Observation on the “head-oriented” development of Quanzhou sports brands
Core Tips
In recent years, as the economic situation at home and abroad has changed, in Quanzhou, a city with developed traditional manufacturing industries, a number of leading companies have emerged in the field of sports shoes and apparel, and continue to present a situation where the strong are always strong under the “Matthew Effect” . The continuous expansion of these Quanzhou sports brands has become an important force in the field of national brands, which has greatly changed the local industrial ecology and also created new challenges and opportunities for the industrial development of local governments.
Quanzhou has actively explored how to deal with this situation in the industry. While encouraging companies to become bigger and stronger, it also guides leading sports companies to play a leading role and bring more increments to the local industry.
Leading effect, achieving growth against the trend
Sports shoes and clothing brand is the strongest branch in Quanzhou’s industrial economy field.
Recently, Anta Sports, a leading sports shoe and apparel company in Quanzhou, released its operating performance in the first quarter of 2023. Retail sales of ANTA’s ANTA brand, Fila and all other brands have achieved positive growth.
On May 8, reporters walked into the Anta headquarters factory in Chidian Town, Jinjiang City and saw that the company’s multiple production lines for “hydrogen running” series sports shoes were maintaining full production.
Zhang Ruogeng from Anta’s brand department told reporters that since the beginning of this year, Anta’s products have maintained a booming production and sales trend, especially the “Hydrogen Running” series of products, which has opened up new space for market sales. In July 2021, astronauts wore this Anta “Hydrogen Running” series of running shoes in the space gym of the China Space Station. This running shoe was developed based on the principles of aviation ultra-light materials. While improving performance, the material density reaches a trace level, only one-fifth of feathers. It is certified as the lightest jogging shoe in the sports shoe industry.
Despite the sluggish economic environment, in the first quarter of this year, the retail sales of the Anta brand achieved positive single-digit growth year-on-year. It is worth mentioning that Anta’s Fila brand changed from last year’s growth decline and achieved high single-digit positive growth year-on-year in the first quarter, providing realistic support for the group’s overall revenue performance. Other emerging brands under Anta have continued their high growth trend. In the first quarter of this year, the retail sales of all other brand products, including Descente, Colon, etc., increased by 75% to 80% year-on-year.
On April 11, another sports brand Xtep disclosed its business operations in mainland China in the first quarter of 2023. In the post-epidemic market recovery, Xtep has shown strong growth momentum. In the first quarter of this year, Xtep’s main brand retail sales increased by approximately 20% year-on-year, and the channel inventory turnover cycle was less than five months.
On April 17, sports brand 361 Degrees released its operating summary for the first quarter of 2023. The main brand retail sales achieved low double-digit growth year-on-year; the children’s clothing brand increased by 20%~25% year-on-year; E-commerce business shows continued growth, with overall revenue increasing by approximately 35% compared to the same period last year.
The reporter learned from the Quanzhou Footwear Industry Association that since last year, a number of leading Quanzhou sports brand companies such as Hongxing Erke and Peak have achieved varying degrees of growth.
The industry said that under the test of the epidemic last year, these Quanzhou sports brand companies showed a development trend against the wind. This trend continued in the first quarter of this year, showing that the market share of sports brands is concentrated in leading companies. It demonstrates the strong competitiveness of Quanzhou sports brands.
Multi-brand strategy, seeking breakthrough transformation
In 2017, when Anta Sports won the management rights of the international brand Kolon in China, this outdoor brand was inconspicuous among Anta Sports brands.
But today, 6 years later, with the increasing popularity of outdoor sports, Kolon’s voice in China’s outdoor sports track is gradually becoming more and more prominent. The brand hired celebrity Liu Shishi as its spokesperson and opened a new store in the center of Shanghai in March this year.
In recent years, while consolidating its own ANTA brand, ANTA has successively acquired or established FILA (China), Sprandi, Descente, Kolon Sport, Brands such as KingKow, Arc’teryx, and Antaplus have embarked on the multi-brand road.
Recently, Anta Sports announced that it plans to issue no more than 150 million new shares and is expected to raise no more than US$1.5 billion. ANTA Sports stated that the funds raised will be mainly used to deepen the strategic layout of multi-brands, accelerate the pace of globalization, and further consolidate its position as an industry leader.
Ding Shizhong, chairman of ANTA’s board of directors, said that in the future, ANTA Sports will continue to implement a multi-brand strategy to meet the needs of different consumers through different brands, while strengthening product innovation and channel optimization, giving full play to the “multi-brand portfolio full coverage of segmentation” The group advantage of “demand” and the “vertical integration business model” of deeply cultivating the entire value chain of sports shoes and apparel will further deepen the “multi-brand collaborative operation capabilities” and enhance the brand image and market competitiveness.
