January 11 – Sticker albums, the staple collectable and ‘education’ tool for growing football fans, are back in fashion. Panini have announced it will almost double revenue on the back of the Russia 2018 World Cup to about €1 billion.
In 2014, the year of the Brazilian World Cup, Panini Group turned over €758 million. The 2018 Russian album had a record number of 682 stickers meaning more stickers packs had to be bought to fill an album.
To complete the Russia 2018 book in the UK was estimated would take 967 individual sticker packets, or 4,832 stickers – a total cost of £773.60. That assumes the collector didn’t enter the swaps marketplace to trade duplicates for missing player sticers.
Panini made the financial announcement at the launch of its 2018/19 Italian sticker album – Calciatori 2018-2019 – which for the first time also included women players from the Italian national team that will compete at the World Cup in France later this year.
“The Panini Group will achieve a turnover of about €1 billion for 2018 thanks to the World Cup, almost double the 536 million euros ($613 million) achieved in 2017,” said Allegra.
Panini also said that it is preparing the launch of a Premier League sticker album for next year.
Panini sells stickers in 120 countries and employs more than a 1,000 people worldwide. It says stickers are now bought across a wider demographic than just children.
“The stickers are a passion for everyone, not just men, as shown by the number of active collectors who are about 1.5 million, including one million young people or children,” said Allegra.
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