“The new normal is here” titles the most recent McKinsey report on Sportswear, released on January 2022.
Before the pandemic, the Sports Apparel Industry recorded pre-tax profit growth ranging between 8% and 15% and a 5-10% growth in annual sales.
In 2020, despite the general contraction in consumption, many players specialized in the Sports segment were still able to achieve margins and sales growth of more than 15%, riding the new trend towards the purchase of informal and Sports clothing that has characterized the months of lockdown and interruption of social activities. And, in general, Sportswear can be said to have generated above-average profits during the pandemic crisis.
The Sportswear boom shows no sign of wavering, the consultancy company explains, and it continues to evolve among the trends that are characterizing the new sensitivity of consumers, from greater attention and awareness to their health, to the change of purchasing channels to the growing concern about the sustainability of materials. and production processes.
The increase, helped by the push of the Chinese market, consolidated in 2021, with an average growth of 14% compared to the previous year, more than double the annual growth rate recorded by the sector between 2015 and 2019, stopped at 5%.
Despite the spectres of the Omicron variant and the fluctuating restrictions, which however put the Sports segment at less risk than others, the medium-term prospects are positive: the global Sportswear market, it is estimated, is expected to grow by 8-10% per year until 2025, rising from 295 billion euros in 2021 to the future 395 billion within the next three years. It will be precisely the changes, not entirely reversible, in the lifestyle and in the priorities of consumers that will offer new growth opportunities to sporting goods companies.
Image: Sport 1+2+3 (credits: McKinsey website)