Since it took over the leadership from Avon in 2012, Amway has been the world’s largest direct selling enterprise. That year, Amway’s global sales reached $11.3 billion. However, this has kept falling down since then, down to $9.5 billion at the end of 2015. Even after this last 12% year-over-year decline, Amway is still at the leadership position in the industry.
You can see the five-year trend below:
The picture shows a downward trend in the last two years, 2015 sales being the lowest in five years.
Amway management attributes this decline to two factors:
1) Slowdown of China’s economy which is the company’s biggest market,
2) The situation with the exchange rates.
“From my standpoint, it’s the currency that really impacts us more financially,” says Chairman Steve Van Andel, 
although these two had an equal impact on revenues
Steve Van Andel explains how exchange rates hit Amway as:
* Inflexibility in cutting costs of its main products like vitamins and cosmetics that are being manufactured in the U.S.
* Decrease in the consumption of Amway products outside U.S. due to increased local prices
* Diminishing value of foreign profits to U.S. Dollars at home
The top 10 markets for Amway in 2015 were China, South Korea, United States, Japan, Thailand, Russia, Taiwan, Malaysia, India and Ukraine. China alone represents about one-third of Amway’s sales. Amway announced it had experienced growth in seven of these top 10, and in 14 markets out of its top 20 last year.
The nutrition category that includes vitamins, dietary supplements and weight management products is still the top sales category for Amway. Nutrition category accounted for 46% of sales, beauty and personal care 25%, durables 16%, home care 7%, and others 6%. Amway’s three top-selling nutritional products are Protein Powder, Double X/Triple, and Vitamin C Plus.
Amway continued its investments in 2015, focusing on manufacturing, R&D, digital platforms and trainings for the field. The company opened five manufacturing facilities and a major R&D site in 2015.
Some facts from Amway:
* Founded in 1959 by Jay Van Andel and Rich Devos
* Operates in 100+ countries and territories
* Employs more than 19,000 people
* Sells over 450 unique products
* eSpring is the world’s No. 1 selling brand of home water treatment systems
* Has seven manufacturing facilities : U.S. (3), Vietnam (2), China (1) and India (1)
* Ranks the 30th on Forbes Magazine’s “America’s Largest Private Companies 2015” list
* $53.1 billion have been paid in bonuses and incentives worldwide since 1959
* 80+% of Amway Business Owners say they work part time
* Holds 1150 patents
For more on Amway’s 2015 performance please click: Amway 2015-1, Amway 2015-2, Amway 2015-3