Manchester United kit deal helps Adidas to record football sales of £1.75bn
Adidas enjoyed the best ever performance of its football business last year – thanks in part to the lucrative £75m kit deal it signed with Manchester United.
Football sales for the fiscal year reached a record €2.2bn (£1.7bn), the company revealed in its annual results, helping it to overall sales of €17bn for 2015.
The German sportswear giant is expecting an even bigger year for football in 2016 thanks to this summer's Euro 2016 and Copa America tournaments. and has its sights on becoming "the number one football brand in every market" by 2020.
During the year, Adidas added kit deals with United and Juventus to an already large roster of European football clubs – including Bayern Munich, Chelsea and Real Madrid – and produced two new football boot lines.
Read more: Even at £750m, Adidas' United kit deal is a bargain
Adidas chief executive Herbert Hainer said the launch of the "Ace" and "X" football boot silos helped drive "double-digit increase" in football footwear revenues in 2015.
"In addition, we saw a strong presence of our new cleats in the world’s top five football leagues, with almost 40 per cent of players wearing 3-Stripes," said Hainer.
"As a result, we were able to significantly increase our market share last year, particularly in the important battleground Western Europe. This alone is great news.
"But let’s not forget our unrivalled partnership portfolio with the world’s most influential football teams, which was expanded in 2015 by adding two of Europe’s most iconic teams, Manchester United and Juventus Turin.
"This helped us to fully compensate for the non-recurrence of record World Cup related football sales we generated in the prior year period."
Success in its football business helped Adidas to a resurgence in Western Europe, where sales rose 31 per cent in the fourth quarter.