Bjørn Gulden, Chief Executive Officer of PUMA SE commented: “We have seen a solid improvement in the sell-through of our products at retail in the third quarter. New product lines like the Fierce, the Platform, the Ignite Dual and the Fenty lines have shown to be “right” for the consumers and our marketing with personalities like Rihanna, Kylie Jenner, Cara Delevingne and, of course the unbelievable performance of Usain Bolt, have increased our brand heat".

"Sales developed a little better than expected, gross margin came in as expected and this combined with a strong discipline on the cost side resulted in a nice improvement in our earnings. With three months to go we feel confident in fulfilling our guidance and do now expect our full-year EBIT to be in the upper half of the already communicated range of 115 million euros to 125 million euros”, Gulden concluded.

Puma consolidated its growth during the third quarter with sales increasing by 10.7%, currency adjusted, and reaching 990.2 million euros (+8.3% in reported terms). All regions contributed to this growth with EMEA and the Americas as the main drivers.

Growth continued at the EMEA region, supported by strong demand for footwear products, with sales rising by 11.9% currency adjusted to 408.6 million euros (+8.7% reported) with France and Germany being particularly strong.

Sales in the Americas region improved by 12.2% currency adjusted reaching 342.9 million euros (+5.5% reported). The Asia/Pacific (APAC) region achieved sales of 238.7 million euros, representing a rise of 6.9% currency adjusted (+11.7% reported). China and India delivered double-digit growth.

Footwear continued to drive the strongest growth among the three product segments, showing an improvement of sales for the ninth quarter in a row. Sales were up by 16.4% currency adjusted (+12.3% reported) and amounted to 458.8 million euros.

Sales increased by 10.3% currency adjusted (+8.8% reported) in the Apparel segment, but decreased by 2.4% currency adjusted (-¬3.2% reported) in the Accessories lines.

Net earnings int he quarter nearly doubled compared to last year´s result with a 98% increase.

Sales for the nine-month period improved by 10.2% currency adjusted to 2 668.5 million euros (+6.4% reported). As main drivers was the development at the EMEA and APAC markets and in the Footwear and Apparel segments. Net earnings improved by 61.5% reaching 67.0 million euros (compares to 41.5 million euros in the same period last year)

With Puma’s positive performance over the first nine months of 2016, the company expecst a currency adjusted high single-digit increase of net sales, a gross profit margin on previous year’s level (45.5%), and an increase of currency adjusted operating expenses in a mid to high single-digit range for the full-year. In light of the operating result (EBIT) achieved in the first nine months, Puma expects full-year EBIT to be within the upper half of the range of 115 million euros to 125 million euros.