TheChek News Flow

Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo today tweeted that he does not forecast major updates to the AirPods lineup coming this year. Instead, he reiterates that new AirPods Pro with Infrared cameras are set to arrive in 2026.

This contradicts reporting from other publications that have suggested AirPods Pro 3 will launch in 2025, including new features such as improved active noise cancellation.

This claim seems a little sketchy given AirPods Pro 2 are approaching three years old, and as Apple’s most popular and most profitable AirPods model, it would be unusual for the company to let them languish for so long.

One of the rumored features for the next-gen AirPods Pro was the inclusion of a heart rate monitor. The heart rate capability has already debuted in the new Powerbeats Pro 4.

Apple also stole much of the AirPods Pro thunder with the launch of the cheaper AirPods 4 line in the fall last year, adding features like Active Noise Cancellation in wireless earbuds priced as low as $179.

However, while Apple has not released a new hardware generation of AirPods Pro since 2022, the company has continued to expand what the headphones can do through software updates. Most notably, AirPods Pro 2 are now able to act as licensed hearing aids, correcting for mild-to-moderate hearing loss.

The news is even bleaker for over-ear AirPods Max users, who may not see a new revision until 2027 at the earliest.

Are you waiting for new AirPods Pro? Let us know in the comments below.

New schemes seek to attract international talent and lock in funding security for researchers

The UK’s scientific institutions are stepping up investment plans in the face of attacks on research by Donald Trump’s administration, unveiling 10-year official funding guarantees and fellowships open to experts fleeing the US.

The initiatives to be unveiled by the UK government, the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering within days will bolster efforts to woo international talent and give extra financial stability to long-term projects in fast-advancing fields such as quantum computing and bacterial resistance.

The measures amount to an effort to Trump-proof British science against the kind of sudden funding cuts and ideological suppression of research seen in the US.

“International science is in a state of flux, with some of the certainties of the postwar era now under question,” said Sir Adrian Smith, president of the Royal Society, the UK’s national science academy. “With funding streams and academic freedom coming under threat, the best scientific talent will be looking for stability. The UK can be at the front of the queue in attracting that talent.”

The Royal Society will announce a new Faraday Fellowship for international researchers, backed by up to £30mn. The money will be used to award up to £4mn, or more in exceptional circumstances, to individual scientists or teams for work lasting between five and 10 years.

Two-thirds of the £30mn will come from an existing government-funded scheme run by the society aimed at attracting mid-career researchers interested in relocating to the UK. The remainder will be new money from the society itself and will be focused on scientists at other career stages.

Simultaneously, the Royal Academy of Engineering will launch an accelerated route to make it easier for “exceptional international researchers and inventors to come and work in the UK”.

It will give successful applicants up to £3mn over 10 years to develop and scale up breakthrough climate solutions, as part of the academy’s existing £150mn Green Future Fellowship programme.

The initiatives add to a similar £54mn programme announced by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology this month. The money will pay relocation costs and project funding for about 10 teams of researchers in government priority areas such as life sciences, artificial intelligence and green energy.

The initiative has been welcomed by scientific institutions, although many have also raised concerns about the potential deterrent effect of high visa costs on broader efforts to recruit internationally.

The department will separately unveil a plan to provide a decade-long funding guarantee for researchers in frontier fields.

The extended financing aims to give institutions extra certainty to recruit and collaborate internationally, build needed infrastructure and forge partnerships with the private sector.

The 10-year grants could account for about £2bn of the £20.4bn in annual research and development (R&D) spending across government, said Lord Patrick Vallance, science minister and a former government chief scientific adviser.

Vallance said he believed “very strongly” that investment in science and technology was a “national endeavour, not a party political endeavour” — even though he conceded any future administration could theoretically reverse the funding changes.

Since the Trump administration took office in January, it has sought to impose big cuts on science funding. It has also ordered the scrapping of research work in areas including diversity, vaccines and climate change.

In Britain, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party, which is ahead of Labour in the polls and won hundreds of seats in this month’s local elections, has attacked official policies on net zero carbon emissions and diversity, equity and inclusion. It has also promised to “slash government waste”.

Vallance acknowledged there was “always a risk” that established long-term research funding streams could be cancelled by a future government with a radical approach to science policy. The minister, who used to be president of R&D at pharmaceuticals company GSK, said he would “continue to push” for the long view on investment.

