Foreign sports brands such as Adidas, Nike, and Fila have become popular in China to the point where people would rather queue up to buy, and Nike has dominated the Chinese sports market for decades.
But at this time, a domestic sports brand stood out from the encirclement, not only breaking the domination of Nike, but also bringing many international sports brands under its umbrella, becoming the target of foreigners' crazy robbery.
So what is this brand that has broken Nike's decades-long rule, and why has it become the target of foreigners' frenzy?
Fame starts with acquisitions
It is difficult to make a brand from scratch to be familiar to everyone, but it is relatively simple to make a brand that is already well-known to everyone, and the person in charge of Anta adheres to this concept and starts his acquisition road.
He first targeted the foreign brand of Fila, which entered the Chinese market after Adi and Nike, but for some reason, it was not as popular with the Chinese as Adidas, and it had always been tepid, and by the time Anta acquired it, it had already lost tens of millions.
Anta first adjusted the style of the product and the positioning of the product, after all, Adidas and Nike were already very popular at this time, and it should be difficult to grab business from them, so Anta changed its positioning to the sports fashion category, and the sales target became more trendy young people.
I have to say that this adjustment is really very wonderful, the "dad shoes" designed by Fila designers are deeply loved by the majority of young people, and Fila has finally turned from a loss to a profit, but Anta's transformation of Fila has not stopped, and it has begun to adjust its business model.
Originally, the management of Fila stores completely depended on the arrangement of dealers, which was not conducive to the overall management, so Anta changed the business model to direct sales, and everything was arranged by the headquarters, so that the management of stores and employees was more convenient, and Anta could be regarded as gaining a firm foothold.
After several years of development, ANTA has become the top sports brand in China, but the founder of ANTA has not stopped moving forward, he began to look for development opportunities, and has set up design centers in Japan, the United States and South Korea to absorb the design ideas of others.
In 19 years, Anta started its acquisition plan again, joining other groups to acquire Amalfen Sports, this time the acquisition helped Anta enter the global market, but it also brought challenges to Anta, because Amalfen's Arc'teryx lost more than Fila that year.
But what can I do, continue to transform, after all, it was bought for 36 billion, Anta imitated the original transformation model of Fila, adjusted the positioning and business model of Arc'teryx, and four years later, Arc'teryx changed from a loss of 1.6 billion a year to a quarterly income of nearly $1 billion.
Now Anta has become the "top stream" of Chinese sports brands, surpassing the status of Adidas and Nike in China, but after becoming famous, Anta is faced with a very difficult choice.
Stick to the parity route or switch to the high-end route?
Although Anta has many brands under its umbrella today, the main money-making is Anta positioning the mass brand, and it can be said that the main reason for attracting people's consumption is because of its affordability.
Even so, Anta has not given up the idea of taking the high-end route, but will such a change be welcomed by the general public, Li Ning thought of changing the route before it and took action, but judging from the sales volume in recent years, this choice was a failure.
Putting aside the example of Li Ning, Anta's own luxury brand Arc'teryx does not sell very well, and many people say that the price is too expensive.
In order to increase turnover, Anta not only wants to change its route and increase the unit price, but also wants to sell its products overseas, from increasing sales, this decision can be seen from the time he acquired Amalfen, but it is not so easy to open up the market overseas.
Big brands such as Adidas and Nike can be mixed in the mainland, so it will definitely be more popular in foreign markets, and it is very difficult for Anta to open up overseas markets, not to mention that Li Ning has long targeted overseas markets, but its development abroad is not very good.
No matter how Anta develops in the future, I hope not to forget where I came from and how I have come from a small shoe factory step by step.
"Start a business with peace of mind and be a down-to-earth person"
In the early 70s, Ding Hemu made a very risky decision in order for his family to live a good life, he sold his family's valuable things and opened a shoe factory.
But at this time, Ding Hemu is already old, he wants to change, but he doesn't have the energy to deal with all this, Ding Hemu also has a son named Ding Shizhong, who is now the leader of Anta Group, in order to relieve his father's pressure, he decided to drop out of school to help his father through the current difficulties.
In order to open the sales market, Ding Shizhong took the money and shoes given by his father and went to Beijing alone, Ding Shizhong, a hairy boy, how difficult it is to open the market in Beijing, he can't even find a place to set up a stall, but he did not give up.
He began to cut in from another direction, providing the mall with the news of competitors, and with his unremitting efforts, he finally found a place to set up a stall, because the shoes he brought were relatively cheap, and they were sold out quickly, and the people who originally bought for the price were surprised to find that the quality of the shoes was also very good.
As soon as it spread ten, ten spread hundreds, Ding Shizhong's fame went out, and he couldn't even find anyone in the place where he set up a stall, but now he can sell his shoes in Wangfujing, a famous commercial street in Beijing, but Ding Shizhong was not blinded by the immediate interests.
After the sales volume was not a problem, Ding Shizhong began to think about the price problem, why can't he sell it at his own price, and those shoes that are of similar quality to his own shoes can be sold at a high price? Finally, he found that those shoes with high prices have their own brands, and their shoes are only processed by the foundry, and there is no unified brand.
At this time, the foundry in his hometown was not doing well for various reasons, so Ding Shizhong used his connections in Beijing to create a brand with his father and brother, named "Anta", which is the origin of Anta.
Subsequently, Ding Shizhong quickly found the positioning of the brand, quickly seized the market at a low price, and began to develop steadily, and then the financial crisis broke out, and Anta was not affected in the slightest.
Subsequently, in order to further develop, Ding Shizhong decided to find a celebrity to endorse, which was a very bold decision at that time, how could a small brand find a celebrity endorsement, at the beginning it was indeed the same as people thought, a lot of endorsement fees were spent, and the popularity of the Anta brand did not improve in the slightest.
But Ding Shizhong did not give up, he increased investment, let CCTV promote his brand Anta, there will always be a return on the effort, Kong Linghui's words after winning the Olympic Games, quickly increased Anta's popularity, this year Anta's sales increased 15 times.
In order to control the quality of its products, Anta set up a laboratory to study how to make its products more suitable for sports, because when he first asked CBA players to endorse him, he was complained that the quality of the products was not good, and in order not to ruin his reputation, Ding Shizhong began in-depth research.
He designed shoes for each player and added chips to the shoes to better monitor the athletes' movements. It can be said that it is not easy for Anta to go from a small processing plant to today, but fortunately he persevered, otherwise we would not have seen such a good domestic brand.
Now more and more domestic brands have begun to enter the public's field of vision, with approachable prices and good quality, to win the favor of the majority of consumers, but there are also domestic brands after the fire forgot their original intentions, the quality of products is repeatedly declining.
I hope that the founder of ANTA can maintain his original aspiration: "Start a business with peace of mind and be a down-to-earth person", and bring us more and better products!