Asics - Company History

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Financial history 1966–2025 — revenue, cost structure, balance sheet, cash flow and key ratios, year by year →

Founded 1949
Founder Onitsuka Kihachiro
Founding location 兵庫県神戸市
Core business at founding Distribution wholesaling of rubber footwear
Listed 1964
President Tominaga Mitsuyuki President since 2024 (age 64, as of 2026)
Current priority Selection and concentration · Branding Concentrating on the core business built around running
Founding
In March 1949 Onitsuka Kihachiro set up Onitsuka Shokai as a rubber-footwear wholesaler in the Ikuta ward of Kobe. He had no experience of making shoes. What turned his wish to see the young raised well into a shoemaking business was a senior from his army days who urged him to make shoes for young people. In September of the same year the firm was reorganised as Onitsuka Co.; in 1950 it shed the wholesale trade to specialise in sports shoes; and in 1953 it built a factory of its own and began producing in-house. In 1957 the manufacturing side was set up as Onitsuka Co., Ltd., and the following year the sales company was absorbed, completing the integrated structure behind the Onitsuka Tiger name. From a wholesaler with capital of $833 (¥300,000) and two employees to a listing on the Kobe Stock Exchange took only fifteen years.
The Decision
The company is marked by how wide it swings between widening out and pulling back in, and the place it returns to is always what the athlete has on his feet. In July 1977 Onitsuka, until then a shoe specialist, went into a merger of three equals with Jiitio and Jelenk, makers of apparel and equipment, and became a full-line sporting-goods maker. Through the 1980s it lined up sales subsidiaries across Europe, North America and Oceania, and in 1985 it founded an Institute of Sport Science that moved shoemaking onto a scientific footing. In 2010 it bought Haglöfs of Sweden for $128.7M (¥11bn) and widened into outdoor gear, but judging that diversification was thinning its resources faster than it was earning, it let the business go in 2023 and went back to running. Being able to abandon what it had widened into is where the turn began.
Today
Overseas accounts for eight-tenths of sales, and the earnings structure is one in which resources have been pushed towards running. Of consolidated sales of $5.4B (¥811bn) in the year to December 2025, Japan came to only $1.1B (¥158bn), while Europe was the largest market at $1.4B (¥210bn). The core Performance Running business turned in sales of $2.2B (¥327bn) and a 21.6 per cent margin in the year to December 2024, ahead of the group as a whole. Using the American running app bought in 2016 as its foothold, the company shifted its axis from dependence on the shop counter to direct-to-consumer and digital, and from the floor of two net losses in 2018 and 2020 operating profit rose from $199.5M (¥22bn) in the year to December 2021 to $952.2M (¥143bn) in the year to December 2025.
Competition
The ground it fights on is not Japan but the running market of the world. At home, against Mizuno, whose range runs as wide as baseball and golf, Asics narrowed early to shoes alone in 1950 and by the 1960s held the top domestic share of sports footwear. Abroad, though, the great American and European brands outweigh it in scale, and a contest matched on volume is not one it can choose. Asics took instead the road of keeping a research institute and making its difference in the performance that athletes choose, and it grew Europe into its largest market. What decides the company is not the lead it won at home but whether it can go on being chosen abroad.

Timeline

1949–1977Twenty-eight years from a Kobe trading shop to Onitsuka Tiger and Asics

  1. 1949Onitsuka Kihachiro starts Onitsuka Shokai in Kobe in March
  2. 1949Onitsuka Co. incorporated in September; production and sale of basketball and other sports shoes begins
  3. 1953Own factory, the Tiger Rubber Works, opens in Kobe
  4. 1955Tokyo Onitsuka set up as the sales base for Kanto and Tohoku
  5. 1956Company shoes worn at the Melbourne Olympics and other international meets
  6. 1957Tiger Rubber Works reorganised into Onitsuka Co., Ltd.
  7. 1958Onitsuka Co. and Tokyo Onitsuka absorbed; capital reaches $23,056 (¥8m)
  8. 1963Chuo Sangyo absorbs Onitsuka and immediately takes the Onitsuka name
  9. 1964Listed on the Kobe Stock Exchange in February, Osaka second section in April
  10. 1969Tottori Onitsuka — later Sanin Asics Industry — set up as a shoe plant
  11. 1972Listed on the second section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange
  12. 1974Designated to the first sections of the Tokyo and Osaka exchanges
  13. 1975Onitsuka Tiger GmbH — later Asics Deutschland — opens Europe
  14. 1977Renamed Asics; merger with Jiitio and Jelenk brings seven plants and Jelenk U.S.A.

