This is an exclusive, yearly statistic only available for subscribers of SGI Europe. It includes revenue and market share development of the major global sports apparel brands including breakdown by region.
Faring even worse than their sales of athletic footwear, the sports brands’ sales of apparel dropped by 10.8 percent in terms of dollars to $86,709 million in the pandemic year from $97,181 in 2019, with all except four companies – Lululemon, Anta Sports Products, Li Ning and Mizuno - posting a decline. The latter actually declined in reported yen.
As the dollar lost some of its value against some major currencies, the picture was even worse in on a constant-currency basis. Sales outside the U.S. declined by 8.2 percent in terms of dollars, down to $49.42 billion, but translated into euros, a major currency that gained nearly 1.7 percent against the dollar, they were off by 9.7 percent.
The U.S. market was hardest hit, falling by 14 percent to $37.29 billion. In dollars, Europe and Asia were down by 8 percent and by 7 percent, respectively. Other regions, which consist primarily of Latin America, were off by 12 percent.
Our annual study of the global sports apparel market relies primarily on publicly available data for the major companies. We also rely on input from management at key brands, press and credit reports and our own estimates when no other data are available. Most of the sales are stated at wholesale value. Major brands do include the retail value of their apparel sales in their numbers, but this is partly offset by discounted sales to distributors. We have grossed up the sales of licensees in order to reflect a wholesale value for companies like Fila.
All data are compiled in local currencies and converted into U.S. dollars at the average OECD rate for the year. Detailed market shares by region will be available in the annual Apparel & Footwear Market Facts report of Sporting Goods Intelligence, which will come out shortly and can be ordered at www.sginews.com.
The big decline in the U.S. reduced its share of the global market by 1.6 percentage points to 43.0 percent, while Europe’s lead over Asia shrank to just 0.7 percentage points from 1.1 points in 2019. Both regions gained share overall though, as Europe grew to 25.0 percent from 24.4 percent and Asia rose to 24.3 percent from 23.3 percent. Other regions slipped to 7.6 percent of the total last year from 7.7 percent prior.
In the athletic footwear market, which is less fragmented, the U.S. dominance is much smaller at 36.7 percent of total revenues, and Asia is bigger than Europe with a share of 29.8 percent vs. 25.1 percent. Despite its setback last year, it is only a matter of time before Europe starts trailing the Asian region in sports apparel as well due to the faster growth of the Chinese sportswear brands, accompanied by the stronger growth enjoyed by Western brands in the region.
As in the footwear market, brands with the best developed digital platforms were positioned to capture share when the pandemic shut down malls and retail stores, for months in some cases. Nike, which is at the forefront of this trend, raised its market share in sports apparel by 0.2 percentage points to 12.9 percent. Lululemon grew by 10.6 percent, coming in third place after Nike and Adidas, which suffered in part from its strong exposure at team sports events that were canceled.
Because of its vertical model, we were previously featuring Lululemon only in our global retail chart, which will be coming out soon, but with the DTC (direct-to-consumer) business model being adopted more widely, we decided to add this brand to our sports apparel chart for the first time – with major consequences: Excluding Lululemon, the global sports apparel market would have dropped at a stronger rate of 11.7 percent in U.S. dollars.
Adding to the closure of their own stores, many of the brands that suffered the biggest declines last year had large wholesale businesses that were hit by reduced or canceled orders from customers, and that affected almost everyone to some degree. Hanesbrands, Gildan and Columbia Sportswear lost market share, posting declines of more than 20 percent. Adidas, Under Armour and VF Corp. all dipped in the teens. Puma weathered the storm better than most with just a 3.0 percent decline, the same as Helly Hansen.
Boardriders performed relatively well also, falling by just 5.0 percent. As reported by its new parent company, Kathmandu Holdings, Rip Curl, too, had a good year, as surfing was one of the activities that escaped the Covid lockdowns – more apparently than most summer and winter outdoor activities. Conversely, Speedo had a bigger decline than any other sports apparel brand tracked by us because of last year’s widespread closure of swimming pools.
Together, Nike and Adidas accounted for 23.0 percent of the total sports apparel market, up from 22.9 percent in 2019, but this was well below the 58.8 percent share that the big two command in the branded sports shoe market. Below the top two, the billion-dollar brands that make up the second tier are actually fairly close in both markets, with a 30.4 percent share in apparel and a 26.9 percent share in footwear.
Photo: Alexander Redl, Unsplash
