The Fila Group is bouncing back after ending in the red in the second quarter, thanks to stronger demand for golf products. Its revenues rose by 5.8 percent to 917,431 million Korean won (€698.6m-$772.5m) in the third quarter. Excluding revenues from the recently-acquired Acushnet, revenues from the Fila brand went down by 7 percent to KRW 342,036 million (€260.5-$309.1m).
The group’s net income declined by 3.4 percent to 95,115 million Korean won (€72.4m-$80.1m) in the quarter. The Korean-based group managed to improve the gross margin by 0.5 percentage points to 48.6 percent.
Fila Korea has been the owner of the Italian heritage sports brand since 2007, and it has been licensing it out in several regions. During the quarter, the number of licensees remained flat at 49, but licensing revenues fell by 23.7 percent in the quarter to $14.4 million, with declines in all the regions due to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. Typically, Fila Korea charges a licensing fee of between 6 and 7 percent on the licensees’ wholesale revenues.
In EMEA, where the group has one master licensee and 11 regional licensees, revenues from royalties plunged by 31.3 percent to $8.2 million.
The revenues of the company’s North American subsidiary, Fila USA, fell by 8.6 percent to $134.4 million, leading to a drop of 5.5 percent in net profit to $6.6 million, due to a slowdown in retail caused by Covid-19.
In South Korea, sales went down by 18.7 percent to KRW 121,737 million (€92.7m- $110.0m), while net earnings tumbled by 52.6 percent to KRW 16,893 million (€12.9m-$15.3m), due to lower wholesale revenues and a smaller store fleet that has been reduced to 509 units, compared with 535 last year.
On the other hand, the group managed to book a 27.0 percent increase to $8.8 million in the 3 percent design fees attached to its joint venture with Anta Sports Products in China. Anta reported a 20 to 25 percent sales increase for the Fila brand in China during the period.
