Sales of winter sports products fell by 16 percent to 6,628 million yen (€51.5m-$60.3m) for the financial year ended June 30 at the Alpen Group, one of the major sporting goods retailers in Japan, mainly due to a lack of snow because of a warm winter season. Total revenues increased by 7 percent to ¥223.2 billion (€1,798m-$2,139m), thanks largely to an 18 percent jump in sales of golf products to ¥88.9 billion (€690m-$810m), with rising participation by young players. Sales of “general sporting goods” went up by just 3 percent to ¥133.7 billion (€1.03bn-$1.22bn), as higher sales of outdoor products offset weakness in sports shoes, team sports and indoor sports. Net earnings rebounded to ¥10.8 billion (€83.0m-$98.8m) from breakeven results of ¥17 million in the prior year, as the gross margin expanded by 2.4 percentage points to 42.4 percent and operating expenses remained almost flat. The number of Alpen stores at the end of the year showed two units less for a total of 38. The number of Alpen Outdoor stores grew by three to 14. The number of golf stores declined by five to 194. There were also 145 Sports Depot outlet stores at the end of the year, one more than before. For this year, the company is guiding for net income of ¥11.56 billion (€89m-$100m) on revenues of ¥250 billion (€1.93bn-$2.27bn).

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