National Brand Anta: How Far Away From The Forefront Of World Sports Brands

The popularity of national fashion has brought more imagination to domestic clothing brands.

Unknowingly, Anta's market value has reached a record high, breaking through HK $500 billion recently, and has surpassed Adidas to become the world's second largest sports brand after Nike. This indicates that Anta has already had the confidence to compete with international sports brand giants.

After 30 years of development, Anta has achieved seven consecutive years of performance growth through its own multiple rounds of reform and upgrading; At present, it has risen to the first place in China's market, and its market value has been rising all the way. It has doubled 6 times in 10 years. It is reported that Anta plans to invest 4 billion yuan in R & D and innovation in the next five years, and the industry believes that this plan shows that Anta will accelerate to the goal of "No.1 sports brand in the world".

Anta has always adhered to the popular line, which once made consumers unable to erase the stereotype of "affordable" and "not related to fashion".

However, in recent years Anta has made frequent efforts in the international market and tried to change its sales model and brand strategy. Is Anta ready to be the world's number one on the international stage?

1、 Anta's counter attack

The story of Anta's counter attack should start from Chendai Town, Jinjiang, Fujian Province.

Chendai town is an ordinary town in China. The difference is that in the 1980s, shoe-making industry rose here, while Ding Shizhong was born in a small shoemaking workshop. At that time, he never thought that a brand of sportswear would be born from his own hands.

Because his family was engaged in shoe-making, Ding Shizhong watched every day that the tourist shoes produced by the workshop (at that time, sports shoes were called tourist shoes) were sold to other places at a low price. He had a question: why can we only sell more than a dozen shoes, while store shoes can sell hundreds?

Realizing that this is the premium brought by the brand, Ding Shizhong joined Anta in 1994. The name of Anta means "start a business with ease and be down to earth", which coincides with the development of Anta since then.

The five years after Anta was founded, the development was not so smooth, even some difficult. But with Chinese athletes repeatedly winning gold medals in the Olympics, Ding Shizhong smelled the opportunity. In 1999, Ding Shizhong resolutely decided to invite Kong Linghui, the world champion of table tennis, to speak for him. At that time, it was basically an adventure to invite sports stars to advertise. When Anta's annual benefit was less than 10 million yuan, it took 800000 yuan to sign Kong Linghui, and 5 million yuan to advertise on CCTV.

Ding Shizhong later recalled that after more than a month of advertising, there was no effect. He began to panic. After all, the investment in advertising was equivalent to that of Anta for half a year.

But Ding Shizhong won the bet. Anta used Kong Linghui to put out the slogan "I choose, I like" on CCTV. It took only two years to "gnaw" 13% of the market share.

As for Kong Linghui and Anta's marriage, Kong Linghui later said with a smile: "maybe I'm predestined with Ding Shizhong, because everyone says we look alike."

Since Kong Linghui's endorsement, Anta has finally found the right sales model of "sports star + TV advertising". In addition, Anta has made accurate market research and judgment, and has cut into the third and fourth tier cities at a low price, laying a sales network all over the country, and the sales volume has been rising all the way. Anta has been running all the way on the road of counter attack. Since 2000, Anta's annual revenue has soared by more than 10 times, from less than 20 million yuan to more than 200 million yuan. So far, Anta has also completed the construction of brand and sales channels.

Ding Shizhong not only dares to bet on Anta's future, but also has no "soft hand" in reforming Anta. In 2007, Ding Shizhong decided to "de familiarize" the company. It is this decision that makes Anta embark on a longer-term development path and become a group company. In the same year, Anta was listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange.

In 2008, during the Beijing Olympic Games, Anta became an opportunity to surpass other domestic sports brands. At that time, the major sports brands thought that the market increment was coming, so they started to produce at full capacity. Later, this also led to the oversupply of many brands and the overstocking of inventory. At that time, Anta chose the mode of de stocking, and even closed more than 1000 stores, stepping out of the inventory swamp one step ahead of other sports brands.

In 2012, the inventory crisis broke out again in the sportswear industry, and some brands started the strategy of closing stores and selling. Anta's revenue also showed negative growth in the 2012-2013 fiscal year. However, Ding Shizhong thinks that this is an opportunity for transformation. Through market research across the country, Ding Shizhong finds that Anta can no longer take the wholesale mode and must transform to retail. However, the retail mode has higher requirements on input and payment collection, and also greater requirements for * *.

Anta quickly adjusted the mode with a steady pace and got rid of the inventory pressure. It not only survived the crisis, but also surpassed Li Ning, the "first brother" of the industry at that time. It also became the first brand in the industry with a revenue of more than 10 billion yuan, realizing the counter attack again.

Over the years, Anta's revenue growth also confirms its history of counter attack. From 311 million yuan in 2004 to 35.512 billion yuan in 2020, Anta's compound growth rate is as high as 34.46%, which is quite brilliant in terms of the whole industry.

