ASICS

In September 1949, Kihachiro Onitsuka started making basketball shoes in his living room in Kobe, Japan. He chose the hardest shoe to design on purpose, a test of resilience for a country rebuilding after war. The Latin phrase Anima Sana in Corpore Sano (a sound mind in a sound body) guided him, and later became the company's name. That first shoe, a canvas high-top with a suction-cup sole for traction, sold poorly. But Onitsuka kept iterating.

By the 1960s, the brand had its breakthrough. The Mexico 66 shoe, designed for the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, introduced the now-familiar crossed stripes (later called Tiger Stripes). Bruce Lee wore them in his films, and suddenly a Japanese running shoe company had global pop-culture cachet. In 1977, Onitsuka Co. merged with two other Japanese sportswear firms, GTO and Jelenk, to form ASICS Corporation. Onitsuka stayed as president. The company went public on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, ticker 7936, and began its expansion into the West.

Today ASICS operates roughly 1,900 stores worldwide. Its running shoes, like the Gel-Kayano and Gel-Nimbus lines, are benchmarks in the sport. The company also owns the Onitsuka Tiger lifestyle brand and the Swedish outdoor label Haglöfs. In fiscal 2023, revenue hit ¥570.4 billion (about $3.8 billion), with net income of ¥35.2 billion. CEO Motoi Oyama, who also chairs the board, has pushed a new brand direction: becoming the most preferred premium sports brand for lifetime athletes. That means fewer mass-market plays and more focus on serious runners and sport-science credibility. [edit]