In terms of brand diversification, Xtep Sports is not to be outdone. In recent years, Xtep has successively obtained agency rights for brands such as K-Swiss, Paladin, and Saucony, and has embarked on a diversified business strategy similar to Anta.The deepening development has become an important driving force for the industry’s growth against the trend.
In the first quarter of this year, the sales of 361 Degree Group’s online store (exclusive products) increased by 60.3% year-on-year, becoming an important channel for brand product sales.
ANTA has increased investment in digitalization and established a “store-centered” digital strategy. Starting from consumer experience, we will accelerate the layout of private domain construction, membership value, and precise crowd management. At the same time, Anta continues to promote the intelligent upgrade of its logistics and supply chain systems, and has basically realized the digitization of the retail system, the digitization of the supply chain and logistics systems, and the digitization of management decision-making.
Currently, Xtep’s logistics park in Jinjiang is under full construction. The first phase of the logistics park was completed last year, and the rest will be fully completed in 2024. The logistics park will become the enterprise’s central warehouse, enabling the direct delivery of finished products to brand retail stores and providing intelligent sorting for return orders to improve operational efficiency.
Talking about the digitalization and national craze of sports brands in Quanzhou, Zhou Shaoxiong, chairman of the Quanzhou Federation of Industry and Commerce, believes that Quanzhou’s traditional manufacturing industry is mostly concentrated in consumer goods for people’s livelihood, and sports brands are one of the most influential sub-sectors. These brand enterprises are sensitive to the market and have strong advantages in technological investment and cultural exploration. “National Trend + Technology” is the product of this advantage.
Big hands holding small hands, industrial agglomeration development
The trend of leading sports brands has also profoundly affected Quanzhou’s industrial structure and put forward higher requirements for the local government’s industrial policy formulation and planning.
It is understood that in response to the trend of leadership in the sports industry, in recent years, with the promotion of governments and departments at all levels in Quanzhou, Quanzhou sports brand leading companies and small and medium-sized enterprises have begun to conduct production capacity docking, promoting “big hand-in-hand cooperation” “Little Hands” action guides the healthy and steady development of the industry. In this regard, Quanzhou City has gradually improved the working mechanism for collaboration between leading enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises, strived to establish a collaborative supporting system for the development of modern industrial clusters, and promoted the joint development of leading enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises. , collaborative development, innovative development, improve the level of industrial collaboration and supporting facilities, improve the quality of production capacity docking, and promote the development of industrial agglomeration.
Baiyi Clothing Co., Ltd. cooperates with Anta Sports and obtains nearly 1 million clothing orders from it every year; Jinjiang Tianshou Weaving Company and Anta Sports dock production capacity, and new orders exceed 100,000 pieces every year… Statistics show that Quanzhou last year Supporting the production capacity matching between leading sports brand companies and local small and medium-sized enterprises is close to 40 billion yuan.
At the specific implementation level, Quanzhou actively guides small and medium-sized enterprises to organize supporting production according to the production technology and product standards of leading enterprises, guides small and medium-sized enterprises to integrate into the supply chain of leading enterprises, and deepens collaborative supporting and professional division of labor.
In terms of platform construction, Quanzhou relies on the public service platform for small and medium-sized enterprises to build an enterprise supply and demand collaboration information docking platform, publish product demand catalogs of leading sports brand enterprises, and product promotion catalogs of collaborative supporting enterprises, and open up the operation chain where supply chain collaboration and matching are difficult.
While guiding and creating conditions, Quanzhou City also subsidizes production capacity matching enterprises. Since this year, nearly 100 small, medium and micro enterprises have been matched with 12 leading sports enterprises, further improving the level of industrial collaboration and supporting facilities.
Give play to the role of “leading the small with the big” to strengthen technical collaboration between enterprises. Quanzhou City actively guides leading enterprises to open technology centers, inspection and testing equipment and other technical resources to cooperative supporting enterprises, and drives cooperative supporting small and medium-sized enterprises to improve their technology. level; encourage leading enterprises to improve technical collaboration systems such as technology research and development, quality inspection, etc., and export corporate production standards and product quality standards to supporting enterprises. At the same time, we will guide enterprises in industrial clusters to cooperate to build industrial technology alliances and key industry laboratories, strengthen “industry, academia, and research” collaborative innovation with universities, scientific research institutes, and national key laboratories, and break through a number of industry key technologies and core technology and common technology, improve the technical level of industrial clusters, and accelerate the recommendation and identification of technology-based enterprises, high-tech enterprises, and innovative enterprises.
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