Mavic's first half sales down 15%

HELSINKI, Finland (BRAIN)—Mavic’s sales declined 15 percent in local currencies for the first six months of the year, according to earnings report released Thursday by Mavic’s parent company, Amer Sports.

For the second quarter ending June 30, Mavic’s sales declined 8 percent. Amer’s cycling division recorded sales of 24.6 million euros, compared with 26 million euros during the second quarter of 2008. For the first six months of the year, sales were 51.8 million euros compared with 59.4 million euros the year before.

“Cycling has now stabilized. Its delivery situation started very low especially on the OEM side. Now it’s going very stable compared to how the year began,” said Roger Talermo, president and chief executive officer of Amer Sports during a conference call with analysts to discuss the company’s second quarter performance.

In a press release, the company expanded on the reasons behind Mavic’s sales decline:

“The capacity constraints in high-end wheels continued to negatively impact both the sales and margins. The R-SYS recall is now almost complete. The customer feedback on the execution of the recall has been positive,” the release said.

Mavic recalled 12,000 first generation R-SYS wheels in early January as a precautionary measure over concern that the carbon tubular spokes of the front wheel could break.

Amer Sports also owns Salomon, Wilson, Precor, Atomic, Suunto and Arc’teryx.

—Nicole Formosa