#聚光创作大赛#
It's so exciting, Jinjiang Shoe King Anta had a revenue of 62.3 billion last year, becoming China's largest sports brand, not only more than twice that of its old domestic rival Li Ning (27.5 billion), but also surpassing the international sports brand Nike (52.1 billion).
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Anta's development is also too fast, and the founder Ding Shizhong is already worth 44.5 billion yuan, becoming the richest man in Xiamen for a second time.
"To be the world's Anta!"
Ding Shizhong has said this sentence a long time ago, but until today, people do not know its weight.
Many people may not have noticed that many high-end fashion brands that are usually familiar have already been taken over by Anta, such as: FILA, Arc'teryx, Wilson, etc.
Some people say that Anta got the Shuangwen script and has become the No. 1 in China and the No. 3 in the world from a small workshop in Jinjiang, with 20 sportswear brands.
At the beginning of the year, the acquired Amalfen Sports was listed on the New York Stock Exchange and now has two listed companies.
"Start a business with peace of mind and be a down-to-earth person. In 1991, when Ding Shizhong gave his company the name "Anta", he didn't know if he thought of it today.
The reason why Xtep's Ding Shuibo wants to open a shoe-making company is because he has a classmate who has a shoe-making factory at home, so he has become a boss himself, so he also wants to try, and this classmate of his is Ding Shizhong, the leader of Anta.
Jinjiang, Fujian can really be said to be the hometown of China's footwear industry, Ding Shizhong founded Anta, his classmate Ding Shuibo was not convinced, so he opened Xtep, Ding Mingliang established Delhui, and Ding Siqiang developed Markor.
Both are surnamed Ding, they are all engaged in shoes, and at present, Ding Shizhong is better, and from the perspective of development trajectory, Ding Shuibo's Xtep has also been following Anta's footsteps.
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For example, now Anta's buy-buy-buy-buy acquisition, Xtep has also started the establishment of a multi-brand kingdom.
Ding Shizhong once said: "If you want to be an international brand, it is difficult without 30 years of precipitation, but you can achieve a rapid leap through acquisitions." ”
In line with this guiding ideology, Ding Shizhong started the buy, buy, buy mode.
In 2009, Belle's FILA was in a state of serious loss, and it was favored by Anta, although the performance was not good, but FILA's brand positioning was what Anta needed.
International, high-end, fashion, sports, and functionality are all elements that ANTA is looking for in the acquisition of brands.
Anta spent 460 million yuan to buy out FILA's trademark use rights and franchise rights in the Greater China region at one time, which was neat.
As a high-end fashion sportswear brand, after entering China, FILA was a little uncomfortable, but after being acquired by Anta, it broke out.
After the acquisition by ANTA, designers continued to iterate on styles according to the needs of Chinese consumers, and the popular trendy shoes featuring "dad shoes" have impressed a large number of trend-chasing young people.
At the same time, a major reform has also been made in the distribution model, taking back the distribution rights from the dealers and changing to a direct sales model.
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From staff training to store decoration to later business strategy, all of them are managed by the company's headquarters, which makes the operation more efficient.
A dose of fierce medicine really worked, FILA exploded at a high speed, grew rapidly, and sales soared, and soon turned from a loss to a profit, becoming the leader of high-end sports shoes.
This acquisition strategy also enabled Anta to successfully surpass Li Ning in 2011 and become the champion of national sports brands.
Next, Anta sought out and acquired brands that were in line with the company's strategy.
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"Single-focus, multi-brand, omni-channel", Ding Shizhong believes that with Anta's sales channels and terminals, it can revitalize the acquired brands.
He believes: "The problem of today's large-scale international brands is that they cannot meet the differentiation and personalization of market demand. ”
A single brand has a disadvantage, and multi-brand operation can well grasp the growth opportunities of new tracks and new categories.
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In 2020, Anta made its biggest acquisition move, acquiring Amalfen Group, which is also in a loss-making state and owns a number of high-end brands.
