SIA Audit Confirms Early Season Snow Sports Strength…

With early snow falling in New England and the Pacific Northwest finally seeing some new powder in the mountains, the 2005-06 winter season is gaining some early momentum that should help propel healthy industry-wide growth through the rest of the season. Overall sales for the entire winter sport market, including Specialty and Chain stores, were up 9% in dollars to $348.8 million for the 2005 August through October period, compared to $319.6 million reported last year, with unit sales increasing 10% according to the SnowSports Industries America Retail Audit.

Unlike last year, Specialty retailers are fueling the majority of the growth with an increase of 10% in dollars to $278.5 million. This compares to last season when Specialty retailers reported $253.6 million. Unit sales at Specialty were up 12%. Sales at Chain stores were up 6% to $70.3 million compared to $66.1 million for the same period last season. Unit sales at Chain retailers were up 4%, driven by higher unit-sales and slightly higher ASP’s, which increased dramatically last year. Most of the higher ASP’s are driven by higher-end apparel sales as alpine equipment actually saw a considerable decrease in sales prices. This decrease was driven primarily by increasing sales of lower priced alpine ski systems, which increased 54% in units-sold and only 14% in dollars–sold.

Chain stores are doing a much better job of monitoring alpine hardgoods inventories, carry-over sales from last year declined 18% in dollars and 32% in units.