Is The Skiing Market A Good Medicine For Growth? Outdoor Sports Brands Need To Be Cautious.

Recently, officials of the 2022 Olympic Winter Games and Paralympic Games in Beijing held a number of sponsors' press conferences, and many brands became sponsors of this heavyweight event.

This also means that more and more enterprises value the business opportunities brought by the Winter Olympic Games.

Among them, sports brand is also trying to use the Winter Olympic Games to "nugget" ski market.

Compared with sports brands, domestic outdoor brands still maintain a cautious strategy for skiing market.

The Chinese Commercial Daily reporters interviewed found that experts believe that the advantage of domestic outdoor brands is to understand the consumption psychology of domestic consumers, but they need to improve in terms of technology, style and so on.

Active layout of sports brand

In January 2018, a report from the 2018 white paper on China's ice and snow industry showed that by 2025, China's direct participation in ice and snow sports will reach 50 million, and 300 million people will be involved in ice and snow sports.

In 2017, the scale of China's ice and snow industry has reached 397 billion 600 million yuan, and it is expected to maintain growth in the next 3 years.

The overall scale of the ice and snow industry will reach 600 billion yuan in 2020, and the target of 1 trillion yuan in 2025 will be achieved finally.

Guotai Junan's research report also shows that the proportion of ski enthusiasts is increasing steadily under the condition of increasing total population and total number of skiers.

"We believe that China's ice and snow industry is expected to enter the peak of development after the Winter Olympic Games in Beijing," he said.

With the increasing number of ice and snow lovers, the development potential of ice and snow events, snow field operations, ice and snow equipment, ice and snow training field is huge.

In addition, the Chinese Commercial Daily reporter learned that the ice snow sports industry chain is long, involving ice and snow fitness and leisure, venues and ancillary facilities, equipment and equipment development and production and sales, event training and related industries such as tourism, real estate, hotels, restaurants, entertainment, etc., has great room for development.

A sales manager, who did not want to be named, told reporters that the first Winter Olympic Games were held in Europe, and then a large-scale ski mountain development and revitalization plan was launched. Today, Europe is still one of the most important ski markets in the world.

It is believed that the 2022 Winter Olympic Games will accelerate the popularization of ice and snow sports. The vigorous rise of skiing tourism will also promote the development of industrialization and branding of skiing equipment, and will also play a positive role in promoting the development of outdoor sports in winter.

Anta, as the head of Chinese sports brand, has been layouts in the fields of ice and snow and outdoor.

In September 28th last year, Anta signed a sponsorship agreement with the Beijing Winter Olympic Organizing Committee. Anta became the official sportswear partner of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games and the winter Paralympic Games, and the duration of cooperation was 7 years.

During this period, including the Pingchang Winter Olympic Games, the audience watched the event through various channels.

Anta group's choice of sub brands can better reflect its strategic intent in the layout of ice and snow and outdoor areas.

Under the Anta multi brand matrix, Desanto is committed to providing high performance sporting goods for skiers, comprehensive training and running, and KOLONSPORT focuses on outdoor areas.

Anta group plans to acquire the amamin sports, which is also the head group in the ice and snow field. Its brand includes many brands including Salomon, including skiing, skateboarding and outdoor sports.

The outdoor brand Pathfinder invested in the snow field.

In January 2017, Pathfinder set up Gongyi Pathfinder ski resort Co., Ltd. in Gongyi, Henan, and established the Pathfinder Zhong Yue Song top ski resort.

In October 2018, the snow field and Antai snow industry formally signed the "cooperative operation management Explorer song top ski resort" to jointly provide skiing sports leisure experience for the vast number of ski enthusiasts.

In addition, in December 8, 2018, Pathfinder also held the SNOWONE super snow challenge. This is also the group's third year super snow competition. The group tried to further the ice and snow industry through competitions.

In addition to Anta and Pathfinder, more brands are added to the layout of the ice and snow industry.

Lining set up the "All Star Skating Club". In addition, at the end of 2016, Lining and CABBEEN group and Antai snow industry jointly invested in the construction of the Wujinshan Lining international ski resort, and sponsored the figure skating competition.

It is worth mentioning that Lining also sponsored the short track speed skating team in Pingchang at the Winter Olympic Games.

361 degree also tries to layout ice and snow industry.

In 2013, a joint venture with the Nordic sports brand OneWaySport, which was focused on winter sports, was established at 361 degrees. The brand has successfully become a professional equipment sponsor for 4 national teams such as China's single board parallel and winter two.

Outdoor brands remain cautious strategy

Although the skiing market has a bright future, skiing is still a niche market from the current situation.

A salesperson from Sanfo outdoor told the China Commercial Daily reporter that in recent years, with the continuous development of the economy and the increasing attention to health, the investment of money has no longer become a hindrance to the development of sports.

However, the ice and snow movement is still a minority movement in many people's eyes, and has not been developed rapidly. Besides the geographical constraints, the atmosphere and cultural concept of sports are not yet universal.

There is no denying that there are geographical restrictions on skiing products, and most of the sales in the three eastern provinces are very small in the south of the Yangtze River and south of the Yellow River.

"In the East three provinces, there are more and more people going to ski resorts in winter, so in the three Eastern stores, the relatively better products in winter are related to skiing, which is particularly evident over the past two years."

The respondents told reporters.

In addition, according to public information, taking ski resorts as an example, if the professional standards in Europe and the United States are measured, only 30 domestic standards will be achieved, while 350 in Japan.

China's cultural, educational and sporting goods association outdoor sports Specialized Committee, an anonymous expert, said that after more than ten years of development, China's outdoor sports brand has occupied a certain share in the market. In terms of mountaineering, camping, hiking and other outdoor sports equipment, the domestic brand takes the advantage of consumers' habits. But for the smaller ice and snow sports projects, the famous brands in the ice and snow equipment market in China now occupy an advantage.

If domestic brands want to compete with famous brands abroad, they need to form their core competitiveness and provide better services for consumers.

The above experts believe that, generally speaking, there is still a certain gap between domestic and outdoor enterprises in terms of production technology and abroad. It is necessary to carry out functional upgrading and innovation, increase the technological content of products, enhance comfort and beauty, adopt large-scale production and scientific supply chain management, so as to provide more competitive products and meet consumers' needs.

The experts also said that the homogenization of products has been a major injury to the domestic sports equipment market. If the enterprise wants to catch the consumer group, it must first base itself on the product itself, make products that conform to the current consumption trends and target groups, and make innovations and progress in the style and so on, so that it can stand out in many products.

"With the promotion of ice and snow sports, the northern tourists will gradually become a trend."

He said, "if enterprises want to win this part of the potential consumer groups, we must fully study and analyze the characteristics of this group of consumer groups, and provide customized services for them.

Functionality, weight and volume are three major concerns of outdoor sports enthusiasts. Providing outdoor enthusiasts with powerful, small and light equipment and providing them with better experience is a major direction for outdoor brand enterprises to study and explore for a long time.

But it also requires domestic brands to achieve higher standards in the supply chain and product renewal cycle, so as to reduce the cost of customization.

Compared with foreign countries, the advantage of domestic brands is to pay more attention to cost performance, and have a deeper understanding of the needs of domestic consumers, so that they can take advantage of the advantages to occupy the market.

Sanfo outdoor salesmen believe that foreign outdoor brands have a relatively strong capital base, and the investment in advertising and marketing is unmatched by domestic brands. However, domestic brands are good at grasping the consumer psychology of domestic consumers, and there is also room for growth in this area.

Author: Jie Yu Xing