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Industry News: Inline Skate Sales Experience Modest Decline in 2004 But Sales Appear To Be Leveling Off By Robert "Just the Factoids" Burnson Sales of inline skates Wholesale skate sales were about $100 million in 2004, said Mike May, SGMA's director of media relations. That's a drop of 9.1 percent from 2003's total of $110 million. Wholesale sales (sales to distributors and retailers) of inline accessories also dropped modestly. Sales fell from $35 million in 2003 to $30 million last year, May said. While significant, the drop in skate sales is not as dramatic as those recorded earlier in the decade. From 2003 to 2002, skate sales fell from $158 million to $110 million, or 30 percent. Slow Growth for Sporting Goods Overall, last year was not a particularly good year for the sporting goods industry. Industry-wide, sales grew at a sluggish 4.2 percent to $52.2 billion. Exercise machines remained the biggest seller, ringing up $3.94 billion in sales. Snowboards registered the biggest jump in sales (up 11.3 percent to $157 million). Firearms, hunting, diving, paintball and archery all registered gains of about 7 percent. Hot and Cold For the past few years, the inline skate market has slumped in the United States while taking off in South Korea, Taiwan and parts of China. The European market remains strong, although K2 has reported slow sales in Germany. Sales reports for other regions are lacking, although inline skating remains popular in parts of South America and is growing in popularity in such places as Isreal and India. (posted on Oct. 5, 2005)
| Related reading • SGMA reports modest growth in sporting goods sales for 2004
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... Copyright © 2005 by Robert Burnson | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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