China Moves MIZUNO'S Sales Rights In China To Make Up For Kappa Professional Sports Short Board

Anta acquired the international sporting goods group amamin and XTEP, holding the two major international brands of San Kang and Mai le. When the national sporting goods enterprises opened up a multi brand strategy and occupied an increasingly subdivided sports market, another sports Brand Company could not sit still.

In recent days, its Kappa brand has been established in cooperation with the famous Japanese brand MIZUNO, which has been established by the famous Japanese brand MIZUNO as the main investor. In January 2019, it was awarded the regional sales authorization of Japan's MIZUNO brand including football, running, indoor sports and leisure products, and will carry out the design, development and production cooperation for Chinese consumers in the future.

For the future development strategy of MIZUNO in China, Zhou Li, general manager of Shanghai Mei Jin Sports Co., Ltd. put forward the "3+3+500" plan, that is, in the next three years, Shanghai Mei Jin and MIZUNO will vigorously develop three kinds of products, such as running, football and indoor, and play a special role in three aspects of online, offline and professional channels, and complete the target of 500 stores' market coverage in three years.

It is worth noting that, as one of the strategic partners, Shanghai Mei Jin Sports Co., Ltd. is jointly invested by the main investor China trend (Group) Co., Ltd. and the investors in the industry.

And China's trend is another sports brand Kappa parent company. At present, China has the whole interests of Kappa in mainland China, Macao, China and Japan.

People in the industry have analyzed sports business, "China's move is to make up for the lack of Kappa in the professional field.

"After all, the main trend of Kappa is the trend movement, which is insufficient in the field of professional sports, but no one can ignore the rapid growth of the sports market.

Zhang Zhiyong, executive director, CEO and chief executive of China trend (Group) Co., Ltd., said: "the methodology is the same, but there are still differences between the operation of Kappa and MIZUNO.

It is interesting that Kappa, founded in 1916 in Italy, is the most famous sport and casual wear brand in Europe.

When the brand was first founded, Kappa provided clothing sponsorship to various sports teams, and Kappa was the first official sponsorship football team brand.

There are statistics, from 1998 to 2002, Kappa sponsored 27 countries, 220 teams and individuals, football, skiing, cricket, beach volleyball, hockey and so on 16 projects, "two back to back and sitting men and women" brand logo appeared in the competition venues.

However, Kappa is more popular in China.

In 2002, Li Ning Co took the 5 years' agency power in mainland China and Macao region, and invested in the establishment of Beijing Trend Sports Development Co., Ltd. for brand operation.

In 2005, when Chen Yihong, general manager of Li Ning Co, took all the equity interest in China and spent $35 million to buy kappa ownership and permanent management in China, kappa became a local brand in China.

At that time, Chen Yihong was keenly aware of the changes in the needs of young people. He repositioned Kappa and invited Korean designers to create a fashion trend that was popular after 80 and 90.

By the peak of 2010, Kappa brand reached 3751 stores in China, and its revenue in China has reached nearly 4 billion 200 million yuan.

But then the company's operations were bogged down and its performance fell sharply. After 2011, China's revenue has been hovering around 1 billion 400 million yuan.

Objectively speaking, Kappa's stalling in China is not related to its ambiguous brand positioning and blind expansion. The Kappa which was originally launched by the high-end line led to the popularity of the brand, a large number of Shanzhai was also flooded with the market, and Kappa began to be abandoned by young people.

In order to reshape the brand, Kappa launched the "three year reform" plan in late 2017, which has been reformed from three aspects, including product design model, digital operation and younger publicity matrix. Kappa has shown signs of recovery.

According to the 2018 annual report released by China trend, the group's operating income reached RMB 1 billion 706 million yuan, an increase of 17.3% over the same period last year.

But net profit fell 60.9% to 315 million yuan, and gross profit margin fell 3.2 percentage points to 56%.

In reestablishing the brand image of the trend movement, Kappa has also begun to make efforts in the professional sports market in recent years. For example, in March this year, Kappa quietly launched the women's fitness products in Tmall flagship store.

However, at present, the domestic sports market is very competitive. Not only the international giants such as Nike, Adidas, etc., but also the brand of national sports such as Anta, Lining, XTEP and so on, the competition for the sports crowd has entered various segments of the market.

Under such circumstances, it is obvious that Kappa wants to do something in the professional sports market.

And MIZUNO's professional sports brand image can make up for the shortage of Kappa.

Founded in 1906, MIZUNO has a history of over 100 years. It has no doubt that the product development capability in professional sports is related to many fields such as track and field, baseball, golf and so on. It enjoys a good reputation worldwide.

However, MIZUNO is more conservative in marketing and channel development, so it has been labeled "niche". This is also an important reason why MIZUNO has not been able to break through in China.

"The biggest challenge for our future in the Chinese market is to raise MIZUNO's awareness," said the seven executive director of MIZUNO MIZUNO Co., Ltd., the chairman of Shanghai MIZUNO Ltd.

Now, with the advantage of China in channel and other aspects, MIZUNO's development in China is expected to accelerate.

As for China's trend, which can help MIZUNO's future development, Zhang Zhiyong said: "the Chinese market strategy formulated by Shanghai Mei Jin for MIZUNO is actually divided into two parts. The first part is the business strategy, and the second part is the two strategies of brand strategy.

We believe that in the future, the two sides will fully share their technological and resource advantages and strive to provide better products and services for the vast number of sports consumers in China.

It is understood that in order to tear off niche labels, MIZUNO will adjust China's market strategy and vigorously develop leisure products.

At present, the market share of MIZUNO professional sports products exceeds 7 in China. After three years, MIZUNO hopes that the proportion of leisure products will reach 50%.

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