With the improvement of people's living standards and the increase in health awareness, sports shoes are becoming more and more popular with consumers. For example, domestic Anta , Li Ning , X-step , Peak , Nike, Under Armour , Adidas, Puma from Europe and the United States. In Japan, which is less popular, there are also many strong sports brands, such as ASICS (ASICS) and Mizuno.
Public information shows that ASIS has a history of 73 years since its birth. It is headquartered in Kobe City, Hyogo Prefecture. Its businesses are divided into five major sectors: running shoes, core sports (tennis, volleyball, table tennis, badminton, etc.), sports fashion, clothing and equipment, and Hitotsuka Tiger. It is known as the world's four major running shoes brands, together with New Balance, Saucony and Brooks.
According to the "2022 Japanese Corporate Brand Value Ranking" released by brand consulting company Interbrand, the brand value of ASICS is US$753 million, and increased by 4% year-on-year, ranking 57th. It is the only two clothing brands on the list, and the other is the sixth-ranked Uniqlo .
In the late 1940s, 32-year-old Onitsuka Kihachiro (KIHACHIRO ONITSUKA) combined his name with tigers to found " Onitsuka Tiger Onitsuka Tiger" (the predecessor of Asis), and recruited 4 employees. He firmly believes that exercise can strengthen the body and cultivate positive young people.
At that time, basketball shoes were considered the most difficult to make sneakers, so Kihachiro Onitsuka decided to use this as the entry point and launched the OK Basketball. Because the sole technology is not mature, this batch of basketball shoes has a very poor foot feeling. He kept trying to improve, and one day when he saw the octopus on the dining table while eating, he suddenly had an idea. A small round pit design similar to an octopus suction cup was added to the sole, which greatly improved the grip and the product began to be sought after.
Entering the 1950s, Onitsuka Kihachiro set his sights on the running shoe market and launched the first marathon TABI running shoes. In the same year, Shigeru Tanaka won the championship in the Boston Marathon in a "Marathon Tabi". Immediately afterwards, he launched corresponding sports shoes for golf, wrestling, gymnastics, football, fencing, volleyball and other fields, which were popular among many athletes. He also boldly innovated, using durable, waterproof, lightweight nylon materials for shoes for the first time.
Onzuka Tiger's success attracted the attention of the American guy Phil Knight . He flew to Japan to visit Onitsuka Kihachiro, obtained the sales agency rights in the US market, and founded Blue Belt Sports Company. By the 1970s, Onitsuka Tiger became the largest running shoe manufacturer in the United States, and 70% of athletes used it as their preferred equipment. In the movie " Death Game ", the one who stomped on Bruce Lee was MEXICO 66.
At this moment, Onitsuka Kihachiro made an acquisition request, otherwise the agency authorization would be interrupted. Phil Knight flatly refused, and the eight-year cooperation between the two sides ended. The Nike brand came into being and took away the Cortez shoe shape directly, replaced the tic toe with hook, and transformed it into the " Forrest Gump Shoes " that later became popular in the United States. Both sides also went to court for this.
In 1977, Onitzuka Tiger merged two companies, GTO and Jelenk, forming ASIX, adding categories such as garment and equipment. The name comes from the acronym of the Latin motto “Anima Sana In Corpore Sano” (a sound spirit is in a strong body).
In the future, the Onitu Tiger brand stopped selling for a while. It was not until 2002 that it transformed from a professional sports shoe brand to a brand that takes into account both functionality and fashion, and that it was revived. ASIC has slowly fallen behind in the competition with Nike and Adidas. Some industry insiders believe that when the gap in shoemaking technology and quality is not big, brand awareness becomes the winner. ASIC does not like marketing, rarely seeks celebrity endorsements, and rarely offers discounts, so it is naturally at a disadvantage. However, its running shoe products are well-known, and the soft foot feeling brought by cushioning glue technology is called "sheeping feeling" by many runners.
After experiencing two consecutive years of losses, ASIC achieved operating profit of 21.9 billion yen and net profit of 9.4 billion yen last year.The annual net sales reached 404.082 billion yen (approximately RMB 20.7 billion), an increase of 22.9% year-on-year. Thanks to strong sales performance of functional running shoes and Onitsuka Tiger, net sales in Greater China increased by 27.9% year-on-year to 52.593 billion yen. In 2022, Asics expects net sales to be approximately 420 billion yen. We will continue to pay attention to how the "King of Running Shoes" in his seventies will perform in the future.
