"Chaopai" Fali Sports Brand Ushers In A New Growth Point

Anta Sports, the leading sports brand in China, recently released a pre announcement on its performance in the first half of the year, showing that the sales of the main brand Anta in the first half of the year increased by 10% - 20% compared with the same period last year, while its sports "Chaopai" Fila showed a brilliant performance. After its sales exceeded 10 billion last year, the performance of the first half of this year continued to run wildly, achieving a high growth of more than 60%.

　　 Filo Behind the sustained high growth of China's performance, it is a microcosm of the trend that domestic sports brands pay more and more attention to the fashion of sports products and take the "fashion brand" route. Both Anta and Li Ning have tasted the "sweetness" in the past two years by taking the "Chaopai" route.

From loss to annual income of 10 billion yuan

In August 2009, Anta announced that it would purchase all the equity of Phillip China, which had lost money for two consecutive years, from Belle Group at a total price of about 600 million Hong Kong dollars. At that time, many analysts were not optimistic about this. They believed that Phillip's recognition in the Chinese market needed to be improved, and it was in a loss state, which would not bring huge profits to Anta in the short term.

When talking about the acquisition, Zhang Tao, who was then Anta's vice president, said that the acquisition of Fiele would complement the existing brands of Anta. Filo, an old Italian brand with a history of 100 years, mainly takes the high-end sports route, and has obvious advantages in international brand effect and scientific research and development. However, the domestic high-end segment sports consumer market still has great potential. In addition to Anta's local influence and sales channel resources, Feile's entry is conducive to seizing the high-end sports market share.

Yao Weixiong, who became the CEO of Phillip China in 2011, led the team to do a lot of market research, especially for young people aged 25 to 35, to tap the needs of this major consumer group in the future. The results showed that the target population most needed a sports fashion brand, but there were not many sports brands that could meet the fashion requirements at that time.

"With the strength of Fiele in 2011, it is impossible to challenge Adidas and Nike, but the demand for sports fashion has not been met at that time or even today," Yao Weixiong said in a public speech, "Since then, we have made a repositioning for Fiele, that is, to return to the high fashion sportswear that most moves consumers."

After the establishment of brand positioning, Phillip China has made corresponding adjustments to the Chinese market in all aspects, including product design, sales channels, supply chain and marketing. After years of intensive cultivation, Feile China turned losses into profits in 2014, and developed rapidly in the following years, becoming an important driving force for the sustained and rapid growth of Anta's performance.

Li Ning at International Fashion Week

Coincidentally, Li Ning, another well-known sports brand in China, has also frequently appeared in international fashion weeks in recent years, leading the trend of sports fashion.

After experiencing a continuous loss of more than 3 billion yuan from 2012 to 2014, Li Ning's performance returned to growth, and the focus of bringing Li Ning brand back to consumers was New York Fashion Week in early 2018. The yellow and red color matching of "scrambled eggs with tomatoes" and the printing of "China Li Ning" set off a "retro trend" of sports brands. After this show, the Baidu index of Li Ning brand rose rapidly, far exceeding Nike and Adidas# The number of microblog topic discussions of China's Li Ning # reached 78 million.

After the Fashion Week, the retro style sportswear, sweaters and T-shirts of Li Ning brand were very popular. There was a scene that they were sold out as soon as they were put on the shelves in physical stores and online stores.

At the end of June this year, Li Ning welcomed two more good news. One was the launch of Li Ning's Spring/Summer 2020 series in Paris, which was the second time that Li Ning's brand had entered Paris Fashion Week after 2018, and it was also the fourth consecutive season that Li Ning had entered International Fashion Week. Another news is that Li Ning's net profit in the first half of the year was 440 million yuan, an increase of more than 160% year on year. In addition to one-time investment income, the sales revenue in the first half of the year increased by more than 30% is a very important reason.

Fashionization of brand is the general trend

In the international market, big brands such as Nike and Adidas have long seen this trend.

In the early 1990s, Adidas separated the classic sports series from the professional sports performance series, focusing on the sports leisure market, integrating more key sports elements into the sense of quality, comfort and fit, and close to the modern trend. At present, adidas products are divided into three series: sports performance (three stripe logo), sports classics (clover logo), and sports fashion (ball with three stripe logo). The sports fashion series is the closest to the forefront of fashion among Adidas brands, and to a certain extent, it is a luxury series.

In recent years, the American sports "Champion" has led the retro style of sports together with Fila. Statistics show that the sales of the Champion in 2018 increased by 36% year on year, and the sales of the sportswear department increased by 50%. Powell, an industry analyst from New York, said in an interview with the US financial media that, compared with major industry players such as Nike and Adidas, Filo and Champion are small but unique brands. They are currently winning and growing faster than the entire industry.

Relevant domestic people believe that sports are becoming a fashion all over the world, and sports brands growing on this basis are no exception, especially with the "post-90s" and "post-00s" becoming the main force in sports consumption market, which will accelerate the fashion of sports brands. Domestic sports brands should seize the trend as soon as possible and speed up the layout in related fields.