China Sportswear 60 years: from the plum brand to Li Ning and Anta

In the 60 years since New China, the sportswear industry in China has gradually developed into an important part of China's sports industry today. From the early game designed solely for the production of sports clothing and sports shoes, fashion and pop to now represents the absolute main, the development of sports apparel is almost a microcosm of the development of Chinese sports industry. After the founding of New China, China's sports industry products started, but the early development is very slow. By the end of 1962, national sports teams and professional physical education teachers, sportswear required by students included in the national plan, since sports and sports clothing to get enough attention. Since 1972, sports equipment planning conferences have been held in the country each year, and since 1979, sports equipment and sportswear planning conferences have been held. At that time, sportswear was produced in textile mills all over the country. In 1975, the Ministry of Textiles organized a trial of a successful spandex game suit in Dalian Jiadi Knitwear Factory. Reform and opening up, China's return to the Olympic family, have given China's sports apparel industry to create a good international and domestic environment. To say that China's first well-known sportswear brand , that is, Tianjin plum. And Shanghai Double Happiness, back to power, Tianjin Lison different from these sports equipment brands, plum is really relying on the famous Chinese sportswear brand. At the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, the Chinese delegation wore the big "China" Plum Blossom Card, printed on the front. The whole world saw the development of Chinese clothing. Plum is not relying on the Olympic Games famous, the 1960s and 1980s Plum brand enjoys popular support, from the national team to provincial and municipal sports teams, many of them are plum sportswear as a professional sportswear. There are even consumers who use "forever classic, immortalized brand" to describe the plum brand. However, due to the impact of the Chinese and foreign clothing brands, plum blossom soon decline. 80s of last century, China's sports apparel industry to explore and start a period of exploration. Well-known foreign brands have entered China, the United States Nike in Shanghai, Tianjin, established a sports shoe factory in 1981, Nike and the Chinese basketball national team signed an advertising agreement; Japan Mizuno also signed a contract with the Chinese women's volleyball team and provide sponsorship. These early foreign brands into China have greatly affected the sports apparel industry in China. Some old brands started to recover, such as Double Star, Pull Back, Plum Blossom and Double Money. New brands have emerged in Guangdong and Zhejiang provinces such as Conway, Top Ten, Geweite, Chiante, Impulse and so on. During this period, the state transitioned from a planned economy to a market economy. From the planning system provided after the first demand in the past, the state gradually transformed into a market economy that operated in accordance with market rules. Although the brands of this period were gradually eliminated in the later market tide, they played a leading role in the development of China's sportswear industry. The successful hosting of the Beijing Asian Games in 1990 marks the first time that China has organized a comprehensive large-scale international sports event. The Chinese sports brands have appeared at this Games one after another. Li Ning company was established at this time, and gradually developed into the 90s of last century, China's most famous domestic sports brand. Li Ning, from the very beginning, positioned itself as a medium-to-high-end, multi-product and multi-category development direction and led a large number of enterprises to switch from the OEM production of footwear products to the sportswear industry. Sportswear and sports shoes are merged by Chinese enterprises in practice and are regarded by the industry as a uniform for sports apparel and have gradually become the mainstream driving the development of China's sports industry. In 1990, Li Ning Company started from Guangdong. Li Ning Olympic Games gymnastics champion to borrow the name of Li Ning brand soon became China's well-known brand name, up to now, "Li Ning" is still the leader in China's sporting goods industry. Beijing's successful Olympic bid has become another booster for the development of China's sports industry. From 2001 to the present nine years, tens of thousands of sportswear enterprises have emerged in Guangdong, Zhejiang and Fujian. Anta, 361 degrees, Xtep, Jordan, Del benefits, Red Star and other enterprises output value every year, rapid growth, changing the Li Ning brand dominate the Chinese market situation. Taking Fujian's Jordanian company as an example, the apparel brand established in 1998 was only a small one among the thousands of sportswear brands in the country. In 2002, its annual output value was only 120 million yuan. But in just six years, the company has exceeded 3 billion in annual sales (2008). Ni Zhen, general manager of Jordan, said frankly: "It is the Olympic bid for the success of our company has brought opportunities for us from tens of millions of small brands to develop into billions of large companies. The last five years is our rapid development period , But also the rapid development of China's sportswear industry. " A more typical example is Anta. After about 10 years, Anta Group has developed into almost synonymous with Li Ning, China's sportswear brand. From the 2008 annual report, Li Ning output value of more than 6 billion Hong Kong dollars, Anta more than 5 billion Hong Kong dollars. Many companies are not listed, can not count the specific figures, but according to the State Sports General Administration Sports Equipment Center estimates that the annual output value of 30-40 billion yuan in the sports apparel business in China there are more than 10. From the above time line, China's sportswear industry has grown from scratch and has experienced about four stages of development in 60 years. In the 30 years before the reform and opening up, the scale was small and the development was slow, and it was only a small category in the textile industry. 1979-1992 period for the exploration phase, a group of old brands with the help of the spring breeze and the involvement of foreign brands, rejuvenated, and led a number of new brand emerges. From 1992 to 2001, the Chinese clothing brand represented by Li Ning entered the real sportswear market and gradually formed an independent industrial scale. Since 2001, with the bidding and hosting of the Beijing Olympic Games, China's sportswear industry has entered a period of rapid development. With the strong rise of such enterprises as Anta and Jordan, China's sportswear industry has gradually established its position in the world. China's sports industry in the end how much output is difficult to estimate. The National Bureau of Statistics has only recently conducted statistics in cooperation with the General Administration of Sport of China. It is expected that figures will be available later this year. Only from the data released by listed companies point of view, in the Chinese market, in addition to Nike and Adidas, other foreign brands market share is not large, basically all the world of domestic brands. Ma Jilong, director of the Sports Equipment Center of the General Administration of Sport of China, said: "We can not estimate exactly how much (output value) we have and figure it is 30 billion yuan (RMB). But this is definitely wrong. We added up the output of these 10 enterprises We can only provide this data, Li Ning in the country has 6,000 shops, Anta, Jordan has 5,000, Red Star and so there are 3,000, count these stores to know how much our market value. Despite the current global financial crisis, 2009 economic situation is grim, but the sports apparel industry generally has little effect, and many domestic brands contrarian, increasing the sponsorship of various sports events. Ma Jilong said: "The global financial crisis has also brought opportunities for the development of China's sports industry. Some well-known foreign big brands are greatly affected by the financial crisis, and Chinese enterprises take this opportunity to occupy a larger domestic and foreign markets. It is expected that the future of China's sportswear industry Will continue its rapid development and will gradually move from low-end products to mid-to-high end products. "