Amer Sports cycling arm dips 10% on sales, omni-channel goes “maximum speed”

In the first three months of 2017 Mavic and ENVE parent Amer Sports’ cycling division has seen a 10% like-for-like sales decrease.

Down 8% in the third quarter, the company pointed to high OEM and retail stocks for the slowed sales, which amounted to 110.6 million Euros in the first three quarters, down from 112 million in the same 2016 period.

Other segments faired slightly better for the group, with net sales in the fitness and outdoor divisions up 3% each and ball sports down just 1%. The group totaled net sales of €1.882 billion, which represented a 2% increase.

No detailed information was released to show individual performance of the brands.

President and CEO Heikki Takala said in a statement: “In the third quarter we returned to profitable growth, as expected. Growth was broad-based, and in line with our strategy, driven again by apparel, own retail, e-commerce and China. Encouragingly, we continued to gain speed in Fitness, and we laid foundation for a rebound in Sports Instruments as we rolled out the complete Spartan product family. We made again significant progress in the company omni-channel transformation to win in the changing market place. We executed the announced restructuring, and we are already delivering significant cost efficiencies, ahead of schedule. Furthermore, we continued to drive cash flow improvement ahead of our target.

“In August, we announced our new 2020 financial targets, focus on profitable growth, now with special emphasis given to profitability. We continue to capitalize on our proven growth drivers, most notably soft goods, direct to consumer, and China, and we are transforming the company at maximum speed to stay ahead of the game as the market place and the consumer habits are evolving rapidly. In a challenging market, we are making strong progress in executing the strategy, capitalizing on all levers of our value creation model.”

The full report can be read here.