Excluding other types of products in their portfolios, the major suppliers of branded sports hardware saw their global sales increase by only 1.2 percent in terms of U.S. dollars, reaching a level of $73.4 billion, according to an annual survey by Sporting Goods Intelligence. It was a major slowdown from the previously recorded growth rates of 6.4 percent in 2013 and 6.2 percent in 2014, but it was largely due to the appreciation of the dollar that occurred in 2015. Based on the average exchange rates calculated by the OECD for each year, which we use to compile our annual chart, the value of the U.S. dollar increased last year by 19.2 percent against the euro, by 14.2 percent against the Japanese yen and by 14.6 percent against the yuan renmimbi. Thus, while the sports equipment market rose by 3.4 percent to $33.5 billion at wholesale in the U.S., it fell by 0.6 percent to $39.9 billion in the rest of the world. In local currencies, the market definitely went up outside the U.S.

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