The "Xinjiang cotton" event in March 2021 makes Anta usher in a "bright moment". In the middle of June, Anta Sports released the "pre happy announcement" in the first half of the year. The data shows that the profit of Anta sports has increased by no less than 55% year-on-year, and the profit attributable to shareholders is no less than 65%. The continuous good news also pushed up the market value of Anta. Within seven months, Anta's market value soared by HK $202.16 billion, once as high as HK $503.36 billion.

Chart / Anta Sports opened at HK $186.6/share on June 29, with a total market value exceeding HK $500 billion

In contrast, Anta sports has surpassed Adidas, which has a market value of 62.4 billion US dollars (closed on June 27, about 484.3 billion Hong Kong dollars). Moreover, Anta sports's net value in 2020 will be 5.162 billion yuan, which will surpass Adidas's net value of 3.314 billion yuan.

It can be said that Anta's counter attack process is actually more like a survival history - every time, it is in desperate circumstances to survive, and ultimately achieve anti super.

2、 Anta's international road

It is not Anta's dream to be the first local sports brand. The world stage is Anta's "star sea".

Ding Shizhong, chairman and CEO of Anta board of directors, once declared publicly: "we don't want to be Nike of China, our goal is Anta of the world."

As for how to get on the world stage, Ding Shizhong has been planning for many years. In 2014, Ding Shizhong said at the half year performance meeting that Anta would learn from the sample of Lenovo's acquisition of IBM Business and let the enterprise go abroad through M & A and acquisition.

In fact, as Ding Shizhong wanted, Anta started from Chendai Town, Jinjiang, after a 30-year precipitation period, with the support of capital, it opened the "buy buy buy" mode all the way, and achieved the goal of moving from China's local market to the whole world.

According to incomplete statistics, up to now, Anta has increased its sub brands to more than 30 by means of acquisition and merger. Among them, what made Anta famous in the first World War was the purchase of FILA China brand from belle. This is the beginning of Anta's high-end layout and the beginning of internationalization.

In 2009, Anta, adhering to Ding Shizhong's strategy, acquired the franchise and trademark right of FILA China from Belle, and dispatched Yao Weixiong to be the CEO of FILA China. Yao Weixiong was a senior executive in L'Oreal and French alligator.

As expected, FILA has been making a considerable contribution to Anta's revenue since 2018. According to the financial report, from 2018 to 2020, the revenue of FILA is 8.492 billion yuan, 14.77 billion yuan and 17.45 billion yuan respectively. In 2019, the revenue of FILA in the whole group accounts for 43.5%, and in 2020, the revenue of FILA even exceeds Anta, the main brand, accounting for 49.1%.

Anta's M & A has not stopped. Since then, it has successively acquired UK's sprandi (spandi) and China's brand kingkow (xiaoxiaoniu), as well as Amer sports and other internationally famous sportswear brands such as Archaeopteryx, Salomon and Wilson. These brands have pushed Anta's dream of medium and high-end market layout closer.

Not only that, Anta acquired dishant China in 2016 and Kelong China in 2017. In addition to FILA China, which has been included under its control before, Anta has created a "troika" of its brand. From 2018 to 2020, apart from FILA, the revenue of Anta's sub brands is 1.282 billion yuan, 1.708 billion yuan and 2.313 billion yuan respectively. The revenue mainly comes from dishant and Kelong China.

With the continuous expansion of Anta's brands, the number of * * has also increased. At this time, Anta has become a clothing brand giant of all categories, covering the middle and low-end markets, covering leisure, professional outdoor and sports fields.

However, this also brings hidden worries to Anta. At present, Anta's revenue mainly relies on the "troika", especially half of its revenue comes from FILA China, which makes the outside world begin to question "whether it is Anta's Feile or Feile's Anta". Anta has even encountered overseas short selling agencies for five consecutive times.

In addition, the rapid growth of FILA reflects the slowdown of Anta's main brands. According to the financial report, Anta's main brand achieved revenue of 17.45 billion yuan in 2019, with a year-on-year growth of 21.8%, accounting for 51.4% of the total revenue; The revenue of FILA reached 14.77 billion yuan, up 73.9% year on year, accounting for 43.5% of the total revenue. By 2020, FILA's revenue will surpass Anta's main brands. In 2020, Anta's main brands achieved revenue of 15.749 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 9.7%; FILA achieved an income of 17.45 billion yuan, up 18.1% year on year.

Some people in the industry pointed out that Anta has not learned much about the management, brand building or clothing design with such high-end brands as FILA in hand. Now it is thinking about the main brand development strategy focusing on "mass, professional and new domestic products". This also shows from the side that Anta has not fully digested the acquired brands, and there are hidden worries behind the rapid expansion.

Anta has gradually realized that the problem lies in that the performance of sub brands exceeds that of main brands. How to break through this growth curve? Ding Shizhong's strategy is to set three growth curves. The first is the growth curve of "popular, professional and new domestic products" supported by Anta technology to save the fatigue of the brand.

In addition, Anta has established the transformation DTC mode (direct sales by brand side), which can improve the customer touch rate, realize the efficient unification of people, goods and stores, and decentralize, greatly improve the operation efficiency and make the operation efficiency of multiple brands overlap.

However, it is necessary to be vigilant that it is necessary to transform the distribution agent operation into direct marketing. One of the most intuitive is that the cost of direct marketing is much higher than that of distribution, and the company's revenue may be under pressure.

Fortunately, Anta has made great achievements in brand building in recent years. It has launched more than 100 cross-border IP products, such as sprite co branded shoes, NASA co branded clothing, Dragon Ball super co branded clothing and limited national flag series products. However, such measures have also been questioned by the market, and the response is limited.

However, these problems are not the most critical. What is Anta's real R & D capability questioned by the market is "weak R & D capability", which is also the "last link" of Anta ecology. So, what is Anta's real R & D capability?

3、 Anta's five year strategy

Ding Shizhong likes to set a "small goal" for Anta and spare no effort to achieve it.

Anta made its first Five-Year Plan in 2008, the second year after its listing. Anta's acquisition of FILA China in 2009 is exactly the goal to be achieved in the first five-year plan. It is the realization of these five-year goals one after another that gives Anta the possibility to step on the international stage and surpass ADI.

Recently, Anta announced a new five-year plan at the same time of announcing the second quarter results: Anta brand annual compound growth of 18-25%; The annual compound growth of online business is more than 30%, and the proportion will reach 40% in 2025; We will continue to strengthen the layout of the first to third tier cities, with more than 50% flowing water; The number of shopping center stores doubled; The overall market share will increase by 3 to 5 percentage points to maintain the position of Chinese sports brand.

According to the income of 35.5 billion yuan in 2020, Anta may complete 100 billion yuan of revenue in five years. If we can achieve this goal, Anta will really surpass ADI and Nike to become the world's first sports brand.

Anta is striving to become "Anta of the world". In the new plan, 4 billion yuan will be invested in professional scientific and technological research and development, which will make up for the short board of R & D capacity of Anta and completely improve its ecological chain.

In fact, Anta's technological innovation is already on the way. Anta disclosed to ＂ finance and economics ＂ that up to now, Anta has applied for more than 1400 national events, and has provided technical equipment support for the eight Olympic Games and 28 Chinese national teams. In the future, 4 billion yuan will be invested in R & D, which will help Anta develop more advanced competition equipment, and may even become a global leader in sports technology.

By comparing the precedent that the technologies provided by ADI and Nike in professional sports events can be transferred to civilian use, Anta can also apply these technologies to mass sports products. Through the improvement of core technology strength, Anta's high-end products will also increase, so as to gradually establish its market position in high-end consumers.

In addition, the investment of 4 billion yuan will also enable Anta's DTC upgrading and digital transformation into a "fast track". Anta expects that the performance of DTC stores will be improved by more than 40% in the next 24 months, and the proportion of DTC stores will exceed 70%. This will give Anta a chance to realize its new growth curve.

Anta's new five-year plan also emphasizes that in the next 24 months, it will focus on investment of 400 million yuan to strengthen digital capacity building. At the end of the five-year plan, the number of effective members of Anta will more than double to 120 million, with 70% of members contributing and 40% of members. In addition, after upgrading the private domain traffic system, the proportion of flow will also exceed 20%. Digitization will also improve the efficiency of goods. In the next 24 months, the sold out rate of goods in five months will be increased to 75%.

It is reported that Anta's emphasis on Digitalization stems from a "self-help activity". In 2020, affected by the epidemic, Anta's offline channels were blocked and its performance declined. Anta began to transform itself into self-help. The group required 30000 employees to sell clothes and shoes on wechat, and set up a retail and distribution system as soon as possible. 42 self-supporting shopping malls were launched, and the daily sales volume exceeded 10 million, At the same time, it also makes Anta aware of the importance of private traffic.

In addition, Anta is opening up a new popular sports track in "generation Z", laying a mass professional sports brand line, and striving to create a younger IP. Recently, Anta has just cooperated closely with idols and athletes who have strong sports attributes such as Wang Yibo and Gu ailing, and have great influence in young people.

Although Anta's multi brand strategy is questioned by the market, Anta is still a potential sports brand in China. This can be proved from the data. Since 2016, Anta's growth has exceeded 1650%, and now this momentum has not stopped, which is unthinkable by other domestic brands. At this rate, it's only a matter of time before Anta overtakes Adidas and Nike.

On the international stage, Anta will welcome more competitors and has a long way to go. However, "Anta sample" also shows the world that it is not a dream for Chinese local sports brands to go to the world.

It is hoped that Anta will expand after laying a solid foundation, and will not travel a hundred miles.