Revenue: US$24 billion

Country of Origin: Germany

Founded: 1924

Employees: 56,888

Founded in 1924 by Adolf Dassler, Adidas quickly grew into the premier athletic shoes manufacturer and apparel manufacturer in Europe.

Adidas was part of one of the most acrimonious family business splits in history. The company was initially called the Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory and was run by Adolf and his brother Rudolph. However, following a post-WWII falling out, Rudolf left to form Puma, which competes directly with Adidas.

Today, Adidas is the official uniform manufacturer for several sports leagues around the world and has acquired other premier brands including Reebok, Runtastic, and Matix.

The predecessor of Adidas was actually the "Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory" (German: Schuhfabrik Gebrüder Dassler) established by the two brothers Rudolf Dassler and Adolf Dassler (Adidas Dassler). During the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the Dassler brothers provided studs to the black American athlete Jesse Owens. As a result, Owens won four Olympic gold medals and the Dassler Brothers shoe factory became a hit.

However, a misunderstanding later caused a discord between the two brothers: In 1943, during the Second World War, once the Rudolf family hid in the Adolf’s air-raid shelter in order to avoid bombardment by the Allies, Adolf said casually: "Those dead bastards are here again." Although Adolf later explained that the "dead bastard" refers to the pilots of the Allied forces, Rudolf insisted that the "dead bastard" refers to his own family. Later Rudolf was captured by the US military, and Rudolf even more believed that Adolf betrayed himself to the US military. After the end of World War II, the Dassler Brothers shoe factory resumed operations with 47 employees. Synthetic rubber was extracted from canvas and US military fuel tanks to make the first post-war sports shoes. But the feud between the two brothers eventually led them to part ways in 1948: Adolf withdrew from the Dassler Brothers shoe factory and established his own brand "Adidas"; and Rudolf established himself on the other side of the Aurach River. The brand "PUMA". It is said that the two brothers never met again until they passed away, and even after their deaths, they did not want to be buried with each other.

In 2009, employees of the two companies Adidas and PUMA held a friendly football match in Herzogenaurach, which symbolically put an end to the long dispute between the two brothers.

In 2018, Adidas Originals announced the third wave of the new series of joint multiplication with Alexander Wang, with wrinkles as the main axis, including shoes, trousers and tops.