ENVE and Mavic parent’s cycling sales down 13% in first half

Thursday, 26 July 2018 Mark Sutton

Amer Sports has posted a 13% decline in cycling sales during the first six months of 2018, dropping to €60 million.

Though the overall Amer portfolio saw first half sales rise 2%, a further 11% dip in Q2 within the cycling division was pinned to a dip in OEM demand.

“Cycling continued to be adversely impacted by lower OEM orders and low demand in wholesale channel,” said Amer’s financial update.

CEO Heikki Takala said of the results: “Q2 is our smallest quarter, during which we prepare for the significantly bigger H2 and we spend Opex and build inventory against confirmed pre-orders and expected demand.

“Our strategic focus areas continue to deliver well, driven by Arc’teryx, China, own retail, and E-Commerce. Encouragingly, after two years of low growth in the US, we are now starting to rebound towards mid-single-digit growth. As always, we focus on our Sustainable Growth Model, and throughout 2018, we continue to renew our Footwear distribution footprint for better alignment with our target consumer profile and brand equity, leading to some adverse topline impact especially in EMEA. Encouragingly, in the US our Footwear continues to grow at double-digit level, and going into 2019, we expect to re-ignite Footwear growth globally.

“In Q2, we closed the acquisition of Peak Performance, which will further contribute to our growth and profit as of H2, and accelerate the company transformation towards areas of faster growth, higher profitability, and better asset efficiency. With focus on long-term value creation, we are looking forward to another year of growth and improvement in 2018.”

Expectations for the remainder of the year are said to hinge on economic conditions and the ability to compete against competitors, some of whom may be more agile in deploying an altered consumer demand strategy.

At the tail end of last year Amer suggested that wholesale custom had been in freefall, dropping by over 1,000 customers in 18 months, something that was fast-forwarding a strategy change in the group.