“Chopping and changing in R&D is a very bad way to get progress,” he said. “You damage things”.

Orly (France) (AFP) – A control tower breakdown forced the cancellation of about 130 flights at Paris Orly airport Sunday, leaving thousands of passengers to scramble for alternative routes, officials said.

A spokesman for Aeroports de Paris, which operates the French capital's second busiest airport, said about 40 percent of the day's departures and arrivals had been called off.

France's DGAC civil aviation authority blamed "a failure of the air traffic control systems at the Orly tower early in the afternoon" for what it said had been a "significant" reduction in the number of flights.

An aviation source told AFP that a radar breakdown caused the airport chaos.

The airport spokesman said about half the 130 cancelled flights were departures and half incoming flights.

Flights across France and to other European destinations and North Africa were among those hit. The DGAC would not say whether flights would return to normal on Monday.

Stood near a line of suitcases, Agnes Zilouri, 46, tried desperately to find a seat for her 86-year-old mother and six year old son. The family had been meant to take a flight to Oujda in Morocco on Sunday evening to go to a funeral.

"The flight is cancelled. Fortunately I am with my mother," she said.

Last year Orly handled about 33 million passengers, approximately half the number of the main Paris Charles de Gaulle international airport.

Boutique groups have rushed to fill the gap left by Wall Street heavyweights

A new cast of boutique banks is fuelling a fresh fervour for blank-cheque companies — one of Wall Street’s hottest and most controversial products during the pandemic-era bull market.

Special purpose acquisition vehicles, or Spacs, exploded in popularity during the Covid-19 crisis, with around 600 deals in the US raising a record $163bn in 2021 before the frenzy died down as global stocks tumbled the following year due to rising interest rates. 

But the market has revved up again since Donald Trump won his second term as president, despite volatility sparked by his tariffs delaying several traditional initial public offerings. There have been 44 Spac offerings this year raising $9bn, compared with 57 raising $9.6bn during the whole of 2024, Dealogic data shows.

A Spac is a vehicle that offers private companies an alternative to IPOs; the blank cheque company lists on public markets and then later merges with a target.

Under former Securities and Exchange Commission chair Gary Gensler, the regulator aligned the rules for mergers of companies with listed Spacs with those for standard IPOs. Investors expect more lenient policy under the SEC’s new chair Paul Atkins, who was nominated by Trump.

Four years ago, Credit Suisse, Citibank, Deutsche Bank and Jefferies were among the busiest Spac advisers. But a cluster of lesser-known firms including Cohen & Company Capital Markets, D Boral Capital, Clear Street and Maxim Group have since come to dominate the sector.

“There’s been a reordering of the deck chairs since the Gensler era,” said Matthew Michel, founder and managing partner at InvestorLink Capital Markets.

“When the SEC targeted Spacs by creating an uncertain regulatory environment, the big banks moved to idle their Spac origination businesses,” Michel said. “This shift cleared the way for smaller players to fill the void.”

Since 2022, no firm has advised on more deals between Spacs and groups seeking to go public — a process known as a de-Spac — than Cohen & Company, which has worked on 54 deals. Cohen & Company is also tied in first place this year with Cantor Fitzgerald for Spac IPOs.

Cohen & Company’s head of Spac investment banking Brandon Sun previously worked on Spacs at Deutsche Bank until he and three colleagues were let go in 2022 after their names appeared on a bill at a strip club, though Sun said he did not attend the event. Cohen & Company quickly snapped him up.

“2025 was meant to be the year of the IPO,” Sun said. “Given the volatility resulting from Trump’s tariff policies, those hopes have been dashed and crushed. The opportunity for Spacs is pretty incredible.”

D Boral Capital ranks second on de-Spac transactions over the past three years. In 2022, the bank — then named EF Hutton — helped Trump’s Truth Social list via a merger with Digital World Acquisition Corp.

The median price performance on the 17 private companies that have gone public by merging with Spacs this year is a fall of 73 per cent, according to data provider ListingTrack. Many during the earlier boom also suffered steep falls.

While the Spac market’s main underwriters have changed, many of the same sponsors active during the pandemic are “coming back into the game”, ListingTrack’s Nick Gershenhorn said.

