The German sporting goods market improved last year by 1.5 percent to €7,308 million, according to VDS, the German shoe retailers' federation. Its estimate is only slightly more optimistic than that of GfK and NPD, which say it grew by only 0.9 percent.
According to VDS' retail panel, sales of running and walking shoes grew by 12 percent, while those of outdoor products increased by 3 percent. Fitness and funwheel items went up by around 8 and 11 percent, respectively. The biggest drops affect the winter sports hardware segment, down by 19 percent, and winter clothing, down by more than 15 percent. On the other hand, sales of ski boots rose by 2 percent, and ski accessories such as helmets, gloves, goggles and protections were on positive ground.
The GfK/NPD figures quoted by the Sport+Mode magazine indicate that, overall, sales of sports shoes grew in Germany by 4.4 percent in 2014, in contrast with declines of 0.4 percent for both sports apparel and equipment.
Among the different sports categories, football naturally grew the most, rising by 23 percent, according to GfK/NPD, because of the World Cup and Germany's victory in the tournament. German consumers also spent 12 percent more on bicycles, 18 percent more on fitness and 15 percent more on funwheel sports.
According to the market research agency, other team sports, swimming and skiing all declined by 8 percent. The snowboard sector had the biggest drop, down by 29 percent. The agency's estimates for running and outdoor coincided largely with those reported by VDS.
Despite the lackluster performance of the German market, which was partly influenced by the weather, the European market apparently performed less well as a whole. According to the European shoe retailers' federation, Fedas, it fell by 5 percent to €35.82 billion, due also to the economic uncertainties in South and Eastern Europe.
Fedas' estimate is mainly based on input from VDS and its sister federations in Austria, Switzerland and Italy. We and NPD think that the European sporting goods market is bigger. We shall try to determine its size and growth country by country, as usual, later this year.
