Salomon‘s footwear is moving from strength to strength, and its parent Amer Sports Inc. knows what it needs to do to keep up the momentum.

“Fourth quarter was a great finish to a breakout year for Amer Sports. Our growth was led by our flagship Arc’teryx brand and the rising star Salomon, which recently surpassed the $2 billion sales mark,” Amer’s chief executive officer Jie (James) Zheng told investors during the firm’s quarterly conference call on Tuesday.

Growth was led by the technical innovations at the flagship Arc’teryx brand and by the outdoor performance group, led by Salomon. Zheng said Salomon is also connecting with women and the younger consumer. One key to Salomon’s position as a modern outdoor brand is its sportstyle concept, which blends outdoor-inspired design, with a mix of urban style and all-day comfort.

Shares of Amer traded down 5.6 percent Tuesday to close at $38.24 after investors gave the thumbs down on first quarter outlook, expressing concerns over higher costs. That’s despite fourth quarter profits that grew more than eight-fold to $131.5 million from $15.4 million a year ago, while total revenue rose 28.5 percent to $2.10 billion from $1.64 billion a year ago. In addition to Arc’teryx and Salomon, Amer’s other core business is its ball and racquet sports division in which the lead brand is Wilson.

In a telephone interview with Salomon chief executive officer Guillaume Meyzenq on Tuesday, he described the brand as “on fire” due to its “very fast growth” following its build-up in a “small niche market” that he said has a global size of between $3 billion to $6 billion.

He said that when the brand was more winter sport- and equipment-oriented, the consumer was around 35 to 40 years old. Moving the brand closer to a modern sports culture in city centers has drawn in a younger consumer. “Sportstyle gets really big traction among the 20 to 25 years old, and travel running is more 25 to 30 years old,” Meyzenq said. In the running and sportstyle businesses, the consumer is split 50-50 between the two genders.

Boosting its position in running has been a move from just gravel running — the shoes remain a point of differentiation that allows for multi-surface running — into the overall running space, such as the sportstyle category that includes the broader outdoor sneaker market.

Salomon grew by 35 percent in 2025 and greater investment is planned the brand whether through marketing that helps to drive local communities to its stores or even new stores to the existing door fleet. Many existing stores are around 1,500-square-feet, while some newer and larger locations in certain locations are closer to the 3,000-square-foot range.

In New York, Salomon had just one store in the U.S. a year ago in SoHo, and now has five in the Greater New York area using Amer’s epicenter strategy. Epicentral cities include Milan, Paris, London, Shanghai, Beijing, New York and Los Angeles — key metro markets that include wholesale distribution to key department store retailers to elevate the brand’s presence and global awareness.

While there is an established traction in the run specialty stores across North America and EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa), Meyzenq said the brand is seeing “very positive momentum in China.” The brand opened 33 net new stores in Greater China, bringing the total store count of company-owned and partner stores to 286 locations.

While Amer’s chief financial officer Andrew Page referred to Salomon as being at an “inflection point,” he also said there was no slowdown in the footwear growth momentum at the Arc’teryx brand.

“It’s close to high single digits from a revenue concentration,” Page said of Arc’teryx’s footwear growth. “This is a very technical shoe solving problems for that core mountain athlete, whether they are approaching the mountain, coming down from the mountain or climbing. It continues to resonate very well across a number of different franchises for the brand, and so we’re excited about it.”

Because North American consumers shop at multi-branded retailers, Page said there are opportunities for Amer Sports to work with key strategic wholesale partners for the Arc’teryx brand.

Page was optimistic about the company’s future and growth runway. “Two years ago at the IPO, we had one big brand hitting on all cylinders. Right now we have two hitting on all cylinders. And Wilson Tennis 360 is coming along,” he said, adding that the right investments will “pay off meaningfully as we look to 2026 and beyond.”

During the company’s conference call, Page said: “The strong sales and profitability of the Amer Sports portfolio allows us to accelerate resources behind the large Salomon sneaker opportunity while still delivering great results at the group level.”