The outside world said that it would be Anta's most expensive mistake, but Ding Shizhong thought that he had picked up a big bargain.
Amalfen really lived up to expectations, its performance soared, and it was successfully listed in 2024, becoming a "driver" as important as "Anta Group".
Therefore, the future of Anta will continue to be a rhythm of buying, buying, buying, and more brands will enter Anta's brand pool.
It seems that it is brainless to buy, buy and buy, but in fact, Anta has its own focus and clear goals.
"A brand with functionality as the core, Ding can only look at it. ”
The first is "focus on function and light on design".
Ding Shizhong believes that brands that win the market by design will be affected by the trend and have greater fluctuations, and the focus on functionality is the most important thing for sportswear.
Back then, he took a fancy to FILA, and also took a fancy to the professional sports functional attributes behind its fashion attributes.
600 million decisive win of this loss-making brand is enough to show that Ding Shizhong has a unique vision, and FILA's subsequent performance and contribution performance are also the best proof.
At the same time, ANTA's prey is not only international brands like FILA, but also some niche domestic brands with independent designers.
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Not only that, ANTA has also actively developed its own design department, and has set up design centers for footwear and apparel in Japan, the United States and South Korea.
In addition, in the design, it also attaches importance to functionality, and the establishment of these design centers provides conceptual and technical support for ANTA to have the ability to innovate products.
However, when a brand acquisition comes back, it is not a successful transformation that can be done once and for all, and it is also normal for there to be phased weakness.
For example, FILA, after entering the scale of 20 billion, such a situation occurred, and the revenue once fell seriously.
In response to such a situation, ANTA responds quickly and can quickly make a series of adjustments.
In 2023, ANTA will increase its investment in sportswear for the elite class of FILA, focusing on tennis, golf and other sub-sectors.
In terms of operation, it is also constantly improving, closing inefficient stores and adding stores in high-end business districts.
After a series of combinations, FILA's sales stabilized and recovered strongly, setting a record for Anta's largest revenue category of 10 billion.
Ding Shizhong's multi-brand strategy has been very successful, and most brands have maintained growth momentum, meeting the diversified and personalized needs of the market, and laying a solid foundation for ANTA.
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ANTA's philosophy is very good, it emphasizes the return to professional sports attributes, makes more efforts in material technology, emphasizes serving mass consumers, and pays equal attention to quality and price.
ANTA's product line has two top-level structures: "professional product research and development" and "refined product matrix".
From the perspective of product research and development, ANTA is a leader in science and technology, and together with the same leading design capabilities, it is the hard power of ANTA products.
At the same time, ANTA also has the unique Olympic resources in China, with more than 3,000 patents based on its experience and strength in creating sports equipment for 28 Chinese national teams.
As an apparel brand that serves the public, applying professional and cutting-edge technology to products that the public can afford to consume has always been the content of ANTA's advocacy and thinking.
Of course, this is also the reason why it can take a large share of the mass sportswear market.
In 2023, Ding Shizhong stepped down as CEO of ANTA and only retained the position of chairman of the board, ending his 29-year career as COE.
The reason is that he wants to build a cadre team that "understands business, can lead the team, win battles, and has high pressure resistance", and wants a team of cadres who are result-oriented and can efficiently implement the company's philosophy.
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He feels that there are many new growth opportunities in the current market, so he has made a big adjustment to the high and middle levels.
Lai Shixian, the former CFO of the Group, Wu Yonghua, CEO of Professional Sports, and Zheng Jie, President of the Group, have become the three newly adjusted CEOs, and they are also executive directors of ANTA.
Ding Shizhong's move is not to retire, but to devote himself to specific business, look forward to the future from a higher dimension, and control the overall situation.
"In 2023, we will outperform as a whole", and the overall performance of the group has added more confidence to Ding Shizhong.
