Anta, the sportswear brand of the Xiamen,Fujian province-based Anta Group, aims to reach compound annual growth rate inretail sales of the next five years between 18 to 25 percent through effortsthat include winning generation Z consumers and boosting digitalization.

Speaking of its five-year strategic targetsand a 24-month acceleration plan, Anta said annual growth of online retailsales will exceed 30 percent, with online business taking up 40 percent oftotal retail sales by 2025.

In five years, the median-priced sportswearbrand is expected to raise its high-end product proportion through developingcutting-edge technology to keep up with consumption upgrades and diversifieddemands from younger consumers. The company is investing 4 billion yuan inresearch and development in five years.

Running, basketball and women's sportswearhave remained Anta's priority. By 2025, annual sales volume of its runningshoes is expected to grow to 40 million pairs from 20 million pairs now. Sales volumeof basketball sneakers is expected to be raised from the current 6 millionpairs to 12 million pairs. The brand is building its women's sportswearcategory to a revenue of nearly 20 billion yuan.

In two years, Anta is to add more stores inshopping centers in first-tier to third-tier cities. Its store efficiency isexpected to surge by more than 40 percent.

Anta Kids, a prominent sub-brand of Anta,aims to increase its online business to take up 40 percent of its total revenueby 2025.

The company will continue to sponsoroutfits for the Chinese National Teams. Anta will capture mainstream businessdistricts in first- and second-tier cities by developing "ChampionSeries" high-end products and setting up "ANTA Champion Stores",the company said.

Building stronger digitalization is a keydriver for Anta, which is investing 400 million yuan in the next 24 months inthis sector.

"The growth of online business in theyears to come will trump that of offline due to the changes of consumers'behaviors. We will continue to invest in online operations and digitalizationto adapt to the trend," said Zheng Jie, president of Anta Group.

For example, the company has plans to boostits self-operated media platforms and content productions to optimize its touchpointswith more consumers and to increase their repeat buying.

Anta said it plans to double the number ofeffective members to 120 million by 2025, contributing to about 70 percent ofrevenues. Its private traffic system is to be enhanced to make up to 20 percentin revenues from the current less than 10 percent. Livestreaming atbrick-and-mortar stores and inviting key influencers in marketing also arehoped to fuel sales, particularly among generation Z consumers.

"Anta will not only help national professionalathletes improve their performance through our world-class R&D innovationcapability, but also will apply premium-quality technology and materials tomass products to provide sports-lovers with more professional choices. Ibelieve that after over 30 years of accelerated transformation, Anta brand willachieve rapid growth in the next 24 months and become a leading sports brand inChina," Ding Shizhong, chairman and CEO of Anta Group, said.

Anta'smulti-brand strategy spurs champion growth in H1

The country's leading sportswear group,Anta Sports Products Limited, has seen strong growth both in revenue andprofits, ranking among the top three sportswear brands in the world by marketvaluation, propelled by its multiple brand strategy.

The group announced its interim report onTuesday, saying its half-year revenue exceeded 22.8 billion yuan ($3.52billion), with a growth rate of more than 55 percent, reaching record highresults and consolidating the group's leading position in China's sportswear industry.Its profit attributable to shareholders increased by 131.6 percent to 3.84billion yuan.

During the reporting period, the marketvalue of Anta Sports exceeded HK$500 billion.

Ding Shizhong, chairman of the board ofdirectors and CEO of Anta Group, said: "China's market advantages andresilience are becoming prominent, and the consumer confidence for China'ssports industry is still strong."

He added: "The group is building multi-brandoperations as its core competitiveness with a consumer-centered approach. Itwill continue to promote the DTC (direct-to-customer) model which directlyreaches out to consumers, and achieve development driven by technologicalinnovation."

In July, Anta released its developmentstrategy for the next five years. By 2025, the group's compounded annual growthrate for revenue will be 18 to 25 percent, and its overall market share willincrease by 3 to 5 percent.

The group will focus on two core strategies– centered on professional sports and elevating the brand -- and invest 4billion yuan in five years to strengthen innovation and product research anddevelopment.

In the first half of the year, its mainbrand Anta saw its consumer structure trend toward younger and more diversifiedgroups, driving the rapid growth of online and offline sales as well as soaringrevenue, up 56.1 percent to 10.58 billion.

