Crocs, Inc. (CROX) Business

ITEM 1. Business

The Company

Crocs, Inc. and our consolidated subsidiaries (collectively, the “Company,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) are engaged in the design, development, worldwide marketing, distribution, and sale of casual lifestyle footwear and accessories for all. We strive to be the world leader in innovative casual footwear, combining comfort and style with a value that consumers want.

We have two reportable operating segments: the Crocs Brand and the HEYDUDE Brand, which are discussed in more detail in “Business Segments and Geographic Information” below.

Our Vision

At the heart of our brands are our consumers. We have brands with broad democratic appeal and accessible price points, which are aligned with global megatrends such as casualization, comfort, and personalization. The philosophy and vision for our brands have been important drivers of our results and, we believe, will continue to be important as we strive to realize the full global potential of our brands.

Our enterprise growth priorities are currently centered around three strategic areas of focus:

•Ignite our icons through driving awareness and relevance for our brands — Central to our Crocs Brand’s DNA are our clogs, sandals, and Jibbitz™ charms, which are key product pillars that we believe will drive long-term growth. Our Classic Clog is our icon, and we continue to grow our broader clog silhouette with new designs, colors, graphics, licensed properties, and collaborations. The HEYDUDE Brand provides opportunity to play in a broader casual footwear market. The brand is known for its versatility, easy on and off characteristics, and comfort. The Wally and Wendy are distinct and innovative loafer silhouettes and represent our icons.

•Expand wearing occasions through thoughtful diversification of our product range to attract new and retain existing consumers — For the Crocs Brand, we see opportunity to diversify within our clog, sandal, personalization, and broader lifestyle product offering, ultimately attracting new consumers. We believe sandals are a natural extension of the Crocs Brand leveraging our signature molding technology to provide casual, comfortable footwear for a variety of wearing occasions and consumers. In addition to the development of our sandals product pillar, we see further opportunity to build on a broader personalization opportunity while expanding into more lifestyle occasions. For the HEYDUDE Brand, our primary focus is diversification within our core Wally and Wendy silhouettes, while pursuing natural extensions into sneakers, dress casual, boots, and sandals. Diversification within our icon silhouettes include the Stretch Sox, Stretch Canvas, Craft Linen, and Stretch Jersey.

•Drive market share gains across our Tier 1 markets through prioritization of investments behind our strategic markets — For the Crocs Brand, we are currently focused on six Tier 1 markets: (i) China, (ii) India, (iii) Japan, (iv) South Korea, (v), the U.S., and (vi) Western Europe. Our international sales in 2025 were 48.6% of Crocs Brand revenues compared to 44.1% and 41.0% in 2024 and 2023, respectively. For the HEYDUDE Brand, our current primary focus is to stabilize the U.S. marketplace, and we have made progress towards this goal. To support continued stabilization in the future, we plan to continue to support various marketing activities to ultimately drive higher brand awareness. This includes developing a pipeline of collaborations and brand activations.

Across our portfolio, leading with digital remains a priority. Digital sales include sales directly to consumers through our company-owned websites and third-party marketplaces as well as wholesale sales to our global e-tailers. Our digital sales in 2025 were 37.8% of consolidated revenues, compared to 37.2% and 37.9% of consolidated revenues in 2024 and 2023, respectively.

Products

Since we first introduced a single-style clog in six colors in 2002, we have grown to be a world leader of innovative, casual footwear for all. We offer a broad portfolio of all-season products, while remaining true to our core casual footwear heritage.

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Crocs Brand

Recognized globally for our unmistakable iconic molded clog silhouette, we have taken the successful formula of a simple design aesthetic, paired it with modern comfort, and expanded into a wide variety of casual footwear products including sandals—wedges, flips, and slides—that meet the needs of the whole family. Our mission of “everyone comfortable in their own shoes” continued in 2025 as we repeatedly brought our consumers new silhouettes, compelling collaborations, trend-right colors and graphics, and increased personalization through our Jibbitz™ charms accessories.

