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The Four Most Potential Sporting Goods In The US Market

2008/6/18 0:00:00 10465

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Tom Kopf, President of the American sporting goods manufacturers association. The United States is one of the most important outlets for sporting goods in Jinjiang. What will happen to the sporting goods market in the United States affected by the subprime mortgage crisis? In the face of the fact that the cost of Chinese enterprises is rising, can the us accept the requirement of raising prices? What sports products are more popular in the US market in the future? To address these problems, the reporter interviewed Tom Kopf, chairman of the American sporting goods manufacturers association at the China International Sporting Goods Industry Forum. Reporter: as we all know, the sub-prime crisis happened in the US. I wonder if this will affect the export of Chinese sporting goods to the United States? Tom Kopf (hereinafter referred to as Tom): of course, the market demand of sporting goods will be affected, but the overall demand will increase, but this growth is not as fast as before. The total value of the sporting goods market in the United States can reach US $77 billion. In the past ten years, its growth rate has always been larger than that of GDP. In 2005 and 2006, GDP in the US increased by about 3%, while sporting goods increased by 5% to 6%. Now the US economy is on a downward trend. It is estimated that sports goods will increase by 1% to 2% this year and next year. We feel that there will be no negative growth, but there will be hundreds of millions of dollars in growth. According to our classification, sports products can be divided into three categories: clothing, shoes and sports equipment. Clothing in sports goods grew a lot last year. What drives clothing growth? One is the environmentally sound fiber and the more fashionable design. We see a trend. Footwear also increased last year, and has declined since the beginning of this year. Equipment sales were basically stable last year, especially fitness equipment. Last year, the fastest growth was mainly martial arts equipment. There was a lot of introduction to Wushu on American TV. Adidas did very well in this respect, and grew very rapidly. In the next few years, the growth of martial arts products will be bigger and bigger. Reporter: due to various reasons such as raw materials, manpower and exchange rate, the production cost of Chinese shoes has been raised. Can the us accept the price increase? Tom: our products are mainly supplied by China, so the cost increase has great influence on us. But we are all looking at how the Chinese industry will respond, whether to raise prices or change their production sites, and what kind of way to deal with challenges. It's hard to answer whether we can accept the price increase. A more important trend is "technology prevails". Technology is what consumers want. Any kind of technological innovation will have a market in the sports industry, whether in the footwear industry or clothing industry or equipment industry, and the price is good. We find that consumers react well to it. They will say that the technology of this product is very good and very legal. Reporter: what sporting goods will be more popular in the US market in the future? Tom: we asked industry leaders. They think the top four fastest growing items should be yoga, Pilates, walking fitness and lacrosse sports equipment. Next is the equipment for soccer and running, and also the products that will continue to grow fast. Stretching, skiing, baseball, golf, cycling and so on will all grow very fast. Before, in the United States, the most common exercise age was 5-19 years old. This age group is most effective in physical exercise, but now we see that the market is slowing down and increasing slowly. What's more, the faster growth is in the elderly fitness exercise, which is mainly related to their health related activities. Many elderly people do all kinds of Tai Chi sports, stretching exercises, jogging and walking. I think this is also the future of the United States, because the American market is becoming more and more obese, which will be a popular industry for a long time. We can see the trend in this area, and there will be new products designed for the elderly, which will have great potential in the future.