Quiksilver, Inc.

        

The Journey Begins...

"MORE THAN 40 YEARS AGO QUIKSILVER AWAKENED THE SPIRIT OF

SURFING THAT LIVES IN EVERYONE BY INSPIRING FREEDOM, EXPRESSION,

JOURNEY AND INDIVIDUALITY. IT’S A CREATIVE AND CONFIDENT BRAND,

ALWAYS PROGRESSING AND RESTLESS FOR ADVENTURE."

-Quiksilver.com

Quiksilver was founded in Torquay, Australia by Alan Green and John Law and has become a family of brands over the years. It is one now of the worlds largest manufacturers of surf-wear and anything board sport related.

1970 Quiksilver Boardshorts

With a passion for surfing, and a desire for more versatile swimwear Alan began by creating prototypes of new boards shorts at the RipCurl factory in Australia, and a year later they made their way to the market under the Quiksilver name. Over the next 7 years, Quiksilver made waves with their designs, fabric and construction and began exporting their board shorts to Hawaii and Japan. With their colorful and offbeat designs, the shorts became a hit in surf communities all over the world including Brazil and South Africa.

In 1990, Quiksilver introduced it's Roxy brand which is directed at the female demographic. It was a hit and is now sold in 91 countries worldwide and caters to both grown adult women as well as teenage girls. Over the next 15 years Quiksilver began to create lines for children, everyday wear such as denim & t-shirts and also acquired many more board-sport brands including DC Shoes, LibTech & GNU Snowboards and Hawk Skateboarding.

Making it Happen...

Since Quiksilver now has such a wide array of products, there is not just one place and one production process for it all.

GNU and LibTech Snowboards are "hand crafted near Canada in the USA on Banana Way" (Lib-Tech.com) at Mervin Manufacturing and range anywhere from $300-$1000 depending mostly on whether they are endorsed by a professional snowboarder or not. All employee's are "snowboarders with jobs".

Clothing and shoe manufacturing in Canada and the US barely exists so most of the clothing the Quiksilver produces is manufactured overseas. Let me note that they in no way shape or form does Quiksilver support slave labor. They are involved QUEST / California Transparency in Supply Chains Act (SB 657), which is intended to increase the amount of information made available to consumers and retailers so that they are able to make informed decisions about which companies they support and which products to buy. The price of Quiksilver, Roxy or DC clothing is pretty standard ranging from $50-$140 for a pair of jeans, $40-$80 for shoes and $30-$80 for t-shirts. This is my approximation as I'm not stranger to these clothing lines.

The pie chart to the right represents the percentage of revenues that each different brand holds for the 2011 fiscal year under the Quiksilver group of companies. We can see that the original Quiksilver brand dominates the sales but the two subsidiary companies are fairly equal to one another and together total more than half of the total revenues. DC began with a single idea which was apparently just to build a better skate shoe; they have come along way since that day in 1993; the DC company was purchased for $87 million by Quiksilver 11 years later.

Revenues for Quiksilver Inc. have been fluctuating over the last 5 years with a difference of over 40 million between 2008 and 2010. Opperating a company with such large revenue inconsistincies is a very difficult task  - the employee overhead during 2010 was monumental as revenues barely exceeded operating costs. Quiksilver Inc. has been reporting losses for the last 5 years. Many more competitors have been entering into this type of industry since board sports and the relaxed surfer style in general continue to gain populatarity world wide.


Their Greatest Competion...

Quiksilvers biggest battles take place with companies such as Billabong & Burton. These two companies combined cover all the products that the Quiksilver group of companies has to offer and beyond. Billabong is primarily a surfwear company while Burton focus' on the snowboarding community.

Billabong has over 677 company-owned stores worldwide and saw sales grow from $225 million in 2000 to $1.7 billion in 2011. Billabong has also aquired other companies within the industry including Von Zipper, Element, Nixon, and Dakine.

Burton was responsible for building the first ever snowboard factory and markets worldwide in over 4300 stores. In 2008 the snowboard equipment industry grew to $487 million and Burton was managed to snag 40-70% of those sales.

I think that Quiksilver has a competitive edge due to them having a very well rounded line of products - they managed to catch the popularity wave before the competitors and in my opinion, their product lines are more recognized than the others.

Summary

As mentioned above, Quiksilver has a lot of different products to offer which gives them a popularity advantage because they market to many more demographics than Burton & Billabong. However, this could also prove to be a detriment. More marketing teams would be required as they must be able to reach out to all communities rather than focusing on one would be very loborious and expensive.

With losses reported over the last five years, it might be time for Quiksilver to take a look at their overall productive efficiency and perhaps revamp some of it's process' and remove product lines that are unprofitable.

References

Billabong. (2012, August 4). Retrieved December 19, 2012, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billabong

Burton Snowboards. (2012, December 8). Retrieved December 19, 2012, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burton_Snowboards

History/Investor Relations. (2012). Retrieved December 19, 2012, from Quiksilver Inc.: http://www.quiksilverinc.com

Quiksilver Inc. (2012, December 14). Retrieved December 18, 2012, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiksilver,_Inc.