Lining Millet Cooperation This Move Is Right?

As China's most famous local sports brand, it lost 1 billion 979 million yuan and 391 million yuan in 2012 and 2013 respectively, and continued to lose money in 2014. Lining Urgent need for transformation. How to change, go with Xiaobian to see.

Recently, Li Ning Co announced its business with the ecological chain enterprise of millet. millet The founder of the bracelet has reached a strategic agreement to jointly develop a new generation of smart running shoes to explore the health field of big data. Lining hopes to solve the current transformation crisis and explore the market space of smart shoes, and millet is undoubtedly in the ecosystem of the wall itself. At present, the latest news is that the product is still in the testing stage and is expected to be launched in the third quarter of 7 and August.

　　 Millet or Lining's ghost

As China's most famous local sports brand, Li Ning Co reported in 2014 that Li Ning Co lost 743 million yuan in 2014, and by the end of 2014, there were 4424 franchises in Lining brand, which was 11.3% lower than that in 2013. But at the same time, the expansion of the direct store network has opened 276 new stores, reaching 1202, an increase of 29.8% over the same period. While actively controlling sales channels, the loss situation has not improved. After losing 1 billion 979 million yuan and 391 million yuan in 2012 and 2013 respectively, this is a third consecutive year of losses. In March 16th, three days before the performance conference, Li Ning Co officially announced the cooperation with millet, announced the strategic cooperation with the Chinese rice technology, to create intelligent running shoes, and explore the health field of big data. And Hua Mei technology is affiliated to a road chain belonging to the ecological chain of millet, creating millet bracelet.

After introducing a smart wearable device millet bracelet, Xiaomi has gone through a period of outbreak. But after breaking through 1 million, the user has been relatively saturated and has entered a slow growth stage. Meanwhile, in the first two weeks when Lining announced the cooperation between the two sides, that is to say, in March 2nd, let the small ant technology of Xiaoli company of Xiaomi's eco chain company officially launched the "millet version GoPro" - the small ant movement camera, the basic edition price is 399 yuan, and the travel version of the self timer bar package is priced at 499 yuan, which is now on sale at the official website of Xiaomi, Jingdong and Tmall flagship. Of course, after that, "everyone can enjoy the joy of technology." millet camera is always out of stock.

With the growth of millet Bracelet users and the introduction of millet Sports Camera, Lining's continuous loss has been in a difficult period of transformation. On the one hand, public participation in sports has increased rapidly in the past year, and health tracking applications and equipment are becoming more popular, giving both sides a chance to smell. However, the cooperation between the two sides does not seem to be very sincere in addition to pursuing the commercial needs.

I think there are three main reasons for the cooperation between millet and Lining. First of all, as we all know, from Millet's past products, Millet's core competitiveness of millet is best at product marketing, especially in the Internet, but it has no advantages in hardware research and development. In the early days, Nike had developed and tried some related intelligent sports shoes, and this project, which is research and development with Lining, is very much like carrying out a technical training with Lining. Secondly, after explosive development, the original market of millet bracelet is almost saturated, and it is urgent to open up new users, and Lining's users have a certain coincidence with millet users. Finally, millet bracelet, millet camera, intelligent running shoes, the three are related to sports equipment, in tandem for millet intelligent hardware field, to create a perfect sports ecosystem, is a great help.

But for the sports brand Lining who spent two years, the reform plan did not improve significantly, and the performance still can not get out of the mire of losses, it is indeed necessary to transform itself to save itself. All along, Lining as a sports brand, the main consumer group is over 25 years of age, the strategy of nearly two years has failed. But Lining still wants to open up young people's market. After all, the main force of sports is young people's market. The cooperation with millet, on the one hand, hopes to use Millet's brand image to enhance its exposure and reputation in young people. On the other hand, in the current predicament, with the aid of smart wearable devices, the brand of traditional sports shoes and clothing brands has officially entered into the relatively intelligent field of intelligent sports. Although this has certain gambling implications, it is a straw for the Li Ning Co who are in deep mire of loss. At the same time, the stock price of Li Ning Co has risen by five days, even on the 19 and 20 days of the month, by 11.6% and 14.1% respectively. This also reflects that the outside world has certain expectations for Li Ning Co to break through the current predicament.

