When we think of sports, we could not help but think of Brazil, Mexico, and other Latin American countries. And they couldn’t help it. Latin America has developed into the world’s stellar player in sportswear and athleisure. At $24 billion USD, it persists to be one of the smaller sections in terms of value sales, accounting for just 10% of the global market but it is blazing a trail in terms of progress.

As per market research provider, Euromonitor International, since 2008 the category has increased by 77 percent  – the fastest value growth worldwide over the review phase. In total terms $11 billion has been included to the category – almost twice the absolute increase met in Western Europe, a market more than twice the size of its Latin American equal.

With international sportswear and athleisure brands looking for new markets to offset for the slow upturn in Western Europe and North America, Latin America is the place to look to. Unexpectedly enough for sportswear manufacturers, this regional goldmine of opportunity has also played host to two of the world’s most high-profile sporting events within a two-year period: the 2014 FIFA World Cup, followed by the 2016 Olympic Games, both in Brazil, will certainly play a defining role in driving the performance of sportswear in the region, appealing major asset from the leading global sportswear brands.

Latin America was home to the world’s two fastest-growing sportswear markets in 2013 – Venezuela and Argentina – although, in Venezuela in particular, rising inflation has had an altering effect on sales and has been wearing away consumers’ buying power. At the other end of the spectrum, Chile, one of the region’s smaller sportswear and athleisure markets, is enduring from deflation. Prices have declined because of considerable price struggle, discounting and an overflow of cheap Chinese imports.

At a local level, Brazil reports for almost half of the total Latin American sportswear market and inflation here is average compared to that in Argentina and Venezuela. Worth $11 billion in 2013, as per Euromonitor, the country saw sportswear and athleisure progress by 83 percent over the review period, to surpass the UK, France, Italy and Germany and become the 4th key player in the international sportswear market. Mexico, Latin America’s second largest market at $4 billion, also turned in a sturdy sale, recording a total of 57 percent value increase since 2008.

With 80 million people maintaining to be enthusiastically involved in one or more sports, and about 60 percent of the population being under 30 years old, sportswear and athleisure in Brazil is a profitable market even minus the global sporting events to push sales. Increasing disposable income is also causing the strong performance of the athleisure category, as is a wider health and fitness trend.

In spite of this active population and rising disposable incomes, annual per capita splurge on sportswear remains relatively low ($55, compared to $114 in Germany, the next largest market) when weighed at a worldwide level, presenting sufficiently more room for growth and expansion in the years to come.

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