Rebounding from the declines of 1.7 and 3.7 percent that they had suffered in 2009, respectively, sales of sports shoes and sports apparel recorded slight increases in value in the five major European markets in 2010, according to the online consumer panel of NPD Group. The corresponding table is on Page 3 of this issue.

At 199.77 million pairs worth €8,211.2 million after VAT, the consumption of sports footwear rose by 2.6 percent in value and by 3.1 percent in volume in the five markets last year. Renaud Vaschalde, sport industry analyst for NPD, noted that the increase was driven by higher sales of outdoor shoes, contributing to a major increase in the overall outdoor market. NPD's estimates for this segment of the sporting goods market are outlined in our sister publication, The Outdoor Industry Compass.

Consumer purchases of sports clothing increased by only 0.3 percent to €13,230.7 million in the five countries last year, and they were down in volume by 0.8 percent to 536.9 million units. Thanks mainly to the cold weather conditions, the market came back to growth only in the last two quarters of the year.

In fact, sales of skiwear grew by 5 percent in 2010. Interestingly, consumption of football clothing scored an increase of only 6 percent, in spite of the excitement around the World Cup in South Africa. Historically, this segment had recorded double-digit increases in relation to major football tournaments in the past.

Speaking of “consumer fatigue in Western Europe for football apparel,” Vaschalde speculated that, while the number of supporters on the continent has increased, they are less inclined to renew their shirts in connection with a major championship every two years. While Western Europe remains the biggest market for this sort of item, the biggest growth and the biggest opportunities lie elsewhere, he said, and we agree.

Analyzing the NPD data for the five individual European markets, Germany showed the biggest increase in sales of sports shoes by value (+4.2%) last year, while Italy showed the biggest increase by volume (+4.6%). In terms of value, sales increased by an encouraging level of 2.7 percent in Spain (see separate article on the Spanish market further down in this issue), by 1.6 percent in France and by 1.1 percent in the U.K.

The average selling price for sports shoes sold declined by 0.5 percent to €41.10 overall in the five countries, but it was difficult to determine whether this was due to higher prices for similar products or to a different product mix. The average price went up slightly in the U.K. and Germany. Evidently, the market remained very competitive and many consumers went out looking for bargains. It will be interesting to see, however, whether they are going to accept the price increases that seem to be inevitable in view of the vendors' rising input costs (see separate story on pricing in this issue).

Going through the details for the five countries analyzed by NPD, it turns out that French retailers enjoyed the highest increases in sales of sports apparel, up by 2.3 percent in value and by 3.0 percent in volume. Germany and the U.K. were up by only 0.9 and 0.1 percent in value, respectively, while Italy and Spain went down by 1.3 and 1.5 percent.

Average prices for sports clothing increased by 1.1 percent in the five countries, probably because of the price mix of the products for the most part. They fell by less than 1 percent in France and Spain, but they scored remarkable increases of 4.4 percent in Germany and 2.3 percent in Italy, and they grew by 0.8 percent in the U.K.

These and other data from NPD's online consumer survey are only rough estimates of the actual trends, especially when it comes to volumes. As these sort of estimates depend largely on the definition of the market, NPD has separately made some assumptions to come to more accurate figures for market size. Contact NPD if you want to know more.

NPD doesn't yet cover the equipment segment and it doesn't cover most of the other European markets, but it provides a lot of details by product category and by brand for all the markets its anlyzes. As usual, we are going to provide estimates for the total market size, including equipment, in the 15 major Western European countries in a forthcoming issue of SGI Europe, along with the changing market shares of the major sporting goods retailers in each one of them.