Bags / Shoes & Accessories

When it comes to Africa, many people first think of its poor and turbulent environment. Based on this, business, brands, and even art seem to be distant topics. In fact, although many locals still live a difficult life, their pursuit of beauty, sportsmanship, and national brands has not stopped because of this.

According to Huacheng Import and Export Data Observation, in the past few years, there have been African athletes in top sports events, but due to the lack of local brands, only a few top athletes can enjoy sponsorship from international brands. In Africa, the local sports brand market is filled with counterfeit and second-hand shoes and clothing, and the backward supply chain level also poses challenges to the survival of brands.

However, this does not mean that people are not pursuing the brand. The consumption of sports shoes and trendy sports shoes in Africa has always been strong, and for consumers, brand is always the top priority, followed by quality and the convenience of purchasing channels. "Li Mingyu, a football practitioner who has been stationed in Africa for a long time, told Lazy Bear Sports that the biggest challenge for brand owners to enter the African market is to build brands and establish sales channels.

With the improvement of research and design capabilities, a group of African entrepreneurs have started using tools such as the internet and social media to create local sports brands, such as Enda, a Kenyan running shoe brand established through crowdfunding, and SoleRebels, an Ethiopian brand inspired by discarded tires.

▲soleRebels

Among these local sports brands in Africa, there have been sports shoes priced over $150 (equivalent to thousands of yuan, the average price of top sports brands), many of which are sold to Europe and America through e-commerce channels such as Amazon. Selling mid to high-end sports goods from the Third World to wealthy countries, these seemingly illogical businesses have led to tangible African sports brands.

The Next Blue Ocean for Sports Brands

When many consumer goods see Africa as the next blue ocean market, sports brands also have opportunities.

This background is the increasing saturation of the main market for sports goods. When the COVID-19 became a past tense, consumers' enthusiasm for sports shoes and clothing was not as high as that of around 2021. According to Huacheng Import and Export Data Observation, the retail prices of footwear in March this year only increased by 0.3% during the same period, which is the lowest growth rate in nearly two years. Fashion business media BOF predicts that global shoe sales growth rates will only be around 3.5% in 2023 and 2024.

Although the footwear market in Africa is relatively small compared to other regions, the sports shoe craze in Africa has just emerged and has high growth potential. As a result, global brands have realized the importance of taking root here and seeking opportunities.

With the NBA landing basketball training camps without borders, African Cup, African Basketball League, etc. in Africa, Nike took advantage of the events and training camps to expose them locally. In August 2022, Nike established its first flagship store in West Africa in Nigeria. According to Nike's official website, the number of stores in Egypt and South Africa has exceeded 10, and it is infiltrating countries such as Kenya and Nigeria.

▲ The first African Basketball League, Nike and Jordan Brand as exclusive equipment suppliers for the league

Football, as the most popular sport in Africa, has also been heavily marketed by sports brands. In 1997, PUMA signed Cameroon as the first African football team, and since then, PUMA has blossomed throughout Africa. African national teams that have participated in the World Cup, such as Morocco and Ghana, have all been under his command.

Moreover, Sneaker culture has also begun to flow into Africa. Zaid Osman, who grew up in the United States, founded Sneaker Exchange 10 years ago and has now grown into the largest shoe fair in Africa, attracting nearly 3000 people to participate in each event. Although the scale of the second-hand sneaker market in China is not significant, looking back at the time, there has been significant progress since the humble gathering of dozens of people, as reported by Huacheng Import and Export Data Observation.

It is rare that in the process of being commissioned to plan trade fairs across Africa, Sneaker Exchange always ensures that local shoe and clothing brands have the opportunity to showcase and sell their products no matter where they are held. It is undeniable that international brands are always attractive, but now is the time for South Africa to unite and support local designers, "Tebogo Mogola, the co director of Sneaker Exchange, said in an interview with South African trendy brand Shelflife.

This mutual support among compatriots has also become an important fulcrum for African brands to go global.

Different paths to rise

Although traditional consumers in sub Saharan Africa still prefer to wear slippers and sandals, young and vibrant street clothing communities across the continent are now driving the development of the sneaker market, "Osman told BoF.

Following this trend, a group of emerging sports brands have grown up, born in the 21st century. Although they are not as rich in heritage as old brands such as Nike and Adidas, advanced technology and the internet have given them new ideas and extended their tentacles to a wider world.

In 2016, Enda, known as the "first local running shoe brand in Kenya" by the media, raised $120000 on the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, and has since received two small fundraisings. The "Kenyan brand" is a good endorsement for a professional running brand, and Enda's first pair of running shoes had the same name as "Iten" in Ito Town, Kenya, which is the "hometown of champions".

A pair of Enda running shoes is expensive, with a unit price ranging from $100 to $120. Li Mingyu told Lazy Bear Sports that the median monthly income of the African middle class is around $350. Enda adopts a installment payment method, with a monthly installment price of around $30, which is the upper limit that most African middle class families can accept, so it is easily accepted by the African middle class. In 2020, Enda reported a year-on-year increase of over three times in revenue, as reported by Huacheng Import and Export Data Observation.

