【Tidal Business Review/Text】
This winter, Gu Ailing is really too hot.
In just one year, the 18-year-old girl doubled in value. Before 2021, she only had 7 endorsements, generally around $1 million.
During the Winter Olympics, according to incomplete statistics, Gu Ailing has 28 endorsements, the price soared to 2.5 million US dollars, becoming LV, China Mobile, Estée Lauder, ANTA, Mengniu are all rushing to sign the "ice and snow goddess", the number of endorsements has exceeded the number of Lin Dan, Sun Yang and other people at their peak, almost twice that of "Asian flying man" Su Bingtian.
The reason why Gu Ailing can top its peers is inseparable from the explosive growth of the ski industry. According to the "2020 China Ski Industry White Paper", in the 2020-2021 snow season, the number of ski trips in mainland China has reached 20.76 million.
With the holding of the Winter Olympics, the enthusiasm of the people for ice and snow projects has also been pushed to the peak, and the Chinese ski industry is expected to usher in a wave of dividends.
01 Ski industry on the rise
Nicknamed "white opium", skiing can feel the thrill of an adrenaline rush of more than 60 kilometers per hour, and was originally a popular "competitive game" in high society, but now it has become an emerging lifestyle favored by the middle class.
Driven by social media such as Douyin, Station B, And Little Red Book, skiing has become the new favorite of young people, and every young person has a reason to play skiing, decompression, stimulation, closeness to nature, mixing circles, challenging themselves, yearning for freedom...
Especially under the east wind of the Winter Olympics, the ski industry has developed rapidly in the mainland.
According to the data of Tianyancha, as of now, there are more than 7,000 ski-related enterprises in the mainland, of which the number of new ski-related enterprises in 2021 is 1206, up 61% year-on-year, and the number has reached the highest in six years, including ski equipment, ski training, ski information, ski services and other segments have achieved a certain degree of development.
Figure/pexels
As the core of the ski industry, mainland ski resorts have also broken through the geographical limitations of the north and marched into southern cities such as Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Chengdu. According to data from the State General Administration of Sport, as of the beginning of 2021, there were 654 standard ski resorts and 803 indoor and outdoor ski resorts in the country, an increase of 317% and 41% respectively over 2015.
At the same time, capital is also scrambling to enter the ski track. CVSource investment data shows that since January 2021, 7 ski-related companies have received financing.
Among them, the original brand GOSKI completed the A+ round of investment; the ski image social app Tappa completed a round of financing of 40 million yuan, invested by Hillhouse Venture Capital; Aoxue Culture, SNOW51 and Snow Owl Technology won two rounds in a row, and the investors included Sequoia China Seed Fund, Shenzhen Venture Capital, GSR Venture Capital and other well-known institutions.
Driven by considerable interests, more and more players began to join this "ice and snow gold war".
02 Emerging Chinese brand
Not long ago, there was a word called "Snow Yuan" on the Little Red Book, which refers to those Internet celebrities who are in the snow field at minus 20 degrees Celsius with upper body bikinis and lower body ski suits.
Some netizens joked that when they take pictures, the veneer logo must be directly to the camera, if it is dior, Chanel's brand needs to be clearly marked, giving people a feeling of "cold freezing, expensive and compelling".
In the ice and snow industry, ski equipment is the most sought after by enterprises, and the number of enterprises is also the largest.
On the one hand, it is because its market space is indeed vast. According to the "2021-2027 China Ski Equipment Industry Market Development Model and Strategic Consulting Research Report" released by Zhiyan Consulting, the market size of the ski equipment industry in mainland China was 3.22 billion yuan in 2014, and this figure has increased to 12.69 billion yuan in 2020, with an annual compound growth rate of more than 25%.
Ski equipment, on the other hand, has a high gross profit margin and low barriers to entry.
According to data from the Mob Research Institute, the gross profit margin of skis and ski suits in ski equipment is about 40%-50%, and the gross profit margin of helmets and snow mirrors can reach 70%; while the gross profit margin of the ski field is about 15%, the gross profit margin of ski training is 30%-35%, and the gross profit margin of ski construction equipment is between 25% and 35%, compared with the gross profit margin of the ski resort is only 15%.
In the face of huge business opportunities, luxury brands such as Chanel, Prada, Fendi, LV, and Dior have gone down to seek gold and launched their own ski apparel and equipment. For example, Prada launched ski goggles in conjunction with sports brand Oakley; Gucci and The North Face cross-border launched down jackets on Tmall luxury.
With the help of capital, the mainland ski brand has also ushered in a small peak. Emerging ski brands such as Nanen, Vector, and Nobaday have developed rapidly, and outdoor or sports giants such as Pathfinder, ANTA, and 361° have also launched their own "ice and snow" business lines.