Former Citigroup executive Michael Klein was a prolific Spac sponsor in 2020 and 2021. His latest blank-cheque company Churchill Capital X filed to go public in late April. In recent months, serial sponsors in 2020 and 2021 including banking entrepreneur Betsy Cohen, Los Angeles billionaire Alec Gores and former California congressman and Trump Media & Technology Group chief executive Devin Nunes have also taken part in Spac deals, according to regulatory filings.

A Spac led by Brandon Lutnick, son of US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick and chair of Cantor Fitzgerald, raised $100mn last year and in April merged with Twenty One Capital to form a bitcoin acquisition vehicle in the image of Michael Saylor’s bitcoin-focused group Strategy. Its shares have tripled since announcing the crypto deal.

Spac market participants credit Cantor and a recent flurry of new vehicles sponsored by the brokerage for reopening the market. “This vintage of sponsors are people who know how to get deals done,” said Sun.

Investors say the dash for Spacs is unlikely to slow even as the traditional IPO market begins to thaw on hopes that the worst of Trump’s tariff threats have passed.

“All the usual suspects are back. And if they are not back yet they will be back soon,” said one large Spac investor who did not want to be named. “People don't care that [Spacs] were disasters before because they want to back dealmakers and guys that do something.”

Providers of compounded obesity drugs are finding—for now—a new way into the booming market by tweaking formulations

Key Points

A government crackdown on cheaper copies of Ozempic and similar diabetes and weight-loss drugs was intended to shut the door on that booming market.

It hasn’t exactly worked out that way.

Instead, some compounding pharmacies and telehealth companies that make the copies have found new ways in. They are making and selling dosages slightly different from the standard, FDA-approved amounts or including additives such as vitamins B3 and B12. Others have changed how the drug is taken, switching from injectables to under the tongue drops or pills.

These providers are relying on a law that allows bespoke versions of drugs that are unavailable commercially. Though some patients report delays in receiving the compounded medications, many are still getting them—at least for now—said patients and industry professionals.

Patients originally turned to these less-expensive alternatives not approved by the Food and Drug Administration because their insurance didn’t cover the brand-name drugs. But the FDA recently set spring deadlines for compounders to stop providing the copycat drugs.

Jessica Nelson, 28 years old, has mixed feelings about the new formulations. She turned to a telehealth platform called Emerge for a compounded version of tirzepatide last fall, when her health plan denied coverage of the branded versions, Mounjaro and Zepbound. This spring, Emerge notified her that it was switching pharmacies and adding niacinamide, a form of vitamin B3, and then levocarnitine, an amino acid, to the formulations.

Nelson, who has lost 50 pounds on the medication, said she would prefer that there weren’t any additives. “But if it’s that or nothing, then I would still take it,” Nelson said. She pays $379 a month, less than half of what brand-name alternatives cost until recently.

“It has been life-changing,” she said.

Emerge didn’t respond to requests for comment.

A long-running shortage of blockbuster obesity drugs allowed compounding pharmacies to make cheaper copies over the past few years—and the market for them to explode. The Outsourcing Facilities Association, a pharmacy trade group, estimated in November that larger compounding pharmacies were supplying more than two million patients with compounded semaglutide, the active ingredient in Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic and Wegovy.

By comparison, about 3.4 million prescriptions for the brand-name counterparts were filled that November, according to the Iqvia Institute.

Now that the FDA has declared an official end to the shortages, providers are required to stop making the compounded copies in bulk. A section of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act still permits compounding if the drug is changed in a way that makes a “significant difference” for the patient compared with the commercially available drug.

Sellers are taking different tacks. In March, the telehealth site Clover Meds emailed customers to say that its compounded tirzepatide would soon be prescribed only to people who had excessive nausea with standard formulations. Patients would be prompted to answer a question to determine eligibility, the email said. The drug would change to a twice-weekly injection with vitamin B6 to mitigate nausea.

Southend, a compounding pharmacy, emailed its patients to say that it was tweaking several dose concentrations to avoid being considered a “copy.”

Southend said that it now prescribed the drug only to patients who couldn’t tolerate the dosages of the brand-name drugs and that its prescription volumes had fallen as a result. Clover Meds didn’t respond to requests for comment.

To comply with the law, the dose and formulation changes need to be tailored to individual patients, instead of on a mass scale, said Lowell Schiller, a nonresident senior scholar at the USC Schaeffer Institute and former head of policy at the FDA.

“There are lots of companies out there who are pushing the envelope on this,” he said.