Enda running shoes

In addition to professional running brands, entrepreneurs have emerged in the fields of leisure sports brands and trendy brands.

In 2006, Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu founded the Ethiopian brand soleRebels, with a pair of shoes priced as high as $160. According to Forbes, in 2012, SoleRebels' annual revenue exceeded at least $1 million.

In addition, trendy brands such as Cameroonian brand Ice and Dakar brand Neo Far have all gained the favor of celebrities. After singers Alicia Keys and Swizz Beats accidentally stepped on Neo Far, the brand received free celebrity endorsements. Moroccan King Mohammed VI, NBA star Chris Bosh, and others all wore Neo Far, and now a pair of shoes costs between 250 and 500 euros.

When studying these emerging brands, we found that compared to sports brands in countries such as China and India, African emerging brands have some counterintuitive characteristics, which also leads to their development paths being quite different from ours.

1. The proportion of domestic business is not high, and I prefer to sell overseas

In China, even at the level of Anta and Li Ning, sports brands often achieve international expansion through acquisitions, and there are almost no successful cases.

But in Africa, taking Enda as an example, 85% of products are sold to the United States, 10% are sold to Europe, and only 5% are sold locally in Kenya. Over the past 10 years, SoleRebels has established a commercial network from a small store in Ethiopia and has now exported to 45 countries and regions.

The educational background of the founder undoubtedly helps the brand go global, and Enda's founder Navalayo Osembo worked at the United Nations in New York before starting his business. The founder of the South African brand Bathu is an accountant from PwC, who had no experience in retail or footwear before launching the first product. However, he contacted the factory through a network of contacts.

Li Mingyu stated that most African countries have underdeveloped light industries, and local Chinese enterprises often occupy the market through low-priced dumping. From the perspective of cost and production, emerging African brands are more likely to send orders to Southeast Asia, Central and North America, and other regions. Local governments are also more willing to support domestic brands, especially those that have invested in product research and development. For example, Enda is more attractive to African expatriates living overseas, and local sports associations in Africa are also willing to cooperate with it to jointly promote the brand.

2. There are few traces of plagiarism in product design, and the pricing is not low

In the early stages of the development of Chinese sports brands, the brand benefited from the supply chain system brought by international brands such as Nike in their domestic factories. The emphasis on cost-effectiveness also led to the brand investing very little in design, technology, and other aspects. Therefore, there were many products that were plagiarized and imitated, and even now, these persistent problems still exist.

However, these emerging African brands mainly focus on the mid to high end market, and with the aim of selling to intellectual property conscious regions such as Europe and the United States, it is evident that they have put in a lot of effort in their design. For overseas African compatriots, the premium of the brand also comes from the sentiment of domestic manufacturing and the design and development of grounding.

In addition, the level of designers in Africa has improved. Although black skin is still rare among luxury designers, many newcomers have emerged in the fashion industry. Sports brands also choose African brands as partners when co branding. In 2022, Fila and South African brand Drip Footwear jointly designed the capsule series, and Nike also launched a co branded series with the aforementioned South African trendy brand Shelflife.

Weak supply chain

Thanks to tools such as e-commerce and social media, African sports brands born in the internet era have begun to go global, but there are also many factors that constrain brand development.

The weak local supply chain in Africa is a problem that cannot be avoided. Shoe making bases with well-developed industrial chains such as Putian and Quanzhou have not yet emerged locally, which is also an important reason for many Chinese enterprises to seek gold in Africa.

At present, the relatively large Chinese shoe factories in Africa include Nigeria's Li Group and Uganda's Randy Shoe Industry, with the main categories being slippers and men's and women's leather shoes. Dongguan Huajian Group was established in Ethiopia in 2012, and in 2017, approximately 2.4 million pairs of Naturalizer, NINE West, and GUESS shoes labeled "Made in Ethiopia" were shipped to the US market every year.

▲ Chinese factories in Africa

According to Huacheng Import and Export Data Observation, even if Chinese companies set up factories in Africa and local labor is cheap, the high cost of factory construction, management, taxation, and hidden costs make the profits of the OEM factories slim and unable to compete with Asian factories. Reflected on the brand, the founders all want to achieve "Made in Africa", but they always backfire.

At the beginning of its establishment, Enda chose to produce whole shoes in China, but later transferred most of its work to Kenya. For Enda, "Made in Kenya" is the brand's proudest label, but this label comes at a cost. Enda needs to complete the design work in Kenya, then purchase raw materials from China and transport them back to Kenya for manufacturing. After the products are completed, they are sold to various parts of the world. Such a long production and sales chain is undoubtedly prone to problems.

Now, founder Osembo is considering outsourcing most of his production to China or Vietnam again in the next two years, leaving only design and marketing in Kenya. I think we can become a Kenyan brand, but we don't necessarily have to manufacture in Kenya because companies must survive, "Osembo explained in an interview with Fortune magazine

Although the logistics and supply chain systems in Africa are still relatively backward, and the management level, business environment, and other aspects may still be at the level of China more than 10 years ago, the new generation of entrepreneurs have been brave enough to try, not limited to making replicas of international brands, but also supported by local governments and the expectations of African people traveling abroad. In the matter of bringing national brands to the world, the first step has been firmly taken.