SOS, the Swedish ski apparel brand, has made an impressive comeback under new ownership over the last three years. While it had somewhat faded away over the previous years, SOS has been enjoying buoyant growth after a repositioning in Sweden. It reached sales of 70 million Swedish kronor (€7.5m-$9.2m) last year, compared with 55 million SEK at the time of the takeover, and expects to end the year with another sales increase of about 25 percent.
The brand’s fortunes were revived by Erja Segenmark, former product manager at the Swedish Coop retail organization. She bought out SOS with two partners three years ago and jumped into the chief executive’s seat. Segenmark subsequently hired new designers and an international sales manager, Archie Fernandez, who had held the same position at the Björn Borg company.
While SOS’ sales had become insignificant in Sweden, they were rebuilt to about 12 million SEK (€1.3m-$1.6m) last year. The new owners attempted to preserve the brand’s reputation as a supplier of exclusively technical garments, but they added a touch of flair with an urban look and ultra-bright colors which had been one of the SOS trademarks at the outset. Along the same lines SOS is preparing the introduction of a summer range, to hit the stores in January 2007.
Switzerland remains the company’s largest market, followed by Denmark and Japan, but Sweden is catching up and the new managers are preparing to add several markets. Cristalp has taken on the distribution of the brand in France, starting with the Fall/Winter 2006/07 line. Advanced talks are underway in several other European countries as well as in Canada.