The vast majority of Crocs™ shoes feature Croslite™ material, a proprietary, revolutionary technology that gives each pair of shoes the soft, comfortable, and lightweight qualities that our fans know and love. We also use Croslite™ material formulations in connection with material technologies used in our visible comfort collections, such as our LiteRide™ and Free Feel Technology™ products. Our products containing LiteRide™ and Free Feel Technology™ feature comfort-focused, proprietary foam insoles which are soft, lightweight, and resilient.

HEYDUDE Brand

The HEYDUDE Brand is known for its iconic and versatile loafer silhouette serving multitudes of wearing occasions through focusing on casualization, comfort-led functionality, and personalization. HEYDUDE also offers apparel and accessories, which we believe ultimately allows the brand to connect with more consumers and build a broader community. The HEYDUDE Brand utilizes leading technologies including a flex-and-fold outsole and ergonomic insole. The shoes are known for being lightweight, flexible, and soft, with design and functional flexibility for convenience.

Marketing

Each season, we focus on presenting compelling brand stories and experiences for our new product introductions as well as our ongoing core products. We employ social and digital marketing centered on showcasing our clog, sandal silhouettes, and Jibbitz™ charms for the Crocs Brand and our loafer, sneaker, and boot silhouettes for the HEYDUDE Brand. We continue to invest in partnerships including Pokémon, MLB, Hello Kitty, Millie Bobby Brown, and Riley Green. Innovation is not only core to our brands’ values; it is at the forefront of how we drive consumer acquisition and engagement. We strive to listen and respond quickly to our customers to give them new and innovative reasons to continue to choose the Crocs and HEYDUDE brands. See Note 1 — Basis of Presentation and Summary of Significant Accounting Policies in the accompanying notes to the consolidated financial statements included in Part II - Item 8. Financial Statements and Supplementary Data of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for information on total marketing costs for the year.

Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Initiatives

As one of the world’s largest footwear companies, we aim to make a positive impact on the global footwear industry, for people, and for our planet. Our 2025 Comfort Report, which is expected to be published in the first half of 2026, is our annual publication that provides an explanation of our progress towards our purpose of creating a more comfortable world for all. Our Comfort Report will be made available on the Investor Relations section of our website located at www.investors.crocs.com. Except where specified otherwise, all information in the forthcoming Comfort Report and below corporate responsibility and sustainability (“CRS”) discussion pertains to Crocs, Inc. as of December 31, 2025. The content provided in our Comfort Report or accessible through our website is not incorporated by reference as part of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

We are continuously evaluating our business practices towards our goal of consistently delivering products that exceed customer and consumer expectations while meeting all regulatory and compliance requirements. We believe the progress of our sustainability efforts is best understood through transparent and comparable disclosures and, to this end, we continue to align our reporting with the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (“SASB”) and the Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (“TCFD”) frameworks.

Environmental

We are committed to taking steps to reduce our impact on the environment and are particularly focused on carbon reduction, sustainable operations, and product circularity.

In 2025, we completed a greenhouse gas inventory for the Crocs, Inc. enterprise, including both the Crocs and HEYDUDE brands, based on 2024 data. In 2025, we refocused our bio-circular materials strategy to the Crocs Classic Clog Portfolio, maintaining 25% bio-circular content on a mass balance basis across Classics as verified by the International Sustainability and

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Carbon Certification (“ISCC PLUS”), supporting our journey to Net Zero by 2040. We also maintained our membership with Cascale (formerly the Sustainable Apparel Coalition), continued to progress the work of the Footwear Collective as a founding member and enhanced the tracking of our energy use, water use, and waste generation.

In 2025, we also expanded our “Old Crocs. New Life.” consumer takeback program to Crocs stores in Europe. This program allows our Crocs consumers to return their gently worn or well-loved Crocs shoes to over 200 retail stores across the U.S., Canada, and Europe, or via a mail-back initiative, to be donated to communities in need or repurposed into something new. We also restocked our “Keep it Going” classic clog, made of 25% post-consumer recycled content created from Crocs shoes we’ve taken back.

