The status of the garment industry outdoor apparel market

Recently, Lotte, Hyundai, and New World, the three largest department stores in Korea, have invariably launched the same policy: increasing the introduction of outdoor brands into the store, and opening the door to the outdoor brands with the largest scale.

In South Korean department stores, the best sales are outdoor brands. This fall will continue this trend. In particular, in the first half of the year, most of the Korean department stores experienced a slowdown in the growth of their product categories. Outdoor brands, however, bucked the trend and increased at an average rate of 30%.

The Blue Ocean in the eyes of enterprises

Let's look at Korea, which is an Asian country but has a relatively high market sensitivity. At present, many apparel companies in South Korea are increasing their investment in outdoor apparel products and introducing outdoor apparel brands under this brand. Taking HANGTEN (Korea) as an example, the company recently launched its outdoor brands and strengthened its brands in the fall and winter seasons after the products were launched, bringing the outdoor product category to 10-12. This year, HANGTEN (Korea)'s sales target is 100 billion won (about 600 million yuan).

Look at the situation of *** companies. Last year, Nanjing Jihua 3503 Garment Factory, known as China's oldest industry-standard clothing R&D and production base, launched its outdoor brand. So far, Jihua Outdoor has opened dozens of physical stores in more than a dozen provinces and cities nationwide, mainly in large and medium-sized cities such as Beijing, Nanjing, Tianjin, Chongqing and Wuhan. In particular, on July 17 this year, Jihua Outdoor flagship store was established in Sanlitun SOHO, one of the fashion frontiers in Beijing. For the future, Li Xuecheng, general manager of Jihua Group Co., Ltd., said: “Before 2015, our sales outlets should be expanded to 1,500.”

In addition, Jiangsu Yueda Textile Group Co., Ltd. is also optimistic about the future outdoor apparel market. After extensive market research, it created the “LUCK&JOURNEY” outdoor brand last year.

As the company's general manager Chen Hao said, in recent years, China’s annual growth rate of outdoor retail sales reached 50%, and the average annual growth rate of shipments reached 50%. “This is undoubtedly a new blue ocean. ".

According to relevant data, at present, there are more than 400 professional outdoor brands in China's domestic market, with local brands accounting for about 30%; professional outdoor retail stores reaching nearly 2,000, and department store retail points reaching more than 1,600, and other sales models are also Different ways are rapidly developing; at the same time, more than 400 professional outdoor sports clubs also provide potential deep consumer base for outdoor brands.

It is worth mentioning that this year, the 6th Asian Outdoor Products Exhibition has been held, which fully demonstrates the continuous development and expansion of outdoor brands in China. The scale of the Asia Outdoor Products Show is getting bigger and stronger. At the sixth Asian outdoor goods exhibitors that just concluded at the end of July, nearly 50,000 square meters of exhibition halls are lined with products of various brands. There are more than 450 famous brands of outdoor products at home and abroad, of which nearly 70% are Chinese outdoor brands, and their performance is very eye-catching.

In addition, there is a set of data that better explains the problem. In 2001, the outdoor sports equipment market in China was only 40 to 50 million yuan in size. It surged to 1 billion yuan in 2005 and reached 2.6 billion yuan in 2006, with an average annual growth rate of more than 100%.

By 2010, according to statistics of the China Textile Commerce Association Outdoor Products Branch (COCA), the retail sales of the outdoor products market in China exceeded 7 billion yuan, reaching 7.13 billion yuan, an increase of approximately 47.01% over the previous year. Looking back at the 10 years between 2000 and 2010, China’s outdoor retail market has grown at an average annual rate of 47.33%, maintaining a sustained and rapid development trend, and it has become one of the fastest growing sub-sectors in the retail sector. . At the same time, the sales of outdoor fashion sports goods of key large retail enterprises increased by 15.6% over the growth rate of sporting goods, and the proportion of outdoor sports goods in sporting goods increased from 13.8% to 19.9%.

Capital optimistic about outdoor brands Jack Wolfskin, an outdoor clothing brand based in Germany, announced that the company was acquired by private equity giant Blackstone Group. Although the two sides did not disclose detailed terms of the transaction, but according to informed sources, the transaction price may be 700 million euros (about 994 million US dollars). Blackstone Group stated that it is already in contact with several candidates with “international vision and experience” and may announce new CEO candidates within a few weeks. The acquisition of Jack Wolfskin will be completed within August.

It should be noted that Blackstone Group is one of the largest independent alternative asset management institutions in the world, and the largest listed investment management company in the United States. It is favored by this giant. Not only was Jack Wolfskin a blessing, but it also reflected the positive influence of outdoor brands. Gradually by the capital market.

In China, on October 30, 2009, the Pathfinder listed on the GEM, becoming the first outdoor branded company to be listed, and it also opened the capital upsurge of Chinese outdoor brands. It has continued to the present and has been more and more. Meng trend.

