Without neglecting the US, the Portuguese footwear industry opens the door to new markets

“It is a difficult time to launch a brand, but there are never easy times”, acknowledges Paulo Monteiro, commercial director of Kyaia, referring to the new venture of the Guimarães footwear group, Fred & Frederico, which is presenting the largest footwear showcase in the world in Milan, at Micam. The new brand, which was created as a tribute by Fortunato Frederico to his family — Fred is the name of his son and Frederico is the name of the family — comes at a time when the group, which owns the brands Fly London, As Portuguesas and Softinos, is closing the accounts of a “difficult year”, looking to 2025 with the expectation that it will be “a year of reversal”, with the industry tightening its grip on new markets to kickstart the crisis.

After two years of order contraction in the sector, Kyaia’s commercial director is confident that 2025 is a “better year in Europe”, keeping the US bet, one of the group’s main markets, despite all “this indecision” around the customs rates. Not wanting to advance revenue numbers for 2024, which have dropped over 2023, Paulo Monteiro says that for this year he is “dependent” on the collection he is presenting, anticipating a recovery in the winter. For 2025, in addition to the launch of the group’s new brand, the return to Asia and Scandinavia is planned, in order to gain new customers.

As for the US, which weigh 18% in Kyaia sales and are currently the group’s second largest market, behind the UK, where it sells between 27% and 28%, the commercial director says that “sales remain stable”, but he shows concern about the uncertainty that persists around the imposition of new customs rates. For the brand As Portuguesas, the United States weighs even more: they represent about 30% of its exports. “In the US we have been represented in the 50 states since 2018,” explains the founder and CEO, Pedro Abrantes. Unlike Europe, where a breakdown of orders have been felt, 2024 was still a year of growth for the Portuguese brand on the other side of the Atlantic.

“We have to look at another kind of markets and not get used to falls in Europe,” explains Pedro Abrantes, adding that in 2024 he began his presence in some fairs in Asia, a very important action for the future. Regarding concrete markets, the founder of the brand highlights South Korea — “for us it is a very good and very important market, this is where we may have more customers in Asia ” — and Japan, where there are currently 18 people working for the brand.

With the US leading exports, followed by Germany, Italy and Portugal, the brand has the ambition to continue to grow in Asia. The goal is in 2026 to “have a similar expression with the US”, translated into a weight of about 20% in exports.

Despite being aware of new geographies, the Portuguese brand does not give up the market across the Atlantic. “We will not stop selling or stop exporting to the US. Let’s get solutions”, says the official, highlighting a position that is in line with the one defended by the sector. “We will not give up on the US market. On the contrary, we are reinforcing our presence in the US market. In the last decade, our exports have practically doubled to the United States”, reinforces Paulo Gonçalves. For the APICCAPS association spokesman, the “United States are an absolutely strategic market for the Portuguese footwear industry”.

On the potential impact of new customs rates, Paulo Gonçalves points out that “if tariffs are the same for everyone, at the limit, who will be penalized will be the American consumer”, although he anticipates “several scenarios in equation”. “We have to wait to see. Waiting to see is never a good business omen. We would, of course, like this negotiating process — if it is a negotiating process that we are talking about — be resolved as soon as possible”, he laments.

The US, where sales have grown 25% in the last three years to two million pairs, or 97 million euros, are currently the sixth largest market in the Portuguese footwear industry, which last year exported 1,724 million euros to 174 countries in five continents.

The Portuguese industry presents, this year, a delegation reinforced in Milan, with 75 companies. Of these, 43 — 10% more than last year and the largest number of the last four years — participate in Micam and Mipel and another 32 will represent Portugal on Lineapelle, which represents a growth of the 6.7% national delegation.

