With a reported sales of 1,157 Crore INR, Puma has charged ahead of its competitors to bag the place of top sportswear brand in India. The brand has enjoyed a significant increase in its sales just within a year, within its previous year’s reports stating that it had generated a revenue of 958 Crore INR. Though the brand is performing well globally, India is the only market in which it has emerged as a top brand and has surpassed other big brands like Nike and Adidas.
Interestingly, just two years ago, India has Puma’s 8th largest market. Bjorn Gulden, CEO of Puma, had expressed his belief that India would soon emerge as one of their top 5 markets by 2020. It seems as though consumers have escalated this timeline as India has already generated such high sales for them. According to Puma’s Managing Director, Abhishek Ganguly, “2018 has been a great year for us. Globally there is huge momentum in the brand. We are making strong progress in both Sports Performance and Sport Style categories,”
One of the reasons why Puma has garnered such success is due to the athleisure trend. Its competitor’s adverse feature driven elements of their brands, while Puma maintains a strong focus on style and fashion. As a result, it captured the market within the athleisure space. With global brand ambassadors Adriana Lima and Selena Gomez, Puma has infiltrated the imagination of young consumers who want to feel comfortable while looking great. According to Mr. Ganguly, these young women are who have impacted their sales the most. While commenting on the same, he said “Women’s segment is a key element of our strategy. There are paradigm shifts happening in the India women’s lifestyle, evolving their buying behavior. We have also tripled our sales through puma.com in this year,”
Puma has shown smart decisions while signing brand ambassadors in India too. They signed cricketer Virat Kohli for 100 Crore INR, and with their co-owned brand, One8, they generated 100 Crore INR in sales just within their first year of launch. The brand also recently signed on boxer Mary Kom.
What other sportswear brands are performing well in India?
Adidas and Skechers are currently the top performers in India. Adidas generated revenue of 1,132 Crore INR in the financial year of 2017-18, while Skechers generated 440 Crore INR, in spite of being a relatively newer brand in India.
Reebok, on the other hand, is seeing its sales rapidly decline. The brand generated 391 Crore INR in 2017-18. Reebok’s sales in 2016-17 were 416 Crore INR.
Nike is performing decently, with sales worth 828 Crore INR in 2017-18.
