Nike India still feeling pinch

Nike India is planning to further trim back its business activities to stem losses.

A year ago the US sportswear major had already closed about 35 per cent of its stores, leaving it with about 200 outlets.

While the sportswear market is expected to touch US$8 billion in sales by 2020, according to Euromonitor, global firms like Adidas and Nike are finding it hard to make profits in the otherwise lucrative Indian market, reports Fashion Network. Even the German sportswear maker Puma had losses in India this financial year, after three years of profits.

Fashion Network says that while India is a booming market for sportswear, it is price sensitive and dominated by domestic brands like HRX, YWC and Zeven.

Nike was an early entrant in the Indian market in 2005, but has had losses there for the past few years. It sales plummeted to Rs764 crore (about $119.2 million) last year from Rs803 crore, and its losses widened from Rs101 crore to Rs170 crore.

In damage-control mode, the company is trying to minimise losses by trimming costs and cutting down on sponsorship deals. It has also let go of 20 per cent of its employees in India.

It has its headquarters in Bangalore and offices in Delhi and Mumbai.