Domestic Sports Apparel Brand Crisis

Anta's growth slowed down, and Lining began to lay off.

When domestic sporting goods enterprises enter the cold winter, they have not given up their ambitions of internationalization, expanded overseas markets, and paid high prices.

However, when

Domestic sports brand crisis

In the first half of last year, its sales exceeded Lining and became the leader of the domestic sports brand in 2011. Its announcement showed that Anta's revenue last year was 8 billion 905 million yuan, an increase of 20.2% compared with the same period last year, and the growth rate of turnover was almost 6 percentage points lower than that in 2010. The net profit was 1 billion 730 million yuan, an increase of 11.5% over the same period last year, while the net profit growth in 2010 was 24%. In terms of stores, Anta added 229 stores last year, and the number of new stores in 2011 was 7778, but the number of new stores was far less than that of 2010.

In the report, Anta group said that in order to enhance the brand's influence in the market, the company launched a series of new marketing measures last year to publicize the fashionable image and diversified products of sports life.

At the same time, the Group continues to optimize the products and protection of children's sporting goods.

However, Xu Yunfeng, a sports brand analyst, pointed out that Anta has been seeking to maximize its revenue by increasing the number of outlets. However, at present, the mode of increasing sales revenue by opening stores has reached a limit. First, because the layout of the whole country has basically become a model, the total number of stores has reached saturation. Second, too many stores have affected the sales of single stores.

Although Lining's annual performance has not yet been officially announced by Anta, its performance forecast at the end of January indicated that the group's revenue will decline by about 6%-7% in 2010 compared with that of 2010, due to the weak growth of orders and the impact of some dealers' inventory. In addition, the cost rate is still rising due to significant decline in revenue and gross margins. The company expects 2011 net profit margin to decline by about 7-8 percentage points from 2010 11.7% in 2011, that is, net profit margin is less than 5%.

Orders are also not satisfactory.

XTEP international recently announced that the order volume of the company in the first quarter and two quarter of 2012 increased by 9% and 5%, while XTEP's orders in the first and two quarters of 2011 increased by 23% and 25%, respectively, and the growth rate dropped sharply.

In February 20th, Anta said its orders for the three quarter of 2012 will have a negative growth in high unit numbers.

"2012 will be a very sad year for these domestic brands."

Independent shoe clothing commentator Ma Gang pointed out that domestic sports brands are now stranded in inventory, and the industry is in a period of adjustment.

Take Lining as an example, the inventory amount in the first half of 2011 was 992 million yuan, while the stock amount at the end of 2010 was 806 million yuan, and the stock amount increased by about 200 million yuan.

"Clearing inventory is the focus of 2012."

Gambling abroad

With the advent of the severe winter of the industry, various brands have started to save themselves. Recently, PEAK's actions have frequently been reported in newspapers. The enterprises that locate basketball professional equipment continue to strengthen their overseas strategy.

Since February 14th of this year, PEAK CEO Xu Zhihua has taken the team to the United States. The purpose of their trip is to cut ribbon for PEAK's opening in the branch store in Hollywood.

This is PEAK's second store in the United States, with an area of 2800 square feet.

At the end of last year, PEAK's basketball theme store was opened in Losangeles.

Liu Xiang, the head of PEAK, said: "the United States is one of our core markets. In view of its influence in the global layout, we set up shop in the United States based more on the global market considerations, and the US market is also the focus of our pioneering market. We put the store in the United States as a market localization initiative."

In fact, in recent years, PEAK's internationalization strategy has been accelerated. At present, PEAK has more than 200 agency sales outlets all over the world, and the proportion of overseas sales has increased year by year. As of the first half of last year, PEAK's overseas sales accounted for 10% of total sales, and at the same time, it registered trademarks in more than 160 countries and regions such as the United States.

But Xu Zhihua claims that by 2015, PEAK's overseas sales will account for 50% of its total sales, that is, equal sales with domestic sales.

