In 2021, young Chinese consumers began publicly cutting up their Nike and Adidas shoes after H&M declined to source Xinjiang cotton. Within 48 hours, Anta Sports and Li Ning watched their stock prices surge by double digits. Within a year, Anta had overtaken Adidas to become the second-largest sportswear brand by revenue in China. That moment was a wake-up call for anyone still assuming Western athletic brands own the Chinese market. The real story, however, is not about politics — it is about two companies that spent decades building the infrastructure, brand identity, and innovation capacity to seize exactly this kind of opportunity, and are now executing a credible global expansion.
Anta Sports: From Fujian Factory to Global Portfolio
Anta Sports was founded in 1991 by Ding Shizhong in Jinjiang, Fujian Province — a city that became China’s sportswear manufacturing heartland. Ding started by selling shoes from a cart and reinvesting every yuan into production. The company listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2007, raising HK$1.5 billion, and was widely viewed as a budget domestic player with little to distinguish it from dozens of local competitors.
What changed Anta’s trajectory was an M&A strategy modeled on the LVMH playbook: acquire premium international brands, run them as independent units, and leverage Anta’s manufacturing and distribution advantages from behind the scenes. The landmark deal came in 2019 when Anta led a consortium to acquire Amer Sports — parent of Arc’teryx, Salomon, Wilson, and Peak Performance — for €4.66 billion ($5.2 billion USD), the largest acquisition of a foreign sports brand by a Chinese company in history.
The Amer Sports deal was not a trophy buy. Anta restructured the portfolio, took Arc’teryx premium outdoor upmarket (North America revenue grew over 50% year-on-year through 2023-2024), and used Salomon’s European credibility to enter performance outdoor — a category where Chinese domestic brands had no foothold. Amer Sports completed its NYSE IPO in February 2024 at a $6.5 billion valuation, providing Anta a partial liquidity event while retaining majority control.
By fiscal year 2023, Anta group revenue reached RMB 62.4 billion (approximately $8.6 billion USD), with Amer Sports contributing roughly RMB 13.7 billion. Anta’s core China brand held approximately 16% market share in Chinese sportswear — ahead of Adidas. The group operates over 12,000 retail points across China across four segments: mass market (Anta core), outdoor premium (Salomon, Arc’teryx), performance (Fila, China rights acquired 2009), and youth (Descente, Kolon Sport).
Li Ning: The Athlete Who Built a Brand, Then Had to Save It
Li Ning was founded in 1990 by gymnast Li Ning — six-medal winner at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and the man who lit the Olympic torch at Beijing 2008 — making it one of the few global brands literally named after its founder-athlete. By 2010, the company had overtaken Adidas in China by revenue at RMB 9.5 billion. But aggressive expansion outran supply chain capacity, producing a near-fatal inventory crisis in 2012-2014: a loss of RMB 1.97 billion, thousands of store closures, and stock down over 80% from peak. Founder Li Ning returned as executive chairman in 2015, and the turnaround became a case study in brand rehabilitation.
The pivot that saved Li Ning was counterintuitive: lean into Chinese identity rather than chase global ambitions. In 2018, the company sent a collection to New York Fashion Week under the label “China Li Ning” (中国李宁), featuring Chinese calligraphy, martial arts aesthetics, and Maoist-era visual references. Back home, it went viral — selling out instantly, with items trading at three to five times retail on resale markets. The moment crystallized a cultural movement known as guochao (国潮), or “national tide” — surging consumer preference among Chinese millennials and Gen Z for domestic brands that authentically represent Chinese culture. By 2021, Li Ning’s revenue reached RMB 22.6 billion, a 56% year-on-year increase, and its stock had risen over 2,000% from the 2015 low.
