Xtep International, a domestic sporting goods company with fashion as its main feature, announced yesterday in Hefei that it officially formed an alliance with the English Premier League team Birmingham City Team to jointly launch professional football supplies including jerseys. Xtep executives said that they are not afraid of adidas' dominance in the field of football supplies, Adidas will make mistakes, and Xtep will use "coyote tactics" to grab market share from opponents.
Yesterday, Ding Shuibo, president of Xtep, signed a cooperation agreement with Yang Jiacheng, the Chinese owner of the Premier League Birmingham City Football Club. The cooperation included Xtep's sponsorship of a full set of sports equipment for the Birmingham City team, including shoes, uniforms, caps, bags, socks for competitions and training, and cooperation. The development of "BCFC-Xtep" series of branded apparel, in addition to co-arranged Chinese mainland players to play in the Premier League. Ding Shuibo said that this is the first time that Chinese sports brands have entered all five major European football leagues. At present, China's domestic sports brands still show a blank in the cooperation of top football projects. The cooperation between Xtep and the Birmingham City team will fill this gap.
Birmingham City Football Club belongs to the Hong Kong-listed company Birmingham Global Holdings Limited (02309.HK). The company's announcement yesterday disclosed more details of the cooperation between the two parties. The cooperation between the two parties lasted from August 2010 to May 2015. Birmingham Universal pays 90 million Hong Kong dollars, while providing "BCFC-Xtep" brand sportswear worth 10 million Hong Kong dollars. If Birmingham City team wins the participation in the British Championship, the English Premier League, the FA Cup, the League Cup and the UEFA Cup final, Xtep will pay another 800,000 to 5 million HKD sponsorship.
Football supplies have always been Adidas's world. In the 2006 World Cup, only one football was sold. Adidas sales revenue exceeded 1.2 billion euros, approximately 12 billion yuan, while Xtep's annual revenue in 2008 was 2.847 billion yuan. Adidas is in the field of football supplies. Take the absolute advantage. Ye Qi, vice president of Xtep, told reporters that this does not mean that domestic sporting goods manufacturers such as Xtep have no chance at all.
Ye Qi told reporters: "Adidas also made mistakes. Due to over-optimistic estimates of the sporting goods market trend after the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, Adidas was busy with discounted inventory clearance in 2009. The maximum discount rate was 3%, and annual sales revenue had been Li Ning (02331.HK) exceeded. Adidas's mistake means that domestic companies have opportunities.†Ye Qi believes Adidas is very strong, but other companies can gradually eat up its market through "coyote tactics", that is, in football teams, With a little advancement in football stars and football game resources, Adidas cannot possibly eat all the teams, stars and events. Xtep's cooperation with Birmingham City Team is the first step to enter the professional football supply market. Xtep will be more and more international. First-rate football team and star team.
Reebok is one of the major platforms for Adidas's fashion sports products, but data shows that Reebok’s sales in the third quarter of 2009 fell by about 12% year-on-year. In order to reverse this trend, Reebok recently announced cooperation with luxury fashion brand Giorgio Armani to launch new products. Ye Qi said: "After Reebok was acquired by Adidas, a fundamental problem is that this brand is not cultivated by Adidas after all. Therefore, under Adidas' Big Tree, Reebok's 'grass' will grow. It's hard."
The sales of Xtep football products already accounted for about 30% of its apparel sales. Ye Qi told reporters that in addition to launching professional football supplies for use by teams such as Birmingham City, football fashion products such as windbreakers will also be introduced. Casual clothes, etc. He said: "Football is a sport, but it is also a fun entertainment activity and fashion, so Xtep will combine its own entertainment marketing advantages to introduce stylish football products. Football is the world's largest sport, this With a broad market prospect, football supplies will become one of the core businesses of Xtep in the future."