In terms of local currencies, the consumption of sporting goods declined for the first time in more than 20 years in Western Europe last year. It fell by 1.0 percent, according to our annual study of the European retail market for these products. In euros, the market went down by 2.9 percent to an estimated €49.84 billion, including VAT. The rate of the decline was no doubt higher in Russia and the rest of Eastern Europe.
While it performed better than some other sectors of the economy, the sporting goods market was evidently impacted by the financial crisis and the recession in many European countries, like in the previous year. Comparatively, in 2008 the market had fallen by 3.1 percent in euros, remaining flat in constant currencies.
There were important changes in the market from one country to the other. The economy had a serious impact in Spain and Ireland, where the market fell by an estimated 7 and 12 percent, respectively. It had a similar impact in Portugal, but the steady growth of Décathlon and SportZone in that country helped to keep the overall market largely stable at its relatively low level of the previous year. Retailers’ sales also declined in Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the U.K., but to a less degree.
On the other hand, the cold weather and abundant snow falls had a positive effect in Austria and all the Nordic countries with the exception of Iceland and the Baltics, which we are not covering here. Like in 2008, the highly concentrated and affluent Norwegian market recorded the highest growth rate in 2009, rising by 10.3 percent. Norway also came out again as the country with the highest consumption of sporting goods per capita: €345.17, way ahead of Switzerland, Austria and Sweden.
Our definition of the sporting goods market allows readers to make comparisons for the consumption in the various countries because, like our market research, it is based on the same criteria everywhere, in contrast with the official figures of Fedas and the national retailers’ associations. Our estimates of market size include everywhere items such as golf products, fishing tackle and sports bicycles (not toy bikes and bikes used solely for transportation), even if they are not carried by specialist multi-sport retailers. They also cover sales of sporting goods by supermarkets and discount stores.
Our definition also allows readers to compare the performance of the largest European sporting goods retailer, Décathlon, with the other major players in the market, including the buying groups. In general, most of the bigger chains and the retailers affiliated with Intersport and Sport 2000 in the different countries performed better than the market, indicating an acceleration of the concentration process in these difficult times. Intersport and Sport 2000 have estimated that their affiliated retailers throughout Europe raised their sales by more than 5 percent and by 1.3 percent, respectively. However, retailers such as Go Sport in France or Blacks and JJB Sports in the U.K. preferred to close stores and to lose sales instead of losing more money.
All the sales figures provided for the individual retailers on our chart are at the national level. This goes also for some U.K.-based retailers for which we have taken out the turnover generated in the Republic of Ireland. Some of our sales data are based on public figures, some on figures given to us by management and others are based on our best possible estimates. In a couple of cases, we decided to restate the estimates that we had published for 2008, resulting in more realistic percentage variations from one year to the other.
It was harder than ever to get estimates on Décathlon’s sales in individual countries, in the absence of cooperation by its head office. The effort has been complicated by the fact that national sales figures have sometimes been mingled with production figures, and that they are beginning to include other parts of the Oxylane Group such as Koodza, its discount format. After sounding out local observers, we have decided to raise our estimates for Décathlon’s previous and current performance in Portugal, where it opened six new stores in late 2009.
As usual, we have no estimates for Foot Locker, another major player in several European countries. The vast majority of the major retail players have published or volunteered information on their sales with the notable exception of Sport Point Group in Italy, which does not seem to be tracking down how much its retail members are selling, and Champion Sports in Ireland. We hope that they will be more cooperative in the future.
We are still planning to run a chart with the global sales of the major sporting goods retailers all over the world in one of the next issues, hoping to get maximum participation from them.
