Pádel Nuestro Group is forecasting an increase in annual sales of 27 percent, to €65 million, for full-year 2023, according to CMDsport. This is up from November’s forecast of €62 million. E-commerce should account for about 55 percent of the total. In what parent company 360 Padel Group’s CEO is calling the “somewhat less complicated” year of 2024, moreover, Pádel Nuestro will be aiming for a further increase of 31 percent to €85 million.
According to 360’s aforementioned CEO, Rafael Martínez Avial, the complications are the familiar ones for pádel and other sports (e.g., cycling): the decline after the post-lockdown boom, the inventory glut that came along with it, and the effects of general price inflation on customer spending.
Next year’s growth, meanwhile, will be fed presumably by an ambitious retail expansion. Over the next 18 months, Pádel Nuestro plans to open 25 to 30 franchises and 15 to 18 own stores, not to mention points of sale at pádel clubs. One of these, scheduled to open in Miami during the first quarter of 2024, will be the group’s first store in the US and will incorporate the American answer to pádel: pickleball. New e-tail sites will be going online there and in the Netherlands.
The group already has more than 500 stores in all. Iberia continues to be the top market, accounting for 60 percent of all sales. Spain alone accounts for 55 percent. Of the export markets, Italy comes out on top, with 20 percent of overall sales. The rest covers Chile, Dubai, Finland, France, Morocco, the Netherlands, Germany, Panama, Peru, the UK and Sweden.
Even as it expands its retail footprint, Pádel Nuestro will be narrowing its portfolio to the top five by sales, Martínez Avial tells CMD – adding, however, that the company will shut itself off from “practically no supplier” and is “ready to establish product-deposit or ‘drop shipping’ agreements” with any small brands that inspire demand among customers.
The narrowing of the product portfolio will affect two other aspects of the business: sponsorships of professional players and Pro Padel Group’s brand distribution.
360 Padel Group controls the Pádel Nuestro, Padelmanía, Street Padel and Time2Padel banners, while its Pro Padel Group division handles distribution for the Siux, Vairo, Vision, Eclypse, Mystica, Orygen, Padel Session and Wingpadel brands. As Martínez Avial explains, Pro Padel will continue to work with Siux – still “the crown jewels” – and with Vairo while it will promote Mystica as a private label. The rest will be put “temporarily on standby.”
In addition, the Pádel Nuestro retail banner will be receiving most of the group’s investments over Padelmanía, Street Padel and Time2Padel.
The group, incidentally, has of late received a capital injection that Martínez Avial declines to specify, although he qualifies it as “notable.”
