Effective with the next winter season, Lowa will stop marketing ski boots under its own name. The Tecnica Group has decided to focus on its core brands in this category, Tecnica and Nordica. Werner Riethmann, managing partner of Lowa, told this publication that recently the company sold only some 40,000 pairs annually, mainly in the German-speaking countries, the Netherlands and Russia.
The German manufacturer is also going to stop making touring ski boots. Riethmann pointed out that Tecnica offers basically the same range and that the Lowa touring ski offer lacked essential side products such as poles, apparel and accessories that would have helped sell the range more successfully.
The halt of the ski boot line will have no major impact on operations at the company's office in Jetzendorf, Germany, since development and production of Lowa branded ski boots has been with Tecnica outside Montebelluna, Italy, for a long time. Instead, Lowa hopes to intensify its efforts toward development, production and sales of its core business in outdoor shoes. The company says that it will use the financial and human resources freed up by the pull-out for its hiking, trekking and mountaineering boots.
2010 was another successful year for Lowa, which ? for the first time ever ? sold more than 2 million pairs compared with around 1.8 million units in the previous year.
