United Brands, the Belgian sports lifestyle retailer, outperformed the country's sports market by far with a sales increase of 8.2 percent to €38 million for the fiscal year ended in April. Excluding a store that was taken over in the sea resort of Knokke-le-Zoute last October, the retailer's comparable sales growth reached about 7.1 percent.

United Brands has nine stores operating under the UB banner and another two UBX stores with a smaller surface and more lifestyle products. The store in Knokke is described as a UB Coast store, with an offering geared more toward water sports and action sports. It was previously reported that UB would acquire another store in Ostend for its UB Coast format, but the deal fell through. All of the stores are in the Flemish part of Belgium; United Brands closed all its stores in Wallonia a few years ago.

United Brands enjoyed a particularly hefty sales increase for winter sports equipment and apparel. They jumped by 20 percent, even though the second half of the winter season was weak because of the lack of snow in most of Europe from February. Running, cycling, football and tennis contributed to the rise in United Brands' turnover as well.

This comes as the Belgian sports market is going through unabated integration, with little growth overall. The two market leaders both sharply lifted their sales last year, with a sales increase of about 10 percent for Décathlon and 15 percent for Sports Direct (details in the annual SGI Europe retail chart to be published later this month), but the market is estimated to have grown at a low-single-digit rate, as many independent retailers suffered from store openings by the largest retailers.

As part of its efforts to lift its margins, United Brands became the distributor of Rip Curl from this year in Belgium and Luxembourg, after the board sports brand's Belgian subsidiary was dismantled. Another such deal was agreed on with Kappa, which was previously distributed by the failed Pronamic in Belgium.

The turnover of €38 million includes about €0.3 million in wholesale sales, chiefly relating to Imperivm, the snowboarding brand acquired by United Brands two years ago. These wholesale sales stand to increase more significantly for the current financial year, since the deals with Rip Curl and Kappa only started on a small scale this year.

Marc Piessens, the company's chief executive and largest shareholder, is to provide further details on investments for the retailer's expansion in the coming weeks.