More detail on these initiatives, as well as our ambitions, will be provided in our upcoming Comfort Report.

Social

As of December 31, 2025, we employed more than 8,010 employees globally, including approximately 4,940 employees in our retail stores, 2,230 employees at our corporate/regional offices, and 840 employees at our distribution centers.

We believe we have one of the most talented workforces in the footwear industry and continue to improve and implement new initiatives to remain an employer of choice across all of our businesses and geographies. These initiatives include pay transparency in hiring, offering employee training and developing leadership capabilities, enabling meaningful professional experiences, offering a compelling employee value proposition, and creating a collaborative culture. We strive to create a culture of inclusion through people-practices that support and empower all employees. We are proud of the workplace culture we have created. To that end, our regular employee engagement scores continue to reflect a highly engaged global workforce.

Our efforts around inclusion, collaboration, and human rights extend through our supply chain. We work to ensure our products are sourced, produced, and delivered to our customers in a manner that upholds international labor and human rights standards, inclusive of occupational safety and chemical safety. In addition, we maintain numerous measures to ensure our supply chain complies with our Social Compliance Code of Conduct, Restricted Substances Policy, and Human Rights Policy, as well as with local laws and customs regarding hiring practices, wages, and working conditions.

We also seek to extend the reach of our impact through our global community giving program. In 2025, we expanded our “Step Up to Greatness” program focused on supporting non-profit partners that help young people build new skills, grow confidence, and open doors to new opportunities. In addition to partnering with Big Brothers Big Sisters, the largest youth mentoring organization in the United States and Canada, we also announced a global partnership with UNICEF’s Upshift program, a social innovation accelerator that equips young people with skills, mentorship, and entrepreneurial training. We continued to show up for our communities in times of need, donating shoes and funds in the wake of crises, such as the impacts following the floods in Texas and wildfires in California in 2025.

Governance

Strong corporate governance mechanisms, along with robust internal controls over our financial reporting framework, are the foundation for our progress toward our environmental and social ambitions. The basis of this is our Board of Directors (the “Board”), which was comprised of 22% female and 22% historically underrepresented racial/ethnic members as of December 31, 2025.

In 2025, our Governance and Corporate Responsibility committee (the “GCR Committee”) of our Board, comprised of three independent directors, continued its oversight of our efforts and received quarterly updates on the development of our CRS program. Specifically, the GCR Committee assisted the Board in overseeing the Company’s significant strategies, programs, and practices relating to corporate responsibility, including social and environmental issues and impacts. Additionally, we regularly review our Enterprise Risk Management and Ethics & Compliance program frameworks to account for our social and environmental risks and opportunities, specifically including those related to climate change. All material findings and updates are elevated to and discussed with our Board quarterly by our Chief Sustainability and Compliance Officer.

We believe our employees are critical to the maintenance of strong corporate governance and, to that end, we continue to conduct annual in-person and online compliance trainings for all corporate employees, as well as retail and distribution center management. We also maintain a global ethics hotline, which is monitored by our Legal department, should any of our stakeholders identify concerns or have grievances.

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Distribution Channels

The broad appeal of our footwear has allowed us to market our products in more than 85 countries through two distribution channels: wholesale and direct-to-consumer (“DTC”).

Wholesale Channel

During the years ended December 31, 2025, 2024, and 2023, 47.9%, 50.3%, and 52.0% of our consolidated revenues, respectively, were derived through our wholesale channel. Our wholesale channel includes domestic and international multi-brand retailers, mono-branded partner stores, e-tailers, and distributors. Brick-and-mortar customers typically include family footwear retailers, international, national, and regional retail chains, sporting goods stores, and independent footwear retailers.

