Saucony, ASICS Gaining on HOKA

August 18, 2023

We’ve been charting Slowtwitcher training shoe preferences since 2007 and as you can see from the chart there's been big movement over the by certain brands. Only 33 months separate the first poll from the most recent. If you’re HOKA you’re losing a little of your lead but not enough to concern anyone there, especially as HOKA’s sales grew from about $900 million to $1.4 billion from fiscal 2022 to 2023 and it’s still rocketing upward. The part of humanity that stands upright has begun to figure out that more cushion feels better than less.

The big movers are ASICS and Saucony and the moves are striking. Saucony has almost doubled its share, from 12 percent to 21 percent, in a 3-year span and I believe this began with the Endorphin line, which I first saw and reported on at its unveiling at The Running Event near the end of 2019. But I don’t think this is the whole story. Saucony’s big upsurge, as with ASICS (which I’ll get to) reflects a new approach to run shoe design. During a roughly 30-year stretch and let’s call this from 1985 to 2015 tech running was terribly beset by not-invented-here-think. All the brands, including Saucony, and infamously ASICS, defended both their trademarked technologies and in the theses that underpinned their design decisions. HOKA blew that up, and then Nike blew it up again.

As a result not just the Endorphin Pro and Speed but the darling of the tri world before HOKA – Saucony’s Kinvara – are heavily influenced by carbon plates, superfoam (PWRun PB is Saucony’s foam) and midsole height. Your foot sits a whopping 42mm off the ground in the heel of a Kinvara, and 34mm off the ground in the forefoot. Mind, the Kinvara has added a full 2 ounces since its glory days (roughly 2007 to 2011), but who cares? It’s such a breeze to run in, and generates so much energy return, that you don’t feel that this is a 9.5oz shoe.

HOKA’s lead over Saucony in Slowtwitcher preference was 26 percent to 12 percent in 2020, and that was in training footwear (where HOKA shines). That lead is now 23 percent to 21 percent. (In each of our polls over the past 3 years we had at or over 1300 respondents). So, even as HOKA continues to take chunks out of the rest of the shoe brands, in the most technical arena (isn’t that Slowtwitch?) Saucony is the object closer than it appears.

But wait, there’s more! ASICS has had something to say about this and Slowtwitchers have been listening. HOKA’s lead over that brand had been 26 percent to 8 percent only 3 years ago and now that’s closed to 23 percent to 15 percent. What did ASICS do? I wrote about the MetaRide last year and what was most interesting to me was not the shoe per se, but what seemed to me a long needed repudiation of its unhelpful design narrative spun during 30-year stretch to which I referred. Running in ASICS felt to me like running in pumps – not that I have a lot of experience with that – and the posterior of my lower leg (achilles tendons, gastrocs) complained with every step (unless I was running uphill).

But I suspect that the Meta series is only part, and perhaps not the major part, of the ASICS upswell among you all. The Gel Kayano has a 40mm/30mm heel-to-forefoot height and its 4D GUIDANCE SYSTEM™, with the wider and rounded heel, the wider footprint in the arch area, looks very HOKA-like but with its own wrinkle. In short, if I can channel my inner ASICS and Saucony I would say this: HOKA and Nike have taught tech run shoemakers a lot about the next generation of shoes, but, we think we're better shoe makers. My instinct tells me that ASICS wants to out-HOKA HOKA while remaining true to its commitment to understand and react to how runners run.

Who are the losers in the training footwear trends, at least among Slowtwitchers? Most obviously it’s the minor brands. That ubiquitous brand “Other” has fallen from 10 percent of Slowtwitcher preference to 5 percent. That would be Newton, Mizuno, Skechers, Topo and so on. Nike has slid from 15 to 11 percent and I think it’s because users may very well race in a Nike supershoe, but Nike doesn’t offer as much promise on the training side. Brooks continues its slow slide, from 9 to 8 to, now, 7 percent and if you look at the Adrenaline 22 the shoe height is 30mm/18mm. How much different is this geometry than how that shoe was first made about 30 years ago?

On Running is a very popular brand at the cash register, but it’s never quite caught on with Slowtwitchers. Our Hollie Sick reviewed the Cloudboom Echo 3 earlier this month and when she wrote that You feel the ground more, and there isn't a lot of energy return, that’s reminiscent of a Newton Running narrative and contrary to what we see from the brands that are making up ground on HOKA.