Dr. Martens issued a trading update ahead of its annual meeting, indicating that sales are progressing as expected, with positive growth in its direct-to-consumer business in the Americas region and strength in the APAC region helping offset some weakness in Europe.

Dr. Martens said in its brief statement, “Trading since the start of this financial year has been in line with expectations and all guidance for FY26 remains unchanged.

“On a regional basis, we have continued to see positive trading in our Americas Direct to Consumer (DTC) channel, driven by full price sales, particularly in retail.

“Our EMEA DTC business remains more variable, with our UK business in particular continuing to experience a challenging trading backdrop. Our APAC business continues to show good growth, with a particularly strong performance in South Korea driven by our well-established shoes category here. Looking forward, the Autumn/Winter order books globally are healthy.

“The EMEA order book is up year-on-year, whilst the Americas order book is broadly in line year-on-year and importantly is based on a much wider product range than previously. As ever, our performance will be H2-weighted, particularly from a profit perspective. We are focused on embedding our new consumer-first Levers for Growth strategy, which we outlined at our results on 5 June and which builds on the work undertaken in FY25 to stabilise the business. The strategy capitalises on the clear strengths of the business today and taps into the significant new markets and profit pools that are available to us. It is centred on engaging more consumers, driving more product purchase occasions, curating market-right distribution and simplifying the operating model. Further details on our early progress in these areas will be shared at our first half results in November.”

Image courtesy Dr. Martens