For Sweden’s Mips AB and its Brain Protection System helmet technology (BPS), the 2020 fiscal year ended with a historic fourth record quarter. The quarterly and annual growth was driven primarily by the sports helmet category and bicycle helmets in particular.
After a challenging spring with extensive store closures in the first six months of the year, the publicly traded Swedish company was able to turn things around and achieve a whopping 73 percent growth in the last six months of the year. This resulted in a growth of 36 percent for the year as a whole (43 percent after adjusting for foreign exchange).
In the record-breaking Oct.-Dec. quarter of 2020 alone, Mips generated sales of SEK 140 million (€13.88m-$16.83m; editor’s note: MIPS has rounded each of the above sums). Compared to the fourth quarter of the previous year, this is an increase of 60 percent (77 percent in constant currency). Operating profit (EBIT) almost doubled from SEK 39 million to SEK 76 million (€7.53m-$9.18m, up 96 percent). Net profit for this record quarter was SEK 59 million (€5.85m-$7.09m), also up 97 percent compared to the same time period in 2019.
For the full fiscal year 2020, MIPS closed with total revenue of SEK 365 million (€36.17m-$43.88m, up 36 percent), EBIT of SEK 167 million (€16.55m-$20.08m, up 55 percent) and net profit of SEK 129 million (€12.79m-$15.51m, up 85 percent).
In total, Mips equipped 729 helmet models (previous year: 583) from 121 customers or suppliers (previous year: 103) with its BPS system last year. This means that 7.2 million helmets were equipped with the Mips solution in 2020.
The high sports helmet demand was driven by the bicycle helmet sector, while the snow sports helmet sector was extremely weak (due to a fundamental decline in demand in winter sports as well as Corona-related restrictions). Despite the challenging environment, the company grew its customer base by 11 percent during the year and currently has 107 customers in the Sports category.
In total, Mips generated sales of SEK 341 million (€33.80m-$40.99m, up 35.9 percent – see chart below) from the Sports helmet category. This is an impressive 93.4 percent share of total sales. Please see the chart below for sales of Mips’ other two business areas (motorcycle and safety helmets).
According to Mips, it is difficult at this time to capture all the effects of the Corona pandemic and, in particular, those on the MIPS business. Nonetheless, the company is optimistic about the future and aims to continue to grow organically “to achieve net sales of more than SEK 1 billion (€99.12m-$120.22m) by 2025.”