The drugmakers agree. Novo Nordisk has filed more than 100 lawsuits against businesses marketing compounded semaglutide. In April, Eli Lilly, which makes Mounjaro and Zepbound, sued several telehealth companies, alleging that they are selling mass-produced versions of its drugs under the guise of offering personalized options.

Compounders are also expected to face more scrutiny from state and federal regulators, though the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy said state boards haven’t pursued action related to the issue. The Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the FDA, didn’t respond to a request for comment.

One of the telehealth clinics that Eli Lilly sued is Mochi Health, which in recent months told customers the doses of its compounded obesity drugs would be automatically adjusted.

“There are no extra steps needed to stay on your treatment plan,” the company wrote in an email viewed by The Wall Street Journal. “We’ll automatically readjust your refill.” For example, it said, patients taking 2.5 milligrams of compounded tirzepatide, the standard starting dose, would be shifted to 2.2 milligrams.

Emily Martin, a 29-year-old Mochi patient in Tacoma, Wash., said that, within three months, the dose or formulation of her medication changed three times.

One included no additive, while the others included different forms of vitamin B12 or B6. Martin said she didn’t meet with any of Mochi’s medical providers beforehand to confirm the changes in the formulations or doses.

“I would have loved an update as to what they were adding in,” Martin said.

Mochi’s chief executive, Myra Ahmad, said that the company was compliant with federal guidance and regulations and that every dosage change at Mochi is reviewed and approved by a licensed medical provider.

“This lawsuit is, broadly, a PR play,” she said.

Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk have both recently lowered prices to $500 a month for most doses for patients who pay on their own. Yet many patients have said the compounded versions remain more affordable over the long term.

“I honestly don’t have any intention of stopping this,” said Martin. “It has made my life a lot better.”

Breaking Down Trump’s Entanglements With Crypto

Sector has been one of the biggest winners in the president’s second term

Key Points

• President Trump’s embrace of crypto is boosting the sector, raising ethical concerns related to his business interests and family involvement.
• Representatives of Trump’s family have held discussions about investing in the U.S. arm of the crypto exchange Binance.
• Trump’s sons—Donald Jr., Eric and Barron—are involved in World Liberty Financial, a business launched in September.

President Trump and his family’s embrace of cryptocurrencies have made the sector one of the biggest winners in his second term. Critics have raised ethical concerns given Trump’s vast business interests.

Here’s what to know about his crypto moves:

Trump is hosting a dinner Thursday for holders of his memecoin, $TRUMP. Memecoins are cryptocurrencies whose value is largely based on the popularity of internet memes. First lady Melania Trump’s $MELANIA coin made its debut in January at about the same time as her husband’s.

The coins initially surged in value, but have since tumbled. At one point, $TRUMP had a market value of some $15 billion.

Prices bounced back a bit in late April after Trump announced the coming dinner with the top 220 holders of his memecoin, many of whom are foreigners. Watchdog groups say he is directly benefiting from his office or could trade favors. Administration officials say there are no conflicts of interest.

Representatives of Trump’s family have held discussions about investing in the U.S. arm of the crypto exchange Binance. That would put the president in business with a firm that pleaded guilty to violating anti-money-laundering laws.

Binance executives also met with Treasury Department officials and discussed loosening U.S. government oversight on the company.

The Binance founder and majority owner, Changpeng Zhao, widely known as CZ, recently said his lawyers had formally applied for a pardon. He served four months in prison last year for a related charge.

The Trumps also have World Liberty Financial, a business they launched in September. Trump’s sons—Donald Jr., Eric and Barron—are all involved in the effort, and the family controls about 60% of the equity.

World Liberty Financial recently launched a stablecoin, which is a popular type of cryptocurrency that pegs its value to a fiat currency, such as the U.S. dollar. The firm got a big boost from a $2 billion deal in which a state-backed United Arab Emirates investor will put money into Binance using the World Liberty stablecoin. The project initially struggled to find buyers for the tokens it was selling, but then gained popularity around Inauguration Day.

The Chinese-born crypto executive Justin Sun spurred the momentum by investing $75 million in the project. In February, the Securities and Exchange Commission asked a court to pause a lawsuit accusing Sun and his companies of fraud. A spokesperson previously said Sun’s investments aren’t politically motivated.

Don Jr. and Eric have invested in a bitcoin-mining firm called American Bitcoin, which is aiming to go public through a merger with another bitcoin miner. Mining entails solving complex equations using computer servers to unlock bitcoin, the most popular digital asset.

