Both categories suffered a major slowdown in their growth around the world last year in terms of U.S. dollars, partly due to the depreciation of the euro and the sharp contraction in the previously booming Chinese market, according to the studies of the wholesale sports market conducted annually by Sporting Goods Intelligence.
The apparel sales invoiced by the sports brands globally rose by only 2.6 percent to $72.2 billion in 2012 from the previous year, with increases of 3.4 percent in the U.S. and 1.9 percent in the rest of the world. Their sales of footwear instead grew by 6.3 percent to $45.4 billion, with increases of 7.5 percent in the U.S. and 5.6 percent elsewhere. As we already reported in April, the global sports equipment market grew last year by 6.5 percent to $65.7 billion at wholesale.
Comparatively, the sports apparel and footwear markets had risen in 2011 at higher rates of 10.1 percent and 13.0 percent, respectively.
A similar evolution has taken place in the more specific, rugged outdoor footwear market, led by brands such as Merrell and Salomon, which will be covered in the next issue of our Outdoor Industry Compass. It will be interesting to compare these categories with the performance of the casual footwear brands such as Clarks, Ecco and Geox, which will be covered by Shoe Intelligence later this year.
All these annual studies of ours are mostly based on publicly available data reported by the major brands, but in some cases they are estimates based on comments made by insiders or outsiders. The figures relate to the brands' wholesale-equivalent sales, including those of their licensees, but they may be overstated by around 10 percent because of the inclusion of a growing proportion of direct-to-consumer business as part of the ongoing verticalization of the industry. Figures obtained in other currencies are converted to U.S. dollars at the average exchange rate calculated by the OECD for the year.
You can find the charts listing the various companies, their evolution and their market shares in the next pages. They show the Adidas and Nike groups leading the athletic apparel and footwear sectors, respectively, with VF Corporation vaulting into the third spot in both categories, thanks to its acquisition of Timberland. VF's figures concern all the operations of its Imagewear and Outdoor & Action Sports Coalitions. Specific figures for Timberland's footwear and apparel were not available for 2012, however, so we are only running the total figures.
In a major change from previous practice, we have chosen to include Timberland's sales in both charts for the first time because of its acquisition by VF, although we have considered Timberland until now as a lifestyle brand that deserved inclusion in our International Fashion Casual Footwear chart. We shall run the Timberland figures there as well. By the same token, Skechers' numbers and some of the Wolverine figures in the athletic footwear chart will also appear in our other charts. Based on the same logic, which goes with the growing overlap among the different segments of the broader sports and leisure market, we are including here for the first time the figures for Hi-Tec Sports, although they will be repeated in the International Rugged Outdoor Footwear Chart.
Both of the charts published in this issue show Adidas and other non-American brands growing more slowly than Nike and other U.S.-based brands because of the 8 percent increase in the value of the U.S. dollar against the euro. While the Nike group suffered marginally from the sale of Umbro, Adidas suffered a lot more from the rapidly declining turnover of Reebok. Adidas, Nike and other sports brands grew more strongly internationally and in local currencies, thanks in part to their exposure at the 2012 Olympic Games and the Euro 2012 football tournament.
Under Armour was one of the stars last year in both footwear and apparel, along with Brooks and other more specialized brands like New Balance, but Asics' and Mizuno's growth in athletic footwear slowed down, and Puma suffered a well-documented decline in the footwear segment. In sports apparel, we may note the double-digit increases scored by Gildan from the U.S. and Descente from Japan. The latter's figures also include Arena's sales in its territory.
The Chinese brands, which had provided much of the lift for the global market in the last few years, showed serious double-digit declines last year for several reasons including a glut of inventories at retail and growing competition from the international brands. We are studying closely their moves in a rapidly changing market environment in connection with a major research project that we are carrying out in China.
In spite of the lackluster performance of the Chinese brands, the market for sports shoes grew by 7.6 percent at wholesale to $10.3 billion in Asia last year, but it fell by 0.6 percent there for sports apparel down to $14.7 billion. In other emerging markets, led by Latin America, sales of athletic footwear rose by 6.1 percent to $6.5 billion, while sports apparel went up by 6.5 percent to $5.7 billion.
Regionally, the slowest growth was recorded in Europe, where sales in U.S. dollars went up by 4.2 percent to $11.8 billion for sports shoes and by 2.6 percent to $19.4 billion for apparel. As indicated before, the devaluation of the euro played a role, but so did the economy, especially in the southern part of the continent. In any case, shoes sold better than clothing also at retail. NPD's online consumer panel for the five major European markets, which we shall discuss more in detail later on, shows increases of 4.0 percent for sports and leisure shoes and 1.2 percent for sports and leisure apparel in 2012.
Click HERE to download the Athletic Footwear Chart.
Click HERE to donwloard the Sports Apparel Chart.