The Guochao Effect and What It Means for Foreign Brands
The guochao phenomenon reflects a structural shift, not a temporary nationalist spike. Chinese consumers under 35 grew up in an era of rising national confidence and digital-first commerce, and their brand relationships differ fundamentally from the generation that aspired to Western labels as status symbols. McKinsey’s 2023 China Consumer Report found that over 60% of surveyed 18-35 year-olds preferred domestic brands when quality was perceived as equivalent. In athletic footwear and apparel, that perception gap has narrowed dramatically since 2018. As our analysis of how China’s middle class is reshaping consumer markets shows, domestic brand preference is strongest where emotional resonance and cultural authenticity matter — exactly where sportswear competes. Foreign companies that try to out-Chinese domestic brands almost always fail; the better strategy is identifying segments where international heritage still commands a premium.
Global Expansion: Anta’s Playbook vs. Li Ning’s Approach
Anta and Li Ning are taking divergent paths to global markets, and both paths are instructive for understanding how Chinese consumer companies approach international growth.
Anta’s global strategy is acquisition-led. Rather than building brand awareness for the Anta name outside China, the company acquires respected international brands and uses them as consumer-facing assets while Anta’s operational capabilities drive back-end efficiency. Arc’teryx manufacturing increasingly sources through Anta’s supply chain; Salomon’s Asian distribution runs through Anta’s retail infrastructure. This mirrors the pattern described in our overview of China’s outbound M&A evolution — from trophy acquisitions toward deals with clear operational synergies.
Anta’s CEO Zheng Jie has stated publicly that the company aims to become one of the world’s top three sportswear groups by 2030 with revenue exceeding $20 billion USD — ambitious but not implausible given Amer Sports’ growth trajectory and Arc’teryx’s continued expansion in North America and Europe.
Li Ning is pursuing a different path: expanding its own brand into overseas markets, particularly Southeast Asia where the Chinese diaspora provides a cultural anchor, and select premium Western markets where the “China Li Ning” fashion line has developed a genuine following among sneaker and streetwear enthusiasts. Li Ning opened a flagship store in Singapore in 2022 and has retail presence in Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam; in the US, it sells primarily through e-commerce and specialty sneaker retailers. The challenge outside China is the same one that has confronted domestic champions from every market: brand equity that works at home is not automatically portable. For consumers without cultural context for the calligraphy and historical references, “China Li Ning” competes against Nike and Adidas with a fraction of their marketing spend.
What Anta and Li Ning Mean for Western Partners
For Western brands and suppliers, Anta and Li Ning present partnership opportunities as much as competitive pressure. Both companies have invested in performance R&D — Anta’s FlashFoam midsole and Li Ning’s “Li-Ning Cloud” cushioning have drawn credible reviews in sports science publications — and their R&D procurement teams are receptive to foreign materials and technology partnerships. Anta’s 12,000+ China retail touchpoints also make licensing or co-branding arrangements an efficient route to Chinese consumers for brands that lack independent distribution infrastructure — a pattern consistent with the capabilities shift described in analyses of Xiaomi’s ecosystem approach to manufacturing and brand building.
Regulatory and Trade Framework
Both Anta and Li Ning operate under China’s consumer goods regulatory framework, with import duty structures managed by the General Administration of Customs of the People’s Republic of China. Foreign companies supplying materials or components to Chinese sportswear manufacturers must navigate the GACC’s tariff schedules and import licensing requirements.
On the US side, Anta’s Amer Sports brands face the same trade environment as any imported athletic goods. The US International Trade Commission maintains the Harmonized Tariff Schedule for footwear and apparel, and Section 301 tariffs have complicated supply chain economics for Chinese-manufactured goods sold in the US. Anta, like most sophisticated Chinese manufacturers, has responded by diversifying production to Vietnam and Indonesia for US-bound goods.
The Bottom Line for Business Decision-Makers
Anta and Li Ning are now established global players with capital, operational capability, and brand portfolios to compete in premium segments worldwide. Their rise offers a template visible across many Chinese consumer industries: disciplined reinvestment, strategic M&A with operational rationale, and cultural authenticity that converts sentiment into durable loyalty. For foreign companies, the right response is calibrated strategy — identify partnership opportunities, map genuine competitive threats, and locate white space. As the entrepreneurial business culture of Fujian and Wenzhou demonstrates, Chinese domestic champions from manufacturing heartlands execute playbooks Western competitors have consistently underestimated.