Intersport’s German store count accelerates, part of a wider rebuild

Intersport opened 13 stores in Germany this year, four more than originally planned, and Chief Executive Alexander von Preen told Deutsche Presse-Agentur that the cooperative is now on track to reach its target of 100 additional German locations before 2030. On its own, that is a routine expansion update. But against the backdrop of Intersport’s wider activity in Europe, the German store count highlighted by Handelsblatt and other outlets this week looks more significant.

Over the past year, the group expanded its Central and Southeast European footprint to more than 500 stores through Intersport Austria’s acquisition of Intersport Slovenia Group, launched a new automated distribution center near Lyon, integrated Spain and Portugal into a French-led southern European hub, and rolled out the first stores under its new Superstore format in Germany.

Together, these moves show a cooperative leaning harder on scale, logistics and centrally coordinated, standardized stores to keep pace with larger rivals such as Decathlon.

Germany’s stores are the visible layer

Germany’s expansion remains the most visible part of the strategy. Von Preen’s 13 openings, in cities including Herford, Göttingen, Bochum, Essen, Nürnberg and Cottbus, comfortably exceeded the original target of nine for the fiscal year ending in September. Intersport Deutschland has added 56 stores in recent years, a figure that includes both new locations and conversions of existing dealers to the Intersport brand.

The expansion drive is less about recovering lost ground than about extending Intersport’s lead in a fragmented market.

The cooperative wants to lift German sales to roughly €6 billion by the end of the decade, partly through acquisitions, a level it estimates would translate into a market share of more than 30 percent. That ambition reflects confidence in the long-term case for consolidation, even as German consumer spending stays uneven. Intersport Deutschland reported external sales of €3.46 billion in fiscal 2024/25.

Von Preen also pointed to the FIFA World Cup in North America as a bright spot. According to the company, INTERSPORT sold more than 600,000 football jerseys during the tournament, up from around 500,000 during Euro 2024, despite Germany’s relatively early exit from the World Cup.

A second format follows the flagships

Store count alone will not close the gap with Decathlon, which has been expanding large-format concepts into German city centres. Intersport’s answer has been to develop multiple retail formats in parallel. A flagship programme launched in 2024 has already upgraded marquee dealers including Engelhorn, Reischmann and L&T, with additional city-centre locations in the pipeline.

The newer bet is the Superstore, a roughly 2,000-square-meter, family-oriented format aimed at price-sensitive shoppers. The first opened in Halle in March 2026, while Chemnitz was selected as another early Superstore location. Von Preen has said the company expects to open 10 to 15 more over the coming years.

A third format sits outside Germany. Fourlis Group, Intersport’s Greek franchise operator, opened the first dedicated football specialist store in Athens in March 2025. INTERSPORT later said Greece had opened a second football-store location and that the concept had expanded into the Netherlands and Türkiye.

The company originally described a European rollout target of 10 to 20 football specialist stores, describing the format as a category-focused complement to its traditional multi-sport outlets.

Ownership consolidates in Central Europe

The bigger structural move happened away from any shop floor. INTERSPORT Austria, under Chief Executive Franz Koll, agreed in January to acquire INTERSPORT Slovenia Group and completed the deal on April 2.

The combined business now operates more than 500 stores and employs over 5,000 people across 12 countries. Beyond Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia and other Southeast European markets, the enlarged organization also includes Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary. INTERSPORT Austria has said the group is expected to generate annual sales of more than €1 billion.

A parallel consolidation is under way in the west.

Following a court-led restructuring of INTERSPORT Spain, INTERSPORT International transferred responsibility for Spain and Portugal to INTERSPORT France in November 2025, creating a Southern European hub spanning France, Belgium, Spain and Portugal. One of the first visible signs of that strategy came in August, when INTERSPORT opened a new 1,800-square-meter store in Felgueiras, near Porto, through its new Iberian organization.

Logistics catches up with the store count

None of this works without distribution to match it. INTERSPORT France, which operates close to 980 stores, brought a new automated logistics hub online in Saint-Vulbas near Lyon in June, extending a three-site network that spans roughly 160,000 square meters. Developed with Austrian automation specialist TGW Logistics, the facility combines goods-to-person shuttle technology with automated palletizing and was designed to support store replenishment, manage seasonal demand peaks and accommodate future growth.

For a retailer betting on expansion across both physical stores and omnichannel retail, the investment underscores that scale increasingly depends on logistics as much as on selling space.

The SGIE Take

Viewed individually, none of these developments is transformative. Taken together, they point to a more coordinated INTERSPORT. The group is standardizing parts of its retail proposition, concentrating ownership in selected regions and investing in shared infrastructure that can support growth across multiple markets.

The result is not a departure from the cooperative model, but an evolution of it: local entrepreneurs remain at the center, while more decisions are increasingly being scaled beyond the country level