The Top 5 Chinese Sporting Goods Manufacturers in 2022
14 July 2022 | Xiang C & Andy G | 6 min read
Intro
In the past few years, there has seen a big increase in the sales of Chinese sporting goods due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In addition to changing people’s working styles, the epidemic also let us realize that keeping a regular workout and a healthy body is of great importance. Nowadays, national fitness has become the main lifestyle of many citizens in China either in the form of outdoor sports or online exercise programs.
Whether you are a college student preparing for physical exams or a professional pursuing a healthier life outside work, having good sportswear is necessary, which could improve your overall performance and prevent you from potential injuries. To enter the Chinese market, it is crucial to get insight into some popular Chinese sporting goods brands.
Top Five Chinese Sporting Goods Manufacturers
Nike China
Founded in 1949 and headquartered in Oregon’s Portland, Nike is well-known as the world’s leading sports brand and has brought people top-grade sporting experience. In 1981, as one of the earliest international brands to enter the Chinese market, Nike started its journey in Beijing. The company focuses on providing the finest sporting goods to consumers of all ages, including sportswear, sneakers, and sporting equipment, among which Air Jordan and Air Force are two popular series for the young group.
Nike China kept the largest share of the Chinese sporting goods market over the last year, with an annual income of more than 50 billion RMB. However, due to the rise of local brands such as Anta Sports, Li-Ning and Xtep, Nike is no longer dominant in the domestic sportswear market compared to the past decades.
Anta Sports
As a comprehensive and multi-brand corporate specializing in the design, production, and sales of athletic shoes, activewear, and sporting accessories, Anta Sports was founded in 1991 and listed in Hong Kong in 2007. In its 30 years of development, Anta Sports attached great importance to its brand marketing tactic and sports science and technology. In 2005, Anta set up China’s first sports science laboratory and in 2009, Anta acquired FILA to further boost its brand growth. Regarded as the largest local sporting goods manufacturer in China, Anta Sports surpassed Adidas China to be in second place in the market last year, with around 49 billion RMB in revenue in total.
Adidas China
Founded in 1949, Adidas is another famous sportswear producer originating from Germany. After entering the Chinese market in 1997, the brand expanded rapidly in almost every region in China. Instead of covering all the sporting goods categories, Adidas pays more attention to its production of sporting shoes which account for nearly half of total sales.
Over the last year, although the company still gained around 34 billion RMB as annual income and ranked third in the market share, it merely realized a 3% sales growth compared to 2020 performance. Nevertheless, it is undoubtedly that in recent years Adidas has become a fashion among the young generation in China and three product series of the brand, namely performance, originals and neo, are quite common in not only the sports fields but also daily scenes.
Li-Ning
Li-Ning is a professional Chinese sporting goods brand founded by the “Prince of gymnastics” Mr. Li Ning in the early 1990s, which was listed in Hong Kong in 2004. The brand builds up around running, basketball, sports life, fitness, and badminton these five core categories to provide customers the utmost exercise experience. The company also has long cooperation with Chinese national sports teams such as diving, shooting, table tennis and badminton, to support the best sports equipment for the athletes.
Li-Ning currently owns the fourth largest market share and obtained nearly 23 billion RMB as last year’s income. Unlike Anta Sports, Li-Ning focuses more on developing its own brand, typically the basketball and running categories, which respectively had 45% and 53% sales growth over the last year.
Xtep
As one of the leading Chinese sporting goods manufacturers, Xtep was founded in 1987, headquartered in Fujian and listed in Hong Kong in 2008. In 2001, the company created its own brand Xtep and started to design and produce sneakers and sportswear. Xtep was ranked as the fifth largest brand in the sporting goods market in 2021 and achieved the goal of 10 billion RMB annual income for the first time. In recent years, Xtep has devoted great efforts in the field of running. It has sponsored more than 1,000 marathon events and activities with a total distance of over 100 million kilometers, making it the sports brand that sponsors the most marathon events in China.
How to Enter the Chinese Sporting Goods Market?
The sports industry in China is developing rapidly under the guidance of the Chinese government. The administrations now actively support innovation in sporting goods technologies and encourage manufacturers to adopt new crafts, materials, and techniques to improve the overall quality of their products. In this context, it is significant to figure out the market trend and customs of Chinese consumers if you want to take a further step into the market.
Consumer preference
Purchase frequency and usage scenario
According to the Chinese Sporting Goods Development Survey 2021, wearing sporting goods has apparently become the daily style for most citizens, due to the convenience and impressive appearance it could bring to the users. The report also indicates that people tend to add new sportswear to their closets for a new season, and that is why many brands’ promotion campaigns and new products usually appear at the beginning of summer and winter.
Average consumption and prediction
The prime consumption level among the public ranges from 200 to 400RMB currently. However, with more and more new functional designs of sporting goods showing up in the market, the average consumer price is expected to constantly increase in the future.
The Guochao trend and brand collaboration
The Guochao trend, namely fashion including Chinese culture elements, is one of the main reasons why local brands have become increasingly popular in recent years. A survey shows that domestic brands are the primary choices among Chinese consumers in any scene of purchase.
The prime way to promote Guochao design is brand collaboration. At the beginning of 2020, Li-Ning and Anta Sport took one step ahead of other competitors by collaborating with the intellectual property of the Palace Museum and the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, which led to the prevalence of a series of new products combining sports, fashion and traditional Chinese culture.
Main channels of information and purchase
Top 5 channels used by target groups for sporting goods latest information:
Among all the channels used for either searching for information or purchasing, online platforms such as official websites and social media have gradually become the first choice that both manufacturers and consumers would consider due to the remarkable convenience these channels could bring during the pandemic.
Moreover, since there exists a price spread between the sale price of the same product in domestic and oversea stores, nearly two-thirds of the consumers choose e-commerce platforms for purchasing their sporting goods from sellers outside of China. Check out our blog on e-commerce to learn about the mainstream e-commerce platform in China: Enlybee Blog on e-commerce
Conclusion
This article only introduces some well-known Chinese sporting goods manufacturers. There are still many other sports brands such as 361 Degrees, Peak, ERKE, etc. To improve the workflow of business within a new market via sporting goods, Enlybee will help you understand and advise you on the best-fit sports category, together with crucial digital marketing strategies to help you win the China market. Schedule a call with us here: https://bit.ly/3ztetda