Europe is emerging as the key growth market for premium running brands, with stores increasingly designed as community hubs rather than traditional points of sale. For years, North America was the primary growth engine for the global running industry. Today, some of the sector’s fastest-growing brands are increasingly looking to Europe for their next phase of growth.
Across Europe, premium running companies are accelerating investments in direct-to-consumer retail, opening flagship stores, expanding city networks, and building community-led experiences that extend far beyond product sales. What was once a market dominated by wholesale partnerships is increasingly becoming a testing ground for a new generation of experiential retail.
The shift comes as running participation shows renewed momentum in Europe, even as comprehensive post-pandemic data for the region remains limited.
Parkrun attendance across mainland Europe rose 32.4 percent between 2024 and 2025, and major marathons in London, Berlin, Paris, Valencia and Amsterdam continue to see record oversubscription in their ballots, according to SGIE’s Running State of Play 2026 report on running participation. The report also finds that running clubs have become the leading channel through which new participants join the sport, a trend that lines up directly with the community-hub format brands are now building into their European stores.
While much attention has recently focused on HOKA, Brooks and Saucony, a broader review of market activity reveals a far larger competitive landscape. Swiss challenger On, American giant New Balance and established leader Asics are all investing heavily in European growth, creating what may become the sport’s most important market outside the United States.
On: run clubs as the retail model
Few brands have pursued a more visible European retail expansion strategy than On. The Swiss brand opened its first stores in Spain, Sweden and Denmark between November 2025 and August 2026, adding Madrid, Stockholm and Copenhagen to its growing European network.
In Stockholm, the brand has explicitly positioned the store as a community hub offering weekly run clubs and movement activities, reflecting a broader strategy of using retail spaces to deepen engagement with local consumers rather than serving solely as points of sale.
That expansion has a financial backdrop worth separating from the headlines. On’s EMEA revenue rose 15.4 percent to CHF 228.2 million (€246m) in the second quarter of 2026, while its global direct-to-consumer channel grew 26.0 percent, now accounting for 45.7 percent of total sales, according to SGI Europe’s analysis of the results.
HOKA: from Berlin to Milan, building a European network
HOKA’s European expansion extends well beyond Berlin. After opening its first European flagship in London’s Covent Garden in October 2023, the brand added two Paris locations before turning to Germany, Italy and the French Alps: a first store on Berlin’s Kurfürstendamm in August 2025, a second at Hackescher Markt three months later, a first Italian store in Milan in April 2026, and an alpine location in Chamonix, the town Deckers Brands CEO Stefano Caroti has called the brand’s spiritual birthplace, opened the same month.
Milan and Chamonix carry the community-retail thesis furthest: both were positioned at launch around weekly run clubs and in-store fitting services rather than as straightforward points of sale, extending the format HOKA first tested in Berlin.
HOKA’s international business remains a genuine engine. Deckers’ first-quarter fiscal 2027 results, released July 23, 2026, show HOKA net sales up 7.7 percent to $703.5 million, with Caroti citing a “record” quarter for EMEA wholesale reorders, according to SGI Europe’s coverage of the results. Company-wide, direct-to-consumer sales rose 13.0 percent against 2.2 percent wholesale growth, though Deckers hasn’t broken out that split by brand, so it isn’t possible to say how much of the DTC gain is HOKA-specific.
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New Balance: sport meets culture
New Balance’s European retail concept, built around what the company describes as the intersection of sport and culture, first appeared in Germany in Hamburg before expanding to Munich and Berlin. In April 2025, the brand opened its first Munich flagship while redesigning its Berlin Mitte store and adding a second Berlin location on Kurfürstendamm. The same retail philosophy also underpins New Balance’s revamped Oxford Street flagship in London, reopened the same month.
Rather than prioritizing product density, the format emphasizes seating, storytelling and communal space, encouraging visitors to spend time in the store beyond a single transaction.
New Balance’s Berlin activity extends beyond its flagship stores into the city’s running culture directly. Ahead of the BMW Berlin Marathon, scheduled for Sept. 27, 2026, the brand is one half of “Roads to Berlin,” a video series produced by LOAD Berlin, an independent local run club founded in 2024, in partnership with Zalando Running.
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The series follows the build up to race day and sits alongside New Balance’s separate Clubhouse Kiosk activation, a pop up that served as a gathering point for the city’s running crews during marathon weekend in 2025. See SGI Europe’s running hub page for more on the sport’s biggest European events.