　　 Calm down. Smart running shoes Is that what we need?

It is reported that the specific content of the two sides' cooperation is "transforming the Chinese runner data and test data accumulated in the Lining sports laboratory into a series of algorithms, which are implemented by the millet Bracelet R & D team in the soles smart chips. The smart chips provide professional guidance for runners by collecting data of runners and analyzing running posture and gait. The product will also be connected with the millet mobile terminal APP, and record the movement process and results of the runners, including gait analysis, professional guidance and mileage replacement. To put it simply, millet is developing smart chips, putting them in soles and using smart bracelet.

It seems to be tall, but the concept of adding chips to the sole has long been used by other brands. Now this concept is out of date. As early as 2006, Apple and Nike launched Nike+ series products, including Nike+iPod -- users connect sensors to iPod Nano, iPod Touch or iPhone to track user's motion data. Smart running shoes are not original. NIKE has developed similar technologies, including records, analysis and replacement. But in fact, the product has not been sold. Many users also say that they have not been used again after buying several times.

Compared with those who like to run, most of the people who buy running shoes still attach importance to brand and quality. The price issue is relatively less important. Even low priced products are not attractive to those who love running shoes, and they are more willing to spend hundreds of dollars on a high quality product. For ordinary users, the more than 540 Lining running shoes, though intelligent, are not practical, especially in the same price category, they can buy Nike's running shoes, so they are not attractive to ordinary users. How to catch up with international brands from the aspects of appearance, comfort, durability and functionality is also a very severe test for Lining.

In addition to the above problems, the actual function of intelligent running shoes is also to be tested. For the current smart bracelet, there is not a product that can convince me that he really knows more about how I should exercise than the coach. Not only that, the results of the analysis data produced by most smart Bracelets are not convincing. Similarly, if the result of millet chip recording can not bring real guidance, it will eventually become a mere monitoring of running time, route and social interaction, and the significance of buying smart running shoes is not great. Even if the two companies solve the above problems, the bottleneck of the wearable devices, such as battery, transmission and power consumption, is also a long-standing problem in the whole industry. If it can not be solved well, it will still seriously affect the consumer experience.

　　 It is desirable to seek innovation, but the direction is deviated.

This millet and Lining's attempt to quit intelligent running shoes is a good thing from the point of cooperation and product starting point, but it can be seen from the side that in China, whether it is Internet companies or traditional retail businesses, they have always been lost in the aspect of innovation.

In the rapidly changing digital and sports equipment industry, the two new products have decided to be the same as Nike's design concept nine years ago. The introduction of smart running shoes for millet and Lining, is not a special road that can not be duplicated, other brands can be replicated quickly. Once HUAWEI, Lenovo and other manufacturers with strong R & D strength and Anta, XTEP and so on, it is not impossible to duplicate the two strategies. So for millet and Lining, this is definitely a blow.

In 2014, the total electricity revenue of Lining increased by 48%, but the electricity business accounted for only about 5% of the total revenue. In the past, the problem of online and offline Bo Bo was Lining's difficult marketing secret. In the process of rapid decline of traditional channels, how to quickly enter the Internet and successfully open sales in the electricity supplier is the top priority of Lining. The move to launch smart running shoes with millet is limited to the long-term difficulties faced by Li Ning Co. More often, whether consumers will favor Lining's smart running shoes depends on Lining's reshaping of channels and brands, and the essence of returning to the retail industry is the most critical. At present, the lack of power in the electronic business seriously restricts the sales volume of Li Ning Co.

For millet, after the four line of urban youth groups, Lining is indeed quite a market, millet hope that this cooperation can be harvested by Lining user group. Maybe their goals are not wrong, but the way they seem to be a little donkey is not right. Because they may have forgotten that sports and health may not be too much concern for this user group.

In any case, every investment and cooperation of millet will bring a whirlwind in the industry, because every time people can imagine their cooperation, but the cooperation with Lining is very limited. Both companies may wish to be Cinderella and make a magnificent transformation with the other side, but unfortunately, the other side is not their own prince.

Can Lining really break through? Let's wait and see.