Trump’s team is trying to shepherd two crypto bills through Congress in the coming months: one creating the first regulations for stablecoins, and another dictating which crypto products are regulated as securities by the SEC and which are regulated as commodities by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

The Senate is expected to vote on its version of the stablecoin bill soon. Some Democrats have cited Trump’s potential conflicts of interest and stablecoin activity as reasons they oppose the legislation.

Trump made one of his biggest crypto policy moves in March, when he established a national digital-asset stockpile similar to the U.S. gold reserve, giving the sector a stamp of approval. The stockpile will consist of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies seized by law enforcement.

The Treasury and Commerce departments could make additional purchases of bitcoin as long as they didn’t cost taxpayers money, according to the executive order creating the crypto reserve. The government won’t buy other tokens in the stockpile.

US threatens maximum tariffs as it takes tougher line on trade talks

Treasury secretary Scott Bessent says rates will jump to the high levels set on ‘liberation day’ if countries do not negotiate

The US says it will impose the maximum tariffs it has threatened against countries that do not negotiate “in good faith” as it strikes a more aggressive tone in trade talks.

Treasury secretary Scott Bessent on Sunday said that tariff rates would go back to the levels that President Donald Trump announced on April 2, when he declared his intention to “liberate” the US from an unfair trade system. 

Countries would receive letters from Bessent outlining those maximum tariff rates if “they’re not negotiating in good faith”, the Treasury secretary told NBC. 

“Some countries were at 10 per cent, some were substantially higher,” he added. If “you don’t want to negotiate then it will spring back to the April 2nd level”. 

The harder line illustrates how fraught the tariff negotiations have become, and contrasts with recent boasts by President Donald Trump that countries were rushing to negotiate with Washington. 

Trump on April 2 said that a levy of 10 per cent would apply to nearly all imports, but he also announced sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs in retaliation against levies on US exports.

Following last month’s announcement, US tariffs on Chinese goods reached a whopping 145 per cent. But the two countries on Monday signed a deal to cut tariffs on each other’s goods for at least 90 days, with the extra levies the US imposed on China this year falling to 30 per cent and China’s declining to 10 per cent.

South-east Asia’s export hubs were also hit with high levies on April 2, when Trump claimed the US would be freed from the yoke of unfair trade restrictions. Cambodia was given a “reciprocal” rate of 49 per cent, closely followed by Laos with 48 per cent and Vietnam with 46 per cent.

Mexico and Canada, which have often sparred with Trump over trade, dodged the reciprocal tariffs. Duties of 25 per cent for goods that do not comply with the terms of the 2020 USMCA trade deal with the US remained in place.

The UK earlier this month became the first country to strike a deal with Trump since he unleashed his trade war, securing cuts to tariffs on car and steel exports but failing to reverse a flat 10 per cent levy that applies to most goods.

Bessent on Sunday also railed against Walmart, which has said it will raise prices due to tariffs imposed by Washington. 

The Treasury secretary said he had spoken to Walmart’s chief executive and that the retailer will “eat some of the tariffs”, echoing comments from Trump on social media on Saturday. Walmart declined to comment on Bessent’s comments, but said over the weekend that it has “always worked to keep our prices as low as possible”.

Bessent also sought to quell concerns around Moody’s decision on Friday to cut the US credit rating from its top-notch triple-A level to Aa1, citing rising levels of government debt and a widening budget deficit.

“Moody’s is a lagging indicator. I think that’s what everyone thinks of credit agencies,” Bessent said, as he sought to pin the blame on former president Joe Biden. 

“It’s the Biden administration and the spending that we have seen over the past four years,” Bessent added. “And we are determined to bring the spending down and grow the economy.”

Sitting in their Zurich headquarters, On’s sanguine co-CEO, Martin Hoffmann, and his colleague and On co-founder Caspar Coppetti, have reason to be relaxed. Another quarter of unexpected growth has notched another $3 billion to their brand’s value.

There is an elephant in the room, however. It’s not taking up much room though, given the elephant is a newly-empty seat at the CEO table.

Hoffmann will soon take on the role of On’s CEO alone when his co-CEO Marc Maurer leaves the company in June. Maurer said he planned to embark on a “new chapter” in his professional life after more than 14 years at the company.

