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Next to Adidas, Nike, New Balance, Puma, Reebok or Saucony, the company ASICS is one of the largest running shoes manufacturer in the world. Even though the brand name ASICS rather resembles an American origin, the company comes from Japan and the acronym ASICS is from Latin (Anima sana in corpore sano – A healthy sould in a healthy body). It was founded in the year 1949. As many other companies that managed to gain success worldwide, also Asics has become a multinational company that spread around the world in time. What is interesting is the fact that it actually laid the foundations of Nike in the 70’s as we know it in these days. When the founder Onitsuka Shōkai wanted to expand to the US, he made a partnership with Philip Knight and his sports shoes company Blue Ribbon Sports (later known as Nike) in order to enter the American market.

This cooperation started in 1963 and was an entering gate for ASICS to the US market. Later in the 60’s, the companies stopped cooperating, Blue Ribbon turned to Nike and ASICS continued innovating running shoes on its own. It achieved the most significant success when in 60’s provided running shoes for the Olympic marathoners. Nevertheless, it is purely a sports brand making good running shoes. But it has never become a symbol of a lifestyle such as Adidas or Nike. The last year, ASICS got a strong hit by the pandemic of Covid-19 in 2020. Its global sales dropped by 21.5-per-cent. Therefore, it continues searching for an uptick in ecommerce, similar to other companies worldwide.