Nike, Adidas, ? – here’s the next big player

Nike and Adidas dominate the gym wear market, but there is a young UK company that is rivalling the global giants with strong sales and leading social media presence

Mat Cole form ACT Capital Partners says Adidas and Nike are the major players but there could be a third.

Say hello to UK gym wear company Gymshark

Who are they? Founded by teenager Ben Francis from his parents’ garage in 2012, Gymshark has grown an engaged fan base of millions followers on Instagram,  thanks to its ability to leverage the power of social media and influencer marketing.

“It’s the three C’s, it’s community content, and then commerce and they nailed it,”

Mat Cole told ticker news

Cole says they built a really engaged community around the gym.

“People wanted, you know, comfortable, good looking now effective apparel, to wear to the gym, it was probably a really small niche when they started in terms of the serviceability of that entire suite of products from a Nike or an Adidas, and they saw that opportunity.”

The founder started in the back of his parents house packing the gear, shoving it in a box, driving it to the post office himself with an old waggon.

“He did a phenomenal job and, and he stayed in touch with his consumer. He stayed in touch with the influences. He stayed in touch with his community. And that’s the way that we’re able to iterate the products out that people wanted. They understood the products and the demand of their consumers. They built this really fast model to deliver products that people wanted really quickly,” Cole says on founder Ben Francis.

How is Gym Shark at an advantage over major players?

Cole says from day one, they don’t have big incumbent systems like a Reebok or like a Nike, so that’s a real advantage for them.

“I think there’s this huge amount of growth in their business,” he said.

“So direct to consumer, great influence and marketing campaigns, or young CEOs or young founders of startup, handing it over to a more mature CEO to really grow the brand. While he did an apprenticeship. He’s now taken back over as the CEO of Gym Shark.”

The company is based in Birmingham in the UK, it’s got over a billion dollar valuation.

“So it’s one of the first to emerge in that really sort of duopoly market, between Nike and Adidas”

Adidas offloading Reebok?

German sportswear giant Adidas has agreed to sell the struggling Reebok brand after buying the company in 2006.

The new owner is US company Authentic Brands Group who bought the Reebok brand for 2.1 billion euros ($US2.5 billion).

In February this year Adidas announced that it would offload the brand after struggling to lift its fortunes.

Adidas CEO said “Reebok has been a valued part of adidas, and we are grateful for the contributions the brand and the team behind it have made to our company,”

Authentic Brands Group owns a number of well known names including Fashion retailers JCPenney, Forever21 and Brooks Brothers, as well as the publication Sports Illustrated.