Some of Sweden’s floorball equipment manufacturers are eyeing line extensions into apparel, since their sales of floorball sticks have begun to flatten in a market that has gone through a certain concentration. One of the most sweeping changes in the market over the last months was in fact the integration of Unihoc, the historic market leader, into a smaller competitor. Unihoc was acquired in December 2004 by Renew Sports, a company that had launched a competing brand, Zone, about four years earlier.
Unihoc is the brand established by Carl Ake Ahlquist, the man who brought floorball to Sweden back in the ‘seventies. However, a few years ago four Unihoc managers jointly came to the conclusion that the market required sticks with more modern designs. Jan Inge Forsberg, one of the four, convinced a friendly real estate magnate, Hans Wallenstam, to invest in a new brand – under a holding company called Renew Sports. It worked out so well that Ahlquist decided to sell his own brand, Unihoc, to Renew Sports.
Since then the combined group has become a leading force in the floorball business in Sweden, with combined sales of about 125,000 sticks, roughly 80,000 for Unihoc and another 45,000 for Zone. The global floorball market is estimated at roughly 350,000 sticks, of which Sweden alone represents at least 200,000 units, or 400,000 including private labels and children´s kits. Finland is thought to be the second-largest market with 30,000 sticks, followed by the Czech Republic with 28,000 units and Switzerland with 25,000.
Renew Sports has moved production of Unihoc to Molnlycke, south of Gothenburg, where the Zone sticks are assembled. The shafts are made in Taïwan and the blades are sub-contracted in Sweden, but the assembly for both brands is handled in Molnlycke.
Meanwhile Exel, the other large supplier of floorball sticks in Sweden, has recovered from a substantial dip that it had suffered at the beginning of the decade. After two strong seasons it returned to sales of about 65,000 sticks last year. A relative newcomer to the market is Fat Pipe, another Finnish brand which chiefly targets young players. It has apparently been luring some of them away from Zone over the last months.
Anyhow, the leading brands are now pinning their strongest hopes on apparel, which still makes up less than 10 percent of the Swedish floorball market. Players tend to wear apparel and indoor team sports footwear by the likes of Adidas and Puma, but the largest stick specialists have recently started developing their own clothing ranges to snatch a chunk of the market. The latest introduction is a floorball-oriented clothing range by Exel, with a distinct logo, which hit Scandinavian stores late last year.
any, the floorball specialists are bracing themselves for their own global championships, to be held in Sweden in May. The stakes are rising in the sponsorship and replica business, with the Swedish team endorsing Puma and several other teams wearing Unihoc emblems, while the championships themselves are sponsored by Puma and Exel.
Still, there should not be much suspense on the pitch, since Sweden has won all the preceding editions. Floorball remains the second-largest Swedish sport with about 110,000 registered players, behind football but well ahead of ice hockey. Tickets for the championships, which are to be held in the Stockholm Dome, were sold within hours.
