Nike’s success has made it vulnerable to smaller players peeling off niche segments of the sneaker business.
Essentially, when you’re trying to reach everyone, you miss certain pieces of the market. That’s why I, as a 52-year-old man with wide feet and weak ankles, wear New Balance and Skechers.
It’s not about the brand or even the look of the shoe. It’s about finding something that meets my very specific needs in a way that allows me to walk a lot without pain.
“Nike remains the biggest player in the field by a large margin, but its size is also hampering its ability to push out great product and great storytelling to the market,” GlobalData Managing Director Neil Saunders told Glossy.
Brands including On and Hoka have grown their sales by focusing on performance and niche areas like road running.
Another player in the space, Hilma, which made sneakers specifically for women, has abruptly and unexpectedly shut down.
Running has been a growth category
Broadly competing against Nike presents significant challenges, so most competitors have aimed to grow in niche areas. Overall footwear sales were essentially flat in 2025, but some sneaker categories grew, according to Retail Dive.
“Running-inspired shoes drove dollar sales up 3% in sport lifestyle, the largest footwear segment, with soccer and cross-training styles also contributing. Similar trends bolstered the performance category, with dollar sales of running and cross-training shoes up 7% and unit sales up 9%. Walking shoes saw both dollar and unit sales increase by double-digits, according to Circana,” the website reported.
Brands do have room to take market share and have done so by tightly focusing their products, according to industry analysts.
Brands do have room to take market share and have done so by tightly focusing their products, particularly in areas like running and performance footwear. That, however, leaves very little room for mistakes.
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Statista data suggests the global sneaker market is highly concentrated among a small group of leading brands.
“Nike is still the most popular sneaker brand in the U.S., as the Oregonian sportswear giant leverages its home turf advantage versus global rival Adidas. The German brand with the three stripes is the third most popular choice for U.S. sneaker owners, behind New Balance. Nike’s Jordan brand, which is likely higher up the list among die-hard sneakerheads, Skechers, and Puma follow suit, according to findings from Statista Consumer Insights.
The “Other” sliver where brands like Hilma, Tracksmith, Bandit, NOBULL, and APL fight for visibility is realistically 5–10% of the market, and that share is splintered across dozens of small DTC brands.
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Hilma closed due to a clear mistake
Hilma’s founder and CEO, Brooke Torres, confirmed the shutdown in an email to Retail Dive.
She wrote that the brand had “reached the end of the road” and sold through all of the inventory on its site, though limited inventory was still available at REI and Sierra.
The company’s website remains active but is no longer taking orders.
Torres explained the reason for the shutdown in her email.
“We ultimately hit an inventory issue unrelated to the overall demand for our product that we could not recover from,” Torres wrote. “We explored every possible path forward, but, compounded with a tightening venture capital environment (just 2.2% of capital in a recent year went to women-founded businesses) we were left with no choice but to shut things down.”
Hilma was founded after raising $3 million in 2019, according to CB Insights.
“Hilma Running Shoes provides personalized footwear for runners, using mass personalization technology in the footwear industry. The company offers a virtual fitting experience to determine the shoe fit for each customer, with options for sustainable materials and customizable colors,” the company, which provides data on private companies, shared.
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