Activewear brand Vuori continues to expand as it aims to compete with giants in the industry including Nike and Lululemon.
Vuori — which has thrived as an online retailer and is backed by Japanese investment firm SoftBank — opened its first brick-and-mortar store in New York on Thursday as part of a plan to open about 30 locations globally by the end of 2022.
- Vuori could have nearly 60 brick-and-mortar locations by 2024.
- Last month, the California-based company began ecommerce operations in China.
- It has been profitable and expects sales to jump more than 70% in 2022.
In October 2021, Vuori received a $400 million investment from SoftBank valuing the company at $4 billion. The investment marked one of the largest ever in a private apparel company.
Active Competition
The activewear market is expected to grow to $546 billion by 2024 as several top brands have benefited from increased profits and investment due to pandemic-related demand.
Lululemon generated $1.87 billion in revenue in Q2 2022, a 29% increase year-over-year, surpassing Wall Street estimates of $1.77 billion. The company, which has 600 stores worldwide, has maintained its outlook of doubling revenue to $12.5 billion from 2021 to 2026.
Nike — the world’s most valuable sportswear brand at $33.2 billion — posted $12.69 billion in revenue in fiscal Q1, a 4% uptick compared to the same period last year.
The company saw its net income fall 22% year-over-year to $1.5 billion during the quarter and reported inventories of $9.7 billion — a 44% increase compared to Q1 2022.
