Former University of Maryland football player, Kevin A. Plank, founded and started Under Armour and still to this day is Chief Executive Officer of the company. CEO Kevin Plank has been successful in evolving new and groundbreaking apparels to help stay ahead of UA’s competition. Maintaining relationships with their professional teams and their working managers, UA finds it very essential to uphold these relationships. To outcompete the rivals, Under Armour has maintained a competitive advantage by always adopting new strategies and ideas and having top products. UA’s initiatives and strategies must be working since there are still competing with their rivals, Nike and Adidas. The company’s main market is to people with active lifestyles; who play sports, whether for leisure or professionally, or people who just enjoy being active globally. Under Armour has some competitive advantages that will help the company expand in the domestic market as well as the international market. The company offers a wide variety of fitness products. UA is also very recognizable because the company’s logo is simple and easy to recognize. UA also possesses strong brand loyalty and cost advantage compared to other competitors. However, Under Armour lacks international market share, lack of product differentiation compared to competitors, and lack of female and children’s market. UA needs to expand their target markets internationally and build their women’s and children’s market. UA should have
Plank states that Under Armour is “utterly determined to conquer that next layer, and the layer after that.” Under Armour is currently working on a number of different products and are also on the edge of a developing a new shirt technology that would be able to measure your heart. This company has and will always stay on top when it comes down to innovation and the development of new products.
Under Armour is continually improving their apparel line and broadening there market. The company has been growing at a substantial rate, 30.5% annually over a 5-year period, largely due to the ambition of Kevin Plank, founder, and also to heavy marketing and promotions. Plank attributes the success of the company to brand recognition and the ability to market to all consumers. Under Armour makes “head-to-toe” apparel for anyone during any season. It has pushed its image into as many stores as it can,
Under Armour was founded in 1996 by Kevin Plank (Current CEO and Chairman of the company) and became publicly traded on NYSE in 2006. Under Armour’s core products were performance sport apparel, footwear, and accessories. Its main market is North America (95% of its revenue). Now, it is the second largest sports apparel companies in the U.S.
Under Armour is an American athletic apparel brand that was established in 1996, and has been increasing their product offering and outreach ever since. While known as a premium brand in the US, Under Armour still has little global outreach in comparison to its competitors. However, with the slowly increasing brand awareness and their expanding product offering, Under Armour has continued to gain more and more market share. However, in comparison to their close competitors, Nike and Adidas, Under Armour is still a relatively new brand in the industry and has a long way to go before they can be competitively on the same level as their competitors in markets outside of North America.
Under Armour is also continuing the pursuit towards becoming a more global brand; while UA products were being sold in China, Japan, Great Britain, etc. (small number of locations however)., they are looking to expand through the creation of approximately 800 stores, with a focused expansion plan targeting countries such as France, India, Russia, and the Czech Republic between the years 2016-2018 in which to expand its market reach
Under Armour, Inc. is the frontier for innovation of athletic performance products that enable consumers, men women and youth, to maximize their potential throughout the duration of a game, practice, or workout. The company was founded by Kevin A. Plank in 1996 and is headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland. Under Armour develops and sells products in three primary categories, “In 2015, sales of apparel, footwear and accessories represented 71%, 17% and 9% of net revenues, respectively” (Under, 1). The remaining 3% of net revenues is generated through licensing arrangements. Sales are primarily driven by wholesale channels, but Under Armour “also generate net revenue from the sale of our products through our direct to consumer sales channel…and
Founded in 1996 by University of Maryland graduate Kevin Plank, Under Armour has become the leading supplier of the athletic performance apparel industry. Under Armour began with simple idea to create a t-shirt that would enhance athletic performance by regulating body temperature and removing perspiration
Acting as two of the largest companies in the athletic apparel business by market share, both Nike and Under Amour, like the wearers of their products, know how to win. Whether it is the Air Mag, Nikes newest product invention or Under Armours 10 year partnership with Major League Baseball commencing in 2020, each company is taking a different approach to grow their business and become the “it” player in its industry. Although long term strategies devised by Nike CEO Mark Parker and Under Armours Kevin Plank may focus on different growth initiatives, when looked at more closely, one will find the many similarities between both firms. The grounds of comparison and contrast I will be using fall into the categories of product development, brand