In addition to PEAK, Lining, a veteran sports company in the domestic market, has begun to strengthen overseas markets through e-commerce channels, and the first stop is the United States.

It is understood that Lining officially launched online sales in the United States in January 19th, mainly selling women's sportswear and running shoes.

Lining stressed that the move was only a trial run, and that the cost of investment was not high and the risk would not be too great.

"Overseas expansion strategy has not changed, other countries and markets have not started yet, but the future will definitely gradually penetrate."

Analysts pointed out that Lining set up online shopping mall in the United States, may not care how much sales, but mainly to build sales platform, breaking the sales line under the U.S. line restrictions.

However, some people believe that the reason why sports brands are gambling abroad is that the domestic sporting goods market has been saturated and there is little room for market growth.

As for the questionable performance of Lining's domestic market, Lining's official explained that at present Lining's performance is recovering. Lining has always attached great importance to overseas markets, which is also an important step in internationalization.

And for PEAK's original intention, Liu Xiang also believes that although the domestic market growth is not against the golden age of previous years, but through optimizing internal optimization methods such as stores, PEAK can still bring steady growth expectations.

For domestic brands to explore the trend of overseas markets, Xu Yunfeng believes that PEAK and Lining go to the United States, the propaganda significance is greater than the actual significance. The most important thing is that its strategy is to bloom outside the wall, aiming at the domestic market and giving more confidence to the domestic market.

Huge sums of money to compete for celebrity endorsements

The US NBA's new generation star Jeremy Lin has been popular, and it has no doubt that the major sports brand enterprises will be "thirsty" and thirsty.

Jeremy Lin, a Chinese basketball boy, has been shooting at NBA recently, and his crazy performance has attracted a large number of domestic and foreign sponsors.

In fact, as early as August 2010, Nike signed Jeremy Lin. The current three year contract has been fulfilled for second years.

As the deadline for the renewal of the contract is approaching, the campaign for sports brands to compete for Jeremy Lin will start in recent days.

Xu Zhihua went to the United States in addition to cutting the ribbon for the new store. There were also rumors in the industry that he was negotiating with Jeremy Lin. He hoped Jeremy Lin could become the spokesman for PEAK brand because PEAK was positioned as a professional basketball equipment, while Jeremy Lin's excellent performance and sporadic vitality were in line with the brand positioning.

Jordan also showed his interest in Jeremy Lin. "Jeremy Lin represents to a large extent the performance of Asian players in the NBA arena".

Jordan sports brand related responsible person said, Jeremy Lin is likely to be Yao Ming after retirement NBA another "outbreak point", Jordan sports brand has begun to Jeremy Lin's business value assessment.

Jeremy Lin's old club Nike will not let go of this opportunity.

Yesterday, the relevant person in charge of the domestic sports brand enterprise revealed that although the commercial value of Jeremy Lin was very optimistic, the US sports brand Nike had made a first step to renew the contract with Jeremy Lin.

Nike refused to comment on this.

In fact, Nike has always been very visionary in choosing spokesmen. Before the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, Nike signed Liu Xiang with 300 thousand yuan. After the Athens Olympic Games, Nike and Liu Xiang successfully renewed their contracts, but the endorsement cost rose to tens of millions.

But Nike worked hard to cultivate Li Na for 14 years just for the sake of Li Na's success one day.

And domestic enterprises have always been generous in asking for big endorsements.

Lining successfully signed the former Lakers star shark O'neal, and PEAK was known as the cradle of the NBA star in the industry. At the end of August 2010, after the 6 big NBA stars had just been sent away, PEAK put forth a heavy punch and invited Yao Ming rocket mate Kyle Lori to China.

Li Guangdou, a brand analyst, believes that although domestic enterprises are well aware of the importance of celebrity endorsement to internationalization, Nike and other international brands have repeatedly signed contracts with the hottest stars from a persistence, which stems from long-term planning and confidence in the brand.

