The global sporting market grew by 5 percent on a currency-neutral basis in 2015, reaching a record level of $392 billion in terms of consumption, according to the NPD Group. For the international market research company, it was the fifth consecutive annual increase of 5 percent, after a problematic period between 2006 and 2009.
The U.S. remained by far the biggest market, with sales of $126.4 billion, according to NPD. It was followed by China, where the market grew to $37.3 billion, and by Germany and Japan.
The big novelty was a jump in Canada's position to the fifth place from the ninth spot, with consumption estimated at US$14.7 billion. It came just ahead of France, the U.K., South Korea, India and Italy – in that order. NPD didn't give us the size of the market in these countries.
The rankings that had been given by NPD for 2014 had France in fifth position, followed by the U.K., South Korea, Brazil, Canada and Russia. Thus, Brazil and Russia have disappeared from NPD's Top 10 list, due evidently to the serious economic problems in those countries. They have been replaced by India and Italy. We thought that the Indian market was much smaller.
These estimates are based on an average value of 0.909 euros for one dollar in 2015, against 0.753 euros for the dollar in 2014.