The significant factors that caused Under Armour’s slow and declining sales growth as well as the company’s rising expenses were the inability to expand the market online and in traditional stores as well as the lack of marketing in not only the target demographics but also the struggling demographics that the company was trying to reach. In the case presentation, Under Armour was entering the market as an underdog under athletic powerhouses Nike and Adidas, so the company needed to not only create but sustain a viable marketing strategy that imposes on existing markets and captures new audiences consistently to continually increase sales. While a portion of this strategy was done during the company’s early years, recent numbers show a continuous decline in sales and market share to not only the industry powerhouses, but also to international companies as well. Under Armour has great and innovative products, but falls short in presenting those products to a broad and general audience, in area where competitors are most successful and
Founded in 1996 by Kevin Plank, a former University of Maryland football player, Under Armour is an innovative company in the sports apparel industry. Under Armour’s founder Kevin Plank came up with a ground-breaking idea that changed the way that sports apparel is looked at today. Plank wanted to originate an apparel that would help athletes like him keep cool and dry when they engaged in vigorous activities during high temperature condition, so he created sports apparel using synthetic materials as an alternative to natural fibers such as cotton. Being a former athlete allowed Plank to understand the discomfort of wearing a sweat cotton fiber shirt during sport practice, or work-out, and he worked relentlessly to develop a shirt that
The company Under Armour(UA), was founded in 1966 by a former University of Maryland football player that goes by the name of Kevin Plank. We know that Under Armour is known for their advanced sportswear, casual apparel company and being the original inventor of performance apparel. The primary focus for Under Armour primary goal is to promote the fitness and nutrition aspects in our society. For example, people use fitness applications to help them track there exercise and nutrition such as Under Armour Record, Mapmyfitness, Endomondo and Myfitnesspal. These fitness applications are directed towards the general health community or individuals with a healthy lifestyle.
Under Armour Inc. based in Baltimore, Maryland, is one of the leading designers, marketers, and distributors of authentic athletic footwear, apparel, and accessories for a wide variety of sports and fitness activities. The Company engages in the design, development, marketing, and distribution of a range of apparels and accessories utilizing various synthetic microfiber fabrications in the United States and internationally. It offers a wide variety of merchandises including sporting goods and lifestyle products. Under Armour was founded in 1996 by Kevin Plank, a former football player with the University of Maryland. Plank came up with a synthetic fabric design which enabled sweat to be "wicked-away" during high levels of physical activity. The company was originally named KP sports and changed their name to Under Armour in 2005 when the company went public. Plank believed that Under Armour’s potential for long-term growth was achievable due to the company’s ability to build an incredibly powerful brand in a relatively short time, significant opportunities to expand, and the fact that company was only in the early stages of establishing its brand and penetrating markets outside North America (Thompson).
Under Armour, founded in 1996 by CEO Kevin Plank, is a non-financial company that is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Under Armour supplies an array of sports equipment, clothing, and sports accessories, but mainly focuses on hi-tech innovative products for athletes. Plank, a former University of Maryland football player created the idea of Under Armour in his grandmother’s basement. Plank noticed during a football practice that his compression shorts would stay dry, however, he had to continuously change his t-shirts due to excessive sweat stains. This finding led Plank to create a t-shirt prototype that would incorporate the same sweat combating microfibers that his compression shorts contained. This prototype led to the now well-known Under Armour dry fit sports shirt.
As the name indicates, Under Armour (UA) is an athletic sport apparel company that was built under the concept of creating superior base layer apparel that acts as a performance enhancer for serious athletes. Created by Kevin Plank, a former college football player at the University of Maryland, Under Armour has experienced exponential growth since it was founded in 1996 in Baltimore.
Kevin Plank, the Chief Executive Officer and President of Under Armour (UA), is an entrepreneurial hero that was recently added to the Forbes 400 list. He is also seen on other lists such as Forbes 40 under 40 and America’s 20 most Powerful CEOs 40 and Under. The youngest of five brothers, Plank always had the entrepreneurial spirit and a competitive drive to win. He started shoveling snow at the age of ten and held several jobs throughout his school days. He even had a small annual business, Cupid’s Valentine, which sold roses for Valentine’s Day. Plank says he put away $17,000 from the rose business, which was used as the start-up money for UA. Plank played football for Maryland, and as recalled by his teammates, he wasn’t the “biggest