Will the sun finally set on British tennis shoes market-Ken Research

Tennis shoe market in UK is projected to witness a slow and steady growth in value in coming 5 years although the sales numbers don’t look positive in projections. Decrease in number of shoes is not so bad for hard court and clay court tennis shoes but in the case of grass-court shoes year on year decrease is alarming. Nichia, SETi, Seoul Viosys, Crystal IS, Semileds are one of the main players of the Industry in terms of market share in all demography’s.

Michael Downey, chief executive of the Lawn Tennis Association in Britain has recently in an interview admitted the game has lost its popularity nationwide. And will suffer a fatal blow when its super star Andy Murray departs eventually. Downey’s strategy to revive the sports is to allocate resources more efficiently and working to develop interest among youngsters for the sports. From millions of players in 2008-2009 the number of professional players in UK has come down to Quarter to million marks. Weekly participation of players has also gone down by 40%.

He pointed out that 2700 tennis clubs are not a place of excellence producing world class players anymore but had become a leisure place for middle age couples. The average age in these clubs is nearly 50 which indicates decreasing youth participation. Downey with his build from bottom approach thinks growth will come from parks. He believe popularity of a sport in parks develop competitiveness and willingness to learn in schools and clubs which drives the quality of players. He was afraid British tennis unless saved will return to the time where the adopted Serb Alex Bogdanovic was given eight consecutive wild cards in Wimbledon but ended in first round exit each time.

British tennis is looking to use Murray’s success over the years to revive competitiveness in national first class tournaments which will eventually help them to produce more world class players. His 2012 Olympic gold, followed by the US open and then Wimbledon has been a big boost in the advertising campaign of LTA. But going by the results British tennis is not utilizing Murray’s brand name to its limit; as the surge in Number of players is not following a surge in the TRP of tennis games in the UK.

According to the report “2017-2022 UK TENNIS SHOES MARKET REPORT (STATUS AND OUTLOOK”, falling number of professional players have also affected the number of youngsters opting for Tennis in schools and clubs which is affecting overall demand of tennis shoe market in Britain although it has not been so bad for the age group of 40+ over the years. But falling demand is just part of the problem the main problem is price elasticity of demand forcing companies to set price aggressively. And with not much cost effective developments in tennis shoe manufacturing the profitability of the industry is going downhill at a never before rate.

Topics Covered In The report