After eight years of steady growth, the Norwegian sporting goods market has recorded a decline in sales. In 2011, turnover was approximately NOK 11.5 billion (€1.5bn-$2.1bn) at retail, a small decline of 0.2 percent compared with 2010. Still, the market has grown by over 60 percent since 2004.
The weather was one of the decisive factors for the decline. Due to the slow onset of the Norwegian winter, stores saw fewer buyers and a decline in sales of 9.7 percent during the autumn and winter months, compared with the same quarters the year before. In 2010, the first and fourth quarters had shown exceptional growth of 15 percent and 17 percent respectively.
Among the individual sporting goods chains in Norway, XXL was still the fastest-growing banner with a turnover of NOK 2.044 billion (€272.4m-$365.8m), an increase of 10 percent from 2010. Stadium showed the next largest growth with a 2.6 percent sales increase and a turnover of NOK 787 million (€104.9m-$140.8m). In third place came G-Sport with a 1.9 percent increase.
Coop posted the greatest decline with a drop in sales of 10.4 percent. MX Sport reported a decline of 3.7 percent, while Sport 1 had a decline of 2.2 percent.
All the figures have been reported by Sportsbransjen AS, the Norwegian sporting goods industry association, which has been collecting information on industry trends since 2003.
