Puma Returns To Professional Sports Track To Reach A Sponsorship Agreement With Arsenal

< p > the world-famous sports brand PUMA (Puma) recently announced that it has reached a sponsorship agreement with Premier League football club A Senna and will provide jerseys and merchandise to him.

In order to reverse the declining trend of sales and profits of the company, the German sportswear group is striving to seek change and shift its focus to the market of professional competitive sports products.

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< p > shoes and clothing industry observer Ma Gang said that although Puma became more high-end fashion after being acquired by the "a href=" //www.sjfzxm.com/news/index_c.asp "Kai Yun group" /a "in 2007, the terminal marketing and opening strategy did not keep up with the pace of product change, which led Puma to move towards marginalization and niche in the competition of sports brand.

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< p > on the other hand, Puma abandoned its partners in 2010 and took over the business activities in the mainland and Hongkong.

Puma had hoped to fully grasp the opportunities in the Chinese market and set a sales target of five euros and 4 billion euros, but at that time the Chinese sporting goods market began to change. Puma did not adapt to this change.

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This is an important strategy taken by Puma to reverse the decline in its performance. This is the conclusion of the P agreement.

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< p > according to the introduction, Puma has hired JWT, a media giant WPP's advertising agency, to help him re-enter the competitive sports market.

It plans to launch a consumer oriented a href= "//www.sjfzxm.com/news/index_c.asp" marketing campaign < /a > in August this year. Its slogan is "always faster".

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"Now, we will focus on the field of competitive sports and make use of the assets related to competitive sports in the field of casual wear advertisements," said Goulden, chief executive of P < a href= "//www.sjfzxm.com/news/index_c.asp" > Puma < /a >.

Goulden has been a professional footballer and has been an executive at Adidas.

In his first year in charge of Puma, he worked to cut costs through layoffs, rationalize retail chains and streamline Puma infrastructure.

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< p > besides signing with Arsenal Football Club, Puma also plans to sponsor several football players, such as Arsenal player Olivier Giroud and former Arsenal player Sisko Fabregas.

In fact, Puma has already reached sponsorship agreements with high-profile sports stars such as Jamaica sprinter Usai Bolt and golf star Rich Fowler.

With the advance of the new plan, Puma's plans to re enter the professional competitive sports product market have also been implemented in depth.

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Less than P, since the second half of 2012, Puma began to implement pformation and cost reduction plans, such as shutting down more than 90 unprofitable shops, cutting down profitable production lines, leaving the European Rugby market, and halting production of navigation products in 2013.

In order to promote this major restructuring plan, the company's expenditure reached 180 million euros (US $246 million) in 2012 and 130 million euros (US $178 million) in the first three quarters of 2013.

But these plans failed to change the decline of Puma's overall performance.

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In 2012, Puma sales increased by 8.7% compared with the same period last year, but the total sales volume was slightly below the 3 billion 300 million euro expectations.

Because of the inventory clearance, Puma's gross profit margin dropped from 49.6% to 48.3%, especially footwear products, and its gross margin declined from 49.1% to 46.5%.

Among them, Puma's net profit fell sharply by 85% in the third quarter of 2012, and the group lost 56 million 800 thousand in the fourth quarter.

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< p > in the first half of 2013, Puma sales decreased by 3.1% to 1 billion 470 million euros, and gross margin remained at 47.7%.

In the three quarter of 2013, Puma's sales amounted to 813 million euros, down 8.9% from 892 million euros in the same period last year, and its gross profit margin also declined from 48.2% in the same period last year to 47.1%.

By region, Puma's sales in Europe, the Middle East and Africa decreased by 4.6% to 378 million euros, while sales in the Americas fell 7.8% to 261 million 100 thousand euros, while sales in the Asia Pacific region dropped 18.2% to 173 million 700 thousand euros compared with 212 million 300 thousand euros in the same period last year.

But in Britain and Eastern Europe, it is outstanding.

Sub products, the three quarter of 2013, its footwear sales fell by 14.4% to 378 million euros, clothing decreased 4.6% to 296 million 800 thousand euros, accessories fell 0.7% to 138 million 200 thousand euros.

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