The 2026 Kantar BrandZ German Top 50 tells a story Adidas and Puma may prefer not to read: both brands are shedding value, while a discount supermarket climbs above them — and starts selling carbon running shoes.
Among the 50 most valuable German brands measured in Kantar’s 2026 BrandZ report — a study drawing on more than 117,000 consumer interviews — exactly two come from the sporting goods industry. The ranking says something about the category’s position in the German brand landscape. So does what happened to both of them this year.
| Rank | Brand | Brand value ($m) | YoY change | Category |
| 1 | Telekom/T-Mobile | 124,636 | +18% | Telecom Providers |
| 2 | SAP | 98,183 | +6% | Business Platforms |
| … | ||||
| 6 | Lidl | 21,000 | +36% | Retail |
| … | ||||
| 11 | Adidas | 16,337 | –22% | Apparel |
| … | ||||
| 48 | Puma | 1,191 | –38% | Apparel |
| Source: Kantar BrandZ Top 50 Most Valuable German Brands 2026 | ||||
Adidas sits at No. 11 with a brand value of $16.3 billion (€14.3 billion), down 22 percent year on year and sliding five places from its 2025 position. Puma, at No. 48, fared worse: its brand value fell 38 percent to $1.2 billion (€1.0 billion) — the steepest decline among apparel brands in the study and a drop of 15 positions.
The overall ranking, meanwhile, grew 13 percent to a combined $571 billion (€500 billion), its second consecutive year of double-digit growth. Thirty-eight of the 50 brands rose in value. Adidas and Puma were not among them.
The brand sitting at No. 6, up 36 percent to $21 billion (€18.4 billion), is Lidl. The German discount grocery chain now outranks both sporting goods incumbents — comfortably — and is not merely watching the running category from a safe distance. In late February 2026, Lidl launched the Crivit CarbonLite 1.0, a carbon-plate running shoe priced at €69.99 in Germany under its proprietary sportswear label Crivit. Carbon-plate technology, until recently the preserve of performance footwear at three to four times that price, is now a middle-aisle proposition.
The ranking does not measure the same competition as Adidas and Puma. But it reflects something real: the growing power of retail brands — in Germany, across Europe and beyond — whose scale, consumer trust and distribution reach are beginning to eclipse the legacy sporting goods names that once defined the category. Lidl is not alone in this. It is simply the most visible example in a German context.
The 2026 BrandZ study notes that German brands standing out are those that “convert insight into action, and action into long-term strategic direction.” It is a line written with Telekom and Siemens in mind. It reads differently when placed next to the Adidas and Puma entries.
