Recently, the recovery of the domestic economy has been further confirmed, as reflected in many economic data exceeding expectations. For example, GDP increased by 5.3% year-on-year in the first quarter, and international agencies have revised their domestic economic prospects one after another. This is expected to be transmitted to the performance side of listed companies, providing support for the “fundamentals drive” of the capital market.

Focusing on the Hong Kong stock market, economic recovery has also helped improve overall market profit expectations, gradually returning the market focus to fundamentals, and steadily increasing the investment attractiveness of leading companies with strong performance support.

In fact, some relevant leaders have also started the market first, such as Bosideng. For some time now, Bosideng's stock price has continued to rise.

Judging from the core of performance support, Bosideng is also a sample worth exploring. One of its core points is innovation, which continues to provide impetus for growth. For example, in October 2023, Bosideng once again “innovated” the down jacket category to boost sales during peak season; recently, Bosideng continued to increase innovation in the sunscreen category, ushering in new opportunities.

Although the sunscreen category still accounts for a relatively low share of Bosideng's overall business, it has grown significantly, bringing more flexibility in performance, and its development has tested Bosideng's ability to migrate, allowing the market to see a more imaginative Bosideng, which is worth analyzing.

Sunscreen product upgrade+expansion of categories may be launched quickly

As can be seen, recently, Bosideng has been making frequent moves to innovate the sunscreen category, improving product professionalism while exploring more fashion possibilities. In the world's first sunscreen show just held by Bosideng, it also focused on showing such strategic characteristics.

On April 18, Bosideng was invited to perform in the “Film and Fashion Section” first set up by the 14th Beijing International Film Festival to host the world's first sunscreen show on the shores of Yanqi Lake.

From a product perspective, the entire Bosideng show was divided into various themes, such as “Hot Sun Series”, “Luxury Series”, “Show Style”, “Showcase+ Urban Light Outdoor”, and “Girls/Boys Jacket+Lightweight Feather Series”, which showcased different styles of sunscreen clothing. Behind this,Bosideng iteratively launched Hot Sun 3.0, further expanded the sunscreen category, and launched a new urban lightweight outdoor product line, build a diverse product matrix and break the traditional single form of sunscreen.

Among them, the “Hot Sun 3.0” product series combines fashion and nature to capture the natural beauty of spring and summer, such as cherry blossom powder, green grass, etc., and at the same timeRaw yarn sunscreen is used to create outstanding professional performance. The UV protection factor reaches UPF100+, the coolness is 66% higher than the national standard, the breathability rate is increased by 35%, and the product weight is reduced by 10%.

The Urban Light Outdoor Series uses lightness and style as the design concept to create multiple functions such as sunscreen, breathability, and fashion to expand coverage of life scenarios, such as daily commuting, outdoor sports, and weekend outings. In terms of sunscreen function, the original yarn is also used to protect against the sun, and the UV protection factor reaches UPF100+.

Looking at the specific presentation format, the entire Bosideng show closely followed the theme of the fusion of movies and fashion, bringing a new fashion experience.The show was inspired by the movie “Last Year in Marienbad” and the film shooting site, and used the changing light and shadow in the film to create a fantastic catwalk scene. Each themed series was displayed separately according to the different scenes of the movie.

Returning to a commercial perspective, sunscreen clothing is relatively popular, yet there is still an asymmetry between supply and demand in the market. The overall function of sunscreen products on the market is single, lacking in fashion design, and consumer demand still needs to be met. At the same time, some brand information is not transparent, and there is a lack of quantitative numerical values to aid consumption decisions.

Referring to the “White Paper on China's Rashguard Industry Standards” recently released by iResearch, 70.6% of respondents believe that the performance of sunscreen should be more diverse, not just focusing on sunscreen; 63.6% of respondents want sunscreen to be more comfortable to wear for a long time and more trendy; 48% of users think that the sunscreen industry is complicated in terms of concepts and high understanding costs; 66% of users believe that current products lack quantitative numerical references.

In this context, professionalism and fashion are key growth points in the field of sunscreen. Bosideng combines sunscreen expertise with fashion to launch new spring and summer products, and expand the category horizontally, which will undoubtedly further drive sales. At the same time, Bosideng's brand and quantitative advantages can provide more sales support.

In response, various organizations have also published research reports on Bosideng one after another, saying they are optimistic about its business and market performance, and have room for imagination.

Among them, Motong Daikon indicated thatComparing Bosideng's latest sunscreen with competitors such as Uniqlo and Beneunder, it was found that Bosideng has advantages in category coverage, quantitative indicators, etc., and is expected to increase market share;It is expected that Bosideng's retail sales of sunscreen will increase more than fivefold in FY2024 and double in FY2025; the “increase” rating was reiterated and its target price was raised to HK$5.7.

Shen Wan Hongyuan pointed out thatThe core advantages of Bosideng sunscreen are outstanding, and the channel strategy layout is clear. Bosideng is being built as the number one brand of successful sunscreen;In 2023, Bosideng's sales volume for sunscreen clothing was about 500 million yuan, and the target sales volume for 2024 was 1 billion yuan, maintaining a “buy” rating.

