German sportswear makers Adidas and Puma warned on Wednesday of a major decline in sales in China due to the coronavirus and said while there were early signs of improvement there the impact had spread to other markets.

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Shares in Adidas and Puma, already pummelled in the last few weeks, were down 6.3 percent and 3.8 percent respectively by 0830 GMT. Adidas stock was at one-year lows.

Adidas said it expected first-quarter sales to drop by up to 1 billion euros ($1.14 billion) in greater China and operating profit to decline by between 400 million and 500 million.

"The virus hit looks worse than feared," Jefferies analyst James Grzinic wrote in a note.

Puma said it no longer expected its business would return to normal soon, despite encouraging signs coming out of China, adding it was abandoning the 2020 guidance it gave on February 19 that had assumed the crisis would be short lived.

"Given the duration of the situation in China, the negative impact in other Asian countries and now also the spread to Europe and the US, we unfortunately have to conclude that a short-term normalization will not occur," Puma said.

Adidas and Puma make almost a third of their sales in Asia, which has been a major growth market for the sporting goods industry in recent years. The region is also the main sourcing hub, with China a major producer for both companies.

Since emerging in China late last year, the new coronavirus has spread around the world, inflecting around 120,000 people, killing nearly 4,300 and sending markets into a tailspin.

FILE PHOTO: The logo of German sports goods firm Puma is seen at the entrance of one of its stores in Vienna, Austria, March 18, 2016. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger/File Photo

As China recovers, disruption spreads

Adidas warned last month its business in the greater China area had dropped by about 85 percent year on year in the period since China's Lunar New Year on January 25.

On Wednesday, it said it had started to see a "slight improvement" in business activity in greater China, but shopper traffic was now deteriorating in Japan and South Korea, and the impact on other countries was uncertain.

Puma said Asian markets such as Singapore, Malaysia, Japan and South Korea, where Chinese tourists often travel to shop, were recording a big fall in sales, and it had seen a significant decline in shopper traffic across Europe.

In greater China, Adidas cancelled all shipments to wholesale partners in February and it said it planned to clear excess inventory through its own channels in the rest of 2020.

While its supply chain has faced disruptions, Adidas said most of its factories in China were operating again and its global sourcing activities had not been hit so far.

Puma said most of its factories in China were running again and its outbound logistics were also mostly in operation, so its global supply chain was only seeing some minor delays.

Adidas forecast currency-neutral sales to increase by between 6 percent and 8 percent for the full year and for its operating margin to rise by between 10.5 percent and 11.8 percent, but said the outlook did not include any impact from the coronavirus outbreak.

Fourth-quarter sales - covering a period before the coronavirus took hold - rose a currency-adjusted 10 percent to 5.84 billion euros, while operating profit came in at 245 million euros, missing analysts' mean forecasts of 5.88 billion and 288 million euros, respectively.

Currency-neutral sales grew 18 percent in greater China, 10 percent in North America and 14 percent in Europe, the latter a big rebound from declines in the first half of 2019 after the firm took steps to reduce its reliance on its Originals fashion line.