The fashion sports brand Fila's revenue hasgrown by 51.4 percent to 10.82 billion yuan, powered by footwear sales as itcontinues developing a megastore model.

The outdoor sports brand is becoming a newgrowth engine behind the group's performance, said the company.

The group's high potential growth curveincludes outdoor brands such as Descente and Kolon Sport, reaching revenuegrowth of 90.1 percent year-on-year.

Amer Sports saw its revenue exceed 1billion euros, reductions in its gross profit and operating costs in the firsthalf of 2021, and performance double in the Chinese market, with strong growthmomentum.

Amer Sports' earnings before interest,taxes, depreciation and amortization reached 557 million yuan.

In the first half the 2021, Descente, agolf apparel brand, consolidated its positioning in high-end, premium texturedand specialized sports gear, with rapid growth continuing in online and offlinerevenue.

Upgrades and improvements in the KolonSport brand and products led to major increases in revenue and storeefficiency.

In the digital realm, the group'se-commerce revenue still continued soaring growth, up 61 percent year-on-year,while online sales growth for Anta and Descente, surpassed 50 percent.

According to statistics from the e-commerceplatform Tmall, Anta Group ranked first in transactions of all enterprises inthe industry in terms of revenue in the first half of 2021.

The group continued to push forward thedigital intelligence transformation of the supply chain, and increased theresponse time among rapid response orders by a factor of three.

The planned construction of two newlogistics centers in Guangdong province and in Chengdu, Sichuan province, willenhance the logistics system.

Construction for the Fila intelligentlogistics center has already begun, said the company. A network of generalwarehouses and cloud warehouses has been developed nationwide, nearly doublingorder processing efficiency, said the company.

Antato broaden market in top-tier cities and abroad

Anta Sports Products Ltd, the Jinjiang,Fujian province-based Chinese sports brand, plans to broaden its marketpresence in both China's top-tier cities and developed countries to go alongwith the nation's dual-circulation growth paradigm, as well as seize moreshares in the world's high-end sportswear market, a senior executive said.

In addition to reinforcing the earningstrength of its over 7,000 stores across China, with the majority of themlocating in lower-tier cities, Anta will run more superstores and introducemore high-end products, including running and basketball shoes in China's topand second-tier cities to further compete with both established global anddomestic rivals, said Zhu Chenye, Anta's vice-president and CMO.

"We hope to seize the freshopportunities arising from the dual circulation growth paradigm by introducingmore personalized products and services that add value and health relevance toconsumers' lives," she added.

Proposed by the central leadership, thedual-circulation development pattern has emerged as the overriding economictheme, with innovation, opening-up and the need to boost domestic demandidentified as priorities during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25). Itsees domestic circulation as the mainstay and domestic and internationalcirculation reinforcing each other.

Eager to promote its sales and brandawareness, Anta debuted several of shoe products, including marathon andbasketball shoes made by new and green materials, in an Anta technology revealevent on Monday. Backed by Anta‘s nitrogen technology, these types of shoes arelightweight, rebound and wear-resistant.

As a sponsor for the upcoming 2022 BeijingWinter Olympic Games, Anta also introduced its latest warm technology solutionin sportswear during the event. The products are designed to support 12national teams it sponsored and up to 30,000 service staff during the Gamesnext year.

Apart from widening its footprint in Russiaand member economies of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Anta isplanning to boost sales in both e-commerce platforms and brick-and-mortarstores in European and the United States markets in the coming years, Zhu said.

"As the expected implementation of theRegional Comprehensive Economic Partnership agreement will generate freshmomentum for China and its partners to boost multilateral trade soon, we willdefinitely build a well-developed sales network in the Asia-Pacificregion," she said, noting the company will continue to open new stores inThailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam and other SoutheastAsian markets, so local consumers can buy its products directly.

"With the support of design teams inJapan and the Republic of Korea, our products will provide more options toconsumers in different regions and meet their demand for variousfunctions," Zhu added.

Young consumers have a strong desire toshop and show individuality, and they are keen to share their ideas across theworld. Therefore innovative products are more attractive to them," saidGuo Xin, a marketing professor at Beijing Technology and Business University.

She said there isn't a big gap betweendomestic and global apparel brands when customers shop in both online andoffline worlds. Many of them pay close attention to items that could show theirindividuality with various cultural factors.