In the consumer sector, there is the term “1 billion club”. This figure is often regarded as an important indicator of brand growth and competitiveness, representing the brand's position in the market. Judging from the mapping, this also reflects that Bosideng will soon stand more stable in the field of sunscreen and open up a new situation.

Understanding medium- to long-term opportunities in the sunscreen business from four dimensions

From a broader perspective, the 1 billion sun protection business is just the beginning. Bosideng is expected to seize medium- to long-term opportunities in this field and achieve growth in different dimensions.

First,Sunscreen clothing is a rapidly growing category in apparel. The market continues to expand, and players such as Bosideng are facing incremental opportunities.

Let's take a quick look at two sets of data: 1) Refer to the Tmall platform data. In 2020-2023, the CAGR for outdoor sportswear in China was 29%, and the CAGR of sunscreen clothing in the segment was 34%, the fastest growth rate; 2) According to the “White Paper on China's Sun Protection Industry Standards”, China's sunscreen clothing market is showing a steady growth trend, which is expectedThe market size will reach 95.8 billion yuan in 2026, approaching 100 billion yuanAmong them, the sun protection clothing market accounts for 57.5%, and the market size can reach 55.4 billion yuan.

Source: iResearch

Second,Sunscreen clothing has strong functional properties and scattered patterns, and there is more room for concentration improvement. Bosideng's advantages are beginning to show, and there is plenty of room for potential market share increase.

First, sunscreen clothing focuses on sunscreen performance. Top brands have excellent sunscreen technology and are more capable of creating high-performance products. At the same time, sunscreen clothing has uniform performance evaluation standards such as UPF, which makes different brands comparable, which helps top brands increase their market share. In addition, it was mentioned that consumers' demand for the performance of sunscreen is diverse, and continuous enhancement of its functional properties will also help accelerate and deepen this trend.

Referring to the performance of sportswear, sportswear continues to increase its concentration as functional clothing. In 2020, CR5 reached 70.7%. As of 2021, sunscreen CR5 was only 15%.

With the launch of sunscreen for the spring and summer of 2024, Bosideng will further enhance its market competitiveness, and it is expected that it will participate more deeply in the process of increasing the concentration of the sunscreen industry and seize a large market share.

Third,Sunscreen suits are “similar” to down jackets. Bosideng's ability can be transferred, and efficiency is high, and it is expected that it will continue to consolidate its advantages.

In recent years, sunscreen clothing has gradually become the standard for spring and summer outerwear.Market participants figuratively call it the “spring and summer version of the down jacket”.Corresponding to this, the Baidu search index for sunscreen clothing is growing year by year, and a “wrong peak” has appeared with down jackets; sunscreen also has functional and fashion requirements, has technical barriers, and has something in common in terms of underlying logic.

As the absolute leader in the down jacket circuit, Bosideng has accumulated deep professional strength and fashion resources. Some of its accumulation can be transferred to the field of sunscreen clothing to quickly improve product strength. At the same time, it can reuse channel power and brand power to concentrate resources to promote the sunscreen business in the “wrong peak”. This is also why we saw that Bosideng quickly established relevant advantages and achieved results.

Looking forward to the future, I believe that with the deepening of Bosideng's layout and the interpretation of the strong man's strong logic, it will continue to consolidate its advantages.

Fourth,The layout of sunscreen clothing helps the brand to rejuvenate, feeds back overall management, and forms a positive cycle.

Judging from the portraits of outdoor sports users, young people are the main players. The proportion of people aged 19-30 in outdoor daily activities is nearly 50%, driving outdoor clothing to become one of the fastest growing categories in the apparel circuit. Among them, sunscreen clothing is also deeply integrated into the lives and minds of young people, leading the outdoor clothing category.

Source: CITIC Construction Investment

Therefore, in a certain sense, Bosideng's layout of sunscreen clothing is expected to seize the mentality of more young consumers, help rejuvenate the brand, form a positive cycle with overall management, and stimulate more vitality.

epilogue

Looking at it from a glance, the history of rapid growth of down jackets in the Chinese market seems to be repeated. Actual consumer demand for sun protection clothing is gradually changing, demand for professional and fashion is constantly increasing, awareness of category standards is gradually emerging, and both supply and demand sides will be reshaped.

In the past, Bosideng introduced the concept of fashion design into the down jacket industry, changing the “thickness, swelling, and weight” of down jackets, and participated in the formulation of standards for the down jacket category many times, leading the high-quality development of the industry. Today, Bosideng is strongly releasing 2024 spring and summer sunscreen clothing, breaking the traditional single form of sunscreen clothing and further stirring up the development of the sunscreen industry.

In a more realistic sense, with innovation in the sunscreen business, Bosideng has further improved its multi-category layout, weakened seasonal fluctuations in performance, or re-launched peak season sales, strengthening the growth logic, and the value still needs to be re-evaluated.