How Does Under Armour Become The Second Largest Sports Brand In The United States?

We are talking about Under Armour, which is famous for its fast dry tights, but it is very expensive to watch it, but even with its technology and content, some people even want to wear it together with the formal dress. After 18 consecutive months of revenue growth of more than 20%, it finally surpassed in the second half of 2014. Adidas It has become the second largest sports brand in the US market.

After releasing the brightest 2014 fourth quarter earnings report, Under Armour also gave Adidas a knife: in an interview, the 41 year old company founder and CEO Kevin Planck (Kevin Plank) said she did not want to talk about this "most stupid competitor".

In the sports market of North America, competition for second is much easier than competition. In 2014, the total revenue of Under Armour exceeded $3 billion, but this is still only 1/10 of Nike. However, in the stock market, the price of Under Armour listed in 2005 is almost two times that of Nike.

Under Armour does not seem to be afraid of confrontation with Nike. In the summer of 2014, Kevin Durant, who jumped out of the Nike sponsorship contract, was faced with a very sincere sponsorship contract of Under Armour - the total price of $285 million in 10 years, Kevin Durant (NBA). Finally, Nike had to match the offer before winning the NBA leader.

In the field of sports and social interaction outside clothes and shoes, Under Armour wants to become another Nike. In the past two years, it has bought three App related to fitness and health. At the beginning of CES 2015, Under Armour also announced cooperation with HTC to enter the more wearable device field in the past two years.

If you look back now Under Armour This brand (only) 20 years of development history, you will find this is a very focused on the subdivision of the company - the first 10 years, they basically sell only tight fitting sportswear, do not even do sports shoes. Until now, Under Armour still occupies 79% of the United States sports apparel market.

In 1996, when Planck graduated from University of Maryland, he was determined to use his knowledge of business administration to transform the cotton underwear which was comfortable and sweating. His final choice of polyester material can be breathable, fast drying, assisting muscle strength, and can be compressed to a very small volume, easy to carry.

After trying out the first batch of samples to several college football players, Planck's fast drying business quickly spread to the top league circles such as NFL. More and more athletes began to place orders with him privately. Under Armour also took the opportunity to sign a now very cost-effective sponsorship business that could sponsor us baseball star Barry Bonds for the whole season with us $5000.

It's hard to imagine one. Sports brand It was heated up by sports such as football and baseball, which highly depended on professional protective gear. But many athletes feel that wearing UA's quick drying clothes can make them look cool. At that time, middle school athletes even wore an alternative method: buy UA's long sleeved quick drying clothes, then cut off their sleeves to show off their muscles better.

If you look at the structure of revenue, you will still think that Under Armour is the brand that relies on tights to eat all over the world -- more than 75% of its revenue comes from clothing category. In recent years, Nike, which exploded the running trend of cities, has made more money on sports shoes. Adidas, which earned a good reputation in the world cup in 2014, has almost the same sales of clothing and footwear.

Indeed, Under Armour is a bit slow in addition to tights. In 2006, they officially began to enter the field of sports shoes, and still do spikes for rugby matches. It was not until 2009 that Under Armour began selling more basketball shoes in the US market on the basis of a number of NBA star resources. The lower base also makes Under Armour sneakers become a category of sales surging in recent years.