PMGM7014 Chap.8 Competitive Rivalry and Brand Portfolios in Sportswear
Competitive Rivalry and Brand Portfolios in Sportswear
Why ANTA appears under five forces
The syllabus pairs ANTA with Mixue under industrial competitive analysis. Where the tea case is about one brand defending one cost position, ANTA shows a group that answers competitive pressure by owning brands at several price tiers. That changes the unit of analysis.
Instead of rating the forces once for the company, you rate them for each brand and then ask whether the brands shield or cannibalise each other.
How rivalry became costly
After the 2008 Olympics, every major Chinese sportswear brand had built capacity and stores for a boom that faded, and the industry was left with piles of unsold stock.
That episode fits the standard list of rivalry drivers: many similar competitors, slowing growth, high storage costs and products that buyers find hard to tell apart. Rivalry is still expensive today. ANTA spent between 8% and 12.4% of revenue on advertising and promotion across 2020 to 2025.
Buyers, channels and substitutes
The case gives a sharp example of buyer power.
When Li-Ning lifted its prices toward international levels, consumers refused to pay, while ANTA held its mass position and moved into smaller cities. ANTA also took power back from channel buyers. It switched to store-level ordering and built direct retail, so wholesale is now a small share of the main brand's revenue.
Substitutes came from fashion, as the athleisure trend blurred the line between sportswear and streetwear.
The portfolio as a set of strategic groups
A strategic group is a cluster of firms following similar strategies in an industry.
ANTA's main brand competes on value, FILA on design and fashion for affluent buyers, KOLON SPORT and DESCENTE on focused technical niches, and Arc'teryx, through Amer Sports, at the top of the price range. The chapter compares these brands in a grid and on a map, and then shows where the logic has limits. Amer is jointly controlled and equity-accounted, and some rivals of one brand sit inside another part of the same group.
A simple overlap test helps here. If two brands share a price tier, a generic strategy and the force that threatens them most, they are in the same strategic group and will take customers from each other. The grid columns let you run that test brand by brand and spot where the portfolio overlaps with itself.
Red ocean, blue ocean and buying positions
The lecture names the move from red ocean to blue ocean.
Here it is explained in its standard form and tested against the case. The core brand fights in a red ocean, while FILA's sport-fashion positioning was, for a while, closer to uncontested space. A dated timeline of the group's deals shows each purchase opening a new position, with amounts kept in the currency the case gives.
The picture is not static: each deal also draws the group into rivalry with new competitors, such as global outdoor specialists. You finish with a model answer on whether a domestic brand should buy a foreign premium label.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Standard drivers of rivalry intensity in sportswear
- 02
Consumers rejecting a price rise without brand standing
- 03
Moving power from wholesalers to stores
- 04
Athleisure turning fashion into a substitute
- 05
Brands mapped onto several strategic groups
- 06
Equity accounting limits on portfolio totals
- 07
Red ocean competition against blue ocean positioning
- 08
Acquisition as a route into a new strategic group
Worked example · free
Does a new outdoor label cannibalise the portfolio?
- 3Place all three brands by price tier and specialisation.
- 3Identify the force that threatens the new label most.
- 3Judge the overlap risk and recommend.
Key terms
- Strategic Group
- A cluster of firms in one industry that follow similar strategies, such as a similar price tier, similar customers and a similar product scope. Rivalry is usually fiercest within a group.
- Rivalry Intensity
- How fiercely existing competitors fight over price, advertising and new products. It rises when there are many similar rivals, growth slows, storage or fixed costs are high and buyers can switch easily.
- Brand Portfolio
- The set of brands a single group owns or controls, each aimed at a different price tier or customer. It lets the group compete in several strategic groups at the same time.
- Blue Ocean Strategy
- A strategic approach that seeks uncontested market space by offering a new combination of value and cost, which makes existing rivals largely irrelevant instead of beating them on the same terms.
Competitive Rivalry and Brand Portfolios in Sportswear FAQ
Why did ANTA buy brands instead of moving its own brand upmarket?
The case shows a rival trying the upmarket route and failing: consumers would not pay international prices for a domestic name they did not rank alongside Nike and Adidas. ANTA's management also judged that one brand could not serve every tier of a divided market. Buying established labels gave it instant standing in premium segments while the core brand kept its value customers.
Can I add Amer Sports' revenue to ANTA's to show the group's size?
Only with a clear warning. The case adds the two figures into a combined top line, but ANTA treats Amer as a jointly controlled entity and accounts for it under the equity method rather than consolidating it. If you quote the combined figure, label it illustrative and state ANTA's own reported revenue next to it.
What date should I use for the Amer Sports deal?
The case dates the consortium's tender offer to 7 December 2019, but elsewhere refers to ANTA's acquisition in 2018 and cites a 2018 news source. Where the exact year does not matter, avoid it. Where it does, give the offer date the case states and note the inconsistency in a short parenthesis.
Is FILA an example of cost leadership or differentiation?
Differentiation. FILA in China was repositioned toward high-end sports fashion for affluent adults, drawing on its Italian design archive and fashion-brand collaborations, and it sells at prices well above the ANTA brand. It benefits from the parent's supply chain, but that lowers its costs without changing the basis on which it competes.
Exam move
Build the comparison grid from memory before looking at the case again. Across the top, write ANTA brand, FILA, one outdoor brand and one foreign rival; down the side, write price tier, target consumer, generic strategy, main rival and most threatening force. Fill every cell, then check each against the case and mark any cell you could not support with a fact.
Finally, circle any two columns that match on price tier, strategy and threatening force. Those brands share a strategic group, and your answer should say how the group keeps them from competing for the same customers.
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