China Sportswear & Outdoor Footwear: Q1 2024 Strategies

Newer data: China's Online Sportswear Sales Hit CN¥ 168.3B in 2025

Executive Summary#

China's sportswear and outdoor footwear categories delivered the standout performances among fashion sub-categories in Q1 2024. Sportswear reached CN¥ 10.41 billion (+17.8% YoY), led by sports down jackets at +52.3% YoY, a sub-category that achieved premium pricing and volume growth at the same time. Outdoor footwear and apparel rose to CN¥ 10.0 billion (+73.7% YoY), with snow boots posting +157.4% YoY as brands widened the occasions they suit through waterproofing and styling upgrades. Two brand case studies show the strategies at work in the quarter: FILA's (斐乐) Dragon Year limited collection reinforced its premium Tier 1 city positioning through celebrity marketing and cultural product design. Trailblazer (拓路者), which turned from overseas markets to the domestic market in H2 2023, built its brand by combining outdoor functionality with Chinese cultural aesthetics.

Sportswear: Sports Down Jackets Lead a Category Premiumizing at Scale#

The sportswear online market reached CN¥ 10.41 billion in Q1 2024, growing 17.8% YoY in a broader fashion, footwear & bags market that expanded 6.5% YoY. The category's internal composition is the more important finding, because growth concentrated in the sub-categories with the most margin upside.

Sports down jackets grew 52.3% YoY while moving to higher average price points. Volume growth combined with pricing power is the most commercially valuable outcome in any category, and sports down jackets delivered both by combining technical performance (warmth retention, weather resistance) with fashion appeal in silhouette, colourway and brand badge. Sports sets, the coordinated top-and-bottom outfits, grew 37.0% YoY and generated the highest social media discussion volume of any sportswear sub-category, which reflects consumers' growing attention to outfit coordination as well as function. Sports pants (first in sales scale) and sports jackets (+20.0% YoY) remain the volume base of the category and provide the revenue that supports bolder product bets.

Sportswear Sub-category YoY Growth, Q1 2024#

Source: Moojing Market Intelligence (魔镜洞察)

Moojing's social media audience analysis identifies the sportswear buyer as predominantly male (53.5%), aged 26–40, and concentrated in higher-tier cities. The audience falls into three interest clusters: fashion and trends, where celebrity styles translate directly into purchase intent, sports and fitness, made up of people who go to the gym or play group sports regularly, and mother and baby parenting, made up of recent parents exercising after pregnancy. At the point of purchase, fit and try-on effect rank first, followed by sizing accuracy and fabric quality, which means brands need functional credibility to earn consideration and then proof of fit to close the sale.

FILA: Celebrity Endorsement and a Cultural Moment Support Premium Positioning#

FILA's (斐乐) Q1 strategy shows how a premium sportswear brand sustains its positioning in Tier 1 and new Tier 1 cities when domestic and mass-market international competitors are aggressive on price.

The main mechanism was celebrity marketing tied to a culturally specific activation. FILA worked with several celebrities across Xiaohongshu (小红书, RED), Douyin (抖音) and Weibo, choosing personalities who embody the Tier 1 lifestyle in place of professional athletes, which reinforced its fashion-first identity over a performance-first one.

The product anchor was a Chinese New Year Dragon Year limited collection made with Suzhou embroidery craftsmanship. The collection gave the media a story to cover and created purchase urgency, because it was available only over the holiday. It also connected FILA's brand to the "New Chinese Style" (新中式) trend, which was the single biggest fashion concept in Q1 2024 at +624% YoY GMV growth. A FILA x Ribone pop-up across Tier 1 mall locations then generated user-created social content, which gave the brand a kind of social attention that e-commerce advertising alone cannot produce.

FILA's buyer base remained concentrated among high-tier city consumers with above-average purchasing power, which is the audience its cultural activation strategy was designed to reach.

Outdoor Footwear & Apparel: Snow Boots Break Out#

The outdoor footwear and apparel market reached CN¥ 10.0 billion in Q1 2024, growing 73.7% YoY, one of the strongest growth rates among consumer categories in the quarter. Outdoor and fitness activities have moved from niche to mainstream in China, and the sales data reflects that structural shift.

