XXL: rapid growth slowing down?

The Norwegian Sports & Outdoor retailer XXL took the Nordic countries by storm in the 2010s. In a matter of few years the company built a sizeable businesses to Sweden and Finland. This enabled XXL to reach 500 M€ in 2014 and 1 billion € in 2020.

Since 2015, XXL has built up a 200 M€ business from selling online. Online channel represents currently almost 20% of all revenues for the company.

With 200 M€ in online sales, XXL would be one of the bigger online retailers in the Nordics.

Despite XXL being significantly smaller than the big European sports chains, such as Decathlon and Intersport, XXL has become a top 10 sports retailer in Europe.

Big growth during the pandemic, now slowing down

During 2021 the growth has seen a couple of quarters with declining sales. All big markets have been declining during 2021, but Finland has been the worst performer. One explanation to declining sales could be the tough pandemic induced comparison figures from 2020. When the pandemic began, outdoor products started selling very well.