Intelligent Layout Of Adidas

July 29, 2016, Germany

The second quarter profit target was raised, and the net profit of continuing business in the second quarter increased 99% to 291 million euros over the same period. This is also the fourth time that Adidas has raised its performance expectations for the whole year.

Adidas said its sales in the second quarter increased by 13% to 4 billion 400 million euros, and operating profit rose 77% to 414 million euros.

The company also raised its annual performance forecast for 2016. It is estimated that net profit of continuing business will rise 35% to 39% over the same period.

Due to the introduction of the classic Stan Smith series

As well as the new NMD series shoes, Adidas's performance rose considerably in the first quarter, with double-digit growth in both sales and net profit.

Far more than Nike and Andrew.

According to the performance data released by Adidas, as of March 31st, the group's net profit surged 38% to 350 million euros in the first quarter, sales grew 17% to 4 billion 800 million euros, and operating profit increased 35% to 490 million euros.

Such growth is related to Adidas's product innovation and sports marketing strategy.

Including rap singer and designer Kanye West from Nike, and co operating with limited edition clothing and sports shoes Yeezy Boost, etc., hoping to consolidate the growth momentum in the North American market, and at the same time reach strategic cooperation with Wanda Group to accelerate the expansion in China, and deepen the development of sports, leisure and fashion.

Intelligent layout of Adidas

The growing performance has pushed Adidas to pform its business model.

In July 25th, Adidas CEO Herbert Heiner told Japan economic news: "in the face of growing market demand, we will make use of robots to produce, and the production line will return to Europe and the United States."

He pointed out that due to the rise in labor prices in China, coupled with the logistics cost of pporting products, the advantage of setting up factories in relatively cheap labor areas such as Asia is decreasing.

At the same time, the development of industrial robots and intelligent factories has provided a new mode of production. Although the cost of construction is higher, the cost is more economical in the long run.

Setting up factories in major consumption areas reduces logistics costs and time costs, shortens the product cycle and speeds up the operation of the industry.

As early as 2012, Adidas closed the only factory in Suzhou directly under China.

At the end of May 2016, Adidas announced that they were ready to start Speedfactory in their stronghold, Germany, and use intelligent robots to create sports shoes.

According to previous media reports, the first batch of shoes produced by Speedfactory will be available in the second half of 2016, and mass production is expected to start in 2017.

Adidas also plans to open second Speedfactory in the US in 2017.

In addition to enabling the robot factory, another intelligent layout of Adidas is the application of 3D printing technology.

Now they are using 3D printers to produce some soles, but the cost is still very high. But Adidas's CEO Hull Potter Haina still says that the next stage of robotics automation plant will be 3D printers.

At present, the world's major sports shoes brands have begun to try 3D printing sports shoes.

For example, Nike and New Balance launched 3D printing concept shoes in 2014 and 2015.

Adidas also co operated with China's 3D printing company Shining 3D in 2014 to test new ways of producing footwear moulds, and began using 3D printing technology to develop new sports shoes series Springblade.

In addition to robot factory and 3D printing, Adidas will further expand its business with digital technology.

In 2015, Adidas bought the sports APP developer, Austria Runtastic company.

The software can record users' past sports history, such as basketball, running and so on. At the same time, it can store heat consumption data and play games among friends.

Adidas hopes to attract the 18 million active users in the world to become Adidas's customers, so as to fight Nike's APP.

This can also help Adidas realize the combination of hardware and software of sports equipment, and better develop its own sports ecosystem.

At present, intelligent layout enterprises have been launched in China.

In July 2015, Lining released the first intelligent running shoes in China by hand in hand with Hua Mei technology. In April of 2016, Lining also launched intelligent basketball with cloud mobile technology.

Users can connect running shoes or basketball with APP, and the data in motion will be directly recorded by APP, so as to make a personalized exercise plan.

Like Lining, Anta launched its own smart running shoes in June 2016.

Anta and Foxconn cooperate to put Foxconn chips into running shoes, so as to collect runner data, cooperate with Anta running APP, record running distance, time, step frequency and energy consumption and other routine functions, so as to build a data platform for runners to run posture contrast.

361 degree is also stepping up the layout of intelligent, in October 2015 announced its cross-border cooperation with Baidu, launched smart children's shoes, trying to create intelligent sports ecosystem.

The status quo and Prospect of the industry

It can be seen that the sports equipment market has gradually entered the era of intelligence, people not only wear equipment to carry out such a simple movement.

More and more sports needs are being excavated, such as motion data recording, motion planning, and sports social interaction.

The development of sports intelligent hardware has promoted the vigorous development of sports equipment business, and all kinds of sports brands have made efforts to build their own sports ecological layout.

At present, the layout of world class sports enterprises in intelligence and Internet is still in the initial stage. For example, Adidas's robotics factory and 3D printing have not yet entered large-scale production. This is a very good catch up opportunity for Chinese enterprises to develop. Intellectualization will be a new upgrade direction for sports production enterprises.