Women's Sportswear Will Become "Gold Mine"

While people are still exploring the domestic "men's shoes economy", the major sports costumes are quietly targeting the female market.

With the rise of women's fitness craze, the age of sports dominated by male hormones is changing, and women's sensitivity and pursuit of fashion will enable them to buy sports products beyond actual demand.

According to data from market research firm NPD, in the third quarter of 2017, the growth rate of female products in the American sports shoes market reached 6%, while men's shoes and children's shoes were basically flat. Between January and November last year, women accounted for 62% of the total sales of sportswear in the United States, while women spent 188 dollars per year on sports equipment, while men spent 178 dollars on that category.

The latest QuestMobile data show that after 2014 consecutive years of decline in China's sports apparel market from 2012 to 2013, the market rebounded from 2014 to 2018. The scale of the sports apparel market increased year by year, and the growth rate continued to accelerate. In 2018, the size of China's sportswear market exceeded 40 billion dollars, reaching 40 billion 100 million yuan, or 19.5% yuan, an increase of 19.5% over the same period last year, the highest growth rate in the past 7 years.

The report points out that with the trend of sportswear and sports shoes, female consumers are gradually entering the male dominated sports shoes market, and the female consumers of sports fashion consumption groups and fitness groups also surpass Men for the first time this year.

This market trend is not without trace. Take the online platform nice as an example, more than 70% of its users are female, and the proportion of female users on poison APP has increased to 34%. The proportion of female users of fitness APP Keep is more than 50%. Some people observed that most women in the gym wore a full range of sports equipment, most of them were T-shirt sports pants.

In addition, the trend of tight pants is also regarded as a catalyst for female consumers to buy sports apparel. Tight pants were popular in the early 1980s with the rise of fitness and aerobics. They began to be used as mini skirts in 2005. Under the leadership of Instagram, which has hundreds of millions of fans such as Kim Kardashian, Kendall Jenner and other star supermodels, tights have been paired with t-shirts for younger generations in recent years, making it a basic single product like jeans.

CNBC has earlier reported that sports shoes have replaced high heels as the first choice for American women to buy shoes. Rhiannon Anderson, a full-time mother interviewed, said that there were about 50 pairs of high-heeled shoes in her shoe cabinet but never wore, and she wore sports shoes every day. She also said that although she lives in the rural area of Alfa rea, Georgia, wearing high heels has been regarded as outdated.

Under the favorable environment, sports apparel giants dominated by male market have regarded women's consumption as a new growth point. Brands including Nike, Adidas and Puma have already begun to layout the Chinese women's market.

At the end of 2014, Nike officially launched a female market, with sales from $5 billion to $7 billion in two years. In order to promote the image that can be trained at any time, Nike also launched Nike training club APP, which is designed to encourage women to exercise, covering 17 languages and 100 training for different purposes, with 800 thousand training and 200 thousand programmes running every month.

Last July, Nike's Air Jordan and the US version of Vogue launched the female joint shoe "AWOK", which was inspired by editor's Anna Wintour. This is not only the first time in Nike history to cooperate with Vogue, but also the first joint name series launched by Air Jordan specifically for female consumers.

Last month, Nike was officially launched in the new female product store in London, UK. NikeTown was officially launched, mainly selling women's sports suits and tailored sportswear. In addition to the new regular models, the first large size model display product was set up in the store, which is regarded as a great step in the diversity of sports apparel brands. The first lingerie Laboratory of brand global headquarters was also put into use recently, aiming at designing suitable sports underwear for women of different sizes.

Nike EMEA, general manager and vice president of women's clothing business at Sarah Hannah, said in a statement that female consumers' enthusiasm for sports is increasing. The opening of New London stores will help encourage more women to start a healthier lifestyle.

In a series of initiatives, data show that the current women's market price of more than 125 U.S. dollars in the top three sales of sports shoes are from Nike, namely Air Max 270, VaporMax and Epic React, 2019 in fiscal 2019 Nike business income has reached $7 billion 400 million. Nike CEO Mark Parker said in March this year's investor conference call that Nike's female business has exceeded the growth rate of male business, and the Group intends to use female consumption as a new growth point.

In view of the good prospects for the women's sports market, Nike set a ambitious goal in its five year plan put forward in 2015. Its sales of female products will reach US $11 billion in the 2020 fiscal year, accounting for more than 20% of the total revenue in the year.

In recent years, the German sportswear giant adidas has also begun to take the initiative to break the stereotype of female consumers in sports. The new strategic focus is to increase investment in the sports and leisure market of women, not only to promote more women sports products, but also to enhance the sense of existence of women's clothing in stores, and this year to cooperate with Beyonce's personal brand Ivy Park.

In addition to clothing and accessories, Adidas will help Ivy Park launch its first shoe series, and Beyonce will continue to have full autonomy in brand management. Beyonce pointed out that with the support of Adidas resources, the brand will accelerate global expansion.

According to fashion business express data, Adidas sales in the first quarter increased by 6.1% to 5 billion 800 million euros, and net profit rose 17.1% to 633 million euros. The group said that the strong performance of its performance during the period was mainly due to the increase in women's clothing sales and the promotion of Greater China and e-commerce business, with an increase of 40% in retail sales from e-commerce. As Adidas is still in short supply in the North American market, the Group expects sales to grow by 3% to 4% in the first half of 2019, and will not accelerate until the second half of the year.

