Children'S Clothing Economy Under The Rapid Growth: The Giants Are High-End, And The Low End Is The Bottleneck.

Children's wear market is growing rapidly, leading brand performance is strong.

Recently, the clothing industry listed companies have disclosed the 2018 annual report and the first quarter earnings report.

Among them, most of the market share of children's clothing brands have shown strong growth momentum.

According to the Research Report of the latest performance data of the 38 listed companies in the garment industry, according to the statistics of Everbright Securities, the overall revenue growth of the industry in 2018 was 10.76% year-on-year, and 5.55% in the first quarter of 2019. The average net profit level of the industry in 2018 and the first quarter of 2019 decreased by 4.01% and 1.64% compared with the same period in 2019, and the brand clothing industry showed a weak demand overall.

However, in the sub industry's absolute growth rate of income growth, children's clothing items continued to maintain a relatively high growth rate in the whole year of 2018 and the first quarter of 2019, especially in the large number of children's clothing brands with high market share.

Under the Semir clothing, the first balbara children's clothing in the domestic market share has achieved operating income of 8 billion 825 million yuan in 2018, accounting for 56.14% of Semir's total clothing revenue, an increase of 39.6% over the same period last year, which is the largest contribution to the group's performance.

In the first quarter of 2019, although the company did not disclose the specific data of the Barbara brand, it still said that the children's wear sector was the main force to boost its first quarter revenue by 63.9% over the same period last year.

Known as "A share children's first share", in 2018, the company achieved a business income of 1 billion 213 million yuan, an increase of 17.56% over the same period last year, and realized a net profit of 83 million 386 thousand and 700 yuan attributable to the listed shareholders, an increase of 21.08% over the same period last year.

In the first quarter of 2019, its operating income was 358 million yuan, an increase of 17.71% over the same period, and its net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies was 46 million 929 thousand yuan, an increase of 30.01% over the same period last year.

Taiping bird's children's clothing brand Mini peace achieved a sustained and rapid growth in sales scale in 2018, operating income of 864 million yuan, an increase of 52.73% over the same period last year.

The new Teenie Weenie brand, which is newly acquired by wannas, and its 2018 annual report shows that its operating income has reached 2 billion 193 million yuan in the period, up 4.99% over the same period last year.

However, the growth of Mini peace and Teenie Weenie slowed slightly in the first quarter of 2019. The first quarter's revenue was 209 million yuan, down 3.32% from the same period last year, and the latter's revenue was 498 million yuan, down 7.49% compared to the same period last year.

High end children's wear market opportunities, industry giants compete for the first layout

In addition to its revenue performance, over the past year, more and more large fashion groups have been betting on children's clothing. Increasing sales volume, launching new brands, or focusing on overseas efforts to increase mergers and acquisitions have all confirmed the high heat of children's clothing market.

La Natsu Bell, the brand of women's clothing, has launched a brand-new children's wear brand 8EM to undertake the parent dress business of the original dress brand La Chapelle kids and Puella kids.

Data show that in 2018, 8EM realized operating income of 205 million yuan, a sharp increase of 79.84% over the same period last year. This data is almost the only bright spot of La Natsu Bell's earnings and profits last year.

Menswear brand CABBEEN launched the children's clothing brand Cabbeen Love in the second half of 2018, positioning "tide card" and "high-end children's clothing".

CABBEEN said that Cabbeen Love expects to expand its stores to 200 in 2019.

In design and marketing, it will open up joint collaboration with cartoon characters, create "IP series", or collaborate with artists in different fields to develop original designs with brand recognition.

Only the "strong" children's clothing brand balbala's Semir dress also completed the acquisition of Kidiliz, a high-end children's clothing company in France in October 2018, and jumped to become the second largest children's wear company in the world.

Although domestic sports giants Anta and Lining did not incorporate new brands in 2018, they also expressed the wishes of overweight children's clothing in the recent report. In addition to continuing to open shop, the attempt to upgrade product quality and high-end quality is also in progress.

