Analysis Of Under Armour

An event such as the Olympic Games is an opportunity for manufacturers such as Under Armour to sponsor the national team from where the company is founded. In this case, Under Armour got the contract of developing the suits for the U.S. National Speed Skating Team. While companies such as Adidas could potentially provide the suits, Under Armour has the advantage of being an American company. While Nike is a direct competitor, speed skating is not something is commonly attracted to masses other than when the Olympic Games are underway and this was an opportunity Under Armour took.

Competitors in the industry can wreak havoc on the bottom line for a company. With rivals, a price competition usually ensues, which benefits the customers but hurts the competing businesses that share a common strategy. In reviewing rival sellers, many competitors exist within the sports apparel and footwear industry, but most of them are unable to compete with the industry giants, Nike and Adidas. They are well seated in the industry and their sales reveal this ultimate strength, however, Under Armour is putting pressure on these mammoths. In 2015, global sales of sports clothing and footwear equated to $250 billion, of which Nike grabbed $30.6 billion, Adidas held in its grasp $18.8 billion and Under Armour had a much smaller piece of the pie, at $3.9 billion globally. In reviewing these numbers, it looks like Under Armour is really subpar to the industry giants, but this is not exactly the case. Under Armour in the past couple of

In 1996, Kevin Plank, a former special teams captain at the University of Maryland had an idea for clothing that would revolutionize the way athletics would be played. In his days in college playing football and going through two-a-days, he knew there had to be a better solution to dealing with perspiration than changing his cotton shirts. Plank created a shirt with moisture-wicking performance fibers, engineered to keep athletes cool, dry, and light even in the most hot and brutal conditions. In 1997, Under Armour created clothes for all seasons, whether it’s cold or hot. As Plank began to search the East coast, he came from selling gear out of the trunk of his car to 1998 where he moved into a new warehouse ("Under Armour, Inc. - History.").

Under Armour (UA) was founded by a then 23-year old football player from the University of Maryland in 1996 named Kevin Plank. Kevin started the company from his grandmother’s basement in Washington, D.C. As a player he became tired of having to change his undershirts which became quickly soaked with perspiration. A revelation he made was that his compression shorts worn during practice remained dry even with heavy sweating. This inspired him to make a t-shirt using moisture-wicking synthetic fabric. After graduating, Plank developed his first prototype of the shirt, which he gave to his Maryland teammates and friends who had gone on to play in the NFL. He soon perfected the design of the shirt which utilized microfibers that quickly wicked

Kevin Plank, a former University football player, had a vision to create apparel products for athletes that would be made of a supreme moisture-wicking synthetic fabric. In 1996 after leaving the University of Maryland, he set forth to put his vision to action and in 1996 he founded KP Sports and began to work the phone lines, selling to his teammates straight out of his trunk. KP Sports was ran and operated from Plank’s grandmother’s basement where he ran business on a tight budget. Revenue grew exponentially fast for KP Sports and soon became Under Armour, a multibillion-dollar corporation with sales that came from 6,000 North American retail stores and 2,000 retail stores overseas in 2006. Under Armour strategic growth and management decisions lead them to compete with brands like Nike and Adidas.

Under Armour has proven year over year that they are indeed a growth company. As their brand recognition and product availability increases so do their revenues. Under Armour achieved a growth in net revenue by over 18 percent, increased net income by 22 percent (suggesting financial discipline) all leading to their ability to sustain growth year over year (Under Armour 10K, 2009). This considerable increase in net revenue is attributed to an increase in apparel and the introduction of footwear in the first quarter of 2009 (2009). Although Under Armour has only been around 14 years they have only been traded publicly since 2005 (2009).

