With sales of 3.31 billion euros and growth of 25 percent, the Intersport group achieved record results in the 2021/2022 financial year – the best so far in the company’s history. Investments in expansion, sustainability, digitization and the brand are now pending.
The Intersport group was able to close the past financial year 2021/2022, which ended on September 30, 2022, with record results despite the multi-crisis environment. With a total of 3.31 billion euros in external sales (all affiliated dealers, not just CI-branded ones), Intersport was able to break the sales mark of three billion euros for the first time, explained Alexander von Preen, CEO of Intersport Deutschland eG, together with his management team in today’s Press conference. This corresponds to growth of 25 percent compared to the previous year and an increase of 14 percent compared to the 2018/19 financial year. Von Preen: “So we are far stronger than before the pandemic.”
The sports market is growing in society as a whole
Sport and health are in vogue, this “purpose”, according to von Preen, was an important driver for the positive result and will also point the way for further development in the future. “Sport is systemically important, we all learned that during the pandemic.”
Thomas Storck, CFO of Intersport, expects the entire sports market to grow by 7 to 7.5 percent by 2030. “The German sports market will grow between three and five percent,” Storck continued. The association’s growth target is therefore organic five percent. This “extra boom in sport,” he adds, is also reflected in the current slump in consumption. Sports retailers would be in a better position overall, both offline and online. “Sport eats fashion,” Storck is convinced.
Expansion plans: 15 more stores per year
463 CI-branded shops are currently connected to the network, plus around 1,700 shops that only act as system partners. “That’s more than four times what the competition currently has,” emphasizes von Preen, and he wants to grow even further. By 2030, the group wants to launch around 100 new Intersport-branded stores, which corresponds to around 15 stores a year. In recent years, the cooperative has invested a lot of money in brick-and-mortar retail in order to make the shops and the city centers more attractive. A total of around 12.5 million euros was invested in the modernization of the existing locations and in the expansion of new modern omnichannel sports experience worlds in the past financial year. “Further investments of 12 million euros are also planned for the current financial year,” emphasizes von Preen.
Stationary trade in focus, digitization of the supply chain
Fortunately, stationary trade in particular was able to catch up again in the last financial year with a plus of 25 percent. On the other hand, the online business has shrunk, which was deliberately controlled in this way in view of the lack of goods due to disrupted supply chains, with which Intersport also had to struggle. “We deliberately pushed the goods into the stationary trade,” explains Storck, “to support our dealers and because there we can make more margin.” The online share of total sales was around 36 percent in the previous year, in the 2021/22 financial year around 20 percent, he adds.
In order to make the supply chain more agile, Verbund is also continuing to invest heavily in its digitization and the improvement of logistics. Storck: “The gains in efficiency and digitized logistics processes have clearly increased our resilience. Our modern digital solutions and interfaces are a clear advantage for our suppliers, our dealer network and for our customers.” A new high-bay warehouse was put into operation, which takes over the storage of the most important products for the dealers. “In this way we create a better supply of goods for the dealers, for which the head office took the risk,” says COO Frank Geisler.
Intersport as a marketplace for sport
In the area of omnichannel strategy, Intersport wants to expand all touchpoints and become the “largest and strongest marketplace for sports in Germany,” says von Preen. The ranges of the dealers have already been connected, now it is also about connecting other brands, partners and also new sports. The Retail Media area, which was introduced in 2020, is already bearing fruit and generated a “black zero” last year, according to Storck. After the premiere of Peloton, brands such as Under Armor or Adidas now also regularly use the offer.
Growth Categories: Sportstyle, Outdoor, Running
“We are post-pandemic beneficiaries because the trend towards more activity and staying healthy is unbroken. The sports trends of the pandemic will outlast it,” says COO Frank Geisler. This is confirmed by the sales development of the individual categories. Clear trends continued to be outdoor and sportstyle, which experienced a sustained boom with an increase of 13 and 36 percent respectively compared to the 2020/21 financial year. Due to catch-up effects, sales in the winter sports focus category rose rapidly (plus 194 percent). Team sports also saw a renaissance, with the category up 39 percent.
In the case of suppliers, it was shown in 2022 that people are more price-sensitive when shopping. Cheaper brands such as Icepeak, Jako or own brands such as McKinley were able to gain in importance.
Sustainability: Creation of your own green seal
The topic of sustainability gained increased importance within all categories. “We have further expanded our range of sustainable products and introduced our own sustainability label “Green Series” for our exclusive brands in summer 2022,” explains Geisler. Products bear this seal if “at least 50 percent of the main components of a model are made of sustainable materials,” said Geisler in his presentation. In the 2023 spring/summer collection, 67 percent of the exclusive brand products should have sustainable components, and 21 percent should meet the requirements of the Green Series label. “We want to continue setting standards here and include more and more ecologically and socially responsible products with an attractive price-performance ratio in our ranges,” Geisler continued.