Name: Why New Balance sales are soaring while Nike falls
Uploaded: 2026-02-20T21:01:10.000Z
Duration: 3 min 40 s
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New Balance just reported their 2025 financial results,

Basic passive voice

and CBC got an exclusive look at how the company performed before those results were released to the public.

At a time when major sneaker brands like Nike are shrinking,

you have New Balance coming in, actually growing sales.

And that's because they've taken 120-year-old sneaker brand and made it cool again with younger shoppers.

In 2025, New Balance grew sales by 19% to 9.2 billion.

And that is the fifth year in a row that they managed to grow sales by a double digit rate.

And this is happening at a time when the overall sneaker market isn't really doing so well,

which is showing that New Balance isn't just performing really well.

They're taking market share from their competitors.

Nike had a whole strategy change where they went D2C only.

They only wanted to sell to consumers in stores and online.

And what that did is it left open a lot of shelf space at critical wholesale retailers like Macy's, Foot Locker, Dick's Sporting Goods.

And then you had brands like New Balance come in and take that shelf space.

And that is a huge market share opportunity.

At the same time, New Balance also invested heavily in innovation at a time when Nike really fell behind on innovation.

Now, of course, every New Balance sale isn't a lost Nike customer.

But what this tells us about the consumer is that the consumer is not loyal if they have long been a Nike shopper.

But the sneakers aren't really cutting it anymore.

They are going to move to a brand that is providing what they're wanting.

And that is what New Balance is doing really well right now.

In some ways, New Balance got a little bit lucky,

but they were also smart because they capitalized on big trends that were happening.

Over the last few years, trends from the 1990s really made a huge comeback.

And that was when New Balance kind of became in the mainstream.

So they brought back those old chunky sneakers, maybe the ugly dad type sneakers,

at a time when TikTok really loved those styles and they really built on that.

We're an athletic brand, but we try to make sure that we are sitting in the intersection.

They can create real energy in there if you're authentic to who you are.

And they also partnered with major designers, streetwear brands.

And that got the attention of younger shoppers.

Unlike many of its competitors, New Balance is actually a private company.

So only once a year do we get a brief business update from them which shows us high level how the company's performing.

And there's no reason to go public at this point.

Typically, a company would go public because they need to raise capital.

Or if you're owned by another hedge fund or private equity firm, looking to exit to be able to capitalize on their investment.

Based on my conversations with sources, there's absolutely no rumblings that that's going to change anytime soon.

one of the things that they actually want to build on is DTC,

which is selling directly to consumers through their own website and stores.

But didn't I just tell you Nike did that exact same thing, walked it back because it was really bad for their strategy?

So here's what the CEO had to say about it.

Still, a very significant portion comes from our wholesale

The reach that our partners provide, we really respect and we believe the fact that we have a DTC business is making us a better partner.

Because we have that direct interaction with the consumer, we're able to spot things earlier.

New Balance has a goal to reach $10 billion in annual sales.

And if they continue with the growth rate they've been at for the last five years,

they could exceed that as soon as the end of this year.