In addition, Canada's sports apparel brand lululemon has become the biggest black horse in the industry with its Female Yoga oriented business structure. Instead of Under Armour, it has become the third most popular sports brand in recent years and continues to grow.

In the past three years, the annual compound growth rate of lululemon net profit was 27%, and the compound annual growth rate of revenue was 16%. In the first quarter of May 5th, the brand sales rose 20% to 782 million dollars, the same store sales increased 14%, and net profit increased 28.6% to 96 million 600 thousand dollars. According to the fashion business express, lululemon's stock price has increased by 53% this year and its market value has reached US $24 billion 700 million, a record high.

Lululemon chief operating officer Stuart Haselden revealed that China has become the biggest potential market for brands. The first quarter's revenue growth exceeded 100%. This year the brand will add 10 to 20 stores in the market.

Calvin McDonald, chief executive, said the performance during the period was a good start for the group. The brand plan doubled the number of men's and digital businesses in the next 5 years. In order to seek more growth momentum, lululemon's first series of protective products was launched on 50 designated stores and official website last month, and the first men's fashion brand lululemon x Robert Geller was launched earlier.

It is noteworthy that the Under Armour, which is a man's fitness apparel, is also planning to gain new growth by betting on women's clothing business.

In 2015, Under Armour launched the Armour underwear series water test women's sportswear market, specifically for women to provide underwear for different sports occasions, and invited athletes Lindsey Vonn, Misty Copeland, Kelley O "Hara" and "Brianna" and "model" to take up the advertising blockbuster.

In 2017, Under Armour signed Japanese actress Masami Nagasawa, the first time a brand has been invited as spokesperson in 10 years. With the Chinese market becoming the focus of development, in June of this year, Under Armour announced its cooperation with the popular idol Yang, who has 10 million micro-blog fans, and will attend the 2019UA basketball China line ShangHai Railway Station with the basketball superstar Cooley.

According to the 2019 first quarter earnings report released by the brand, sales of Under Armour in Asia Pacific region, including China, grew by 25% over the same period last year, and the impact of the removal of the exchange rate increased by 30% compared with the same period last year. Global sales increased by 2% to 1 billion 200 million dollars, making a profit of 22 million US dollars.

Business Insider, after examining the flagship store of Nike, Adidas and Under Armour in New York, found that the layout of female Armour stores is the most reasonable and attractive for women's clothing area, and the price competitiveness is the most competitive. It is predicted that Under Armour will be a new rival in the field of women's sports functional clothing.

In addition to the popular sportswear brand, Lacoste, the French sports apparel brand for high-end consumers, named Louise Trotter last year as the first female creative director in history. Thierry Guibert, chief executive, said that although the original creative director Felipe Oliveira Baptista has made an important contribution to the growth of brand performance, it is time for Lacoste to make changes and will return to the core category of sports in the future.

The Centennial Italy sports brand Fila held its first fashion show in Milan at the end of last year. It became the first sports brand to go on the official schedule of Milan fashion week. It aims to attract more young female consumers by improving their fashion. This series was led by creative director Antonino Ingrasciotta last year. Before joining Fila, the designer worked as a creative director in adidas for 7 years.

At the same time, some new sportswear brands and retailers are also interested in the field of women's sportswear. For example, women's fitness clothing brands such as Maya MAIA ACTIVE are rising rapidly.

MAIA ACTIVE Maya, founded in 2016, is a sports brand specially designed for asian sex. It is the main sportswear and sportswear for Asian women. It has just completed a financing of over 40 million yuan last year, which is jointly invested by Sequoia Capital, Chinese cultural capital, volcanic rock capital and meta capital.

British luxury electronics business platform Farfetch's buyer shop Browns also released this week in one breath, Versace Active and Nike, Adidas and other 33 women sports brand clothing and street brand Misbhv launched the exclusive capsule series, high-profile women sports wear market. "We will focus on providing consumers with more creative women sportswear brands, not just selling a new category." Browns female dress purchasing director Ida Petersson said.

To meet the needs of female consumers as far as possible, Browns's sportswear not only covers regular fitness products, but also includes professional sports apparel such as bicycles, basketball and soccer. Ida Petersson predicts that sports and professional sports clothing such as bicycles and basketball will become the next draught.

Foot Locker, a US sports retailer, also invested $15 million in strategic investment in high-end female sportswear retailer Carbon38 in January last year, increasing the total A financing of Carbon38 to $26 million. The company's previous seed wheel investors also include Tyler, Cameron Winklevoss, Montage Ventures and Amazon fashion President Christine Beauchamp.

According to statistics, Carbon38 was founded in Losangeles in 2012 by Katie Warner Johnson. There are more than 100 women sports brands sold on the website, including Alo Yoga, Stella McCartney and Adidas cooperation, Beyonc all Ivy Ivy and its own brand.

There is no doubt that with the increasingly crowded track, sports brand competition in the field of women's clothing will also be more intense. Facing the changing young women consumers, how to maintain diversity and enhance freshness will be a difficult challenge.