Among them, AS early as 2016, ANTA smelled the business opportunities of ski suits and spent 150 million yuan to win the exclusive agency right of The Famous Japanese outdoor brand Disanter in China. In four years, Desante has grown from 0 stores to 130 stores.
This "ice and snow line" of ANTA is becoming a new growth point for ANTA's annual revenue. According to ANTA's financial report, in the first half of 2021, the revenue of other brands in ANTA, including Desante and Kolon Sports, increased by more than 90% year-on-year.
In addition, nobaday, COSONE, snow owl technology, VECTOR, GOSKI ORIGINALS, SNOW51 and other new ski brands are the leaders of the domestic ice and snow industry on this snowy mountain.
03 The ordeal of growth that cannot be ignored
Even though mainland ski brands have mushroomed, the outlook is less optimistic.
The first pass of domestic brands is to compete with overseas brands.
Unlike the rise of China's ski industry, foreign ski culture has a long history, and professional ski brands have also been greatly developed. For example, the American trend brand Volcom, the Japanese high-end outdoor ice and snow brand Phenix, the French high-end ski and urban fashion brand Fusalp, the Swiss outdoor brand Mammoth, K2, Nitro and so on.
Their ski products have been innovated in performance and fabric, and they are far ahead in comfort and fashion, and ski enthusiasts also prefer foreign brands. For example, the American outdoor brand Burton has a market share of 30%-40% in China.
Photo/Burton official micro
The domestic brand is still in its infancy, always walking in the low-end of the industry, and there is no ski equipment brand with particularly excellent product strength.
After all, if you want to do a good job in ski equipment, you not only need to be proficient in ski sports, materials science, clothing design, but also need a lot of preliminary testing and experience accumulation, many companies hold a "make quick money" psychology, naturally can not concentrate on research.
Correspondingly, most domestic players are also "experiential skiing", and the new customers in the ski industry are not sticky. According to the "White Paper on China's Ski Industry", the number of annual per capita skis in mainland China will not exceed 2 times in 2019, and nearly 80% of skiers are skiers, with an average annual number of skis of 1-2 times, compared with the conversion rate of 5% abroad.
The low conversion rate of new customers is related to the high price and poor player experience. A ski is not just a ticket, at least it needs perfect ski equipment, pre-teaching and training, transportation, accommodation, etc.
According to data from the Mob Research Institute, china's current skiers are mainly middle- and high-income groups of men in first- and second-tier cities, with the age of the population concentrated in 25-34 years old and the monthly income concentrated above 10K. That said, skiing is still a niche market today.
In addition, factors such as weak ski resorts and their supporting facilities, lack of ski teaching and training, and inconvenient transportation of ski resorts are also important reasons for the low conversion rate. According to the 2020 White Paper on China's Ski Industry, by the end of 2020, the vast majority of china's ski resorts will still be for beginner ski experiencers.
And Guoyuan Securities also pointed out in the research report that the technical talents and management talents in the mainland ski industry are far from keeping up with the development of the ski market, showing problems such as the instability of the talent team and the generally low quality of talents.
In the short term, the development of China's ski brands is not optimistic, and if the above problems are not solved well, they may become hidden dangers hindering development. But don't be too pessimistic, the penetration rate of the mainland ski business is still very low.
According to a research report by Guoyuan Securities, the current population penetration rate of the ski market in the mainland is only 1%, which is not only far from the ski population penetration rate of Switzerland and Austria above 30%, but also lags behind Japan's 9%.
As the saying goes, the middle class has a "three-piece set": skiing, surfing, camping, as a new generation of social currency, the popularity of skiing will continue for a period of time, and domestic ski brands will undoubtedly take off, as for how far they can go, it depends on personal cultivation.
There is no doubt that the "Dongfeng" of the Beijing Winter Olympics has brought a rare window of development to a number of new domestic brands to a certain extent, and how to seize and form a transformation is a topic that cannot be avoided in front of many domestic brands.
"Cough, during the Spring Festival, I went to the ski resort near my home and skied a snow, which was quite fun, but there were too many people." However, I am still looking forward to surfing in the summer, and I plan to arrange one for my annual leave. The editorial staff said.
Seasonal constraints and the scarcity of indoor ski resorts make skiing a "luxury". The diversity of young people's choices in leisure sports consumption also makes it difficult for skiing to become a "must-have". However, it is undeniable that the "spring" of the ski industry has finally come, and as for how long this spring is, the final answer still comes from consumers.
That's the case with business.
*Caption image from pexels
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