Sportswear is one of the most competitive consumer categories in China. Demand keeps growing, gyms keep opening, and running clubs fill up every Saturday morning. But the brands capturing that growth are not the ones that captured it ten years ago. If you plan to sell sportswear here in 2026, the first thing to accept is that you are entering a market where the local champions are stronger than you, better distributed than you, and often cheaper. That does not close the door. It changes which door you use.
I am Olivier Verot, founder of GMA. I have been in Shanghai since 2012 and I have worked on China launches for European technical apparel, running and outdoor brands, including the unglamorous parts: size grading, Tmall Global versus general trade, and why a 35% return rate kills a sportswear P&L.
The market is still growing, and Beijing wants it bigger
The health trend that started the sportswear boom has not faded. Social feeds are still full of training plans, recipes and challenges. Sportswear moved out of the gym a long time ago: people wear it to the office, to brunch, on the high-speed train. Athleisure is now normal clothing for a large part of urban China.
Policy pushes in the same direction. In July 2026 the General Administration of Sport released the “15th Five-Year Plan” for building a sports powerhouse, which targets a total sports industry above RMB 7 trillion by 2030 and a regular exercise participation rate of around 40%. Facilities, school sport, city marathons and outdoor destinations all get public money behind them. For a brand, that means the pool of people who actually practise a sport keeps widening, not just the pool of people who dress like they do.
A change in the behaviour of Chinese consumers
The middle class that fuelled the first wave of sportswear buying has changed its expectations. Buying a brand for the logo is not enough anymore. Buyers with decent incomes practise more, and young urban professionals are the most sensitive segment to sports products. They also read specifications. A runner who has done three half marathons will ask you about drop, stack height and the fabric’s drying time before asking about the brand story.
American style influence is still appreciated, and Chinese consumers remain highly sensitive to fashion cycles. What changed is that they now compare you to a domestic brand that has the same technology sheet, a local ambassador, and 12,000 stores.
Sportswear is now dominated by domestic brands
This is the part of the market that flipped. Anta Sports reported 2025 revenue of RMB 80.22 billion, up 13.3%, and puts its own share of China’s sportswear market at around 21.8%. Its multi-brand structure is the real weapon: the core Anta brand at RMB 34.75 billion, FILA at RMB 28.47 billion in the premium mall segment, and DESCENTE passing RMB 10 billion in retail sales for the first time in 2025. Anta covers the RMB 300 running shoe and the RMB 3,000 ski jacket with different badges.
Li-Ning is the guochao story. Its 2025 revenue reached RMB 29.6 billion, up 3.2%, and running became its largest category at 31% of sell-through, growing 10%. Li-Ning did not win on patriotism alone. It won by putting carbon plates in shoes at a price point where Western brands were selling foam, then backing it with elite marathon results that Chinese runners could verify.
Meanwhile the incumbent went the other way. Nike’s Greater China revenue declined again in fiscal 2026, down 13% on a currency-neutral basis for the full year, with the fourth quarter down 17%. Nike’s own fiscal 2026 results list Greater China among the regions dragging the brand down. Adidas has spent years rebuilding after the same slide. New Balance and Puma hold niches. The old assumption that a Western logo automatically outranks a Chinese one is dead.
Read also: Fashion in China: top marketing strategies for brands
Premiumisation, and sport as a lifestyle identity
Instead of buying an entry-level luxury handbag, a lot of Chinese consumers now buy a technical shell jacket. The spend moved, and the sportswear people bought moved upmarket with it. The premium end of the market is where growth actually sits, and it is where the price war is least brutal.
Two foreign groups prove the point. Amer Sports, which owns Arc’teryx, Salomon and Wilson, grew global revenue 27% to USD 6.6 billion in 2025, and Greater China grew 43% to about USD 1.9 billion. Lululemon’s China revenue rose 29% in fiscal 2025 and the country now accounts for 16% of its global sales, with more than 170 stores and roughly 20% growth guided for 2026. Both grew in the same market where Nike shrank. Neither sells “sportswear” in general. They sell a specific practice, a specific fit and a specific community.
Outdoor is the category where premium foreign brands still convert best in China: the technical claim is checkable, and the buyer is willing to pay for it.
