The French sporting goods market remained virtually flat last year at a level of €8.9 billion after VAT, according to an annual study by the country’s very active sporting goods retailers’ federation (FPS), which covers also sports bicycles, fishing gear and other products not included in the estimates of some other national industry associations.
However, specialty sporting goods retailers performed slightly better than the market, raising their combined turnover by 1.5 percent in absolute terms to a total of €6.69 billion, giving them a market share of 75 percent, but on a comparable store basis they had no growth at all. FPS officials have no comments on the apparent decline of Décathlon’s market share to the benefit of Go Sport, Intersport and Sport 2000.
While the integrated sporting goods chains had flat sales of €4.18 billion, representing 47 percent of the total market, independent specialty retailers affiliated with the buying groups recorded a 5 percent sales increase overall to €2.13 billion, giving them a market share of 24 percent. Other independent specialists and the single-brand stores recorded a slight sales increase to €370 million, corresponding to a market share of 4 percent.
The fashion boutiques and the shoe shops, whose market shares had been declining in previous years, recorded for the first time a slight increase in their sales of sporting goods in France, reversing the previous trend because of the growing popularity of low-profile shoes. Together they had about 10 percent of the French market last year.
On the other hand, other non-specialists saw their market shares go down, particularly in the bike sector to the benefit of the sports retailers and the bike specialists. The hypermarkets and other mass merchants had only 6 percent of the market. Adding the department stores and types of retailers and e-commerce, where sales rose by an estimated 12 percent, the market share of the non-specialists fell to 25 percent as their combined sales of sporting goods declined by 4 percent to €2.23 billion.
The sudden weakness of the French sporting goods market, which had been one of the star performers in Europe in terms of growth in the early part of the current decade, was attributed by the FPS to multiple factors including the unusual weather patterns, which had a particularly strong impact on monthly retail sales during the month of March and in the last quarter of 2006.
Other factors were a very small increase in the buying power of the French; their tendency to spend more on such items as cell phones, televisions, music, video games and the internet; and a decline in the average selling prices of many products, especially sports shoes and sports clothing. They were down by 6 and 5 percent, respectively, according to NPD.
In general, FPS officials conclude, the French sporting goods market is becoming more polarized between the high end and the low end, somewhat like the British one. To help understand better the dynamics of this mature market, FPS is launching a major new consumer audit in cooperation with Ipsos. Due to come out in July 2007, it will update data already collected in 2002 and 2004, adding information on new topics such as the use of the internet, equipment rentals and the media.