Outside the U.S., we use distributors when we believe such arrangements are economically preferable to direct sales. Distributors purchase products pursuant to a price list and are granted the right to resell those products in a defined territory, usually a country or group of countries. Our typical distribution agreements have terms of one to five years and can be terminated or renegotiated if minimum requirements or other terms are not met.

Direct-to-Consumer Channel

Our DTC channel includes company-operated e-commerce sites, third-party marketplaces, company-operated full-price retail stores, outlet stores, and kiosks/store-in-store locations. During the years ended December 31, 2025, 2024, and 2023, 52.1%, 49.7%, and 48.0%, respectively, of our consolidated revenues were derived through our DTC channel.

E-commerce

As of December 31, 2025, we offered our products through 23 company-operated e-commerce sites worldwide and also on third-party marketplaces. Our e-commerce presence facilitates a greater connection with our consumers and provides us with an opportunity to educate them about our products and brands. We continue to leverage increasingly sophisticated digital marketing activities to enhance the consumer experience and drive sales, thereby benefiting from the continued migration of consumers to online shopping.

Retail

With the continued worldwide consumer shift toward e-commerce, we carefully manage our retail fleet, especially full-priced retail stores. As of December 31, 2025, we had 439 and 75 company-operated stores for the Crocs Brand and HEYDUDE Brand, respectively.

Our company-operated full-price retail stores allow us to effectively showcase the full extent of our product range to consumers and provide us with the opportunity to interact with those consumers directly. As of December 31, 2025, we had 98 full-price Crocs Brand retail stores.

Our company-operated outlet stores allow us to sell discontinued and overstocked merchandise directly to consumers at discounted prices. We also sell full-priced products in our outlet stores as well as built-for-outlet products. As of December 31, 2025, we had 269 Crocs Brand outlet stores and 75 HEYDUDE Brand outlet stores.

Our company-operated kiosks and store-in-store locations allow us to market specific product lines, with flexibility to tailor products to consumer preferences in shopping malls and other high foot-traffic areas. With efficient use of retail space and limited fixed cost and capital investment, we believe kiosks and store-in-store locations can be effective vehicles for selling our products in certain geographic areas. As of December 31, 2025, we had 72 Crocs Brand store-in-store locations.

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The following table illustrates the net change during 2025 in the number of our company-operated retail stores (inclusive of full-price retail stores, outlet stores, kiosks, store-in-store locations, and temporary stores) by reportable operating segment and country:

Business Segments and Geographic Information

We have two reportable operating segments: the Crocs Brand and the HEYDUDE Brand. See Part II - Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations and Note 16 — Operating Segments and Geographic Information in the accompanying notes to the consolidated financial statements included in Part II - Item 8. Financial Statements and Supplementary Data of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for financial information related to our reportable operating segments.

Raw Materials

Crocs Brand

Croslite™, our proprietary closed-cell resin material, incorporates the primary material formulations used in the vast majority of our Crocs Brand footwear and some of our accessories. Our Croslite™ materials are formulated to create soft, comfortable, and lightweight footwear. We continue to invest in research and development to refine our materials to enhance these properties, develop new properties for specific applications, as well as reduce our environmental impact through various sustainability initiatives described in the previous section.

Croslite™ is produced by compounding elastomer resins, purchased from major chemical manufacturers, with certain other production inputs such as color dyes. Multiple suppliers produce the elastomer resins used in the Croslite™ material. In the future, we may identify and utilize materials produced by other suppliers as an alternative to, or in addition to, those elastomer resins. All other raw materials that we use to produce the Croslite™ formulations are readily available for purchase from multiple suppliers.

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Some of the products we offer are constructed using textile fabrics or other material formulations, such as those we brand LiteRide™ and Free Feel Technology™. These materials are obtained from a number of third-party sources, and we believe these materials are also broadly available.

HEYDUDE Brand

The primary raw materials for the HEYDUDE Brand are fabrics, including polyester and cotton, Ethylene-vinyl acetate (“EVA”) insoles and outsoles, and other materials such as leather and polyurethane. We purchase this material from a select group of third-party sources, and we believe these materials are broadly available.

