The Chinese brand that wants to lead Europe’s trail-running pack

{"text":[[{"start":7.52,"text":"More than a decade before this month’s launch of a new trail-running store in Chamonix, Baggio Zhong’s international ambitions were already set in motion."}],[{"start":16.8,"text":"After a skiing accident in China that left the founder of Chinese outerwear group Kailas paralysed from the waist down, Zhong was released from hospital in February 2014. In July that year, he went to a trade fair in Europe to display his products on the continent for the first time."}],[{"start":33.48,"text":"The Guangzhou-based company, under its trail-running brand Kailas Fuga, is one of many Chinese retail businesses looking abroad. Overall consumer confidence is under pressure at home, although the outdoors segment has enjoyed a surge in popularity."}],[{"start":48.08,"text":"The store in the alpine resort of Chamonix, France, is the first directly operated outlet for the brand outside China, although its products are already available in hundreds of shops in regions including Europe and North America."}],[{"start":null,"text":"

"}],[{"start":60.6,"text":"Anta, a Fujian-based apparel conglomerate that in 2019 bought Finnish group Amer Sports, earlier this year took a 29 per cent stake in Puma. Other Chinese groups are also extending their international presence in sectors from coffee to online apps."}],[{"start":76.6,"text":"Kailas, which expects to have revenues of $1.7bn this year, was founded in Guangzhou in 2003 as a mountaineering and climbing brand before moving into the trail-running segment."}],[{"start":88.32,"text":"Zhong said his interest in mountain climbing at that time was helped by online forums: “Our society as a whole still didn’t know what mountaineering was.”"}],[{"start":96.76,"text":"Kailas — an incomplete spelling of the Tibetan mountain Kailash — tried to sell its climbing and mountaineering products through retailers in its first foray overseas from 2014."}],[{"start":106.92,"text":"Its overseas presence now centres on the Kailas Fuga trail-running brand, which accounts for about 30 of its 350 stores in mainland China."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":115.62,"text":"Fuga shoes and equipment retail at premium prices — running vests with water-bottle holders cost about Rmb1,000 ($149). The brand also sponsors hundreds of trail races in China and internationally, including Spain’s Penyagolosa Trails event, held annually in April."}],[{"start":132.28,"text":"Global supply chains shifted heavily to China as it opened up in the 1980s and 1990s, with the southern provinces of Guangdong and Fujian playing an important role in textile manufacturing for international companies."}],[{"start":146.52,"text":"Zhong said he knew “two very important suppliers” in his company’s early days that at the time made products for US outdoor clothing retailer Patagonia. “I co-operated with them, they manufactured very well — the quality was very high,” he said."}],[{"start":161.8,"text":"At that time, “Patagonia was not selling in China, so we didn’t have competition — they were too expensive”, he added."}],[{"start":169.36,"text":"China’s premium activewear and outerwear segments have boomed in recent years, with brands from Canadian yoga specialist Lululemon to rucksack seller Osprey enjoying surging sales."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":180.68,"text":"While international brands have long faced competition domestically, China’s overseas expansion now raises the prospect of that challenge extending further afield."}],[{"start":190,"text":"“Every category that has a manufacturing base in China should expect that manufacturing base to start spinning out global competitors,” said Ted Hopkins, founder of Shanghai-based consultancy KulturShift. “Every single product across any vertical should expect to see Chinese brands spinning out globally.”"}],[{"start":208.92,"text":"Zhong said China’s outerwear sector had previously struggled and that about a decade ago it became “hard to do business . . . a lot of brands around 2016/17/18 died”."}],[{"start":219.44,"text":"However, the pandemic and its widespread lockdowns in China prompted a shift in attitudes towards the outdoors. “In the city there were restrictions and controls everywhere . . . but as soon as you drove your car out no one paid attention to you,” Zhong said."}],[{"start":234.76,"text":"Kailas’s competitors in Europe include Swiss alpine sports brand Mammut and Sweden’s Haglöfs. “Europe’s trail running market is still very small,” Zhong said. “We are not going there to snatch business, but to together promote this market, this sport.”"}],[{"start":250.16,"text":"As well as sponsoring races, Kailas Fuga also says it supports 60 professional trail runners, with about half from Europe."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":255.92,"text":"At its headquarters in Guangzhou, Kailas displays an array of products, from its Kailas Fuga shoes to down jackets and ski boots, as well as an indoor climbing wall."}],[{"start":266.48,"text":"After his accident Zhong returned to skiing using special equipment. While in hospital a group of friends helped redesign his motorbike so he could still ride it. He now has his own wheelchair company, in which one of his friends is a partner."}],[{"start":280.24,"text":"“I found the ways in which life changed weren’t that big,” Zhong said. “I have no way to change this fact — I can only change my perspective towards it.”"}],[{"start":289.8,"text":"In its early days, wages at his company were a fraction of those paid by an international company such as Patagonia, he estimates. “We sacrificed income in order to obtain a low-price competitive advantage,” he said."}],[{"start":302.24,"text":"That dynamic no longer holds given that Kailas Fuga Ex Pro trail-running shoes cost €250."}],[{"start":308.68,"text":"Zhong said he had not seen examples of similarly upmarket Chinese companies succeeding overseas: “We are trying.”"}],[{"start":318.72,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1787987769_2423.mp3"}