Anta bets on localisation to take its multibrand playbook across Southeast Asia

Chinese sportswear group selling athletic wear and footwear under Anta, Fila, Descente and Wilson (via Amer Sports).

Multibrand localisation — matching each brand to each market's sport culture, staffed locally — can make a Chinese sportswear group truly global.

Acquired Amer Sports, owner of Wilson Sporting Goods, for an estimated $5.2bn in 2019.

After buying Amer Sports in 2019, Anta set up a Southeast Asia headquarters in Singapore overseeing multiple brands, with more than 400 local staff there.

By 2025 the region ran about 3,000 employees, 96% hired locally, with a rule that country general managers come from the local market; Anta-brand retail sales nearly doubled in H1 2025, Wilson took $1m in Vietnam within two months of launch, and nearly half the products sold in-region are made in-region.

Southeast Asia offers some of the fastest sportswear growth in the world, with Euromonitor projecting 8.8% CAGR in Malaysia to 2029.

Chinese rivals were moving first in places: 361 Degrees opened its first overseas store in Kuala Lumpur and Xtep turned to Vietnam.

The multibrand structure lets each market start with the brand that fits its sports culture instead of wasting resources on a full-brand flood.

Localisation is portfolio management: put the brand that fits each market's sports culture in first, and only add categories once one wins.

As of September 2025, Anta was targeting 1,000 Southeast Asian stores within three years, expanding its regional manufacturing footprint — nearly half of in-region sales already made in-region — and pushing the same playbook into the Middle East and North Africa and North America.