1977–2015Thirty years from Onitsuka to Oyama, and the building of an international network

  1. 1980Tottori Asics Industry — later Sanin Asics Industry — established
  2. 1981Asics Tiger Corporation established for the United States market
  3. 1985New head office built on Port Island, Kobe; registered office moved
  4. 1985Institute of Sport Science founded in November
  5. 1986Asics Tiger Oceania Pty. Ltd. established
  6. 1990Asics Institute of Sport Science and Human Resource Development Centre completed
  7. 1994Jiangsu Asics Co., Ltd. established in China
  8. 1994Asics Europe B.V. set up in the Netherlands as the European headquarters
  9. 1997Sales operations consolidated into Asics Hokkaido Sales and Asics Chubu Sales
  10. 2005Asics Taiwan 台湾亞瑟士運動用品股份有限公司 established
  11. 2006Asics Shanghai 愛世克私（上海）商貿有限公司 established
  12. 2007Asics Shoji, an equity-method affiliate, made a subsidiary
  13. 2010Haglöfs Holding AB of Sweden made a consolidated subsidiary
  14. 2012Asics Japan established for domestic marketing and sales
  15. 2013Japanese business split off into Asics Japan and Asics Sports Sales
  16. 2014Asics Shoji made a wholly owned subsidiary by tender offer and share exchange

2016–2025Structural reform after the losses of FY18 and FY20, and a record ¥142.5bn

  1. 2016FitnessKeeper Inc. — later Asics Digital — acquired outright for DTC
  2. 2018Net loss of $183.9M (¥20bn), the first in fifteen years, on overseas impairments
  3. 2018Hirota Yasuhito becomes president and COO in March
  4. 2019Race Roster operator Fast North Corporation's business acquired
  5. 2020Pandemic year brings an operating loss of $37.5M (¥4bn)
  6. 2021Return to profit with operating profit of $199.5M (¥22bn); Registration Logic Pty Ltd acquired
  7. 2022R-bies acquired with Nippon Television Holdings; njuko SAS made a subsidiary
  8. 2023Haglöfs AB sold, ending the outdoor business
  9. 2024Tominaga Mitsuyuki becomes president and COO; $330M (¥50bn) of shares bought back
  10. 2024Operating profit passes ¥100 billion for the first time
  11. 202525 million shares retired and the ASICS Foundation established
  12. 2025Sales of $5.4B (¥811bn) and a record operating profit of $952.2M (¥143bn)

Founding Story

1949–1977Twenty-eight years from a Kobe trading shop to Onitsuka Tiger and Asics

Asics begins with a man who knew nothing about shoes deciding that sport was the way to keep the orphaned young of a burnt-out Kobe from going wrong, and building a company to supply it. In twenty-eight years the rubber-footwear wholesaler became Japan's largest maker of sports shoes and a first-section listing — sales grew from $3.1M (¥1bn) in 1966 to $54.1M (¥14bn) in 1977 — and then gave up the founder's own surname, merging with two rivals and taking a Latin motto as its name.

Betting on sports shoes alone in the Kobe of the post-war recovery

The origin is March 1949, when Onitsuka Kihachiro started Onitsuka Shokai 鬼塚商会 as a sole proprietorship wholesaling rubber footwear at Yamamotodori in the Ikuta ward of Kobe[1]. In September of the same year the business was reorganised as Onitsuka Co. 鬼塚株式会社 of Kobe, at first a distribution wholesaler of rubber footwear and of bicycle tyres and tubes, and an appointed agency for the Hyogo Prefectural Police Headquarters[2]. But Onitsuka held the conviction that the raising of post-war youth lies in the flourishing of sport, and in 1950 the firm shed that trade to become a specialist maker of sports shoes, beginning research into basketball shoes and other sport-specific footwear[3]. When rubber came off the controlled-goods list in 1951 it moved into manufacture and sale in earnest, widening its channel to sporting-goods stores across western Japan[4]. It set out small — capital of $833 (¥300,000) and two employees — a local Kobe manufacturer reaching for the sports demand of the recovery years.

