
Conclusion
UBS said the latest survey is “bullish” for Nike, showing that the brand is improving year-over-year. Lead UBS softlines analyst Jay Sole noted that Nike’s brand strength provides the foundation for it to stage a comeback as they believe that Nike’s business will improve.
And in other categories, Nike retained strong brand attributes, ranking No. 1 or 2 when it came to “high-quality products,” “prestigious brand,” and “fashionable or cool brand.” Moreover, the Swoosh captured the highest loyalty rate, as well as the highest conversion rate, both on a global basis.
But rather than a “Buy” rating on shares of Nike, UBS has a “Neutral” rating on the stock.
“Our rating is Neutral because we think its turnaround will take longer than the market expects,” Sole explained.