That European expansion sits inside a broader growth story. New Balance reported global sales of $9.2 billion (€8.4bn) for 2025, up 19 percent year over year, its fifth consecutive year of double digit growth. Europe was the standout region, growing more than 30 percent year over year, ahead of North America’s greater than 20 percent gain.
The company’s owned retail operation crossed $1 billion (€915m) in annual revenue for the first time in 2025, as New Balance added 80 new retail doors globally. President and CEO Joe Preston has been explicit that the brand is not chasing a fixed DTC target internally, telling CNBC he does not “want to get in the way with how the consumer wants to shop.” The brand backed its European ambitions commercially in January 2026, appointing Ger Wright, formerly of Frasers Group, as vice president of sales for EMEA.
Saucony: one store, a wider activation map
Saucony has taken a different route. Rather than emphasizing a rapid multi country retail rollout, the Wolverine World Wide owned brand has built its European presence through what management describes as a “key city strategy.” The brand operates a flagship in London’s Covent Garden, promoted on its own site as a place to “grab a coffee and celebrate the runner’s lifestyle,” and has a planned Paris store at 9 Rue de Poitou in the Marais, the Pioneer store format Wolverine World Wide CEO Chris Hufnagel referenced on the company’s Aug. 13 earnings call.
Berlin remains activation only for now: Saucony sponsored a 5,000 runner Berlin 10K on Tempelhofer Feld earlier this year, with the next edition scheduled for summer 2027. In London, the brand also sponsored a 10K that drew more than 19,000 runners this year and will sponsor the Shoreditch Half on Sept. 20, 2026, while in Paris it has signed on as title sponsor of the Eiffel Tower 10K on Dec. 6, 2026.
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Hufnagel described Saucony on the latest earning call as “uniquely positioned” as a challenger brand at the intersection of performance and lifestyle running, which he characterized as two of the market’s fastest growing segments. He said search interest for the brand in the UK had more than tripled during the quarter, while growth in France was faster still.
Asics: an incumbent, not a challenger in Europe
Asics occupies a different position in the European market from brands such as On, HOKA and New Balance. Rather than building a new network of flagship stores, the Japanese company is leveraging an already established presence across both wholesale and direct retail channels, dating back to a major flagship expansion drive in the late 2010s.
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Its EMEA division, excluding the separately run Onitsuka Tiger business, reported revenue growth of 21.2 percent in the first quarter of 2026 and 32.9 percent in the second, with wholesale alone up 44.1 percent in the second quarter, according to SGI Europe’s coverage of the results. Circana data show Asics remains the leading performance running footwear brand across France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK for the 12 months to June 2026.
The distinction is important. While several competitors are using Europe to accelerate new retail concepts, Asics is instead demonstrating how an established running brand can continue to grow by building on an existing market position and distribution network, what Asics EMEA CEO Carsten Unbehaun credited on the results call to “the trust of our retail partners.”
Brooks: the exception
Brooks has taken a notably different approach from brands expanding owned retail footprints across Europe. The Berkshire Hathaway owned brand, which does not disclose absolute revenue figures, has grown rapidly in the region without a comparable store opening campaign, instead emphasizing brand activations such as its Paris Fashion Week presence in June, where it showcased lifestyle footwear through its RE:Innovation Studio.
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The results nonetheless stand out. Brooks’ EMEA revenue rose 39 percent in the first half of 2026, more than four times its 9 percent growth in the Americas and well ahead of the company’s overall 14 percent revenue growth for the period. Trail running was a particular driver, up 71 percent in the second quarter alone. “Around the globe, running continues to play an increasingly important role for people prioritizing health and wellness in their lives,” Brooks CEO Dan Sheridan said of the results.
Today, tomorrow: Europe as a laboratory, not just a market
Whether through On’s growing city network, HOKA’s expansion from Berlin to Milan, New Balance’s sport and culture retail concept, Saucony’s city by city market strategy, Asics’ established market position or Brooks’ activation led approach, brands are increasingly using Europe to experiment with new forms of direct consumer engagement.
The stores themselves matter, but the larger shift is strategic: retail is evolving from a distribution channel into a platform for community building.
SGI Europe, like much of the industry, often looks to Asia when covering new retail concepts and store innovation, and for good reason. Yet for many running brands, Europe remains critical not only as a source of growth and profitability, but also as a testing ground for how performance brands connect with consumers. Its dense network of cities, strong specialty running culture and highly fragmented markets allow brands to trial new retail formats, community programs and consumer experiences at scale.
As competition intensifies, Europe is becoming not just a growth market for running brands, but a laboratory for the next generation of performance retail.
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