SRAM sees sales slip

Manufacturer SRAM has said it has seen a fall off in sales ‘in the ballpark’ of 25 per cent.

Speaking to Bicycle Retailer, SRAM CEO Stan Day confirmed that while the recession has hit the Chicago-head quartered company, he’d seen retail largely weather the ‘economic storm’.

Day said: “You’ve got Shimano saying they’re down 25 percent or so, and I’d echo a number in that same ballpark.

“The OE biz has been down significantly…but what I hear from dealers is that retail is off only five to 10 percent.”

“My view of what’s occurred in the last nine months: On the OE side, bicycle production has been cut more than retail sales.”

"Through the September quarter of last year, bike production was running hot. When the financial markets crashed last September, everyone scrambled to cut model year 2010 production, but the pipeline didn’t get ratcheted down until January."

Day added that manufacturing could be set to return to previous levels soon: “I think we’ll see a reasonable March and June quarter in terms of bike production.

“Going forward, even if manufacturers maintain a stable level of inventory, production will go up because we are moving beyond the inventory shrinkage stage. And if we rebuild inventory levels, there could be a turbo-boost in OE production.”