How Skechers Is Building Its "Performance" Brand

No. 1 walking shoe company Skechers (NYSE: SKX) is making in-roads for its "performance" shoes, which are designed to optimize a person's movement in a specific sport and intended for "professional and recreational athletes who want a technical fitness shoe." While the company doesn't break out the results of its performance division, this important category is helping the company put up record revenue. Skechers is sponsoring elite endurance races, winning awards, and attracting accomplished athletes in three key sports: triathlon, running, and golf.

Skechers seems to have cornered the market on the endurance sport of triathlon, which is made up of three events: swim, bike, and run. The sport has a variety of distances up to the Ironman, which is a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride, and a marathon-distance run of 26.2 miles. Skechers was an official partner of the 2017 Ironman European Tour, which had races in 14 countries across Europe, providing good international brand exposure for its Skechers Performance branded sneakers. This brand exposure helped the company fuel double-digit growth in Europe in the most recent quarter.

The Ironman sporting season culminates with the Hawaii Ironman World Championships in October, where Skechers-sponsored athletes took second and third place in the men's race, and second place in the women's race. Not only is Skechers a visible sponsor on the world's stages of a challenging race, the company's athletes are performing at top levels in the company's performance gear.

Continue reading

Source: Fool.com