Mizuno is making a certain statement in several European markets with its football and running shoes, offering good technology at a relatively reasonable price. Its footwear sales in Europe have been growing at an annual rate of about 25 percent over the last few years. Combined with sports bags and with apparel, some of which is developed in Italy for runners, the Japanese company is set to reach a total European turnover of £28 million (€41.0m-$51.7m) in the sports sector, excluding the separately managed golf business.
The brand has eight players under contract who are currently playing in the FIFA World Cup with its Wave Shinken football boot, developed with the help of Rivaldo. These players include Marques Cris from Brazil and Pablo Aimar from Argentina, plus Andriy Shevchenko, the star Ukrainian player recently snatched away from Lotto. Mizuno also sponsors the Russian Men’s Volleyball Federation. The brand appointed at the end of 2004 a very dynamic distributor for Russia, the Ukraine and Kazakhstan, Pro Athletics, which is benefiting also from the endorsement of Shevchenko.
Mizuno’s efforts in the European non-golf market are coordinated since six years ago out of the UK by Simon Ash, who worked formerly with Adidas. The most recent structural change was the appointment of a German sales manager, Harald Steindor, who comes from Nike and ASICS. The official reports to Mizuno France, which was working in Germany mainly with the Lex Group, a cooperative of some 50 running retail specialists.
The French subsidiary, which is doing a good job with Décathlon and other key accounts, reportedly sold 330,000 pairs of shoes last year. Mizuno works directly also in the UK, where its presence in running, football and rugby has improved in the last couple of years after the hiring of agents who worked previously for ASICS and Saucony.
Mizuno continues to work with good distributors in Italy and Spain. In Italy, Mizuno scored first in the shoe count at the recent Venice Marathon, and its Turin-based distributor, Alto, made a strong promotion of the company’s Breathe Thermo skiwear at the recent Winter Olympics. Thanks to its Spanish distributor, Vilella, Mizuno claims a market share of between 12 and 15 percent in the national running market, and it is also playing a growing role in Spanish football.
Mizuno wants to raise from 28 to 34 percent the overseas component of its total turnover over the next three years, mostly through higher sales of footwear and apparel. In the year ended last March 31, the company’s sales in Japan inched up by 1 percent to ¥113.95 billion (€792m-$998m) , but revenues elsewhere grew healthily. In the USA and Canada they went up by 23 percent to ¥19.09 billion (€133m-$167m), and in Asia/Oceania they increased by 41 percent to ¥10.01 billion (€69.6m-$87.6m), surpassing Europe, which grew overall by 15 percent to ¥9.24 billion (€64.2m-$80.9m).
By product category, baseball (¥34.29 billion (€238.3m-$300.2m)), apparel (¥34.22 billion (€238.0m-$299.6m)) and golf (¥33.33 billion (€231.6m-$291.8m)) made up nearly two-thirds of sales. Footwear (¥22.48 billion (€156.2m-$196.8m)) came in fourth, and ski/outdoor (¥5.67 billion (€39.4m-$49.6m)) fifth. Sales by category were not released for the previous year. Footwear revenues increased both domestically and overseas, thanks to the new Wave function. Recognition for the Mizuno MP series of forged irons boosted golf sales
Global revenues grew by 6 percent for the full year to ¥152.29 billion (€1.1b-$1.3b). Net profit jumped by 158 percent to ¥7.77 billion (€54.0m-$68.0m), thanks largely to an extraordinary transfer of a subsidiary that ran a golf course. Mizuno continued to transfer manufacturing outside Japan, whose share in the production declined to 35 percent from 40 percent the year before. The company is forecasting a 10 percent improvement in operating income to ¥7.0 billion (€48.6m-$61.3m) for this year on a 2 percent rise in consolidated sales to ¥156.0 billion (€1.08b-$1.37b).
