21 Jul 4 Things To Know About The Global Sports Market Right Now
There is no doubt that the athleisure movement has spawned a broad interest in athletic footwear around the world, but a recent market study from Technavio is providing more color on the trends behind this phenomenon.
With buzzy collections driven by celebrities such as Beyoncé, who released an her Ivy Park collection in March, and Rihanna, who serves as women’s creative director at Puma, athleisure trends are steadily rising in popularity. Last month, FN noted that despite overall weakness in U.S. retail, the athletic footwear category had held steady momentum.
“Though recent sporting goods bankruptcies are contributing to the industry’s excess inventory problems,” Citi Research analyst Corinna Van der Ghinst said. “Athleisure remains a bright spot at U.S. retail, driven by fashion trends still supporting sportier silhouettes in footwear for fall ’16 and into spring ’17; this summer’s major sporting events (Olympics and Euro Champs) injecting new excitement and aspirational buying around sports; and consumers increasingly viewing athleisure as mainstream, year-round product, with a need to replenish and seek out new technologies.”
In its latest report,”Global Sports Footwear Market 2016-2020,” Technavio provides a global outlook on the sports footwear market for the next four years.
Read on for four key takeaways from the market study.
1. Comfort is king
Brands are focusing more toward consumer requirements, such as comfort, style and enhancement of performance while developing footwear. Running shoes will continue to be a dominant category in the sports footwear market, occupying about a quarter of the overall market share by 2020. The surging demand for comfortable running footwear is why many manufacturers are adding cushioning to their shoes, according to the report.