Market research institutions believe that industry tycoons have overweight children's clothing, mainly because children's shoes and clothes have become the "opportunity market segment" nowadays.

The Institute of foresight industry predicts that the sales volume of China's children's wear market will reach 175 billion 200 million yuan in 2019 in the market demand and investment forecast analysis report of China's high-end children's clothing industry.

In the coming period, high-end clothing and children's clothing will become new opportunities. Clothing industry giants or children's wear faucets may adopt a multi brand matrix model in the future to differentiate the brand pattern and further seize the market.

In addition, Roland Begg, a global information consultancy, predicted that the overall growth rate of China's children's footwear industry in the next five years will reach about 12.4%, and will continue to lead the garment industry for an average period of time.

There are three reasons: first, under the influence of the "two child" policy, the population base of children's shoes and clothing consumption increases; second, the consumer is facing the escalation of consumption, and the penetration of brand children's clothing increases in consumption; third, the consumption expenditure per capita of children's shoes and clothing increases, the purchase quantity is more, and the purchase unit price is increased.

Roland Begg believes that the main consumers of future children's clothing - 80 and 90's parents are more willing to pay premium for good quality and high safety brands.

Against this background, the market opportunities for high-end children's clothing are relatively large.

The middle and low end products homogenization is serious, "has changed from the blue ocean to the Red Sea".

Faced with the upsurge of big enterprises' "cake rush to eat children's clothing market", there are also industry experts suggesting that although children's clothing industry is "blue ocean" from the perspective of market opportunities for subdivision industries, the competition between large and small enterprises has been "white hot" in the short term that the consumption end will not change much.

"Especially in the middle and low end products, there is a serious problem of homogenization, design and quality level, which is already the Red Sea." Cheng Weixiong, general manager of textile and clothing management and Shanghai Liang Qi Brand Management Co., Ltd. pointed out.

The Beijing News reporter visited several comprehensive shopping malls in Beijing, and found that children's clothing in the market is generally divided into three categories according to age: 0-1 year old can be worn as baby clothes, 1-3 years old is called baby clothes, baby clothes and baby clothes are often referred to as "children's clothes", and 4-14 year old children are called "children's clothes".

However, whether it is "small children's clothing" or "big children's clothing", whether it is domestic Barbara, ener, or international fast fashion brand Zara, H&M, Gap, mainly concentrated in the 40 yuan -300 yuan of low end children's clothing, design, material are very similar.

Cheng Weixiong believes that now the consumer market has escalated, and the consumption concept of young parents has changed, which has made the strategy of "low volume" of public clothes twenty or thirty years ago no longer easy to use.

From the perspective of future trends, relatively mature consumers will increasingly see the value, safety and service weighting brought by brand children's clothing.

In addition, from the perspective of marketing, the higher the brand is, the higher the premium of the brand is, the higher the profit margin.

However, Cheng Weixiong also pointed out that large enterprises need to realize that the so-called "high-end" is not simply distinguishable from words.

He takes nearly two years of relatively smart "children's wear" as an example to illustrate: Children's wear with intelligent wearable devices can help parents understand the location and health of children in real time, and protect children's safety at all times.

This new product is an effective innovation to meet the individual needs of consumers, so it can detonate topics and get good reviews.

At the beginning of 2019, Roland Begg also pointed out that children's clothing market has good market opportunities at present, but the opportunity will not exist for a long time.

According to its prediction, the market will gradually become saturated after five years, and the window of opportunity will also be gradually closed. "Who can achieve breakthroughs in five years will greatly determine the status of children in the children's clothing market in the future."

Roland Begg believes that in the face of opportunities and challenges, children's clothing brands need to pay special attention to the upgrading of the two core competencies. First, brand positioning and management capabilities, clear brand value and style positioning, efficient brand communication, followed by commodity and supply chain synergy, and all brands need to strengthen a series of collaborative capabilities of commodity planning, design, operation and supply chain, so as to build a "moat" of competitive status.