On October 15, 2010, Jialin Jie was listed on the SME Board at the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, and its business scope is also focused on outdoor concepts.

In fact, as early as the beginning of 2008, there was an outdoor brand that had acquired several tens of millions of investment from well-known domestic investment companies. It was Sanfu Outdoor. On the official website of Sanfu Outdoors, it clearly stated that its goal was to establish 50 outdoor franchise stores of the highest international standards before the end of 2013, becoming an industry leader and becoming a listed company worth RMB 10 billion. "There are already brokers who are beginning to contact us," said its founder and general manager Zhang Heng.

There are also several major outdoor brands in Quanzhou. These brands are pursuing the link between capital and brand under the premise of mature products, increasingly perfect terminal construction, and established brand image. According to media reports, at the 6th Asian Outdoor Products Exhibition held in Nanjing at the end of July, there were many venture capitalists besides agents who came to see the products. The industry analysts also believe that the outdoor product industry has become a sunrise industry. Its strong development has attracted the attention of the capital. The wind investment gold has extended olive branches to some mature brands, and these brands will also seek greater foothold. The development of space, capital involvement is undoubtedly the most powerful booster. Once the connection is successful, there will be more outdoor brands on the capital market.

Looking back at the listed outdoor brands, how is their performance? Beijing Pathfinder Outdoor Products Co., Ltd. released a performance report showing that the company achieved operating income of 433 million yuan in 2010, an increase of 47.57%, net profit of 53,235,500 yuan, an increase of 20.9%; earnings per share of 0.4 yuan. Jia Linjie's 2010 annual report showed that it achieved operating income of 686 million yuan, net profit of 61.51 million yuan, an increase of 40.13% and 43.7% over the same period of the previous year, and a fully diluted earnings per share of 0.296 yuan. A lot of analysts' expectations.

Brokerage firms are also optimistic about the future expectations of outdoor brands. “The market competition of outdoor brands is quite fierce, but the industry is good because its development space is still very large. We expect this market to maintain an average annual growth rate of 30% to 40%.” Guojin Securities Textiles Industry chief analyst** thinks.

In the future, compared with foreign counterparts, there are still some gaps in China's outdoor brand market. "In terms of quantity, compared with Europe, there are relatively few outdoor brands in China. In the European outdoor clothing brand market, different brands are distinguished by different functionalities. For example, there are specific to mountaineering. Clothing brands, there are apparel brands that specialize in outdoor tourism and camping. Although these brands are under the outdoor banner, they are not the same for customers and consumer groups. At present, the market segmentation of this outdoor sport in China is different. The concept is unclear and vague.” Although this is the evaluation of the Chinese outdoor brand market by former Ozark brand designers when they were interviewed by the media several years ago, these problems still exist, and although the improvement has been made, the gap still remains. Not small.

But it is precisely these gaps that make Chinese outdoor brands even more hopeful, because there are gaps that have the space and motivation to catch up. And from the development trajectory of foreign developed markets, we can better see our own hopes. In 2010, the size of the outdoor market in the United States has reached 15 billion U.S. dollars, and the EU is even as high as 14 billion euros. In addition, there are currently more than 20,000 campsites in the United States with various themes and different stars, and the number of camping sites in China is still at double digits. More industry insiders predict that "in the next few years, China's outdoor products industry will enter a rapid growth period at a rate of nearly 50% per year."

In addition, it is also important that the consumer groups of outdoor brands are going outdoor. In other words, consumers of outdoor brands are no longer pure explorers or “alien” professionals or non-professional outsiders. Some people who are not involved in outdoor sports and outdoor sports also begin to like outdoor brands. Taking South Korea's famous outdoor brand BLACKYAK as an example, its stores are all over South Korea's large and small cities, and its buying population is very extensive. From children to the elderly is its target audience, because these consumers are not looking at outdoor clothing. Special features, but like the high quality and unique design of outdoor brands. In China, this phenomenon is gradually emerging.

There is also an interesting phenomenon. Extreme weather that is not to be seen or even unavoidable is a popular “guest” for outdoor brands because extreme weather such as sudden cold has unexpectedly boosted the weather. Outdoor brand sales. In the United Kingdom, outdoor retailers’ clothing sales have increased significantly due to the frequent cold-blooded attacks in 2009. It is understood that in December 2009, the UK’s well-known outdoor apparel company’s turnover increased by a record 30% compared with the same period in 2008. In 2010, outdoor clothing was also used in China for snow, and it was called by the industry “created snow economy”.

Last winter’s winter and heavy snowfall brought sales of outdoor clothing such as ski wear. Ski clothes, ski hats, snow glasses, skis and other related products were sought after by fashionistas. The sales of ski suits and other new ski wear products surged and even became out of stock. In the online shopping market, outdoor clothing is also very popular, especially in the Beijing where snow is more. The turnover of ski products is as high as 1.8 million yuan, accounting for nearly 2/3 of the total trade volume in the country.