Stepping Into Nike Territory, PUMA Will Set Up Its Second Headquarters In The United States.

PUMA, whose performance has climbed, is unable to sit tight. In order to keep a close watch on the huge American market, the German brand decided to set up its second headquarters in North America.

In January 21st, PUMA announced that the company will establish a new headquarters in Sommerville, eastern Massachusetts, and is expected to be put into operation in 2021.

At present, PUMA's first headquarters is still located in Herr R Gen, Germany.

Second after the headquarters construction is completed, PUMA will merge the two subsidiaries in Boston and West Forde to further coordinate the North American market resources.

Sommerville, once known as a slum, has become a technological innovation city after more than 20 years of reshaping.

It is reported that the new headquarters of PUMA second is located at 455 joint Avenue, covering an area of 150 thousand square feet.

It is expected to accommodate 550 North American workers, an increase of 20% over the current period.

The top of the building will have a 19 thousand square foot platform with leisure area, basketball court, fitness center and children's activity room.

"We are very excited to bring together North American workers in Sommerville City, a diverse and dynamic city that fits the company's values and culture, and enables them to retain and recruit more talented people," said Bob Philion, President and chief executive officer of PUMA North America.

Since 2013 PUMA Global CEO Bjorn Gulden took office, the company's performance has continued to grow.

In the 2017 fiscal year, PUMA has a total sales volume of more than 4 billion euros, creating a brand new record and surpassing Under Armour to become the world's third generation, behind Nike and Adidas.

PUMA expects sales growth in fiscal year 2018 to be between 14% and 16%.

Rising performance is an important factor for PUMA to establish its second headquarters in North America. German brands hope to further tap the growth potential of the North American market.

According to PWC's industry report, the market scale of North American sports industry reached US $71 billion 200 million in 2018.

At present, North America is the largest sporting goods market in the world, occupying about 1/3 market share.

According to PUMA's latest 2018 quarter fiscal year third quarter earnings, global sales grew 14% to 1 billion 240 million euros, and net profit increased 24.7% to 77 million 500 thousand euros.

Among them, the growth of the Americas and the Asia Pacific region is the most gratifying. Sales in the Americas rose 15.8% to 414 million euros, and the Asia Pacific rose 22.8% to 290 million euros.

As demand for footwear weakened, sales growth in Europe's base camp dropped to 8%, up from 18.6% and 10.5% in the first two quarters.

As the growth of the European base camp slows down and the potential of the Americas plate is significant, PUMA looks forward to looking far ahead and developing the North American and the Americas market in a way to build a second headquarters.

It is worth noting that the The NPD Group released the US sports shoes market report, the two quarter of 2018, sports life leisure footwear sales grew 7%, reaching 2 billion 900 million U.S. dollars.

By contrast, sales of professional functional footwear decreased by 5% to $1 billion 700 million, including basketball, running, soccer, tennis, training and baseball.

NPD senior consultant Matt Powell said that performance footwear continued to perform poorly in the second quarter, because most of the market demand came from sports lifestyle, and leisure products became the main driving force for the American sports shoes market. This trend will not change in the short term.

In line with this, the sports life product line, which is mainly based on retro street and street trend, is currently the most popular Footwear Series in PUMA and is expected to continue to increase sales in the North American market.

In the summer of 2018, PUMA announced that it had returned to professional basketball shoes after 17 years, hoping to catch up with competitors such as Adidas and Nike.

Immediately after that, PUMA signed potential potential rookie Zail Smith, Marvin Baglisans, Andre Andre, Michael Porter, Rudy Guy and other NBA players.

Among them, the amount of the sponsorship contract of Aton and Kevin is more than that of the top 10 in the past nearly 7 years, second only to the 60 million years of the 7 years signed by Kevin Durant in 2007.

"Investment in basketball will revolve around basketball culture, which is a firm pursuit of the sports market in North America," said Bjorn Gulden, chief executive.

The establishment of North American headquarters, PUMA will no doubt be closer to this basketball core market.