European sports apparel and footwear manufacturers and retailers look to Sports Tracking Europe for consistent measurement and a complete look at the market. We've expanded from monitoring sports footwear in Europe to providing a much broader view of the European sports apparel and sports footwear industry as a whole. Based on this comprehensive look at the market, Sports Tracking Europe can now go a long way to answering that pressing question about the size of the sportswear market in Europe.

Market Size in Euros
In general, across Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain combined (known as the "Big 5" European countries), the sports apparel market is more than twice as big as the sports footwear market in terms of money spent on items. The sports footwear market last year was worth €7.4 billion across the Big 5 countries. Using our recent apparel information (Jul-Dec 2002), we estimate the sports apparel market to be worth €15.7 billion. Add that to our figure for sports footwear, and the total sportswear market in the "Big 5" amounts to approximately €23.1 billion.

Market Size in Units
How this relationship translates in the number of units sold is even more interesting, and sheds a wealth of insight into the sports apparel market. Last year we recorded 176 million pairs of sports footwear sold across the same five countries. Our estimation for sports apparel for 2002 was 576 million units. In units, sports apparel is more than three times the size of the sports footwear segment of the market.

A Look at Sports Apparel
The sports apparel market offers more intrigue than the sports footwear market. The sports apparel market is more fragmented, with a larger influence from clothing stores and department stores. The sports apparel market has a much lower average price due to products like socks and lesser-priced tee shirts and shorts. We also see much more seasonality in sports apparel than sports footwear, with waterproof clothing and ski wear showing strength in the winter season and swimwear in the summer. The chart below shows, for the last six months of 2002, the proportion of sales in each clothing category, in terms of money spent, and clearly demonstrates the importance of outer coats and jackets in the back half of the year.     
Within apparel there is also a much greater propensity toward people using their products for leisure purposes, rather than for sport itself compared to sports footwear.

A Look at Each of the Big 5
Reviewing how each of the big five countries fits into the "Big 5" set-up, it is apparent that Italy plays a significant role in Europe's sports apparel market, accounting for 22% of the Big 5 money spent compared to 15% of Europe's total sports footwear sales. As a result, Great Britain's (GB), France's and Spain's portions of total Big 5 sales have less of an impact on sports apparel than on sports footwear, although GB remains the biggest market at 27% of Big 5 sports apparel sales and 30% of sports footwear sales.

   

Uncovering Opportunities
As a final word to our sports industry friends - look at the opportunity the Big 5 European countries present. With a similar population compared to the U.S., the Big 5 lags behind the vast sales tallied across the water. Our estimated €23.1 billion sportswear market in the Big 5 European countries is less than half the size of the U.S. sportswear market, where our colleagues estimate the market to be worth $54.3 billion!

NPD can help your company make the most of opportunities throughout the European sports apparel and sports footwear markets. To find out what NPD can do for your business, contact Jez Fraser-Hook at +44 1932 355580 and jez_fraser-hook@npd.com.