Danish footwear maker ECCO Sko A/S broke the $100 million earnings barrier and nearly broke the $1 billion sales barrier in 2007 with strong leadership from its performance collection. The family-owned company said sales of the performance collection grew 49% and now comprises 17% of sales. The company’s other growth stories were its kid’s collection, where sales rose 20% to now comprise 15% of sales, and the golf collection, where sales rose 16%.

The company said it sold 16.9 million pairs, up 14.5%. Sales of women’s shoes rose 7%, while sales of men’s shoes rose 6%. Net shoe sales rose by 17.8% overall in Danish krone terms, due to both the sales growth and a 3.0% increase in the average price per pair. The improvement was achieved despite a negative exchange rate effect of 2 percentage points on net revenue. A 2% increase in dollars sales at ECCO’s Americas division, for instance, translated to an 11% decline when converted to the Danish krone. The company said it achieved record sales volume in the U.S. because of “an extremely high level of” promotional activity, including 600 ECCO sales events.


Operating profit (EBIT) rose 9.7% to DKK 833m ($155.7mm), from DKK 759m ($141.9mm) the year before. Operating margin, which the company defines as profit before financials divided by net revenue, fell 100 basis points to 16%. Profit after tax excluding minority interests rose 9.8% to DKK 538m ($100.6mm), against DKK 489m ($91.4mm) the year before.