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The multi-brand strategy has also achieved remarkable results, with the two main brands, Anta with a revenue of 30.3 billion yuan and FILA with a revenue of 25.1 billion, which alone exceeded Nike China's revenue of 52.1 billion.
In addition to its multi-brand strategy, ANTA also attaches great importance to its DTC (direct-to-consumer) strategy, and Ding Shizhong also sees direct sales capabilities as an important competitiveness.
In 2020, ANTA launched the transformation of the DTC model, realizing the connection of "people, goods and places", and successfully enabling ANTA to have "flexibility".
Earlier, Anta adopted the common large-wholesaler model, and in order to ensure a unified image, too much emphasis was placed on standardization, but this could not be suitable for the current era of pursuing personalization.
The direct-to-consumer model is the first step for ANTA to become flexible.
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Different markets have different actual conditions and different needs, so there must be more flexible strategy standards.
When implementing the DTC strategy, ANTA divides its stores into five levels, namely: Arena, Palace, Elite, Standard and Basic, which are different from space design to product layout to target different consumer groups.
"These are equivalent to splitting Anta into different small combat units, which are more suitable for channel characteristics and better meet the needs of different consumers...... In this way, it is not only more beneficial to the operation of the store, but also to improve the quantity and quality of channels. Xu Yang, CEO of the Anta brand, once said.
Thinking about it from another angle, whether it is a multi-brand strategy or a DTC strategy, the ultimate focus is actually how to better adapt to the diversification and personalization of the market.
At the same time, in 2023, ANTA once again re-mentioned its "mass positioning", which is also a manifestation of satisfying consumers and adapting to changes in the market.
ANTA respects the laws of the market, and the market has also rewarded satisfactory performance, making ANTA shine.
In 2023, Anta also officially announced the spokesperson of basketball products: Owen.
Xu Yang said that the reason why he decided to cooperate with Owen was that the positioning of the goods by both parties was consistent.
Owen said: "I want my shoes to be sneakers that everybody can afford." ANTA's philosophy is: "To provide consumers with affordable and high-quality products".
The two sides coincide, with ANTA doing a good job of "brand upward", but its strategy returns to the "public" and the consumers it faces are the general public.
Not only that, Anta also wants to be the "Anta of the world", and to this end, Ding Shizhong also established the Southeast Asia International Business Department to carry out global multi-brand operation and resource integration.
He said: First, we need to make the value of excellent international brands in China, second, to empower ANTA's unique business model to the world, and third, to make ANTA's culture (openness and inclusiveness) recognized by the world.
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Anta will continue to buy and buy in the future, because in March this year, Ding Shizhong publicly expressed his thoughts: to acquire potential brands and use Anta's advantages to build a world-class sports group.
The acquisition of excellent brands is a good strategy that has been proven in practice for ANTA.
Through the acquisition of excellent brands, it can not only directly enhance ANTA's brand value, but also implement personal IP on products and empower products.
ANTA's two strategies and management adjustments ultimately point to performance, and it has successfully entered the international market through the acquisition of a series of international brands, maintaining a trend of continuous growth year after year.
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Ding Shizhong said: In the next 10 years, Anta will promote globalization with the two-wheel drive of "Anta Group + Amalfen Group".
David, a professor at Harvard University in the United States, said: "Branding is a bias similar to stereotypes. ”
It is precisely this prejudice that Anta has taken advantage of to achieve rich "multifacetedness".
Anta, which has spent 22 billion yuan to acquire a large number of overseas mid-to-high-end brands, can go global, whether Ding Shizhong, who has been making shoes for 30 years, can realize his biggest dream in his heart: to build a world-class brand, I believe time will give the answer.
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Resources:
21st Century Business Review: "With 48.5 billion cash in hand, Jinjiang Shoe King Acquisition Non-stop"
City boundary: 10.2 billion a year
Extreme Retail Research Institute: ANTA's Transformation to DTC Model: Why is it moving from "wholesale retail" to "direct retail"?
Author: Sun Nier
Editor: Ichiyigi