The annual survey of the global athletic footwear market by Sporting Goods Intelligence has found that it grew by 5.4 percent last year in terms of U.S. dollars, but not in local currencies. Asia overall led the way, helped by huge jumps in sales for two Chinese brands, Li Ning and Anta, as well as foreign companies operating there. The European market was flat, as was the U.S., but Latin America had good results.
Total worldwide sales of athletic footwear reached an estimated $31.2 billion at wholesale in 2008. Of that, $18,927 million came from outside the U.S., a 9.6 percent increase in dollars, but this was aided by an increase of more than 6 percent in the value of the euro against the dollar. U.S. sales were nearly flat, falling by 0.4 percent to $12,288 million.
Coming after many years of continued growth, last year’s sudden halt was probably due to the strong fashion contents of some collections, as shown by the flat sales results of Puma for the year. The relative scores of the major brands in the market are outlined in a chart on page 3 of this issue. It is interesting to compare it with our annual chart of the rugged outdoor footwear market on the following page, which shows instead some growth because of a relatively buoyant outdoor market.
Nike continued leading in market share globally, partly through organic growth - with Converse being still exceptionally impressive - and partly from its purchase of Umbro. Its global market share slipped slightly to 34.7 percent from 35.6 percent in 2007. It ended up with total worldwide sales of $10,847 million, a 2.8 percent increase over 2007.
The Adidas Group, though it struggled in the U.S. market, increased its global market share from 21.2 percent to 21.9 percent, with sales climbing by 9.0 percent to $6,825 million. Together, the Nike and Adidas groups made up 56.6 percent of the global total of athletic footwear market.
The other top companies were Puma, with sales unchanged at $2,026 million; Asics, which grew by 28.4 percent to $1,720 million; Skechers, flat at $1,394 million, and New Balance, which fell by 4.3 percent, but still with sales above the billion-dollar mark, at $1,315 million.
The Chinese brands Li Ning and Anta skyrocketed, with Li Ning’s sales growing by 59.7 % to $428 million and Anta’s jumping by 57.4 percent to $370 million. The Beijing Olympics obviously helped these brands attain wider exposure; they are both new to the list of the top 23 brands.
Double-digit growth in athletic shoes was attained by VF Corporation, whose brands includes Vans, The North Face and Reef (17 percent). Double-digit gains were also recorded by the Lotto group (16.7 percent), Alpargatas (21.4 percent) and Diadora (14.6 percent), but currencies boosted the growth of the two Italian companies. Alpargatas, the Argentinian company that makes the Toppers brand and distributes Mizuno, is the third new addition to the chart.
SGI got its information from publicly available figures in most cases, and also used estimates and information from management to break down the sums into regions. It believes it succeeded in eliminating non-footwear for the most part. Most of the figures are wholesale numbers, but the percentage of sales that it counted here at retail value has been growing steadily and represents at least 15 percent of the total, affecting the overall growth rates. Besides the high percentage of direct business being done by large international brands such as Nike, Adidas, Reebok and Puma, there are brands such as Li Ning and Anta that are almost all retail with a vertical model.
