POC of Sweden continues to collect design awards. It has just obtained the prestigious Red Dot award for the fifth year in a row, this time for two new products. Its EYES Eyewear line is said to focus on performance and optical perfection, and it can be worn for functional performance as well as everyday use. POC's Fornix is described as a ski helmet that combines light weight and good ventilation with solid, safe construction.
Thanks largely to its very creative design and good technology, POC is becoming an important factor in the sports helmet market. Its deliveries of helmets reached about 200,000 units last year, compared with only 2,000 in 2005-06, and they are expected to grow further to 240,000 units this year. Some 80 percent of the volume is for skiers.
The Swedish company also expects to sell about 150,000 snow goggles this year. For this purpose, it participated for the first time in Mido, the international eyewear show in Milan, as it inaugurated a new sports eyewear section where it also featured brands such as Spy, the licensed McLaren glasses and the newly launched Red Bull Racing Eyewear collection. Run by Giampiero Masciadri, who used to run the former Italian sporting goods show, Mias, Mido would like to see more sports eyewear companies in this space in the future.
POC attended Mido mainly in order to attract opticians to its colorful collection. Shying away from large sports retail accounts and multi-sport retailers, it sells its products mainly to 2,400 “official” ski and bike shops in 27 different countries.
The company launched an international e-commerce operation just before Christmas on its website. It has sold more than 1,600 items so far, but company managers insist that the website is mainly intended as a promotional tool and a service for its customers. The POC website gets some 1.2 million unique visitors each year.
