Decathlon Group: Sports Megastore

Abstract

"Decathlon is a major French sporting goods chain store, with stores located throughout the world. It started with a shop near Lille, France in 1976. The retailer stocks a wide range of sporting goods, from tennis racquets to advanced scuba diving equipment, usually in large superstores. Decathlon Group also owns the Toboggan and Decat stores, the former sells sporting goods at discount prices, whilst the latter is a smaller high street sized version of the larger Decathlon superstores. It expanded to Germany in 1986, Spain in 1992 and the United Kingdom in 1999. It employs 3849 personnel and is headed by Yves Claude. The company is headquartered in France and has operations in 19 countries with most stores in France (240), Italy (64) and Spain (75).

The group posted total sales of $4.2 billion in 2010 with year on year growth of 8.75% compared to 2008-09. The total assets of the company stood at $3.1 billion. At 2010 year end, the net worth of the company was $734.4 million. The global apparel, accessories and luxury goods market grew by 2.7% in 2010 to reach a value of $1.4 billion. In 2015, the global apparel, accessories and luxury goods market is forecast to have a value of $1.6 billion, an increase of 17.8% since 2010. Women's wear is the largest segment of the Decathlon's global apparel, accessories and luxury goods market, accounting for 41.9% of the market's total value. Europe accounts for 33.8% of its global market value. The market is fragmented with a large numbers of smaller players, alongside the large incumbents, including Inditex, Gap, Wal-Mart and H&M.

Today, the Decathlon Group has embarked on an upstream four vertical expansion without seeking to enhance the attractiveness of its sales outlets. Decathlon is involved in extensive social campaigns around the world through its products and creating social awareness with regard to environment and other challenges. University teams from across the globe are building solar homes on the National Mall in Washington for the Department of Energy's Solar Decathlon competition. The winning home will be affordable, comfortable, attractive, easy to live in and supply energy for cooking, cleaning and entertaining. The group has developed its own R&D department, an original management system of knowledge and innovations.

Decathlon Group is different from its main competitors such as Intersport and Go Sport which have not chosen to design and manufacture their own innovative and strong sub-brands. By creating specialized brands that directly compete with international sports brands; the group seeks to control the market from the top while maintaining its position as a leading French specialized retailer."