Final Project Milestone One Introduction

ECO 201 Under Armour

Under Armour, Inc. is an American company that develops, manufactures and distributes footwear, sports, and casual apparel for Men, Woman and Children and is sold worldwide. Information gathered and outlined in this paper will prove that despite the company’s minimal revenue over the past few years Under Armour will continue to be the power house and first choice for consumers in training apparel. I will be providing an in-depth microeconomic analysis of Under Armour by analyzing several different criteria do evaluate its standing with in the high-end athletic market. This analysis will not only focus on the supply and demand conditions, but the price elasticity of demand, costs of production, overall market. I will then offer my recommendation based off all information I have gathered throughout my evaluation and analysis.

Under Armour's global headquarters are located in Baltimore, Maryland with additional offices located all over the world. Under Armour is has been an emerging brand since its humble beginnings in 1996. UA (Under Armour) competes with other high-end athletic brands such as Nike, Adidas, Reebok, Asics and New Balance.

In 1996 Kevin Plank, a then 24-year-old former special teams captain of Maryland Football team, founded UA when he was tired of constantly changing out of his sweat soaking tshirts during workouts. As any athlete will concur having a sweat drenched shirt while trying to train and preform at the highest level is extremely frustrating. Keven changed this and revolutionized the game by creating his own product, a product that keeps the athlete cool and dry in all conditions and allows the athlete to put more time training and less time changing due UNDER ARMOUR

to sweat. He crated this revolutionary product in his grandmother’s basement in Washington DC. His first sale a modest $17,000 at the end of 1996 would help fund the success to his product and establishing Under Armour.

“Under Armour’s sales growth is growing over 20% nationally over the last 24 quarters in a row and in that same time international sales jumped 65%! Under Armour markets itself as a solution rather than a fashion which allows it to patent their clothing so other companies cannot use their ideas.” (Koppleman,2016)

Under Armour products and made to serve a purpose to help every athlete increase performance from your weekend jogger to your paid professional hitting the gym 7 days a week.

Kevin turned this small start up company in t what it is today a 4.1-billion-dollar company, and this was done with only one focus in mind…Put the customers’ needs above the company. It sounds easy right!? Yet no company has been able to do this in the way UA has and to maintain this for over 20 years.