Suunto Expands Its U.S. Presence
Suunto Oy is renowned for its sports watches, dive computers, compasses, and digital services for adventurers and athletes. Like Polar, Suunto has a much stronger presence in Europe than in North America.
The news today is that the Chinese-owned Finnish outfit plans a direct distribution system to U.S. retailers. The aim is to boost sales to U.S.-based runners, triathletes, and adventurers.
Customers should start to see Suunto showing up at their favorite outdoor stores, running stores, and sporting goods stores all over the United States. We always want to remain committed to our core consumers, and this marks a giant step forward for the company…Anytime there’s an operational change, there’s a lot of work to be done, but everyone is very excited for this move, and we believe it will set us up for greater success.” [Dan Suher, Suunto: Head of Americas]
The current distributor is Huish Outdoors who seem more focussed on the dive side of things than land-based adventures. So expect to see Suunto selling direct-to-consumer from its website, from Amazon.com/amazon.ca as another digital shopfront and through key retailers like REI/Backcountry
Dan Suher has just recently left Coros and will no doubt be extremely well-placed to get Suunto’s products in front of the same customers that Coros has excelled at reaching over the last few years. Suher also expects, “new products within the next year”
We’ve also recently been reminded of Suunto’s growing ecosystem that includes many on-watch apps and smartphone app connections to many other sports and adventure platforms.
Take Out
Sounds like there are some interesting developments ahead for Suunto and that the investment by its new owners is working.
Subjectively it feels to me like Suunto has turned a corner both commercially and from a product perspective.
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Fantastic news. I hope it works for them.
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Good news. More brands pushing each others, a wider offering for everybody is good.
Let’s hope that this won’t affect their manufacturing process as they don’t have the same manpower as others, building watches in Finland with a green approach. And this have to stay. This is a must.
I also hope they’ll focus a bit more on triathletes (not too much, but…a little more)
Looking forward to the Suunto race ow224. On the external Photos the bezel looks a bit smaller
Does anyone got insights into how Suunto is precieved in the US with them being a chinese owned company? I mean there is a big ballyhoo about Huawai afterall.
Suunto might not have the most features but with Made In Finland they got a very strong USP.
I think they need to rid themselves of the chinese owner to fully capitalize on that USP.
good question.
i think Huawei is a slightly different chinese issue linked to the potential ability of some of its products to directly spy on us on a network level.
the older Suunto 3 (or 3 Fitness) i received was originally made in china. i think what Suunto does is make the FCC prototypes in china, then mass produces them in Finland. I suspect, but don’t know, that the Made in Finland tag could essectively mean ‘assembled in finland’. I would then further imagine that similar ‘Made In’ lavels from MANY other comapnies means the same thing…think of car production as an ultimate example questioning where exactly it is made.
as mentioned above Suunto is not so widely known in the USA, plus I’m not sure what Americans would think of ‘Made in Finland’ in any case. As a Brit it means nothing to me other than ‘Not Made in china’ (even though much of it is probably made in china!!)
Apple Watch is made in China and that does OK 😉 People tend to look the other way when it suits them.
Hi Erbrl,
The Huawei situation is very different. Suunto Oy is still very much a Finnish company, and the majority of products are still manufactured in Finland, with some products being produced in China (like many other wearable products). For instance, Coros is a Chinese company, manufactured, designed etc. in China, with a global subsidiary based out of California.
Moving forward Suunto will be able to leverage its owned manufacturing in two countries, to get the best components, and create the best value for consumers. You have seen the new Vertical (made in Finland from 100% renewable energy), and as mentioned in the article, there will be more products over the coming year.
next watch suunto race witch amoled screen, days …