Go Sport divulges major international plans

French sports retailer Go Sport, which has twelve stores in Belgium, has very ambitious expansion plans. Spain and Poland are its European targets, but it will also focus on Morocco and India.

Fourty stores in Spain

Groupe Go Sport, which not only has the Go Sport chain, but also specialty stores like Courir (for running shoes), Bike+ (for bicycles) and Go Sport Montagne (for mountain sports), currently has more than 500 stores. The majority (425) are located in its home territory France, but the chain wants expansion abroad.

Its European expansion should be in Spain and Poland, CEO André Ségura said. It already has 33 locations in Poland and will open another two Go Sport and three Courir stores there soon. The group already has 4 Courir stores in Spain (Madrid and Barcelona) and the CEO thinks it can open up to fourty stores in the next five years.”

Morocco and India

The French retailer is also looking beyond the European borders: Ségura considers Morocco to be “one of the priorities in our international development”. Go Sport has been active in North Africe since 2013, with locations in Casablanca, Marrakech and Tanger. It opened a 2,100 sqm store in Casablanca last summer.

The group will also move to Asia soon: it signed a deal with Lulu Group International, one of the Asia’s largest store managers. Lulu will open a first Go Sport store in Manilla soon and it will also open a first Indian store in the spring of 2019. With more than one billion citizens, India should be able to harbour fourty Go Sport stores and an equal amount of Courir locations.

Go Sport had a 2017 turnover close to 1 billion euro and experienced a 5 % growth compared to the year before. Its main shareholder is distribution group Rallye, which also owns shares in supermarket chain Casino. “Twenty % of our turnover comes from international markets now, but we should increase that to 25 by 2020”, an ambitious Ségura said.