Adidas is to sell its trainers for $1 (€0.75) a pair throughout rural India to capitalise on the country's soaring population. Inspired by Mohammad Yunus, the company's Nobel-Prize winning founder of the Grameen micro-finance bank in Bangladesh, the company believes the plan to sell the world's cheapest trainer will open up a massive market.
The $1 trainers will be the latest in a growing trend which increasingly sees the world's poor as a potentially lucrative market rather than a begging bowl for aid. In the past few years mobile phone companies like Vodafone and India's Reliance have had great success selling cheap mobile phones to rickshaw-pullers and roadside hawkers throughout India, while Tata, which owns Jaguar, launched the world's cheapest car at 'One Lakh' rupees or around €1,395, and aimed to persuade families travelling five to a motorbike to trade up.
Company boss Herbert Hainer believes the foothold that Adidas' subsidiary Reebok has in the sub-continent to keep production and distribution costs low. He believes in India, the firm can sell its trainers for $1 and still make money:
"The shoe will be sold in villages through a distribution network. We want the product to be self-funding," he said.
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| Herbert Hainer: High hopes for Adidas in India |
The $1 trainers will be the latest in a growing trend which increasingly sees the world's poor as a potentially lucrative market rather than a begging bowl for aid. In the past few years mobile phone companies like Vodafone and India's Reliance have had great success selling cheap mobile phones to rickshaw-pullers and roadside hawkers throughout India, while Tata, which owns Jaguar, launched the world's cheapest car at 'One Lakh' rupees or around €1,395, and aimed to persuade families travelling five to a motorbike to trade up.
Company boss Herbert Hainer believes the foothold that Adidas' subsidiary Reebok has in the sub-continent to keep production and distribution costs low. He believes in India, the firm can sell its trainers for $1 and still make money:
"The shoe will be sold in villages through a distribution network. We want the product to be self-funding," he said.
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