Product Life Cycle

Product Life Cycle...

Introduction- Rudolf Dassler introduced Puma Atom, Puma’s first football shoe in 1949 the year when the company was established. In 1970, Brazilian football star Pele helped Brazil to win World Cup in Mexico wearing Puma football boots. The next major sporting success came in 1985 when Germany’s Boris Becker won Wimbledon wearing Puma shoes and playing with a Puma racket.

Growth- In order to attain a unreachable position in the sports accessories market, Puma emphasises its distinctiveness, individualism, spontaneity, internationalism and sporting heritage. A very important strategy that Puma followed is ny keeping a close eye on the distribution channels so that the products remain desirable and do not become mass products in order to reassure sustainable growth.

Maturity- There is a slowdown in sales growth of Puma at this stage. But it focused more on acquisitions with other major brand so just not to stick with the sports brand. Puma merges sports and fashion. Becomes an official on-field supplier of the U.S National Football League(NFL).

 Decline- In 1993, Puma lost $32million on sales of $190 million, the same year when Jochen Zeitz was named chairman and CEO of Puma. Zeitz was striving to return the 45 year old sports apparel company to profitability by cutting costs by 40%. And then after, Puma had never turned its back and kept on growing and is one of the topmost leading brands in world.