Asics Europe saw its sales increase by 13 percent in constant currencies excluding the Haglöfs brand last year, driven by robust sales in the running and tennis categories. Alistair Cameron, chief executive of Asics Europe, said the group was confident of breaking the $1 billion sales mark in 2015.
The sales expansion last year was spread across all major European sales subsidiaries. The Benelux countries, Germany, Austria and Norway delivered solid single-digit sales growth, while Denmark, Sweden, France, Spain, Italy, the U.K. and Poland all served up impressive double-digit sales increases. Sales in Asics' own retail outlets soared by 37 percent.
Running products generated sales increases of 15 percent in apparel and 14 percent for footwear. Asics Europe said that the brand became the leader for performance running apparel in France and that it reinforced its top three ranking in this category in Germany.
Apparel and footwear both achieved double-digit sales growth in tennis, which is the second-largest sports category for Asics Europe. Asics describes itself as the fastest-growing major tennis footwear brand in Europe, adding that it led sales rankings for adult tennis footwear in Spain and France last year.
Indoor footwear was another category that delivered double-digit sales expansion. The group reports that this qualifies Asics as the best performing top brand over the last 12 months, based on a consumer panel of NPD Sports Tracking Europe for adult footwear.
Cameron emphasized that, while European growth in the last five years has come from performance categories, sports lifestyle again became a growth driver for Asics Europe in 2014 as the Asics Tiger business gained traction.
Asics Europe boasted that it has recently been placed in the top three of the most desired sports brands, based on a global brand tracking study by Ipsos in the second half of 2014, focusing on Germany, Italy, France, the U.K., Spain, Sweden and the Netherlands. The company wants to capitalize on that through its big media campaign starting in March, as reported further in this issue, and the launch of product innovations.
While Asics Europe did not provide any sales figure, the head office in Japan reported sales of ¥104,791 million (€776.6mm-$881.1m) for the area excluding Haglöfs, which was an increase of 22.9 percent in yen and 13.0 percent in constant currencies. Asics' operating income for the area reached ¥8,652 million (€64.0m-$72.7m), which amounted to increases of 14.7 percent in yen and 5.4 percent in constant currencies, due to heightened purchasing costs and a drop in exchange rates for the ruble and the Norwegian crown against the euro.