Our national brand is not maintained by the feelings of the spokesperson. It is always the handsome men who go through the lantern changing in front of the audience. They sell the brand of endorsement mechanically and make people feel numb.

Hope for London Olympics

Since 2012 is the Olympic year, all sports brands will focus on Olympic marketing. Lining, director of public relations, told reporters that the London Olympic Games in 2012 will be an important market opportunity. Lining will seize this opportunity to enhance the brand image. The Olympic Games will be Lining's "core work of the year".

361 degrees around the 2012 London Olympic Games CCTV launched the 361 degree "London action" series promotion program, in 2012, PEAK's slogan is to help the Chinese women's basketball team to charge the London Olympic Games.

In the mid-term earnings report last year, Anta mentioned that the advertising and publicity costs in the "Olympic year" increased from 12.6% to 14%.

In June 2010, Anta reached a strategic cooperation agreement with the Chinese Olympic Committee, becoming a partner of the Chinese Olympic Committee's sports apparel for 2009-2012 years and a partner of the Chinese sports delegation for 2009-2012 years.

The scope of this cooperation is widely known by Ma Jilong, director of the China Olympic Committee's market development committee.

International brands will never miss such a rare opportunity.

Adidas is well prepared for this year's full support of this year's London Olympic Games and International Paralympic athletes.

The goal of Adidas is to provide the lightest products for all athletes.

It is understood that, throughout the year, the Olympic year is a year when the sporting goods brand has made a comprehensive effort. At the same time, it is also a year of "bumper harvest" of these sports brands. At the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, Lining, as a representative of Chinese athletes, lit the Olympic torch on the "bird's nest" above Beijing's "bird's nest" and pushed the development of Lining's sports brand to the peak. In the next two years, Lining's sales performance rose sharply, and the sales volume in the Chinese market once surpassed world famous sports brands such as Adidas and Nike.

However, as Lining was unable to extricate himself from the pformation "mire" and lost his figure in the Doha Asian Games, the outside world once accused the incumbent Lining brand CEO Zhang Zhiyong, "the absence of the Doha Asian Games is the loss of Doha Asian Games business opportunities", thus showing the importance of the Olympic strategy to Lining.

Xu Yunfeng pointed out that how to make good use of the opportunity of 2012 London Olympic Games is very important to the development of sports brand in the next four years. All brands will play the Olympic card.

Li Guangdou also pointed out that the 2008 Olympic Games gave the whole world.

It is fundamental to keep the base camp

The international awareness of the domestic sports brands has been widely recognized by the industry. Li Guangdou believes that a brand must grow and grow, and it will inevitably go to the international market. These three strategies will help a lot of sports brand enterprises. However, at the same time of internationalization, domestic enterprises must not ignore the domestic market.

For sports brand, the Chinese market is like a besieged city, and domestic enterprises want to go out, but foreign enterprises want to kill them.

In recent years, while domestic brands are involved in overseas markets, Adidas, Nike and other brands have been eyeing the domestic two or three tier market.

Among them, Nike and Adidas have indicated in the future that they will increase the store construction in the two or three tier market, and will launch products that are more close to the two or three tier market.

Data show that domestic brands from two or three line cities accounted for 70%-80% of revenue.

Ma Gang pointed out that the main revenue of domestic brands will come from the two or three tier cities in the future, so domestic sports brands must not ignore the domestic market while they are internationalized, otherwise they will be attacked by both sides.

Lining is an obvious example. In 2000, Chen Yihong, then general manager of Li Ning Co, put forward the goal of "internationalization".

In his view, Lining wandered for years because of the lack of brand appeal, and "need to go out and play a bigger role".

Thanks to the Olympic Dongfeng, Lining once surpassed Adidas in 2009, but the position has not yet been consolidated. Adidas is catching up. Anta, the biggest competitor in the local brand, is also taking the lead in catching up with the whole world.

The industry generally agreed that in 2010 Lining was pressed by Anta because Lining lost control of the domestic market while expanding the international market.