In May 1953 the company opened its own factory, the Tiger Rubber Works タイガーゴム工業所 in Kobe with some fifty employees, putting production in-house[5]. In 1954 it became an appointed plant for Toyo Rayon in the footwear field and began researching and making nylon sports shoes[6], and in August 1955 it set up Tokyo Onitsuka 東京鬼塚株式会社 in Tokyo as a sales base for the Kanto and Tohoku regions[7], giving it a foothold in eastern Japan. The technical standard of the products rose with it: in 1956 the company's shoes were worn at the Melbourne Olympics and other international competitions[8], and in 1957 it received the Director-General's Award of the Small and Medium Enterprise Agency as a model small firm[9]. In June of that same 1957 the Tiger Rubber Works was reorganised into Onitsuka Co., Ltd. オニツカ株式会社 as the manufacturing arm[10], and in July 1958 Onitsuka Co. and Tokyo Onitsuka were absorbed into Onitsuka Co., Ltd., uniting production and sales and bringing capital to $23,056 (¥8m)[11]. Nine years after its founding it had assembled the structure of a specialist shoe maker under the Onitsuka Tiger brand.

The listings of the 1960s and the diversification and globalisation of the 1970s

In February 1964 the company listed on the Kobe Stock Exchange[12], and in April of the same year on the second section of the Osaka Securities Exchange[13]. By then it had grown to boast the largest share of sports footwear in Japan, its managerial distinction being high-mix, low-volume production, while running integrated manufacture for those products that could be made in quantity[14]. On the financial side it had worked since 1964 under a three-year plan to improve its equity ratio, and expected to carry that ratio into the 40 per cent range by 1969, its twentieth anniversary[15]. After listing on the second section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange in May 1972[16], it was designated to the first sections of both the Tokyo and Osaka exchanges in June 1974[17]. Twenty-five years from its founding to a first-section listing: a fast-listing case among the start-ups of the post-war recovery. In August 1975, to open the European market, it established Onitsuka Tiger GmbH — later Asics Deutschland GmbH — and began its European business[18].

In July 1977 the company changed its trade name to Asics Corporation and merged with Jiitio 株式会社ジィティオ and Jelenk ジェレンク株式会社, taking over seven sewing plants and Jelenk U.S.A., Inc. — later Asics Sports of America Inc. — among other assets[19]. The name ASICS comes from the initials of the Latin anima sana in corpore sano — may there be a sound mind in a sound body — placing the founding philosophy of Onitsuka Kihachiro into the name of the company itself. Twenty-eight years after its founding it turned its trade name from Onitsuka to Asics and, in the same stroke, executed a three-way consolidation with rivals Jiitio, Jelenk and Jelenk U.S.A. that expanded the scale of both its manufacturing and its sales.

Read the full history in Japanese →

Notes

  1. Corporate Histories: A Century of Meiji, Keizai Shunju-sha, 1968↩
  2. Corporate Histories: A Century of Meiji, Keizai Shunju-sha, 1968↩
  3. Corporate Histories: A Century of Meiji, Keizai Shunju-sha, 1968↩
  4. Corporate Histories: A Century of Meiji, Keizai Shunju-sha, 1968↩
  5. Corporate Histories: A Century of Meiji, Keizai Shunju-sha, 1968↩
  6. Corporate Histories: A Century of Meiji, Keizai Shunju-sha, 1968↩
  7. Asics, annual securities report, corporate history section↩
  8. Corporate Histories: A Century of Meiji, Keizai Shunju-sha, 1968↩
  9. Corporate Histories: A Century of Meiji, Keizai Shunju-sha, 1968↩
  10. Asics, annual securities report, corporate history section↩
  11. Corporate Histories: A Century of Meiji, Keizai Shunju-sha, 1968↩
  12. Asics, annual securities report, corporate history section↩
  13. Asics, annual securities report, corporate history section↩
  14. Corporate Histories: A Century of Meiji, Keizai Shunju-sha, 1968↩
  15. Corporate Histories: A Century of Meiji, Keizai Shunju-sha, 1968↩
  16. Asics, annual securities report, corporate history section↩
  17. Asics, annual securities report, corporate history section↩
  18. Asics, annual securities report, corporate history section↩
  19. Asics, annual securities report, corporate history section↩

References & sources

  1. Asics Corporation (annual securities reports), including the corporate-history section and the consolidated filings for FY2018, FY2020 and FY2025.
  2. Asics Corporation — investor-relations disclosures: the VISION 2030 long-term vision, the Mid-Term Plan 2023 and Mid-Term Plan 2026, quarterly results presentations, and the board resolutions of February 2025 on the share buyback, the retirement of 25 million shares and the establishment of the ASICS Foundation.
  3. Corporate Histories: A Century of Meiji, Keizai Shunju-sha (1968), the Onitsuka entry, on the founding, the move into sports shoes and the equity-ratio plan of the 1960s.

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