Columbia Sportswear 2010 Annual Report Download - page 3

In 2010, Columbia Sportswear Company’s
net sales grew 19% to a new record of
nearly $1.5 billion. Wholesale and consumer
demand rebounded sharply in the second
half of the year and consumers responded
enthusiastically to our innovative
technologies and enhanced designs.
I could focus this letter on the double-digit growth we gener-
ated in 2010 in each region: U.S. net sales up 20% to $881
million; LAAP (Latin America/Asia Pacific) solidifying its position
as the company’s second-largest region, growing net sales by 30
percent to $263 million; our EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa)
region producing a 13 percent increase to $222 million, returning
to growth after several years of decline; and Canada contributing
10 percent growth, to $117 million.
Or I could focus on the double-digit growth we generated in
2010 in every product category: Outerwear net sales up 16
percent to $561 million, Sportswear up 18 percent to $556
million, Footwear growing 26 percent to $270 million, and
Accessories & Equipment surging 30 percent to $97 million.
However, the real fabric of our story is found in our four major
brands, each coming off a year of solid performance in 2010,
and each with potential for global expansion.
Dear Fellow Shareholders:
WE’RE GETTING
WARMER. THE HIGHLIGHT OF 2010
Within our portfolio, the Columbia brand is positioned to address
the broadest consumer population. We’ve reconnected with
Columbia’s rich heritage of innovation, constructing a strategic
platform of technologies in apparel, footwear, equipment and
accessories that has re-energized brand perceptions among
customers and consumers alike.
As a result, 2010 Columbia brand sales grew $190 million, or 18
percent, to $1.26 billion, fueled by similar growth rates in apparel
and footwear.
Columbia’s renewed focus on innovation is also re-energizing
the entire outdoor market, dislodging it from a pattern of reli-
ance on outdated, commoditized solutions. Over the past 20
years, consumers have adopted a multitude of technologies that
represented new solutions to age-old problems. Why, Columbia
asked, should consumers have to rely on 20-year-old solutions
to stay warm, dry, cool and protected in the outdoors? We have
committed ourselves to finding new and better solutions that,
if successful, may obsolete every piece of outdoor clothing in
consumers’ closets today.
If the Columbia brand is our flagship, Sorel is proving to be our
diamond in the rough. Since we purchased this brand ten years
ago, we had kept it focused as a rugged, men’s, bone-cold
winter, wilderness brand. In 2009, we refocused Sorel on young,
fashion-forward female consumers, while staying true to Sorel’s
performance heritage.
This provocative change in position, reinforced with equally
provocative consumer marketing, has captured the imagination
of female consumers around the world and earned the support of
leading premium footwear retailers in every region.
Retailers such as The Tannery, Gorsuch, Holt Renfrew, Browns
and Ron White in North America; Collette of Paris, Harrods of
London and Jades in Germany; The Galleria and Lane Crawford
in Korea; Isetan and Takeshimaya in Japan, to name just a few,
have embraced the new Sorel within the past 12-18 months. And
in August, 2010 we launched www.sorel.com to serve growing
ecommerce demand for the brand in the U.S.
Sorel brand sales grew 48 percent in 2010 to $90 million on their
way to what we believe is much greater potential. To help us
pursue that potential, we have begun investing in a separate
sales and marketing organization focused exclusively on Sorel’s
global growth opportunities.
Those opportunities include further expansion with leading
fashion footwear retailers in the critical Winter season, as well as
deciphering the code to translate Sorel’s classic elements into
Spring, Summer and Fall products for a year-round presence
on retail shelves.
was the global launch of our patent-pending Omni-Heat® suite
of warmth technologies – a better solution to keeping consum-
ers warm. Supported by the largest and most comprehensive
integrated global marketing campaign in our history, Omni-Heat®
produced outstanding sell-throughs for our wholesale customers
in every region. During its first season in the market, Omni-Heat®
styles dominated the best-sellers list in our direct-to-consumer
channels in every region of the world.
For Fall 2011, we are expanding our Omni-Heat® offering, adding
a Baselayer assortment featuring Omni-Heat® Reflective
technology, and expanding Omni-Heat® Electric beyond
footwear – where we launched the technology in 2009 – into a
tightly focused assortment of Columbia jackets and gloves.
With consumers now more aware of Columbia as an innovator,
we have an opportunity to better acquaint them with our
head-to-toe spectrum of performance technologies, enhanced
styling and engaging brand marketing.