Adidas Remains Global Leader In Apparel, Amer Takes The Leadership In Equipment

NPD’s figures largely coincide with our own estimates for the size of the branded sporting goods market at the wholesale level, augmented by the distributors’ and the retailers’ effective mark-ups, minus discounts. We had been waiting for NPD’s report to publish our annual surveys of the sports apparel and sports equipment markets. The corresponding data for 2004 and 2005 are published on pages 3 and 5 of this issue.

SGI’s apparel chart places the value of the global athletic apparel market at $49.6 billion for 2005. That includes sales invoiced to distributors as well as sales through the brands’ own stores. With retailers’ mark-ups averaging around 2.5, the retail value of the market including sales tax should be not far from $100 million. On the other hand, our chart refers only to the athletic apparel brands. We are excluding here some sports-inspired fashion brands such as Lacoste, whose direct and licensed wholesale sales of clothing reached $775 million in 2005, up from $666 million in 2004.

SGI’s sports equipment chart places the total value of this more fragmented market at $53.2 billion at wholesale, with the 27 major brands taking only one-third of the total turnover. The retailers’ mark-ups are lower in this category of products. According to our own estimates, this market increased by only 2.6 percent last year, as compared to growth of 4.8 percent in the athletic apparel market and of 9.9 percent to $24.1 billion for athletic footwear (see SGI Europe, issue 19+20).

In terms of market shares, our apparel chart shows that Nike overtook the Adidas brand as the leader in the sports apparel sector in 2005, although Adidas remained #1 in Europe. However Adidas’ acquisition of Reebok allowed it keep the #1 position worldwide, with a 6.6 percent share. Quiksilver came next, followed by VF Corp.. In the sports equipment sector, Amer Sports overtook Adidas as the #1 player with 3.2 percent of the total market, following its acquisition of Salomon, but Adidas came next, followed by Shimano and by K2.

The FIFA World Cup gave a big boost to the sports apparel market this year, particularly in Europe. The figures published by some major players have shown that already, and a survey among our subscribers confirms that and the fact that the growth of sports apparel market will probably be lower in 2007. The footwear market remains more dynamic in terms of sales and orders. Equipment sales grew less rapidly this year, particularly in Europe, and they may grow even less in 2007, but accessories are performing better.