Revenues of Italian footwear manufacturers fell by an estimated 10.9 percent year-on-year in the third quarter of 2024, a slight acceleration compared with the first half of the year, when turnover fell by 9.1 percent. Over the first nine months of 2024, the industry’s revenues are estimated to have fallen by 9.7 percent year-over-year, according to a survey carried out in November by Confindustria Moda among members of the Italian footwear association Assocalzaturifici.
The survey showed that 66 percent of shoemakers expect to finish the year with a decline in revenues compared with 2023, 18 percent anticipate to break even and 16 percent forecast an increase. Overall, the industry predicts to end 2024 with aggregate revenues of €13.2 billion, down by 9.3 percent year-on-year.
Data on industrial production released by the national statistics office Istat painted a bleaker picture, indicating that footwear output fell by 18.9 percent in the first nine months of 2024. Italian footwear production declined by a double-digit figure every month during the period except for a 3.1 percent year-on-year surge in August, immediately absorbed by a more than 20 percent drop in September.
In the whole of 2023, sales for the industry grew by 0.6 percent to €14.58 billion, but the increase was mainly due to a 13.6-percent rise in the first quarter of the year, due to the rebound in activity registered as the world economy recovered from the havoc caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
“In the third quarter of 2024 there was no turnaround in the sector’s economic situation,” commented Giovanna Ceolini, president of Assocalzaturifici. She noted that Italian footwear exports were hit by a slowdown in many key economies and a difficult geopolitical environment.
In the first nine months of 2024, exports fell by 9.2 percent year-over-year in value to €8.762 billion and by 6.1 percent in volume to 141.734 million pairs. The average price of shoes exported slipped by 3.4 percent to €61.82.
Exports to the European Union fared better than those to the rest of the world, falling by 2.6 percent in value to €4.510 billion and by 3.0 percent in volume to 97.346 million pairs.
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