Sneakers and sports related footwear to continue on the rise

In terms of major trends, the views of our experts on the evolution of the market share of different types of footwear, over the next three years, have not changed significantly from the previous editions.

Our panel continues to believe that sneakers and other sports-related footwear will continue to expand (balance of extreme answers of 75 and 71 percentage points, respectively).

On the contrary, perspectives on the evolution of the market share of classic leather footwear, particularly men’s footwear, are gloomy, but the balance of extreme answers improved from -45 to -29 percentage points, respectively, from the previous edition of this survey to this one.

As regards the category of plastic or rubber footwear there are no changes to register.

Finally, waterproof footwear is also expected by our experts to gain market share, but the balance of extreme answers for this category decreased slightly from 15 p.p. to 9 p.p. in this edition of the survey.

In 2019 the World Footwear has created the World Footwear' expert panel and is now conducting a Business Conditions Survey every semester.

The objective of the World Footwear Experts Panel Survey is to collect information regarding the current business conditions within the worldwide footwear markets and then to redistribute such information in a way it will provide an accurate overview of the situation of the global footwear industry.

The fifth edition of this online survey was conducted during the month of October 2021. We have obtained 122 valid answers, 43% coming from Europe, 30% from Asia, 13% and 7% from North and South America, respectively, 6% from Africa and 1% from Oceania. Half of respondents are involved in footwear manufacturing (manufacturers) – 31% – or footwear trade and distribution (traders) – 19% – and the other half in other footwear-related activities such as trade associations, consultancy, journalism, etc. (others).