Adidas Now Bets on a Soccer Shoe-with-a-Chip
Adidas has made soccer shoes since the 1920s, ruling the sport for much of that time. Archrival Nike, which started ramping up its soccer business in the mid-1990s, has sought to surpass the German company as the sport’s biggest brand by sponsoring top teams like Barcelona and popular players such as Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo.
Now Adidas has unveiled a new play to stay ahead: a shoe that uses an embedded chip to collect and wirelessly transmit information players can use to step up their game. “We’re able to show you what you did, give you the key metrics of your game, and enable you to compare this to your previous performances, the performance of your friends, competitors, or our global stars,” says Ryan Mitchell, head of the product introduction team in Adidas’s interactive business unit.
The shoe, worn by two-time FIFA World Player of the Year Lionel Messi in an exhibition game in September, went on sale in Latin America, Europe, and Asia on November 15 and hits US stores on December 1.
It was created to maintain what Adidas estimates is a onethird share of a market worth as much as € 5 billion ($6.8 billion) a year.
“Adidas has a heritage in football that Nike doesn’t have, and its innovations should bring more growth,” says Joerg Frey, an analyst at MM Warburg in Hamburg. Mark Josefson, an analyst at Silvia Quandt Research, estimates Adidas’s soccer sales may rise as much as 15% next year to € 1.6 billion.
“We definitely believe we will extend our lead in 2012,” says chief executive officer Herbert Hainer. Nike, whose Mercurial Vapor soccer shoe is worn by Ronaldo, is seeing “great results” with soccer products, says spokeswoman Mary Remuzzi. She declined to give the company’s market share in the sport.
No comments:
Post a Comment