With its stand ahead of the Kyaia group brands, Lemon Jelly, one of 43 Portuguese companies attending Micam, also has an “important market” in the US, assumes José Pinto, CEO of the Procalado group. “Of course, we are not yet feeling the effect of this new government, but as we also have connection with Canada, we will see in the near future what fees can bring,” he says. “We believe that, despite everything, we still have a competitive product to continue to work in the market,” adds the company leader who has about 400 workers and that provides for earning more than 30 million by 2024, with exports growing 10%.

Although not giving up the US, José Pinto is more concerned with Europe. “Germany and France are our main markets,” he assumes.

Also Paulo Gonçalves, from APICCAPS, notes that the sector is more attentive to what is happening on the European continent, where the industry has its largest markets, with Germany to the head. The German market absorbed 391 million euros in exports in 2024, followed by France and the Netherlands, with 348 and 197 million, respectively. Already the United Kingdom was the destination of three million pairs of Portuguese shoes, worth 113 million.

New markets compensate for breaking in Europe

“We are more concerned at this stage with the European market than with the US market”, says the spokesman, talking to journalists at Micam in Milan. The sector association spokesman says the industry is investing in other markets and other products: “We are looking for new windows of opportunity.”

Procalçado is one of the companies that is pursuing this strategy. “We are diversifying production. The sustainability area is growing a lot”, he says, adding that one is betting on an “increasingly friendly production”.

In terms of geographies, the industrialist points out that “there are markets and brands that are growing”. Like other footwear industrialists, José Pinto is looking at the Nordic countries and is “strengthening the commercial part in Korea and opening in the east”, says the Procalçado CEO.

“We never prepare just a year, we prepare, I would say, almost 5 years ahead (…), to bring new products, new solutions, [but] ee are starting to think of what will be from 2026 to 2030. The times that will come there are more difficult,” he acknowledges.

The industrialist assumes that “challenges will be many and protectionism brings advantage to those who produce locally” and “industry in Europe will be increasingly important”. “We believe that Europe is our domestic market, a natural domestic market”, he adds.

Paulo Ferreira, CEO of Paradigma, recognizes that the brand currently works “basically with European market, with France and England”. But the Guimarães industrial, who this year returned to the fair after three years without participating in the event, says that “the goal is trying to recover some Asia customers, namely in Japan and South Korea”, while now the brand is moving to the US. “We will make a commercial trip in March to approach some customers or potential customers to widen the geographies of our sales and not be reduced to Europe”, he says.

About the changes introduced by the new US administration, the company’s leader, who currently has about a hundred workers, considers that “sooner or later Trump will realize that [tariffs] will only lead to internal inflation [in the USA]”.

With a factory also located in Guimarães, Penha is “having good results with things that start developing in the US”, says Novais. With a daily production capacity of 550 pairs of shoes, the company created in 1967 is also betting on Asia, particularly in Japan, and northern Europe. “These little things together come to collect the low of other markets. What European markets have lost, this difference we have achieved in other markets”acknowledges the company’s owner.

Reinaldo Teixeira, owner of Carité Calçados, is still focused on Europe. The historic entrepreneur of Felgueiras, who employs more than 650 people, is preparing to close the 2024 accounts with a turnover of 43 million euros, a growth of 14% compared to the 37.7 million recorded in 2023. A result that attributes to the more stable orders. “We are organized, we have less losses [in production]”, he said. Regarding the presence in the world’s largest shoe, Reinaldo Teixeira does not see this event as a need to raise new customers. “We see no extreme need to get business”, he says.

With a customer in the German market to represent 80% of their production and the Netherlands to weigh 18% of sales, Carité continues to look at the US market, where it wants to enter both its own brands: J. Reinaldo (fashion segment) and try (technical and professional). “I wanted to see if it got there professional shoes”, he says, adding that he doesn’t believe the US increases tariffs on national imports. “I don’t see the United States increasing our rate, which is 10%. Portugal does not tell them”.

As for results, he says that this year already projected, “at least until August”. After an “excellent” year, “if I can get around the results of 2024, I will be very happy”, the Carité CEO admits.