Rapha's newest product line will be sunglasses, according to an interview with chief executive Simon Mottram in today's Financial Times.
Mottram, who founded Rapha in 2003, is interviewed in the Entrepreneurship section of the FT and while much of the article covers the oft-reported story of Rapha's growth and the transformative deal with Team Sky, there are some new snippets of information not previously published. Among those that Rapha afficiandos will pay most attention to is that eyewear is the next item to be added to the Rapha range, although timings were not mentioned.
Journalist David Firn managed to extract some other information we think has not been previously disclosed. First, there are some revenue figures for the company. Rapha's 2013 earnings before interest and tax were just over £1 million, on sales of £28.7 million, and they expect to have sales of £39 million in 2014.
Second, Rapha's range of women's clothing is selling well and Mottram expects that it could account for 25 per cent of sales within five years.
Third, UK sales only account for 30 per cent of Rapha's sales and that the company expects that it's growth in coming years will be in Europe, where Rapha has so far not massively penetrated the core cycling markets of France, Italy, Germany and Belgium, and the Asia-Pacific region.
The article looks at why Mottram decided to set up Rapha, how he raised funds (he had a lot of meetings and the majority of people didn't want to back him) and how the company has had to move from employing generalists who could turn their hand to anything to specialists who come with detailed knowledge of the area in which they work.
Read the FT interview with Rapha's Simon Mottram (need to be signed up for a free subscription to read full article).
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