Over the past two years, Under Armour has spent close to $1 billion buying and investing in three leading makers of activity- and diet-tracking mobile apps. By doing so, the company has amassed the world's largest digital health-and-fitness community, with 150 million users. Plank envisions all of those users, and their metrics, as a big data engine to drive everything from product development to merchandising to marketing.
Today, Under Armour has 13,500 employees around the world and nearly $4 billion in revenue. But Plank is still every bit the entrepreneur, chasing audacious dreams--chief among them overtaking Nike as the world's largest sportswear maker. Under Armour leapfrogged the longtime number two, Adidas, in the U.S. sportswear market in 2014, but worldwide it's still third. And Nike remains far larger, with more than $30 billion in revenue in 2015 Which is part of why Plank wants to move so aggressively. Nike has about a fifth as many users on its Nike+ platform as Under Armour does on its apps, and in 2014 the shoe giant shut down its FuelBand fitness-tracker business.
Future Girl video nicely captures the company’s vision
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