Pelé Sports, the football apparel and footwear brand launched last year under the name of the famous Brazilian football star, is preparing to open a subsidiary in Brazil. It should start delivering its functional and lifestyle ranges in July, with a target of reaching about 200 Brazilian retailers by the time the country hosts the next World Cup in 2014.
Apart from its head office in Switzerland, Pelé Sports already has subsidiaries in the U.K., Germany, Switzerland, the U.S. and Australia, as reported in detail after the brand's South African launch in June. From the start, the new company had distribution partners in Scandinavia and the Benelux countries, and in September it added Ireland, Spain and Portugal.
Pelé Sports' partner for all these three countries is Benefit, a distribution firm that has offices in Dublin, Barcelona and Madrid. Headed by Gavin Fox in Ireland and by José Andrés Gómez Infante for Spain and Portugal, Benefit formerly distributed MBT footwear in these same countries. Benefit is selling Pelé Sports through specialist retailers but Spain and Portugal are the only countries where the brand is also available through an electronic store, which was launched in the middle of last month.
Only into its second season, Pelé Sports already reaches nearly 300 stores in all its international markets. It has achieved its strongest presence in the U.S. market, where the brand is sold in 60 specialist stores. Its largest market in Europe is the Netherlands with just over 50 stores, due to the fact that it is sold there by a former distributor of Lotto. Germany is another sizeable market for Pelé Sports: it is offered in 40 German stores, mostly independents including members of large buying groups.
All in all, Pelé Sports is sold more than 160 stores around Europe and the target is to expand the door count to 800 stores by 2014, when some clients should also be found in France and Italy . The company is eying a similar number of stores in the U.S. and another 100 each for Australasia and Asia for the next World Cup year. Pelé Sports has yet to enter the Asian market, but it is running trials in Japan and holding talks for a partnership in Southeast Asia.
After its investments around the launch last year, the brand is preparing to outline more wide-ranging marketing plans at its first international sales meeting in May. For the time being it focuses on point-of-sale material and free equipment offered to professional football players, after a fitting session with its foot doctor.
Pelé, whose real name is Edson Arantes do Nascimento, continues to enjoy unabated admiration from his fellow countrymen. In 2009, the Brazilian celebrity had endorsed another football brand, Nomis, which subsequently went out of business. Headed by Gunther Siebrecht, a seasoned former Adidas and Nike executive, the Swiss-based company behind Pelé Sports is on track to become profitable by the second half of 2013. It has the financial backing of several affluent and football-friendly individual investors from Germany.
