International Marketing Strategy Analysis for Anta Group

[Key words] Anta group， internationalization， SWOT analysis， marketing sttategy

中图分类号：F274 文献标识码：A 文章编号：1009-914X（2014）37-0194-02

How Anta practice well for internationalization， how to make Anta known worldwide， and how to make people loyal consumers of Anta’s products are some of the problems Anta must face. There is a long way of internationalization before it. This paper analyzes strengths， weakness， opportunities， and threats （SWOT） of Anta’s international marketing. Finally，propose some suggestions.

1 Present situation of Anta group’s international marketing

Anta’s real internationalization started in 2007. By now， Anta has only taken three strategies that can be called international marketing strategies[1][2]. They are as follows.

（1） It signed on representing with Luis Alberto Scola and Steve Francis in November， 2007. Meanwhile， it signed a contract with Houston Rockets so as to establish strategic alliance cooperative relationship with it.

（2） In January and April， 2009， it signed a contract with Jelena Jankovic， which makes Anta’s tennis brand known to the world. In September， Anta group acquired FILA’s right of trademark and franchise in China. Besides， Anta made cooperative partner with Chinese Olympic Committee.

（3） It signed on basketball products with Kevin Garnett， and integrated some related segments. It also established a product line centered on Gatnett to expand the share in international basketball products’ market.

2 SWOT analysis of internationalization marketing strategies

2.1 Strengths of Anta group’s international marketing

（1） Stable domestic market-strong base for globalization： Anta’s sales volume in 2006 is just 1.5 billion Yuan. But it increased to 8.902 billion Yuan in 2011， ranking second. In the first half year of 2011， Anta became the top sports brand in domestic markets.

Anta has established flagship stores nationwide since 2006. These years， Anta’s chain stores spread into every large and medium sized city in China， especially in second-tier cities and developed third-tier cities. So far， an empire of distribution network has been formed.

（2） Powerful spokesperson team： Anta’s brand spokespersons include very influential people like Kevin Garnett， Guo Jingjing etc. To cooperate with proper spokespersons and organize a series of campaigns can enhance its popularity overseas.

2.2 Weakness of Anta group’s international marketing

（1） All-round development reduced enterprise resources： It took Anta only four years to become the leader of new sport brands in China from its first globalization in 1999. During the later years， Anta concentrated on imitating Li Ning’s products. But actually， there is a huge brand crisis behind the seeming brilliant achievements. And enterprise resources and scientific research strength are not enough to support the comprehensive development model. And Anta's enterprise resources are unable to support its grab strategy， and this eventually leads Anta seemingly flowers like King， but embarrassment plots.

（2） Insufficient research and development investment and weak technological strength： Anta has only 28 years’ development history and its research team lasted for only 10 years by now. Therefore， Anta’s comprehensive strategies become a heavy burden for its research and development team.

（3） Late start and inadequate experience： Anta’s international marketing started in 2007， meanwhile it didn’t start internationalization until there were many opponents preempted overseas markets. This undoubtedly increases the difficulty in access to markets and decrease success rate.

2.3 Opportunities of Anta group’s international marketing

（1） Top competitions-Anta’s show stage：It is important for Anta to promote brand level and make brand impressive to consumers. Anta didn’t take full advantage of international top sports platforms. Thus， Anta should seize opportunities such as the Olympic Games， Winter Olympic Games and so forth to make special sponsorship and propagandas.

（2） Brand cultural identity：Only when a corporate has cultural identity can it get more show space in its target market[3].At present，almost all of Anta’s target market countries are friendly with China.More or less，their consumers have consensus with Chinese brand.So Anta should improve and spread brand culture，and try to take a solid road of internationalization with its own characteristics.

（3） Sunrise industry：As sport industry develops fast，it became one of sunrise industries with great vitality and broad prospect.Anta should take advantage of this opportunity to analyze consumers’ behaviors carefully and split markets into some segment markets. Then find the most proper markets and adopt multi-brand strategies to approach deeply.

（4） Internet-thinking society-Community economy & E-commerce： In today’s Internet-thinking society， E-commerce become one of the most effective way to run corporation and make profits. Community economy makes cheaper-cost connection within resource and service necessary to every link from commodity production to its circulation. Furthermore， Internet makes cooperation more effective and this will no doubt create huge fortune. Threats of Anta group’s international marketing

Both the price of main raw materials and the labor force cost have risen in the last past years. There were some clues showed the affect of rising cost in Anta group’s financial report 2011. Anta’s products’costs rised， so it planed to raise the price of products. But consumers in Asia and Africa are so sensitive to commodities’ price that once Anta raise price， both the sales volume and profits will fall. Capital shortage will restrict implementing of the international marketing strategies to a great extend.

3 Internationalization marketing strategies

3.1 Improve self-dependent research and innovation ability

One of the most important things for Anta group is to innovate and improve products’ technology content. It’s necessary to make professional R&D team， and adopt new and advanced technologies to develop new products with proprietary intellectual property right. And Anta should invest more resource and capital into R&D department and design department， import international advanced development and management system， hire top designers and professors good at developing and managing. Then， improve the working team’s professional skill and products’ overall quality so as to increase brand competition capacity.

3.2 Analyze markets deeply and set oneself at a proper position

We often use Michael Porter’s Five Forces Model （see Fig.1） to have an omnibearing analysis of an enterprise’s outside environment in order to make proper strategy.

（1） Threat of new entrants： Low technology contents in main sports products like sports shoes， sports clothes and sports equipments make it easy to enter this industry only by simple imitating.

（2） Bargaining power of suppliers： Rising price of raw materials at home is a big problem. In order to control price， and increase its market shares in East Asia and Southeast Asia， more suppliers are supposed to be found.

（3） Threat of substitutes： At present， casual clothes is still the main substitute of sports wear. In allusion to this problem， fashion elements should be added so as to rival causal clothes.

（4） Bargaining power of buyers： Buyers have strong bargaining power because there are many kinds of commodities to choose. To solve this problem， various promotion ways and proper pricing strategies will be effective.

（5） Rivalry of firms within industry： Rivalry between different brands becomes white-hot. Only if Anta knows well about its rivals and learn from them can Anta catch up with even surpass the competitor.

4 Conclusion

In this paper， we analyze strength， weakness， opportunity and threat in Anta group’s internationalization， we conclude that Anta has its advantages in internationalization. But at the same time， weak R&D ability is a major obstacle in Anta’s internationalization. So Anta should adopt those mentioned suggestions. Only if Anta set a right position for itself， it can find a most suitable way to internationalization.

5 References

[1] Luyao Wang，Zhenyong Han，Keqi Lv.Research on the status of china’s sporting goods business and marking strategy from the “Anta mode”.Huber Sports Science，2012，vol.31，no.2，pp.137-141.

[2] Yong Wu.Study on marketing strategies of the Anta sports brand. China Busines & Trade，2010，no 10，pp.27-28.

[3] Junli Li，Zhenhua Zhang，Dongxia Zhang.Study on international strategies of the sportsware brand 361 Degrees.Enterprise Economy， 2011，no.11，pp.50-52.