BERLIN, March 14 (Xinhua) -- German sportswear manufacturer Adidas has set an ambitious new profit target during the presentation of its annual earnings figures on Wednesday.
Annual revenue at the Herzogenaurach-based multinational company grew by 14.8 percent to a total of 21.2 billion euros (26.2 billion U.S. dollars) in 2017. The figure marked the fastest rate of revenue growth experienced by Adidas since the global financial and economic in 2009.
Nevertheless, chief executive officer (CEO) Kasper Rorsted emphasized on Wednesday that his company was more focused on profitability than growth. He noted that Adidas was already struggling to cope with higher demand for its products than it could meet in some markets and had temporarily run into logistical bottlenecks as a consequence.
"It is not our intention to achieve revenue growth just for the sake of revenue growth," a statement by Rorsted read.
Aside from growing Adidas' market share in competition with the likes of Puma and Nike, the CEO named a target of average profit growth of between 22 and 24 percent until 2020. During the same period, Adidas aims to achieve revenue growth of between 10 and 12 percent on average.
In 2017, net profits rose by 7.8 percent to 1.1 billion euros. The figure was hereby pushed down costs created by the reform of the U.S. corporate taxation regime and the financial woes of the unprofitable Adidas subsidiary Reebok. Without providing any information about the level of Reebok losses, Rorsted vowed that he was "on track" to restore the brand to health.
Rorsted highlighted the upcoming FIFA 2018 world cup in Russia as an opportunity to further boost his company's earnings. He warned investors against attaching too much singular value to the event, however, as it would not have "an enormous influence" on gross revenue.
Adidas is Europe's largest and the world's second largest sportswear producer. The 93-year-old company is publicly listed on the German "DAX" blue-chip stock exchange in Frankfurt. (1 euro=1.24 U.S. dollar)