The categories that are actually pulling the market
“Sportswear” is too broad to build a plan on. Four sub-markets are doing the work in 2026.
- Running. The biggest single engine. On Xiaohongshu, running has split into more than 50 distinct scenarios, from morning runs to commute runs to the “coffee run”, each with its own shoe expectations. Li-Ning’s running business alone is bigger than most foreign brands’ entire China turnover.
- Outdoor. Hiking, camping, trail, ski, freediving. This is where premiumisation is strongest and where a foreign technical brand still has natural credibility.
- Fitness and studio training. Strength training and boutique studios drive apparel that has to look good under gym lighting and on camera. See our pieces on bodybuilding and strength training in China and on boutique fitness studios, plus the wider Chinese fitness industry.
- Racket sports. The quiet giant. China’s tennis population reached 25.19 million, up 28% versus 2021, across 53,805 courts, according to the first national tennis database released by the Tennis Management Centre. Badminton is bigger still, and pickleball has gone from novelty to thousands of dedicated courts in three years.
Combat sports and women’s training are a smaller but fast-moving segment, and one where apparel positioning is wide open. We covered it in women’s boxing and combat sports in China.
Fit and sizing: the boring thing that decides your margin
Most foreign sportswear brands lose money in China on returns before they lose it on marketing. The reason is fit. A European size grading applied to Chinese bodies produces sleeves that are too long, shoulders too wide, inseams too long, and a shoe last that is too narrow at the forefoot and too loose at the heel. The customer orders two sizes, keeps one, and your logistics cost doubles.
What works:
- Regrade for the Chinese market rather than adding an “Asian fit” label to the same pattern. Shorter sleeve and inseam, narrower shoulder, adjusted rise, wider forefoot on footwear.
- Extend downwards. XS and XXS sell in China. In womenswear, a size range starting at European S loses you a third of the addressable buyers.
- Publish the size chart in centimetres with garment measurements, not just body measurements, and show it on the product page in Chinese sizing conventions.
- Use models of the actual local height and weight, and state their measurements. Chinese product pages do this as standard and buyers expect it.
- Track return reasons by SKU monthly. “Too big” clustering on one style is a pattern problem, not a customer problem.
Decathlon has been working through the same questions from the opposite direction, which we looked at in its premium pivot in China. Footwear specifics are in our guide on how to market shoes in China.
How to market a sportswear brand in China
You need an online presence, and it starts with e-commerce
Consumption in China is digital first and mobile first, and adoption moves faster here than in Western markets. Online sales are the growth vector, and most foreign companies enter through local platforms. Tmall Global, JD Worldwide and Douyin are the usual routes. Cross-border keeps your capital exposure low while you test. General trade gives you better shipping times and full participation in platform promotions once volume justifies it.
Choose the platform by category behaviour, not by size. Technical outdoor and running still index to Tmall and JD, where buyers read specifications and compare. Athleisure and fitness apparel sell harder on Douyin, where the purchase is triggered by a video rather than a search. We wrote about that shift in why brands are moving budget from Tmall to Douyin.
Xiaohongshu is where the sportswear purchase is decided
Xiaohongshu is not a nice-to-have for this category, it is the research layer. Its 2026 sports and outdoor report counts roughly 230 million users with an interest in sport on the platform, with related search volume up 72% year on year.
The mechanism matters more than the numbers. On Xiaohongshu, around 55% of sports-related search terms describe a scenario, while only about 5% name a product category. People do not search “running jacket”. They search “what to wear for a 10K in Shanghai in March” or “commute run outfit that does not look like gym clothes”. If your content is organised by product category, you are invisible to the searches that convert.
So build content around scenarios. One note per scenario, written like a real user post, with the product visible but not the subject. Seed 30 to 60 mid-tier KOCs rather than one big KOL: cost per note is a fraction, and the aggregate note volume is what makes your brand appear in search. Then measure search volume on your brand name in Chinese, not impressions.
