ICON Health & Fitness is experiencing some of the same shift in the fitness equipment seen by retailers and manufacturers alike as consumers shift more focus to strength training equipment.
The shift resulted in a net sales decline for the company in its fiscal third quarter ended February 28 as the gains on the strength training side of the business were insufficient to offset the decrease in sales of cardiovascular and other equipment. The company said the decrease in sales was “not attributable to a single customer, distributor or any other specific factor”, but was “across several product lines”.
ICON said the 50 basis point improvement in gross margin in the quarter was do in large part to “changes in product mix and manufacturing efficiencies”.
Income from operations decreased 19.9% in the third quarter to 9.2% of sales, compared to 10.9% in the third quarter of fiscal 2003.
