ASICS raises its sales forecast above ¥1 trillion for the first time

ASICS has raised its full-year sales forecast above ¥1 trillion for the first time, according to the H1 FY2026 financial summary the sportswear group released on 14 August. The Kobe-headquartered company also lifted its profit and dividend forecasts, and said it will dissolve ASICS Shoji, the wholly owned trading subsidiary that has run part of its walking-shoe business.

For the six months to June, ASICS reported revenue of ¥534.4 billion, up 32.7% year on year, with operating profit rising 48.5% to ¥120.4 billion and net income climbing 53.3% to ¥82.1 billion, the company said.

On the strength of that pace, ASICS revised its full-year targets upward across the board: revenue to ¥1.05 trillion from a prior ¥950 billion, operating profit to ¥195 billion from ¥171 billion, and net income to ¥120 billion from ¥110 billion. It is the first time the group's own guidance has crossed ¥1 trillion in sales, and the operating-profit forecast rose by about 14%, faster than the roughly 10.5% increase to the sales forecast.

The company also raised its full-year dividend forecast by ¥6 per share, it said — a routine follow-through from an upgrade of this size, but one that signals management expects the guidance to hold for the rest of the year.

Separately, ASICS said its board had resolved to dissolve and liquidate ASICS Shoji, folding the subsidiary's operations into ASICS Corporation and ASICS Japan. The trading arm has handled part of the group's walking-shoe business; bringing it inside the main corporate structure consolidates that strategy under one roof rather than a satellite company.

ASICS did not break the revision down by category, but has pointed to everyday running and walking shoes and the heritage Onitsuka Tiger line as its strongest performers this year — city-casual demand that has carried sneaker-adjacent labels well beyond the sports floor. Walking shoes in particular are one of the more durable growth lines in Japan's footwear market, driven by an ageing population that increasingly treats comfort footwear the way it once treated formalwear. Retiring a stand-alone trading subsidiary for that business reads as the tidy-up that tends to follow a division proving it is core rather than experimental.