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Sportswear companies look to lead the field
By An Baijie and Li Xiaokun | China Daily | Updated: 2017-08-29
Employees at work at Anta Sports Products Ltd, one of the major sportswear companies in Quanzhou, Fujian province.YUAN HE/CHINA DAILY
Producers of sports clothing and accessories in East China are adopting new technology in a bid to overtake competitors around the world, as An Baijie and Li Xiaokun report from Quanzhou, Fujian.
When President Xi Jinping and Finnish President Sauli Niinisto met with athletes from the two nations at the 2017 World Figure Skating Championships in Helsinki in April, Xi brought a gift for Niinisto and his wife Jenni Haukio - a piece of sportswear bearing the Chinese athletes' autographs.
The sportswear, produced by Anta Sports Products Ltd, was made in Jinjiang, which is administered by Quanzhou, a city in the eastern province of Fujian.
The market capitalization of the company, which went public in 1997, recently exceeded HK$70 billion ($9 billion), nearly six times its initial market value.
Ding Shizhong, Anta's chairman and CEO, said the company has set two development goals to be realized by 2020: selling 100 million pairs of shoes and 130 million items of clothing, and expanding the number of stores it operates to 11,000.
Last year, Anta established a joint venture with Descente, a Japanese company that makes winter sports gear, with a plan to open 10 stores in China to promote high-end outdoor sports clothing and accessories. According to Ding, the company is looking to move into the high-end market via mergers and acquisitions.
Jinjiang is the world's largest production base for sneakers, with 404 large-scale enterprises producing 1 billion pairs a year.
As a result of rising labor costs, shoemakers in Jinjiang have been scrambling to grab the high-end market.
To promote their brands internationally, large footwear companies in the city, including Anta and 361 Degrees, have signed NBA stars such as Kevin Garnett and Klay Thompson, plus a number of Jamaican athletes.
The transformation from low-price manufacturer to premium brand is not easy. In addition to increased costs for labor and raw materials, such as rubber and petroleum products, the end of last year saw the exported goods price index for footwear products fall by 10 percent from 2015.
Moreover, the foreign trade climate index for the footwear industry fell by 24 percent during the same period, according to the Jinjiang bureau of commerce.
Cai Wenqing, head of the bureau, said many companies adopted similar strategies - investing larger sums in research and development - to insulate themselves from the impact of rising costs.
"Transformation takes time, but with this active response we will be on the right track soon," he said.
By An Baijie and Li Xiaokun | China Daily | Updated: 2017-08-29
Employees at work at Anta Sports Products Ltd, one of the major sportswear companies in Quanzhou, Fujian province.YUAN HE/CHINA DAILY
Producers of sports clothing and accessories in East China are adopting new technology in a bid to overtake competitors around the world, as An Baijie and Li Xiaokun report from Quanzhou, Fujian.
When President Xi Jinping and Finnish President Sauli Niinisto met with athletes from the two nations at the 2017 World Figure Skating Championships in Helsinki in April, Xi brought a gift for Niinisto and his wife Jenni Haukio - a piece of sportswear bearing the Chinese athletes' autographs.
The sportswear, produced by Anta Sports Products Ltd, was made in Jinjiang, which is administered by Quanzhou, a city in the eastern province of Fujian.
The market capitalization of the company, which went public in 1997, recently exceeded HK$70 billion ($9 billion), nearly six times its initial market value.
Ding Shizhong, Anta's chairman and CEO, said the company has set two development goals to be realized by 2020: selling 100 million pairs of shoes and 130 million items of clothing, and expanding the number of stores it operates to 11,000.
Last year, Anta established a joint venture with Descente, a Japanese company that makes winter sports gear, with a plan to open 10 stores in China to promote high-end outdoor sports clothing and accessories. According to Ding, the company is looking to move into the high-end market via mergers and acquisitions.
Jinjiang is the world's largest production base for sneakers, with 404 large-scale enterprises producing 1 billion pairs a year.
As a result of rising labor costs, shoemakers in Jinjiang have been scrambling to grab the high-end market.
To promote their brands internationally, large footwear companies in the city, including Anta and 361 Degrees, have signed NBA stars such as Kevin Garnett and Klay Thompson, plus a number of Jamaican athletes.
The transformation from low-price manufacturer to premium brand is not easy. In addition to increased costs for labor and raw materials, such as rubber and petroleum products, the end of last year saw the exported goods price index for footwear products fall by 10 percent from 2015.
Moreover, the foreign trade climate index for the footwear industry fell by 24 percent during the same period, according to the Jinjiang bureau of commerce.
Cai Wenqing, head of the bureau, said many companies adopted similar strategies - investing larger sums in research and development - to insulate themselves from the impact of rising costs.
"Transformation takes time, but with this active response we will be on the right track soon," he said.
