On March 6, U.S. time, the world's first sale of KAI 1 basketball shoes was held at Sneaker Politics, a trendy shoe buyer store in Dallas.
This sale marks the official launch of ANTA's globalization strategy and will also become a new starting point for the internationalization of the ANTA brand. After that, this sneaker will be successively sold in major cities around the world such as New York, San Francisco, Dubai, Singapore, Manila, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Wuhan, Hangzhou, and Xiamen.
ANTA (ANTA Sports Goods Co., Ltd.) was established in 1991 and is committed to the design, research and development, manufacturing, marketing and sales of sports goods, including shoes, clothing and accessories. Over the years, it has formed three major brands: professional sports, fashion sports and outdoor sports. Brand group. As of the first half of 2023, ANTA has approximately 5,500 stores covering 24 regions across the country. Its brand revenue increased by 6.1% year-on-year to RMB 14.17 billion, and revenue from its subsidiary brand FILA increased by 13.5% year-on-year to RMB 12.23 billion.
On July 12 last year, the ANTA brand officially announced the signing of Mavericks star Kyrie Irving as its basketball spokesperson, and said, "ANTA will launch a new business cooperation model with Kyrie Irving to create an exclusive personal product line to help everyone in various fields. People who love basketball will work together to promote the development of basketball culture." This KAI 1 basketball shoe is their first pair of collaborative sneakers, and Irving himself also wore this joint pair in basketball games in North America earlier.
If ANTA wants to enter the overseas market, it needs to compete with several major sports footwear brands that have established a foothold in the North American market, including Nike, New Balance, Brooks, Asics and other professional footwear brands. On the one hand, signing Irving can get traffic bonuses from star athletes, and on the other hand, it can also endorse the professionalism of its sneakers. In the field of footwear, ANTA has many patented technologies. The ones it has released so far include "hydrogen running shoes", "forefoot running shoes", "nitrogen technology sneakers", "intelligent shock-absorbing black technology SMART S.A.M", etc.
In ANTA's view, it can better achieve its international goals with the help of Irving's influence in basketball and sports circles. Xu Yang, CEO of ANTA brand, said that after signing Irving, "the world's top sports retailers have taken the initiative to find me. When I talked to their CEOs, I found that they were not looking for me, they were looking for Irving, because Irving is the world's leading sneaker brand." One of the best-selling players.”