Market Competition Or Market Competition Will Be Reshuffled

In recent years, China's running shoes market has gradually become a competitive place for sports brands at home and abroad.

Industry experts said that from the current situation, domestic brands will appear "strong and strong" situation, although some foreign professional brands are not well known in China, but with the development of the market and the improvement of consumers' requirements, the content of science and technology will become the starting point of running shoes in the future.

Domestic brands or staged "Matthew effect"

From the recent annual reports of domestic sports brands, we can see that although domestic brands are concerned about the market of running shoes, the results are different.

Recently, 31st degree released the 2018 performance report, the revenue during the reporting period was 5 billion 187 million yuan, the growth rate was only 5.67%.

In the same period, Anta's revenue was 24 billion 100 million yuan, an increase of 44.4% over the same period. XTEP group's revenue was 6 billion 380 million yuan, an increase of 25% over the same period.

The reporter understands that 31st degree is mainly in international running shoes.

Statistics show that since the establishment of the 31st international line in 2014, a number of international running shoes have won many awards from RunnersWorld, but their performance is not satisfactory.

It is reported that 31 degrees in the United States, Brazil, Europe have 1131, 1446, 619 sales outlets, and in the Middle East, South America and Southeast Asia and other countries and regions with distributors to sell, but these sales channels in 2018 only to 360 degrees to bring 93 million 300 thousand yuan of offshore sales.

XTEP and Anta, by contrast, are much better at running and managing.

XTEP announced in March 4th this year that its wholly-owned subsidiary has entered into cooperation with the US Footwear Company Flynn's company, and will set up a joint venture to develop, sell and distribute Flynn's outdoor sports shoes brand Merrell and running shoe brand Saucony in mainland China, Hongkong and Macao.

Ding Shuibo, President of XTEP, said the move will enrich the experience of Chinese runners and meet the needs of consumers in different levels and different dimensions of the domestic sports market as well as the upgrading of consumption in the Chinese market.

In addition, XTEP has released the 2019Xrunner running strategy, which is to provide professional coaches guidance and training for professional marathon runners, and provide more places for primary runners.

According to public figures, XTEP started sponsoring marathon in 2006, and is now the largest sport sponsorship event in Greater China.

In 2018, XTEP sponsored 31 marathons.

Anta also saw the bright future of the running shoes market.

In 2016, Anta soliciting Adidas's former senior design director, Robbie Fowler, was the creative director of footwear.

After Robbie Fowler joined Anta, it designed the Clay Thompson boot KT3-Rocco, which triggered a thousand people queuing up in March 2018 in San Francisco, USA.

At the end of 2018, the latest A-FLASHFOAM Anta worm technology running shoes came out. This is the most important technology and product of Anta running category. And the design team led by Robbie Fuller focuses on this product, which shows Anta's attention to running category.

In addition, by the end of 2018, running has officially become the category of Anta's second establishment divisions. Anta will focus on developing, promoting and running directly related shoes and clothing with subdivision products.

Gao Zhexiang, director of Anta running category, said that from strategic decisions, the share of running shoes in Anta is very high.

Experts from the outdoor sports Specialized Committee of the Chinese cultural, educational and Sporting Goods Association told the China Daily News that the market of running shoes can meet the needs of professional runners on the one hand, and on the other hand, it can also serve as a daily wear footwear for the masses. In this way, there is a great market space for running shoes.

The domestic sports brand has really done enough work in the running shoe market, including sponsoring marathon competitions, hiring foreign design teams, and increasing R & D investment.

From now on, if these sports brands do not increase their strength to seize the market, there will be the Matthew effect of stronger and weaker ones. Consumers will be loyal to some brands in the process, and the space of other brands will be smaller and smaller, and eventually they will be cleaned up.

Core competitiveness of science and technology

From the current market structure, not only domestic brands compete with each other, but foreign brands are also "eyeing".

The influence of Asics, Saucony, Brooks and NewBalance, the four most popular running shoes brands in the Chinese market, is somewhat lacking, but the strength can not be underestimated.

Among them, Asics is the only Asian brand that ranks among the world's top four running shoes. Compared with other brands, Asics has more geographical advantages, and shoe design is more suitable for Asian feet.

In 2018, Asics suffered the biggest loss in 20 years, reaching 20 billion 300 million yen.

But in China, its sales increased by 17.3% over the same period last year, reaching 53 billion 300 million yen, and continued to maintain a good momentum.

In February this year, Asics announced that it would adjust its organizational structure to product category driven growth in its runners, core performance sports and sports style businesses.

Professional running related business will become a major priority. The company's goal is to accelerate growth in Japan, the United States and China.

This is consistent with the new marketing strategy formulated by Asics in January this year, that is, gradually moving the strategic focus from the lifestyle business attracting the millennial generation of consumers to the foundation of professional running.

After three months in 2017, Brooks was forced to temporarily withdraw from the Chinese market because of a lawsuit against Anta trademark infringement. However, Brooks still has strong influence in the world.

Brooks is the most popular brand in running equipment stores in the United States, according to data provided by NPD, an American market research firm.

In the US field of professional running equipment, Brooks has a market share of 20%.

Brooks's sales figures for the first three quarters of 2018 showed that its global sales growth rate reached the highest level in history, and the global sales of running shoes increased by 32%.

The 100 year old NewBalance has a very significant position in China's young consumer market.

In May 2018, NewBalance chief executive Robert T.DeMartini said in an interview: "running is the source of all our products, lifestyle series, training series, football products, all from our running technology.

We have been a good running shoe company for a long time, and running series is our strongest product.

In the Chinese market, "Saucony" has announced its cooperation with XTEP in March this year. XTEP is developing, marketing and distributing brand shoes, garments and accessories in mainland China, Hongkong and Macao.

Experts from the China Association of cultural, educational, sports and sporting goods told reporters that at present, consumers are more critical than others.

Before 2008, the domestic sports market was in the golden period of growth, with strong market demand and low emphasis on innovation. Domestic sports brands could occupy a large share in the middle end market.

But with the expansion of sports population and the improvement of consumption level, consumers are more interested in running shoes with technological content, comfort and beauty.

In this regard, at present, no domestic enterprise has the overwhelming advantage of technology in the world.

Under such circumstances, increasing investment in research and development, giving more scientific and technological content to running shoes, will become the main competitive direction of domestic brands in the future.

According to reporters, Adidas's Boost technology has been developed from 2007 to the first show in 2013, which lasted for 7 years. The longest developing technology in Nike brand history, NikeShox, took 16 years.

It takes a long time to polish a classic technology, so domestic brands need more patience in scientific research.