Taikoo Li and SKP compete for FILA

Author | Wang Xiaojuan

Editor | Zhou Zhiyu

In the summer of continuous sports events, the air is filled with the smell of hormones, and many sports brands have also achieved great success in performance.

Recently, China's largest sports brand ANTA released its financial report for the first half of 2024. In the context of generally mediocre industry growth, ANTA Group's revenue reached 33.74 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 13.8%.

Its various brands also performed well. Among them, the sports fashion brand FILA, which is known for its tennis skirts and other single items, also gained popularity this summer, with revenue growing by 6.8% to 13.06 billion yuan, dispelling concerns about its "slowdown" in previous years.

The growth in revenue is also due to the fact that FILA's focus on fashion sports is becoming the dressing style of many women nowadays, a trend that can also be seen from the success of Lululemon.

This year, many consumers have noticed that FILA's stores have become more fashionable.

In order to always lead the fashion trend, FILA also attaches great importance to channel upgrades. Over the past decade, FILA has updated its stores six times, with many new stores opened this year being its "V6" stores.

In channel upgrades, FILA is good at creating an aesthetic space that integrates sports, fashion, culture, and personality, not only displaying and selling products but also creating a lifestyle.

In the first half of the year, FILA opened brand new Italian sports aesthetic stores in several representative commercial complexes across the country—Sanlitun in Beijing, Deji Plaza in Nanjing, and Taikoo Li in Chengdu.

Among them, the Sanlitun store in Beijing is in the style of the Palace of Versailles, the Taikoo Li store in Chengdu is the world's first FILA Atelier store, and the Deji Plaza store in Nanjing is created with the cultural imagery of the Louvre. Each store has a unique style and has become a new local landmark for visitors.

Furthermore, FILA is also becoming a new favorite of high-end businesses.

After the above three stores became new examples, more and more high-end commercial entities hope to cooperate with FILA.

In July, at the newly opened Wuhan SKP, FILA opened the world's first FILA F-BOX, adjacent to a host of global luxury brands such as LV, GUCCI, Prada, and Gentle Monster.

In the jungle of luxury goods, FILA appears to be quite special, providing consumers with a diverse choice beyond luxury brands.

Of course, stores are just a presentation form, and the reason why high-end commercial entities are competing for FILA is also because FILA's products are recognized by consumers.

In terms of marketing, FILA also cooperates with the Palace of Versailles for authorized collections and collaborates with well-known IPs such as Pompidou. For example, at the FILA Atelier store in Chengdu, in addition to the Han Suxi series, Archive series, and designer collaboration series, there are also global limited edition products such as CASA FILA and FILA PLUS, easily capturing the attention of young people On the product side, based on the main theme of fashion sports, FILA is trying to focus more on professional sports tracks, creating trends and leading the way.

This summer, women at the forefront of fashion are all wearing tennis skirts. As a brand with the deepest connection to tennis, FILA is also reaping the benefits of this tennis trend.

Walking into the store, the models in the spotlight are always wearing tennis skirts.

On Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book), there are 40,000 notes related to FILA, and tennis skirt outfits always seem to be a hot topic, with many women exchanging outfit ideas and recommending styling tips in the comments section.

Beyond tennis, FILA has also started to invest in other professional sports. Last year, FILA even opened up a new golf track that is more in line with high-end shopping malls.

The performance of new products quickly reflected in the financial report as well. FILA stated that its clothing and sports category has focused on elite sports such as golf and tennis in a differentiated manner, achieving double-digit growth; at the same time, it is rapidly expanding into high-potential areas such as outdoor and sustainability.

Of course, while creating new growth, in the past few years, trends like "chunky sneakers" and "cat claw shoes" have led the way, leading to good growth in FILA's footwear category as well. The financial report shows that driven by fashionable hot sellers and professional sports, FILA's footwear category has grown by over 20%.

After all, compared to clothing that has more requirements for scenes and body shapes, shoes are more similar, naturally attracting more audiences interested in the brand.

Currently, the trend of sports fashion has only recently emerged in China, with significant room for growth.

According to a survey data from 2022, the penetration rate of outdoor sports in China is only 28.3%, which is a considerable distance from the over 50% penetration rate overseas. This also means that in China, the market mainly focused on outdoor sports still has a large potential space.

In the past two years, many brands have diversified from a single professional sport to enter a broader outdoor sports field, becoming favorites of many middle-class individuals, such as Lululemon originating from yoga, On combining with running, and Salomon deeply tied to outdoor activities like trail running. These three brands are even referred to as the "middle-class treasures".

Moreover, even if not engaging in outdoor sports, many people are now adopting the lifestyle created by these brands. For brands like FILA, this makes it easier to cultivate user loyalty along with their competitors, and also means they will have more educated audiences from the market.

As these brands mature in cultivating the market, in the future, the trend of sports leading fashion will have even greater potential, and brands like FILA will have even more room for growth