In terms of local currencies, the sporting goods market rose by 3.0 percent last year in the 15 major markets in Western Europe that we track every year, down from an increase of 3.8 percent recorded in 2015. Translated into euros, consumption of sporting goods increased by only 1.0 percent in the same countries in 2016 because of the depreciation of sterling and changes in other foreign currencies, compared with growth of 5.4 percent in the previous year.
Benchmarking the performance of the major retailers against the market in the individual countries, we find Intersport losing market share in Germany, probably due to competition from Zalando and Amazon. We also see Decathlon losing some market share in its domestic French market, where it has probably reached the limits of growth. In the U.K., which is the third-largest European market according to our calculations, Sports Direct and JD Sports Fashion in contrast raised their market shares to a combined level of 58 percent.
In general, however, the bigger retailers performed better than the market in every country. As already reported, Intersport took advantage the most from Sports Direct's weakness in Austria, and Decathlon from the disappearance of the Unlimited Sports Group in the Netherlands. XXL continued to gain market share in every country in which it operates. In Denmark, Sport24 benefitted in part from its merger last year with Sportigan, a voluntary group where many retail members closed their businesses or went elsewhere. Sportigan now is a part of Sport24 in a similar way as Intersport Italia, which belongs to Cisalfa Sport in Italy.
The figures reported in the two European retail charts published in this issue for the euro zone and the rest of Europe refer to each retailer's sales in a particular country. Most are based on public statements or input from the management, but others are just estimates. This applies especially to voluntary groups like Intersport or Sport 2000. New and more accurate information that we have obtained this year has allowed us to restate the figures for Decathlon in France and Intersport in Austria, among others. We are not quite sure about the performance of Sport Zone and JD Sports Fashion, which are joining forces in Iberia.
Our estimates for market size are based on a common definition of the sporting goods market that includes most of the items sold in generalist sporting goods stores in certain countries or all of them, irrespective of the channel of distribution. It includes sales of golf products, fishing tackle and sports bicycles, for example, but not those of bicycles used mainly as toys or for transportation. Other national estimates have different figures.
Based on this definition of the market, we reach a total figure of €59.7 billion after VAT for consumption in the 15 countries in 2016, or an average of €145.09 per capita. Adding Russia, Eastern Europe and other countries east of Italy, we can estimate that the whole European sporting goods market was worth between €80 billion and €90 billion.
When it comes to the rate of growth or decline in individual markets, we notice that growth rates declined in Germany, France, Italy and Spain, but not in the U.K. This is supported by the findings of NPD's consumer panel, which covers only sports clothing and footwear, but not hardware. It shows an increase of only 3.2 percent for the two categories together in 2016, with growth of 4.5 percent in the U.K., 4.4 percent in France, 3.2 percent in Spain, 2.2 percent in Germany and 1.8 percent in Italy.
Backing up the findings of our international athletic footwear and apparel charts, the sports market grew according to NPD by 5.6 percent for footwear and by 1.6 percent for clothing in the Big 5 markets last year. NPD's panel had shown higher growth rates of 8.3 percent and 3.2 percent in these two categories in 2015.
In addition to NPD, we use the estimates of other market research companies, national trade associations and industry experts to figure out changes in market size. When it comes to smaller markets, we notice a small recovery in the Netherlands and Belgium, which had suffered declines in 2015, and a major increase in Portugal. Austria and Finland performed a little better than in 2015, while the growth of the Irish market slowed down a little. The Norwegian market remained buoyant, sporting the highest per capita consumption. The Swiss market continued to decline, albeit at a slower rate than before. Denmark continued to grow slightly, with different sources giving us different growth estimates.
As usual, we are going to publish shortly a chart with the ranking and the growth or decline of the major sporting goods retailers in 2016 at the international level.
Please click HERE for the European retail chart, part 1 (Euro zone).
Please click HERE for the European retail chart, part 2 (non-Euro zone)