Sourcing

Our sourcing strategy is to maintain a flexible, globally-diversified, cost-efficient third-party manufacturing base. We source our inventory production from multiple third-party manufacturers, primarily in:

•Vietnam for the Crocs Brand. We have additional third-party manufacturers in China, Indonesia, India, and Mexico, among other countries. During the years ended December 31, 2025, 2024, and 2023, approximately 45%, 51%, and 56%, respectively, of our Crocs Brand production was in Vietnam. Our largest third-party manufacturer for the Crocs Brand, with the majority of operations in Vietnam, produced approximately 45%, 50%, and 47% of our production during the years ended December 31, 2025, 2024, and 2023, respectively, and our second largest third-party manufacturer for the Crocs Brand, primarily operating in both Vietnam and China, produced approximately 28%, 25%, and 26% of our production during the years ended December 31, 2025, 2024, and 2023, respectively.

•Vietnam for the HEYDUDE Brand. We have additional third-party manufacturers in China, Cambodia, Indonesia, and India. During the years ended December 31, 2025, 2024 and 2023, approximately 44%, 20%, and 5%, respectively, of our HEYDUDE Brand production was in Vietnam. Prior to 2025, the majority of our HEYDUDE Brand production was in China.

We believe any potential concentration risk is mitigated by the fact that the manufacturing capabilities required to produce our footwear are broadly available for both brands. Nonetheless, see the risk factors under “Risks Related to our Supply Chain — We depend solely on third-party manufacturers located outside of the U.S.” and “Risks Related to International Operations —Government actions and regulations, such as export restrictions, tariffs, and other trade protection measures, could adversely affect our business” included in Item 1A. Risk Factors of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for more information on risks associated with sourcing.

Distribution and Logistics

We strive to enhance our distribution and logistics network to further streamline our supply chain, increase our speed to market, and lower operating costs. As of December 31, 2025, we principally stored our finished goods inventory in company-operated warehouses and distribution and logistics facilities located in the U.S. and the Netherlands. We also utilized third-party operated distribution centers located in the United States, Japan, China, Australia, South Korea, Singapore, India, Brazil, Canada, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. As of December 31, 2025, our company-operated warehouse and distribution facilities provided us with 2.9 million square feet, and our third-party operated distribution facilities provided us with 1.0 million square feet, with additional area available based on inventory levels. Additionally, certain customers pick up orders directly from our third-party manufacturers or from the port of entry.

See the risk factors under “Risks Related to our Supply Chain — Our operations are dependent on the global supply chain and impacts of supply chain constraints and inflationary pressure could adversely impact our operating results” and “Risks Related to Our Supply Chain — Supply chain disruptions could interrupt product manufacturing and global logistics and increase product costs” included in Item 1A. Risk Factors of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for information on risks associated with distribution and logistics.

Intellectual Property and Trademarks

We rely on a combination of trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, trade dress, and patent protections to establish, protect, and enforce our intellectual property rights in our product designs, brands, materials, and research and development efforts, although no such methods can afford complete protection. We own or license the material trademarks used in connection with the marketing, distribution, and sale of all of our products, both domestically and internationally, in most countries where our products are currently either sold or manufactured. Our major trademarks for the Crocs Brand include the Crocs logo and the Crocs word mark, both of which are registered or pending registration in the U.S., the European Union, Japan, Korea, Taiwan,

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China, Canada, United Kingdom, and Australia, among other countries. Our major trademarks for the HEYDUDE Brand include the HEYDUDE logo and word mark. The HEYDUDE word mark is registered in the U.S., the European Union, China, Canada, Singapore, Korea, United Kingdom, and Australia among others. Protection for the HEYDUDE logo has published in the U.S. and other countries and has moved to registration in some, including Singapore, Canada, China, Korea, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Australia, Brazil, Japan, Mexico, and New Zealand, among others. We also have registrations or pending trademark applications for other marks and logos in various countries around the world.

