Puma VS Nike
A few years ago Nike was the
company advertising on mass while producing par products. Puma was
sitting in the back making nice clothes and became one of my favorite
brands.
Now it seems that Puma is everywhere and Nike is starting to sit back. It also seems Nike's quality is up a tad.
gLyo: Nike is not sitting back from anything; they are still milking
the Nike SB Dunks for all they are worth (which is $1000+ for some
pairs). Some of their shoes are pretty solid, and some totally suck.
The same goes for Puma(i like puma shoes badly, lol), but they don't have an ultra-popular streetwear brand like Nike SB.
Addidas recently "stepped up their game" with the Adicolor line, which
has some very interesting colorways, but not many are actually very
wearable.
My personal favourites are Asics Onitsuka and Vans. Very solid wearable shoes with a nice amount of flair.
aseq: I think Nike is still huge in the US. I haven't got any
numbers on it, but over here i see more adidas and puma. I think both
Puma and Adidas are better looking
than Nike, but i also support wearing sports stuff because it's
functional, not because it looks good. Puma are worn as day-to-day
sneakers, while pretty much all nike shoes are running or training
shoes.
Should make a bigger poll, missing also: Reebok, Asics, Fila, Lotto, Coq Sportif, Ellesse, etc.