By SportsOneSource Media

(April 11, 2012) -- Adidas plans to slash the number of products it offers by a quarter to improve its profitability, Chief Executive Herbert Hainer told a German newspaper, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Hainer said the company currently sells 46,897 different lines, many of which do not currently deliver the desired results.

"We just have too many products," Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung quoted Hainer.

"Twenty percent of our products account for roughly 80 percent of sales," he stated. "We need to remove the products where margins and volumes are too small."

"We will reduce our collection by 25 percent. New ranges for the younger audience, like Neo, will be added, meaning we will need to make greater cutbacks in other areas."

Among the broader schemes being implemented by Adidas is tailoring its overall strategy around the occurrence of major sporting occasions such as the FIFA World Cup or Olympic Games.

"We compensate for annual variations by bringing more innovative products to market in years with fewer events," said Hainer.

"This year and in 2014, with the World Cup in Brazil, we will focus on the big events. In between, we are accelerating product and design innovation, and support those heavily with advertising."

It is also taking a more balanced approach to marketing expenditure, independently of whether or not big sporting competitions are taking place.

"This consistency is evident from the fact that we now spend each year about the same share, about 12% to 13% of sales, on advertising and marketing."

"This previously varied considerably, and thus exerted a stronger influence on profits. And in the past ten years, sales growth has been steady."

Other core objectives for Adidas include driving up e-commerce sales, further reducing any reliance on discounting and making the in-store experience more interactive, Hainer said.