In the U.S., our patents are generally in effect for up to 20 years from the date of filing the patent application. Our trademarks registered within and outside of the U.S. are generally valid as long as they are in use and their registrations are properly maintained and have not been found to have become generic. We believe our trademarks and patents are crucial to the successful marketing and sale of our products. We strategically register, both domestically and internationally, the trademarks and patents covering certain product designs and branding that we utilize today. We aggressively police our patents, trademarks, and copyrights and pursue those who infringe upon them, both domestically and internationally, through opposition efforts, litigation, and otherwise, as we deem necessary.

We consider the formulations of the materials used to produce our Crocs Brand footwear covered by our trademarks Croslite™, LiteRide™, and Free Feel Technology™, among others, valuable trade secrets. The material formulations are manufactured through a process that combines a number of components in various proportions to achieve the properties for which our Crocs Brand products are known. We use multiple suppliers to source these components but protect the formulations by using an exclusive supply agreement for key components and confidentiality agreements with our third-party processors, and by requiring our employees to execute confidentiality agreements concerning the protection of our confidential information. Other than our third-party processors, we are unaware of any third-party using our formulations in the production of footwear. We believe the comfort and utility of our Crocs Brand products depend on the properties achieved from the compounding of the Croslite™, LiteRide™, and Free Feel Technology™ materials, which constitutes a key competitive advantage for us, and we intend to continue to vigorously protect these trade secrets.

We also actively combat counterfeiting and other infringements of our brand by monitoring the global marketplace. We use our employees, sales representatives, distributors, and retailers, as well as outside investigators, attorneys, and customs agents, to police against infringing products by encouraging them to notify us of any suspect products and to assist law enforcement agencies. Our sales representatives and distributors are also educated on our patents, pending patents, trademarks, and trade dress to assist in preventing potentially infringing products from obtaining retail shelf space. The laws of certain countries do not protect intellectual property rights to the same extent or in the same manner as do the laws of the U.S., and, therefore, we may have difficulty obtaining legal protection for our intellectual property in certain foreign jurisdictions. See the risk factor under “Risks Related to our Products — Failure to adequately protect our trademarks and other intellectual property rights and counterfeiting of our brands could divert sales, damage our brands’ image, and adversely affect our business” included in Item 1A. Risk Factors of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for more information.

Competition

The global casual, athletic, and fashion footwear markets are highly competitive. Although we do not believe that we compete directly with any single company with respect to the entire spectrum of our products, we believe portions of our wholesale, retail, and e-commerce businesses compete with companies including, but not limited to: NIKE, Inc., adidas AG, Deckers Outdoor Corporation, Birkenstock Holding plc., Steven Madden, Ltd., Wolverine World Wide, Inc., and V.F. Corporation. Our company-operated retail locations and e-commerce sites also compete with some of our wholesale partners.

The principal elements of competition in these markets include brand awareness, product functionality, design, comfort, quality, price, customer service, and marketing and distribution. We believe that our unique footwear designs, material formulations, prices, product line, and distribution networks position us well in the marketplace. However, a number of companies in the casual footwear industry have greater financial resources, more comprehensive product lines, broader market presence, longer standing relationships with wholesalers, longer operating histories, greater distribution capabilities, stronger brand recognition, and greater marketing resources than we have. See the risk factor under “Risks Related to our Products — We face significant competition” included in Item 1A. Risk Factors of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for more information.

Available Information

We file with, or furnish to, the SEC reports including our Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K, and amendments to those reports pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Exchange Act. These reports are available free of charge on our corporate website (www.crocs.com) as soon as reasonably practicable after they are electronically filed with, or furnished to, the SEC. Copies of any materials we file with the SEC can be obtained free of charge

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at www.sec.gov. The foregoing website addresses are provided as inactive textual references only. The information provided on our website (or any other website referred to in this Annual Report on Form 10-K) is not part of this report and is not incorporated by reference as part of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.