Aided by its dual strategy of having both owned and franchise operated stores, Adidas, the German sportswear and equipment company, is set to close the year with 30 per cent year-on-year growth in the Gulf markets.
And the forecasts for the medium term are just as strong with the gradual expansion of its network, according to Ralph Kotterer, managing director of Adidas-Salomon Emerging Markets.
This will see Adidas doubling the number of owned stores in the UAE next year from the seven at the end of this year.
New openings are also scheduled for the other key Gulf markets.
Last year Adidas decided to reorganise its Middle East operations through a new office in Dubai, and was given the mandate of a much broader territory to cover.
This brought in the CIS markets, Africa, including South Africa, Turkey, the Balkans and Greece.
Adidas was closely associated with the Euro Cup-winning Greek football team, and did have a high profile all through this year's Athens Olympic Games.
"In the majority of these markets, Adidas is the leader within its category, and we will look to substantially reduce the gap in Greece and South Africa before the end of the year," said Kotterer.
"This year we have been able to more than exceed our expectations, which will now provide the benchmark for the strong double-digit growth to continue for well over the immediate future."
This will see the company raising the number of owned stores within its Emerging Markets region to 125 by the end of the year, compared with 90 now, and those operated as franchises to 120, from 90 a year ago.
"The dual strategy has served us immensely in the last 12 months or so, and there is no reason to lessen the role of the franchise operated stores at this stage," said Kotterer.
"We have outpaced the rest of the competition and made significant gains in terms of market share. This will continue."
Just recently, the Dubai office assumed the rights to oversee the brand's interests in the TaylorMade adidas-Golf category for the Middle East and the subcontinent.
Said Kotterer, "We always evaluate a situation and look to how we could improve on existing strategies to service our customers even better.
"As a result of one such evaluation, the decision was made to move responsibility for TaylorMade adidas-Golf to the Dubai headquarters and service the subcontinent — for this group of products only — from here."
Already conservatively valued at around $400 million, the Gulf's sportswear and equipment market is looking at more strong double-digit growth in 2005, leading up to the 2006 Asian Games in Qatar.
