The French winter sports business expanded last year, judging from preliminary findings by NPD Group. The expected growth stems from the fact that more French people headed for the slopes with their families instead of booking far-away breaks, and they were rewarded with outstanding snow conditions. This more than made up for a decline in the number of foreign skiers, chiefly from the U.K.
Separately, there are strong indications that the positive trend continued this year, and that some French sports retailers were caught ill-prepared. Some Décathlon stores displayed row upon row of near-empty winter sports footwear shelves last week, with salespeople admitting that they had run out of supplies at their central warehouse.
NPD estimated the French winter sports market at €670 million for 2007, all taxes included, covering all sales of apparel, footwear, equipment, rentals and repairs but excluding any costs relating to lifts, transport and accommodation, as well as purchases of snow scooters. The study covers skiing of all sorts, along with snowboarding and ice-skating, but it excludes ice hockey, which is classified as a team sport. The snowboarding business accounted for sales of €158 million or about 24 percent of the market in 2007, while €512 million went to alpine skiing and other winter sports.
According to NPD, France was the largest market in Europe for winter sports apparel in 2007, in terms of volume. On the other hand, the average price of winter apparel was 15 percent lower in France than the average price in the five countries included in the survey, the four others being Germany, Spain, Italy and the U.K.
Excluding equipment and technical footwear, the budget for a full ski outfit in France, from socks right up to hats and sunscreen, reached about €252 for the 12 months until the end of September 2008. NPD estimates that consumers buy a new outfit every four to five years on average.
