The past winter selling season went better than the previous one in Austria, judging from the available figures, but the market has not yet returned to historical levels. From April to December 2007, Austrian retailers sold a total of 237.000 pairs of alpine skis, according to GfK – a decrease of 1 percent as compared to the same period of 2006, where a more or less snowless winter led to a decline of 11 percent. There was no major change in value, although retailers were left with unsold inventories estimated at 219,000 pairs at the end of the year.
On the other hand, Austrian retailers – especially in the ski resorts – did good business in terms of ski rentals: Especially in Western Austria, the rental business is becoming more and more important, probably because of the increasingly uncertain snow situation: Ski rentals have come to represent about 40 percent of the entire Austrian ski market, reaching up to 70-80 percent of the retailers’ revenues in the ski resorts.
For similar reasons, it has been easier for Austrian retailers to sell ski boots that improve the individual’s comfort, even models carrying prices between €200 and €400 a pair. According to GfK, 189,000 pairs of ski boots were sold by Austrian retailers between April and December 2007, indicating an increase of 1 percent, after a minus of 14 percent in corresponding period of 2006, and their total value went up by 5 percent. Reportedly, ski helmets and other accessories sold even better.
Interestingly, the difficult 2006/07 season did not lead to any major price smashing in Austria, except for junior ski sets, where the average price went down by 9 percent to €148. Even in this category, the price decline in Switzerland was a steeper 11 percent, as shown in the table below, compiled by GfK, which compares the price situation in Austria, Germany and Switzerland for the April-December 2007 period, including variations from the previous year. Austrian retailers are shedding the notion of being the "bad boys" in terms of price cuts. While their average prices went up, German retailers featured more agressive pricing than their Austrian counterparts:
As for the ski manufacturers themselves, the more or less snowless winter of 2006/07 did have an impact on their deliveries to the Austrian market last year. The pre-orders that they received from Austrian retailers between February and June 2007 were down by 30 percent to 294.000 pairs.
In the cross-country ski segment, deliveries to the trade between April and December showed a 13 percent decrease to 17,000 pairs, after a minus of 29 percent in the corresponding period of 2006. Sales values fell be 14 percent in the latest period. Retailers were still left with a stock of 47,000 pairs at the end of 2007, although these were 7,000 pairs less than at the end of 2006. Particularly poor snow conditions in the plains and unseasonably warm weather in January and February 2008 led suppliers to fear another unfavourable development for the next season.
In the snowboard market, most of the suppliers say that the situation is stabilizing around annual volumes estimated at 60,000 units in Austria. Snowboarding is no more a trendy sport as it was five or ten years ago and market shares have been transferred to the growing segment of freestyle and freeride skis. The market leader in Austria is Burton, like in the rest of the world.
Despite the still difficult situation in the important snow sports markets, Austrian sporting goods retailers are generally bullish about their overall performance, in view of the imminent Euro 2008 football championships, hosted by Austria and Switzerland. Still according to GfK, their overall sales in other major categories increased by an estimated 2 percent in units and by 7 percent in value in the course of last year. The table below shows the evolution of sales of all kinds of products – clothing, footwear and equipment – in 11 categories, with the rising ones on the left and the dropping ones on the right:
