What Should Chinese Sports Brands Want To Go Out?

Pedro, a 32 year old volunteer, woke up every morning at the foot of Monte Carlo in the Rio Olympic Games.

On the bedside are all the volunteers' uniforms and backpacks produced by the Chinese sports brand.

This is Pedro's standard dress every day.

Pedro likes his "uniform" very much.

"We have a pair of shoes, two pairs of trousers, three blouses, clothes and shoes are comfortable and cool.

Look, pants are still detachable and can be turned into shorts.

Pedro said.

Although he has never been to China, Pedro really feels China through the Olympic Games.

In fact, the Chinese sports brand that appeared during the Olympic Games is more than 360 degrees.

In recent years, the movement of Chinese sports brands is no longer confined to the Olympic Games.

1. The Olympic Games will be the seller's showcase.

On the streets of Rio on the Olympic Games, you can see the "walking distance of 360 degrees" everywhere.

Before the three Olympic Games, the official sponsor of the sports equipment category of the organizing committee was Adidas company.

This time, instead of being the official support of Rio Olympic Games, it was responsible for providing clothing for volunteers, technicians, medical staff and event service personnel.

In addition, 31st degree also sponsored the Chinese swimming team and the cycling team, the Olympic delegation from Greece and South Africa, and the Chinese Paralympic delegation to fight for Rio.

Of course, there are many other Chinese sports brands appearing in Rio.

Hongxing Erke is sponsoring the delegation of Croatia. China Jordan sponsors Uzbekistan delegation. PEAK is once again a brand supplier of New Zealand Olympic uniform. The two sides decided to extend this brand's Olympic strategic cooperation, which has been extended to 2024.

At the Rio Olympic Games, the Chinese sports delegation's award dress "champion dragon clothing" is the fourth award winning garment designed and produced by the Anta company for the Chinese Olympic athletes.

Since becoming a partner of the Chinese Olympic Committee in 2009, Anta has continuously provided the Chinese sports delegation to Vancouver, London, Sochi, Rio for the four summer Olympic Games and the Winter Olympic Games.

In addition, Anta also provided Rio Olympic competition equipment for gymnastics, trampoline, weightlifting, wrestling and other 10 national teams.

Apart from clothing, many sports equipment used in Olympic venues are also from China.

Taishan sports, the fourth Olympic equipment supplier, has provided nearly 10000 pieces of equipment for 11 major items, such as taekwondo, judo, wrestling, track and field, bicycles and so on.

Bian Zhiliang, chairman of Taishan sports group, is proud of that the three items of Taekwondo, wrestling and judo are the product standards of Taishan sports.

"Before the European standard set the world, your equipment reached the European standard to enter the international competition, but this time, judo, taekwondo and wrestling three items (equipment standards) are all Chinese standards."

The standard is more than Taishan.

Red double happiness has been an Olympic equipment supplier for the fifth time, providing equipment for table tennis and badminton events.

The most exciting competition of the Chinese Legion is the Chinese women's volleyball team.

But what many people don't know is that volleyball net posts, referee chairs and other equipment from women's volleyball court are from Jinling sports in Chinese enterprises.

Once, the equipment of the international volleyball competition was monopolized by Japanese brands for decades. Until three years ago, Jinling sports would be monopolized and broken. Its general manager, Li Jiangang, expressed with confidence that he hoped to make China make the world famous.

2, overseas expansion is a major trend.

At the Rio Olympic Games, Chinese sports brands came out in full swing to make people pay attention to the overseas development of these national brands.

From the perspective of the development of the world's top sports brands, overseas expansion will be an important driving force for the growth of enterprises when local market sales reach a certain scale.

China has become the largest sporting goods manufacturer in the world. Under the trend of brand globalization, internationalization is becoming more and more important.

Over the past few years, many local brands including Anta, PEAK and 31st degree have begun to focus on overseas markets and speed up the internationalization process.

As early as 2013, it opened a strategic cooperative relationship with the famous Nordic outdoor brand OneWaySport, and entered the professional outdoor sports market.

Hou Zhaohui, general manager of the 31st degree human resources administration, said that OneWaySport has a deep accumulation in outdoor ice and snow equipment, and will provide support for the design, research and development and technological innovation of the product.

Now, with the Olympic Games in Rio as an opportunity, the 31st degree will officially enter the Brazil market, with an investment of 90 million yuan. It will be further radiated to the South American market in the future.

Data show that in recent years, the expansion rate of overseas countries has accelerated.

By the end of the first quarter of this year, there were 151 sales outlets in the United States, 34 in Europe, and 839 in Brazil, an increase of 100% over 2015.