Douyin: interest commerce, not advertising
Douyin sells sportswear the way a shop assistant does. The algorithm pushes a video to people whose viewing history suggests they train, and the buy button sits in the same frame. That means your creative has to demonstrate, not announce. A coach explaining why a shoulder seam is placed where it is will outsell a brand film every time. Livestreams with a credentialed host, a coach or a physiotherapist, work far better in this category than a generic anchor shouting discounts.
WeChat: keep the customer you paid to acquire
WeChat is not an acquisition channel for sportswear, it is retention. Set up the official account and the Mini Program store, then use the private domain properly: a WeCom group per city running club, training plans pushed to members, early access to a colourway, a repair and warranty service. Sportswear is a repeat-purchase category. A runner buys three to four pairs of shoes a year. Losing that customer to a competitor after one transaction is the most expensive mistake in the category.
KOL and KOC marketing
Key opinion leaders are public figures with real influence on Chinese buying behaviour. Consumers have become suspicious of brand claims and lean on recommendations from people they follow. Brands work with personalities their target audience already likes, then integrate them into the campaign rather than bolting them on.
For sportswear specifically, credibility beats reach. A regional marathon pacer with 40,000 followers who actually races in your shoes moves more product than a celebrity with 20 million. Buyers in this category check. Our view on what the format really delivers is here: does KOL marketing actually work in China.
Sports communities and apps
Sport brings people together, and brands have built their own apps to sit inside that. Nike did it with Nike+, connecting millions of runners and letting them challenge each other, with social campaigns built around shared performances. Keeping that kind of community alive takes constant animation, and it is expensive.
The cheaper local version: partner with existing platforms. Keep, Yuedongquan and the running groups organised around city races already have the users. Sponsor a club, supply pacers, put your product on people who are visible at 6 am on the Bund. Chinese online behaviour is more collective than in the West, and buyers are strongly influenced by what people around them use. Building a reputation over time through positive discussion, and containing negative buzz early, is part of the job.
What ambassador strategies still teach
Puma’s Asian growth came from influence marketing, partnerships and local event presence, including night running sessions in different cities, all built to remind consumers of what the brand stands for. That local, physical, repeatable activation is the part worth copying. The celebrity ambassador part is now the risky part: contracts are expensive, and one scandal can force you to pull an entire campaign in 48 hours.
Get found by AI search
A growing share of product research in China starts inside DeepSeek, Doubao or Quark rather than a search box. These models answer “best trail running jacket for humid weather” by summarising Chinese-language content they can read: Xiaohongshu notes, Zhihu answers, media reviews, e-commerce Q&A. If your brand has no Chinese-language footprint on those sources, you are not in the answer. Practically, that means publishing specification-level content in Chinese, getting reviewed by Chinese vertical media, and making sure your product names are written consistently in Chinese everywhere.
Case study: a Danish technical apparel brand
Jesper runs a Danish running and outdoor apparel brand doing solid business across Northern Europe. He opened a Tmall Global cross-border store in 2023 with a translated catalogue and a European agency running the ads.
After 14 months the store had done about RMB 3.2 million in GMV. The return rate was 38%. Roughly two thirds of the media budget went into paid search on Tmall, bidding on generic terms like “windproof running jacket” against Anta and Li-Ning, who could outspend him and undercut him. Then he tried a large KOL with 4 million followers for a single campaign. It produced a spike of traffic, almost no conversion, and no residual search volume the following month.
We changed three things. First, the product: we regraded the top eight styles for Chinese measurements, added XS and XXS in womenswear, and rewrote every product page with garment measurements in centimetres and models whose height and weight were stated. Second, positioning: instead of “Danish performance apparel”, the brand attached itself to one scenario, running in humid Chinese city weather, which is the exact complaint Northern European fabrics are good at solving and which no domestic brand was addressing head on. Third, the channel mix: paid search on Tmall was cut by 70% and reallocated to 45 KOC seedings per month on Xiaohongshu, all scenario-led, plus a monthly Douyin livestream hosted by a running coach rather than a sales anchor.
Why it worked: the brand stopped competing on a keyword it could never win and started owning a problem it could genuinely solve, and the fit fix removed the reason people were sending goods back. Over the following 18 months, returns fell from 38% to 19%, branded search on Xiaohongshu went from near zero to a few thousand queries a month, and GMV reached about RMB 21 million with repeat customers accounting for a third of orders.
