Chinese Sports Brands See Sales Soar On Annual 'Double 11' Shopping Day

Nov. 11 has "transformed into one of the biggest online and offline shopping days in China," according to Nong Ruowen of YUTANG. The shopping festival “Double 11” was initiated by Alibaba in '09 and celebrated its ninth edition on Nov. 11 this year. As "usual," various retailers and brands "launched their online-and-offline promotion campaigns," including Chinese domestic sports brands. Anta's online sales figure for Double 11 was 670M yuan ($101M), an increase of 66% from last year’s edition of the shopping festival. It reportedly took 9 hours for Anta to break the 400M yuan ($60.3M) record. In the first 8 minutes of the day, its sales figure reached over 100M yuan ($15M), which took 30 minutes for Anta on November 11, 2016. In terms of sales figures, Li-Ning ranked second with 215M yuan ($32.4M). Another Chinese sports brand, Xtep, took third place on the list. This year, Xtep's online sales figure reached 207M yuan ($31.2M), 83% more than last year (YUTANG, 11/14).