Adidas Debuts World’s Lightest Basketball Shoe to Tackle Nike
Adidas AG's Global Basketball Unit Head Lawrence Norman
Adidas AG via Bloomberg
Adidas AG's Global Basketball Unit Head Lawrence Norman is seen with Adidas's new AdiZero Crazy Light basketball shoe in New York.
Adidas AG's Global Basketball Unit Head Lawrence Norman is seen with Adidas's new AdiZero Crazy Light basketball shoe in New York. Source: Adidas AG via Bloomberg
April 14 (Bloomberg) -- Lawrence Norman, vice president of Adidas AG's global basketball division, talks with Bloomberg's Michele Steele about the company's adiZero Crazy Light basketball shoe and market strategy. (Source: Bloomberg)
The Adidas AG AdiZero Crazy Light basketball shoe will retail for $130 in the U.S. from June 3. Source: Adidas AG via Bloomberg
Adidas, which is based in Herzogenaurach, Germany, says its AdiZero F50 boot, seen here, is the lightest shoe in soccer, the world’s biggest team-sport market. Photographer: Guenter Schiffmann/Bloomberg
Adidas AG (ADS), the world’s second- largest sporting-goods maker, is challenging Nike Inc. (NKE)’s market leadership for basketball products with the lightest shoe in the category, aimed at attracting amateur players.
Adidas introduced the AdiZero Crazy Light shoe in New York yesterday. It has a weight of 9.8 ounces and is more than 15 percent lighter than any competing model, including Nike’s LeBron Air Max 8 V/2. It will retail for $130 in the U.S. from June 3, compared with Nike’s ultra-light model that sells for 160 euros ($231) in Germany.
“We had strong growth in 2010, we expect those rates to continue in 2011,” Lawrence Norman, head of Adidas’s global basketball unit, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television yesterday, adding that sales advanced at a “high single-digit” pace last year in the U.S. Norman was a professional basketball player in Israel before joining Adidas in 1995.
Adidas, which announced an 11-year deal in 2006 to become the official apparel provider to the National Basketball Association, aims to increase its stake in the world’s second- biggest team-sport market. Sales of basketball-related sporting goods reached 5.7 billion euros in 2009 and probably rose last year, according to estimates by market researcher NPD Group.
Soccer, Running
Adidas, which is based in Herzogenaurach, Germany, says its AdiZero F50 model is the lightest shoe in soccer, the world’s biggest team-sport market. The company is also selling an ultra- light AdiZero running shoe and has said that low-weight performance gear is a growing market segment.
“It is noteworthy that the retail price of $130 marks the highest price for an Adidas basketball shoe in many years,” Juergen Kolb. a Credit Agricole Cheuvreux SA analyst in Frankfurt, said in a report today. “It is the marquee category in which usually only Nike or Air Jordan products are sold.”
Adidas has identified North America along with China and Russia as “growth markets,” where it plans to generate about half of its forecast 50 percent sales increase by 2015.
The company’s fourth-quarter profit declined because of increased marketing expenses, which included an advertising campaign at the start of the NBA basketball season.
Adidas outfits NBA players including Dwight Howard and Derrick Rose, both among the NBA’s top 11 scorers this year.
Earnings per share will increase 10 percent to 15 percent this year after more than doubling in 2010, Adidas said last month. Revenue will increase at a “mid-to-high single-digit” percentage pace from last year’s record 11.9 billion euros.
Biggest Market
The U.S. is the biggest market for basketball-related sporting goods, according to NPD, which is based in Port Washington, New York. The Americas account for more than two- thirds of global sales, followed by the Asia-Pacific region, where 22 percent of revenue is generated. About 450 million people play basketball at competition and grassroots level, according to the International Basketball Federation in Geneva.
“Lightweight is the big trend in the sporting-goods market and Adidas has a very strong position here,” said Peter Steiner, an analyst at BHF Bank in Frankfurt. He has an “overweight” rating on the stock.
Nike said in May that annual revenue related to the segment is about $1.7 billion, equal to the Nike brand’s revenue from soccer. Adidas doesn’t break down sales figures for the sport.
Adidas shares rose 99 cents, or 2.2 percent, to close at 46.87 euros in Frankfurt today, the second-biggest increase in Germany’s benchmark DAX Index. (DAX)
To contact the reporters on this story: Holger Elfes in Dusseldorf Offc at helfes@bloomberg.net; Michele Steele in New York at msteele10@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Celeste Perri at cperri@bloomberg.net
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