Footwear export prices rise sharply

A ticket to watch the 2026 World Cup final has reached nearly $11,000. The original list price was $1,550; at Qatar 2022, the most expensive ticket cost $1,600. One stadium, one match: a price seven times higher. The figure appears in EY-Parthenon’s Geostrategic Analysis of July 2026 and does not refer to footwear. In some ways, however, it reflects what is also happening in the shoes and bags sector.

The latest edition of APICCAPS’ World Footwear Yearbook 2026 shows that in 2025, 24.6 billion pairs of footwear were produced, up 0.1% on the previous year. Export volumes fell by 0.1 per cent, but the value of trade rose by 1.6 per cent, to almost 172 billion dollars. Over ten years, the number of pairs exported increased by 3.3 per cent, whilst the value rose by 35.7 per cent: the sector’s growth has been a story of prices, not quantities.