According to estimate based on the latest market research by the organizers of the Asia Outdoor, China’s outdoor market expanded by 10.9 percent to 17.06 billion yuan at retail last year. While this double-digit growth is enviable in most cases, it represents a further slowdown in the growth of the market after an increase of 16.2 percent or more in 2013 and beyond.
Online sales soared by 61.7 percent to reach RMB 4.85 billion, or 28.4 percent of China’s core outdoor market. That compares to a 53.4 percent market share for mono-brand stores and 16.9 percent for multi-brand stores. The rise of online retailing, however, along with the rising cost of store rentals, led to a decline of 1 percent in the number of Chinese outdoor stores last year, down to 12,302. This was caused by a drop of 2.8 percent in the number of mono-brand stores to 8,501 outlets, while the number of multi-brand stores climbed by 3.3 percent to 3,801.
The number of outdoor brands operating in the Chinese market increased by 11.8 percent to 775 last year. While the number of Chinese brands was up by 24.7 percent to 354, the number of foreign brands inched up by 2.9 percent to 421. While Chinese brands accounted for just 37 percent of all outdoor brands in the market in 2010, the rate increased to about 46 percent last year.