Where a foreign sportswear brand actually has a place in 2026
Be honest about the answer. You will not beat Anta or Li-Ning on general athletic apparel at mainstream prices. Their cost base, distribution and marketing budgets are out of reach, and the guochao preference is real.
Where foreign brands still win:
- Technical categories where the claim is checkable. Trail, alpine, sailing, ski, freediving, endurance running. Chinese buyers pay a premium for equipment that is measurably better and where failure has consequences.
- Emerging sports with no domestic incumbent. Padel, pickleball, climbing, triathlon. A specialist brand can own the category conversation before a local giant decides to enter it.
- Fit segments the majors ignore. Plus size, older active consumers, very small sizes, women’s specific patterns. These are underserved and loyal.
- Design and cultural credibility. Heritage, provenance and a genuine sports history that a five-year-old label cannot fabricate.
Where you should not go: mass-market basics, undifferentiated athleisure, and anything where your only argument is that you are foreign.
FAQ
How much budget do I need to launch a sportswear brand in China?
For a credible cross-border test on one platform plus Xiaohongshu seeding, plan USD 150,000 to 250,000 over 12 months, covering store setup and operation, Chinese content production, KOC seeding and a modest media budget. Below that, you generate data but not enough presence to read it properly. A general trade entry with a local entity, warehousing and offline activation starts closer to USD 500,000 a year. Product adaptation costs sit on top and are usually underestimated.
Should I go cross-border or set up a Chinese entity?
Start cross-border through Tmall Global or JD Worldwide. It limits capital exposure, avoids most registration work, and lets you test which SKUs actually sell. Move to general trade when you have proven demand, because you then get faster delivery, full access to platform promotions, offline distribution and the ability to sell on Douyin at scale. Most brands we work with make that switch in year two or three, once annual GMV passes roughly RMB 20 million.
Do I really need to change my sizing for China?
Yes, if you sell apparel or footwear. Returns are the single biggest killer of sportswear margins in China, and fit is the main driver. Adding an “Asian fit” tag to an unchanged pattern does not solve it. Regrade properly, extend the range downwards, publish garment measurements in centimetres, and use local models with stated measurements. Brands that do this typically cut return rates by 15 to 20 percentage points within two seasons.
Xiaohongshu or Douyin first?
Xiaohongshu first for technical and premium products, because that is where research and consideration happen and where the content compounds over time. Douyin first if your product is visual, impulse-friendly and priced under about RMB 500. Ideally you run both, with Xiaohongshu building searchable content and Douyin converting. Do not start with WeChat: it retains customers, it does not find them.
How do I compete with Anta and Li-Ning on price?
You do not. Competing on price against a vertically integrated Chinese group with domestic manufacturing is a losing position. Compete on specificity instead: a category they treat as secondary, a fit they do not offer, a technical claim you can prove, a community you actually serve. Premium foreign brands growing in China today, in outdoor and specialist running, all sell above the domestic price band, not below it.
Which sportswear category has the best entry conditions right now?
Outdoor and racket sports. Outdoor because premiumisation is strongest and technical credibility transfers from your home market. Racket sports because the participant base is growing fast, tennis alone reached 25.19 million players, and apparel positioning is far less crowded than running. Running is the biggest category but also the most contested, so enter it only with a real product differentiator.
How long before a sportswear brand becomes profitable in China?
Realistically 24 to 36 months. Year one is product adaptation, store setup and content building, and it loses money. Year two is when Xiaohongshu content starts generating organic search and repeat customers appear. Brands that expect payback in 12 months usually cut the budget in month nine, right before the compounding starts, and then conclude that China does not work.
Working with a China marketing agency on sportswear
GMA has been running China market entry and growth for sports, outdoor and apparel brands from Shanghai since 2012. We handle the parts that decide whether a sportswear launch survives: category and scenario positioning, Tmall, JD and Douyin store operation, Xiaohongshu KOC programmes, and the product page work that keeps returns under control. We also tell brands when the category is too crowded for them, before they spend the money.
You can look at our sports marketing work in China, or contact us for a straight assessment of where your brand fits in this market.
