Chinese sportswear giant on the ascent
Chinese sportswear brand Anta has reported strong first half sales, following a disappointing few years when the market became chocked with excess inventory and growth slowed.
Anta operates more than 8,600 stores in China, manufactures around half its clothing products and reported record revenues and profits.
The company owns the rights to the Fila brand in China and opened around 30 stores to take the total to 544.
Two sub-brands, Fila Kids and Fila INTIMO, were launched during the period, with the aim of tapping the promising children’s clothing and men’s underwear markets.
During the period, Anta introduced over 770 shoe styles, 1,540 clothing designs and 640 accessories “in order to cater for the needs of both professional and casual users”.
It said it will make ”the best use of its own R&D resources and incorporate technology into the value-for-money footwear products, such as the newly-developed dual-layer support technology (A-Strata). All forms of apparel technologies and high-quality advanced fabrics for different sports and weather conditions will be applied to our diverse ranges of apparel products”.
CEO Ding Shizhong commented: “China’s sportswear industry is generally expected to continue to face intense competition and consolidation in the near term. Nevertheless, we have successfully regained growth through effective branding strategies and retail-oriented measures, and are likely to hit another peak in the full year of 2015.
"Meanwhile, the Chinese government’s support in expanding domestic demand, accelerating the development of the sports industry and the growing popularity of sports participation in China are favourable factors spurring the domestic sportswear market in the mid to long term.”