In terms of internationalization, PEAK has always been in the forefront of local brands.

As of 2014, PEAK's overseas sales amounted to 650 million yuan, accounting for 23% of the total revenue. The channel has covered more than 80 countries and regions in the world, and the European market accounts for 45% of overseas sales.

Anta group has acquired Italy sports brand Felix and British outdoor brand, and has also worked with the Japanese sports brand Desanto and Itochu to build a joint venture this year. It is expected to start retail next year, covering skiing, comprehensive training and running.

Wang Xueqin, senior manager of Anta CEO, said that multi brand operation is the strategic choice of the company. The acquisition of international sports brands can quickly enter certain segments of the market and meet the needs of different consumer groups through differentiated precise positioning.

However, at this stage, the domestic sports brand is still different from the two big international giants of Nike and Adidas.

Local sports brands have advantages and disadvantages in global market competition.

As far as advantages are concerned, China's sports brand industry chain is more mature and has the advantages of cost end and quality foundation.

For emerging overseas markets, high performance price ratio products are still at the stage of development. Local brands have the opportunity to set foot in the local market with the help of price advantage and marketing.

However, the lack of core products and high-end products, the lack of brand influence and the lack of marketing functions also make local brands difficult to cultivate in the local market.

Therefore, although China's sports brand has more than 10 years of overseas experience, it mostly stays in the international expansion stage, but does not enter the stage of international operation.

3, we still need to work hard for the future development.

To this end, the Chinese sports brand has to go abroad for a good turn, and there is still a long way to go.

Attaching importance to R & D and adopting new technology is one of the means by which sports brand can enhance its competitiveness in essence.

Last year, XTEP's R & D expenses rose by 12.8% compared to the same period last year. According to Anta's 2015 earnings, its R & D expenses increased by 0.9% over the previous year.

In view of this, local sporting goods companies are trying to get rid of the state of "hard money" earned in the past.

A few days ago, Anta worked with a high-tech material company in the United States to produce odorless sneakers, and XTEP, one of its competitors, did not want to lag behind in product technology, and vigorously developed new series of running shoes with advanced technology.

In addition, XTEP has also cooperated with Qihoo 360 to develop children's intelligent shoes with location tracking function.

Under the rapid development of the Internet, the development and upgrading of sports intelligent products is the main direction of future development.

360 degree has reached cooperation with Baidu, music and other enterprises in intelligent sports equipment, and its products will develop towards intellectualization, socialization and interaction in the future.

Nowadays, the gap between domestic and foreign brands in the low end product line is not very large.

"Nike, Adidas and other brands also have mass product line shoes, which have no significant difference in technology content and domestic brands."

Clothing industry expert Zhao Pei pointed out.

But for sophisticated sports products, local brands need to invest more.

Anta's "challenge 100" professional function running shoes priced at 499 yuan, while Adidas's professional running shoes are over 1000 yuan.

Generally speaking, the higher the performance and technical content, the more expensive the sporting goods are.

If enterprises want to be in the high-end market of sports goods and get higher value-added products, they must constantly increase R & D investment and innovate technology.

While domestic enterprises persist in a single category of technological breakthroughs, foreign-funded enterprises pay more attention to the concept of innovation.

Take Nike, Andrew, Adidas and other enterprises as an example, Zhao Pei said that they have begun to build themselves into a high-tech service company from concept to lifestyle, to supporting products, but no domestic company has such a vision and embarked on a layout.

In terms of brand output, PEAK is more successful.

In the European market, PEAK has increased its brand awareness in France, Spain, Germany and other Western European countries by signing the French NBA star Tony Parker and sponsoring the first Spanish Basketball World Cup.

In the US, PEAK has established PEAK team with more than ten NBA signing stars.

This strategy can be replicated in potential markets.

Of course, developing overseas markets is not just about signing contracts with stars.

In June, Anta set up the first Anta flagship store in the Middle East in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and soon expanded its market to other countries in the Middle East, and achieved good results in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other countries.

The Middle East market has been developing smoothly, increasing confidence in Anta's overseas expansion and promoting its progress in Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe.

In addition, the marketing means of local brands need to be promoted.

Zhao Pei believes that although local sporting goods enterprises almost have marketing centers overseas, they only have sales functions such as logistics, distribution and store management.

The marketing center is reduced to a sales center, which makes it impossible for the marketing center to undertake the important marketing functions such as sales plan, market entry strategy and product promotion strategy.

"The lack of marketing function is the root cause of backward local enterprises. Local enterprises should think carefully and do not attempt to solve the problems on the outside, but return to the internal marketing function construction."