adidas Sees 2004 as Most Successful Football Year

adidas expects to “once again achieve new record sales in football” in 2004, accoriding to comments made by Herbert Hainer, CEO of adidas-Salomon AG, at a press conference in Yokohama where the two adidas sponsored national football teams from Japan and Germany will play an international match Thursday. Herbert Hainer added: “We have great momentum and this momentum will continue well into 2006 and beyond when the FIFA World Cup is played in Germany.”

“The UEFA EURO 2004 in Portugal was our most successful European Championship ever both in terms of sales and image,” said Herbert Hainer. “We reached or even exceeded all our goals associated with our involvement in this great tournament. Our sponsorship was crowned by the wonderful Impossible is Nothing story of the winning Greek national team. At the Asian Cup we even had an all-adidas final between Japan and China.”

For adidas the exciting 2004 football year has also proven to be an enormous commercial success. More than 1.3 million replica jerseys, over 1.6 million UEFA EURO 2004 licensed products and more than 250,000 pieces of a newly introduced women’s football apparel range have been sold.

In addition, adidas expects to sell about 1 million pairs of the adidas PredatorPulse football boot, worn by players such as Zinédine Zidane, David Beckham, Kaká and Michael Ballack and about 1 million pairs of the F50 and the F50+, endorsed by players such as Djibril Cissé, Javier Saviola and Arjen Robben.

The Official Match Ball of UEFA EURO 2004 and the AFC Asian Cup, the adidas Roteiro, will sell more than 6 million times, making it the best selling football ever.

As a result, adidas global football sales will grow by double-digit figures and exceed 900 million Euro this year – the highest football revenue ever in the history of the company. adidas worldwide market share will grow to 35% at year-end.

Herbert Hainer: “We are the brand that understands football best. We lead the football market in products, sports marketing and communication. So to me there is not the slightest doubt that adidas will continue to be the Number 1 global football brand – especially with the excitement for the 2006 FIFA World Cup in our home market Germany already building up.”