Hardshell jackets ranked first in both sales scale and social media discussion volume. When sales and discussion move together in this way it suggests that demand is sustainable, since consumers both buy hardshell jackets and talk about them unprompted, which makes the category less dependent on promotional cycles.

Snow boots were the breakout sub-category, with sales up 157.4% YoY alongside +48.6% YoY growth in product SKU count. The SKU expansion drove the growth, as brands improved waterproofing and updated styling so that snow boots became wearable in city environments as well as for cold-weather use. That widened the occasions they suit and, with them, the number of potential buyers. Trail running shoes grew 38.0% YoY, reflecting wider participation in running. Hiking shoes have the largest scale among outdoor footwear sub-categories and, despite more modest YoY growth, ranked second in social media discussion volume, which suggests that consumer interest is ahead of current purchases and that there is room to grow.

Outdoor Footwear & Apparel Sub-category YoY Growth, Q1 2024#

Source: Moojing Market Intelligence (魔镜洞察)

Domestic brand Camel (骆驼) shows one strategy that works in this segment, combining value-for-money pricing at credible performance specifications with Douyin-first marketing, and its approach shows how domestic brands with digital-native operations compete with established international outdoor brands. The outdoor social media audience is nearly gender-balanced (47.9% male and 52.1% female), with a core age of 26–35. It divides into three profiles: outdoor beginners and social enthusiasts, who look for stress relief, attractive photos and accessible prices, professional outdoor enthusiasts, who focus on technical performance, and hardcore adventurers, who want the highest technical specifications and accept premium prices. The beginner and social enthusiast segment drives current volume growth and justifies heavier marketing investment, while technical credibility remains the foundation that makes a fashion positioning believable.

Trailblazer and the Overseas-to-Domestic Pivot#

Trailblazer (拓路者) built its operational capabilities through years of focus on overseas markets before turning to the domestic Chinese market from 2023, and it carried the same approach into Q1 2024.

Its brand positioning occupies a space that neither performance-focused Western outdoor brands nor general fashion brands hold, outdoor sports fashion with Chinese cultural design elements. The outdoor authenticity earns credibility in the category, while the fashion aesthetic widens its audience to the larger beginner and social enthusiast segment, and the Chinese cultural design language aligns Trailblazer with the "New Chinese Style" trend.

Its marketing combined celebrity collaborations with a cashback programme that encouraged consumers to share their experience of the product on social media. Celebrity reach created the initial exposure, and consumer-generated content on Xiaohongshu and Douyin then gave the brand an authenticity that branded content alone cannot provide. The cashback programme turns satisfied customers into an organic marketing channel, which links social media content to sales in a way that established brands would find hard to copy quickly.

Key Takeaways#

• Sportswear (CN¥ 10.41B, +17.8% YoY) and outdoor footwear & apparel (CN¥ 10.0B, +73.7% YoY) both grew far faster than the overall fashion market (+6.5% YoY) in Q1 2024. We believe this reflects a structural rise in mass fitness in China rather than a one-quarter base effect.
• Sports down jackets (+52.3% YoY) are the clearest sign of premiumisation in sportswear, with volume growth and pricing power at the same time, built on a combination of technical and fashion positioning.
• Snow boots (+157.4% YoY) are the outdoor breakout sub-category, and widening the occasions a product suits through waterproofing and styling upgrades is the product development lesson others can apply.
• FILA's Dragon Year limited collection shows how a premium brand sustains its price positioning against mass-market competition, by pairing culturally resonant limited product with celebrity reach online and an offline pop-up.
• Trailblazer's move from overseas markets to the domestic market, with outdoor fashion carrying a Chinese cultural identity, is a brand model that other export-first brands can study.
• Camel's value-for-money pricing and Douyin-first marketing show how domestic brands with digital-first operations compete in the mainstream outdoor segment.

About the Data#

This analysis draws on Moojing Market Intelligence (魔镜洞察) data on China's sportswear and outdoor footwear categories in Q1 2024, covering several leading Chinese e-commerce marketplaces. Social media analysis draws on user-generated content from major Chinese social platforms. The Q1 2024 data period is January–March 2024; YoY comparisons are against January–March 2023.