Maurer and Hoffmann both joined On from Swiss food retailer Valora in 2012 and 2013, respectively, as COO and CFO, with Maurer wooing his friend over to what was then a little-known running startup. The pair has operated as co-CEOs since 2021.

From July, though, Hoffmann, a financial whizz by trade and by nature, will take the reins of On alone, without Maurer to lean on.

“I had a really strong relationship with Marc and a deep, deep friendship,” Hoffmann told Fortune following the release of On’s first-quarter earnings.

“I will miss that, but we have been super close, basically in all parts of the business, together with different focuses. But there are no blind spots, and we are not changing strategy.”

Hoffmann, whose priority will shift from his current dual role as CFO, admits he loves numbers as much as he does people. For a company better known for design, innovation, and cool collaborations with Gen Z idols, finance will need to take a backseat.

“The strength of On is not the numbers, it’s the team,” said Hoffmann.

“My goal was to enable this team to be at their best. And I don’t think this changes. The focus from where I do it will change, but the perspective stays the same.”

Hoffmann could hardly take sole charge of On in a better position.

On Tuesday, the group reported a 43% surge in revenue in the first quarter of 2025 compared with a year earlier, while it increased its revenue and profitability guidance for the rest of the year.

The last quarter marked the second in a row that On beat its revenue expectations.

New brand partnerships, including a February Super Bowl advertisement featuring tennis great and On investor, Roger Federer, and Elmo, have helped the company defy short-run expectations within a wider goal of doubling sales between 2023 and 2026.

On wrapped up its earnings week by hitting a record valuation of $19.65 billion as investors piled into the running brand in the wake of the surprise results, having started the week valued at around $16 billion. On is now the third most valuable publicly traded footwear brand in the world behind Nike and Adidas.

The group’s surge has come as those legacy sportswear companies have regressed. Shares in Nike have plunged more than 15% since the start of the year, while Adidas shares have fallen more than 8%. On, meanwhile, has risen in value by 8% this year. With a current running shoe market share of around 10%, the company’s leadership is laser-focused on driving this even higher.

“Our long-term vision is to be the number one brand in running,” Coppetti told Fortune.

On’s marketing

Getting to the mantle of the number one running brand certainly looks a lot more realistic now than when its co-founders first started experimenting with strapping hose pipes to the bottom of traditional running shoes. It is, however, a different path from the one that brought On to this point.

On evolved as a challenger brand largely through word-of-mouth marketing and an opportunistic boom in running among younger people, whose higher disposable income, social media awareness, and newfound focus on fitness have proved a goldmine for the athletic brand.

“I think we’re benefiting from this health and wellness trend where younger adults… they’re going to the gym rather than going to the bar,” said Coppetti. The group’s successful partnership with Zendaya hasn’t hurt its appeal with young customers either.

“We’re quite obsessed,” Coppetti says about continuing to enhance On’s brand recognition.

The company has been forensic in transitioning from an online model to erecting physical stores, considering exactly where to place each of its 53 stores, right down to the street corner, to maintain its exclusivity while growing.

“We don’t want to overshoot, and that allows us to, for example, be very selective with retail partners we want to work with, or which stores we want to be in, which street, which corner of that street we want to have our store on and it all feeds into this premium positioning,” says Coppetti.

On’s two London stores exemplify that strategy, with one located on the exclusive Regent’s Street, and the other in the trendy east-side shopping zone of Spitalfields. Coppetti notes some 200 people take part in a run club from that store regularly. You can be pretty confident that an On rep will make an undercover appearance at other run clubs, too.

“We actually go out and we go to the major running routes in the big cities, and we go and count people, and we see what products they are wearing, both footwear and apparel,” Coppetti said.

The company does the same at running events. On gets more cut through among short distance runners, up to half marathon distances. It’s hoping to grab more marathon runners when it launches its “super shoes” later this year.

There will be other challenges along the way. Still a nascent brand, On hasn’t yet proved it can ride out demand dips and move beyond fears that it is a “fad” shoe. And despite having operations in the U.S., the Swiss brand is no less exposed to tariffs than its competitors. Still, On is planning price increases this year, unrelated to tariffs, and CEO Hoffmann thinks customers are ready to stay on the ride, however bumpy things get.

“We want to be the most premium global sports brand, and premium is the decisive word here,” Hoffmann says. “And if you are clear about the North Star, we actually have clear direction in kinds of uncertainties like this.”