Under Armour, a publicly traded company, was founded in 1996 by its CEO, Kevin Plank. Plank attended the University of Maryland where he played football. He was tired of having to change his cotton shirts over and over again when the football team had multiple practices a day, so he came up with a solution for the cotton shirts. This solution would re-design athletic apparel for the market. Plank designed a t-shirt that was, according to Under Armour (Under Armour), “…engineered with moisture-wicking performance fibers.” This design would help keep athletes cool, dry, and light while training and competing in the heat. Plank started selling his design from the trunk of his car as he drove up and down the East Coast, and his sales sky-rocketed

At some point in one’s life, he or she gets introduced to sports which have become a staple in society around the world. For example, most countries have a national team for different sports such as soccer, volleyball, and baseball. There are many companies like Addis, Reebok, and Asics that produce sportswear for every sport imaginable. Two of the biggest sportswear companies are Nike and Under Armour. Athletes and non-athletes all over the world use Nike and Under Armour products every day.

Under Armour, Inc. is ranked among the established sports Kit producers across the globe. It thus enjoys massive sales in several markets. Under Armour has its headquarters Baltimore, Maryland with Kevin Plank as the current Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Robin Thurston as the Chief Finance Office. The company is committed to developing its brand continuously through advertisement. It is presently listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) market with a share price of $46.99. The company through its CEO believes that for the company to remain viable in the market, it has to ensure that that its products satisfy the taste of the consumers (Thompson, 2015). Clearly, this has bored fruits, basing the argument on the high consumer

In 1995 the then captain of the University of Maryland football team, Kevin Plank came up with a brilliant idea that will revolutionize the athletic apparel industry forever: microfiber T-shirts designed to wick moisture away from the skin. Almost two decades later, Under Armour is a multi billion-dollar athletic apparel market competing directly with industry giants Nike and Adidas.

This would certainly be a deterrent for new companies wanting to get into this industry. Under Armor is not really threatened by new players. This would be true for Nike and the Adidas Group as well. Threat of substitutes • Under Armour, Nike, and the Adidas Group all face threats of substitutes. Substitutes can have some allure for customer/buyer.

The rapid success of Under Armour is not a mistake. The company dominates the performance apparel category. According to Founder Kevin Plank, “The mission of Under Armour is to make technically advanced products that are engineered with superior fabric construction, to provide proven innovation available to the masses-aimed at making athletes perform better” (UnderArmour.com). Under Armour uses many marketing initiatives including athlete endorsement, product placement, and popular culture which illustrates the success of Under Armour.

The corporate tax rate has just decreased from 35% to 21% which is good news for UA but not as much as companies that do more business in the US and also for a company that has significantly less debt than the highly leveraged Under Armour has (The Economist, 2018). Social factors are quite important for the retail industry and in 2017 a large demographic for clothing sales, teens, spent less overall and claimed Under Armour a brand they did not wear and athleisure in general to not be preferred attire anymore (Reagan, 2017). Thus, Under Armour’s demographics changed just in the last year with teenagers claiming to not be wearers of the brand, and also the trend of athleisure coming to an end. Technology is an external environmental factor that affects Under Armour, but not as much its competitors in the industry. When fitness bands were introduced the company also came out with their own line of bands that proved unsuccessful and were discontinued (Booton, 2017). Under Armour maintained their fitness apps however and they are able to have an edge over their competitors by having all of this information

Under Armour is a publicly traded sportswear company on the New York Stock Exchange. It entered the New York Stock Exchange on November 8th 2005 and had an initial IPO of $13 per share (Walker). The company’s ticker symbol, which represents the security on the NYSE, is UA. Founded in 1996 by Kevin Plank, a former football player for UMD, UA works towards its mission of “making all athletes better through passion, design and the relentless pursuit of innovation” by selling a wide variety of sports apparel geared toward athletes of all types (Under Armour, Inc. - About Under Armour). Its clothing lines are tailored to specific playing conditions such as the “ColdGear” line, benefiting athletes who play in cold weather and the “HeatGear” line, benefiting those who play in warmer conditions (Under Armour, Inc. - About Under Armour). It also makes “AllSeason” gear for anyone who is active in weather that fluctuates between the extremes, or anyone else who wants to wear UA clothing. UA also prioritizes corporate social responsibility and lives by the values of “Innovation, Inspiration, Reliability and Integrity” (Under Armour, Inc. - About Under Armour).

Cheng, Andria. "Underdog Under Armour Still Has a Long Way to Go to Catch up with Nike." Behind the Storefront RSS. N.p., 24 Oct. 2013. Web. 15 Feb. 2014. .