CSGF Chairman mentions new changes in industry data at the annual summit

As an important part of the forum agenda, CSGF Chairman Li Hua mentioned some new changes in industry data and new trends of industry development at the summit based on the report of China's sporting goods industry:

First, new trend of industrial structure: apparent growth of sports service industry

According to the data released by the General Administration of Sport and the National Bureau of Statistics, the overall scale of China's sports industry in 2016 was 1.9 trillion yuan, with an added value of 647.5 billion yuan, accounting for 0.9% of the GDP in the same period. The gross output increased by 11.1% compared with 2015, the added value increased by 17.8%, and the GDP of the sports industry increased for six consecutive years, reaching 0.9%.

It is specially notable that the sports service industry realized an added value of 356.07 billion yuan, with a growth rate of more than 30%, and its ratio in the national sports industry increased from 49.2% in 2015 to 55.0%, officially overtaking the sporting goods manufacturing industry. With the popularization of the Health China concept and rapid development of mass sports, the incremental driving status of sports services in the industrial development will continue to rise. In the future, the existing industrial structure dominated by sports goods manufacturing will be further optimized, and play a more important role in realizing the strategic objective of the sports industry, i.e. creating 5 trillion yuan of industry revenue.

Second, new vitality of endogenous growth: strong performance in the local market

Contrary to the overall rapid development of the sports industry, the performance of sporting goods is weak in terms of import and export data. In 2017, the import and export data of China's sporting goods no longer suffered the downward trend which lasted two consecutive years, however, it is still significantly below the overall growth of China's sports industry. It should also be noted that in 2016, the proportions of domestic and foreign sales of sporting goods were 25.23% and 74.77% respectively, and the domestic sales ratio has maintained growth for 5 consecutive years, indicating that domestic consumption drivers are playing a more important role.

In the past year, the strong performance of China's sporting goods consumption also made a great contribution to the performance of related companies. Chinese sports brands, represented by Anta (25%) and Li Ning (11%), all achieved double-digit growth; international brands such as Nike (12%), Adidas (29%), Under Armour (56%) and Decathlon (10.5 billion yuan), despite their unimpressive overall performance, still had excellent performance in the Chinese market. "China region is driving global revenue" has become a universal phenomenon.

Third, new breakthrough in brand development: accelerated leaping development towards a new stage

While showing a steadily improved performance, Chinese sports brands have also demonstrated strong capability in independent brand development. Iconic events represented by "China Li Ning Appears in New York Fashion Week" and "Anta signs up with Beijing Winter Olympics 2022" have witnessed the overall improvement of China-made products in fashion leadership and international influence. China's manufacturing in the sports field is building a strong brand that fits its own character, and the country is speeding up the pace of upgrading its core competitiveness.

The new process of consumption upgrading has also provided a huge market space and development opportunity for creating more outstanding brands in the sports segment. For example, in the field of fitness equipment, in 2017, Impulse registered in the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, and this year, Shuhua Sports is also starting the process of entering the A-share market. 106 sports companies have registered with the New OTC Market, becoming a particularly eye-catching section. The field of sports investment and financing also has an active performance. So far, there have been over 200 projects since 2016 that completed financing, raising a fund of up to 42.2 billion yuan. It is foreseeable that more high-quality sports companies will stand out in the "New Golden Decade".

Fourth, new outbreak of participatory consumption: sustained release of population size effect

As sports become a mainstream lifestyle, the demand for sports consumption is developing rapidly, especially in participatory consumption, which is on an explosive rise, represented by road running, outdoor and ice & snow events. According to the Report on China's Sports Development and Consumption in 2017, the road running races participants approaches to nearly 5 million person-times, with regular outdoor exercisers of more than 60 million person-times, and skiers of 17.5 million person-times. Moreover, it should be noted that the outbreak of these three groups started only for 2-3 years, and there will be huge room for growth in the future. Furthermore, with the continuous development of the breadth and depth of participation in sports, we can inject more confidence into the market size of the sports consumer population.

The outbreak of participatory consumption will further activate the in-depth development of the entire industry chain. On the one hand, it will bring sustained and rapid growth to the basic consumption of sports equipment and engagement in events; on the other, it will form a long-line, multi-dimension activation capacity in the related fields like skill training, sports big data and sports tourism, and the "demographic dividend" in the sports field will create huge market opportunities.

Chairman Li Hua believes that the sports industry, by gathering all kinetic energy of the times, will play an important role in fully satisfying the people's pursuit of a better life, and have a very promising prospect for development.