SHANGHAI – Jeans maker Levi Strauss & Co. launched a new global brand in China, joining a growing list of companies that hope to crack this fast-growing and youthful market by tailoring their products to Chinese tastes.
Models at last week’s launch were wearing sneakers and high-heeled sandals: not a cowboy hat or boot in sight. The new brand is aimed at young consumers in emerging markets, starting with China, Singapore and South Korea.
With products such as Nissan sedans, watches and Hermes luxury goods, global companies increasingly are designing products and brands with the Chinese market in mind as incomes rise amid rapid economic growth.
The newest incarnation of Levi’s will aim at a broader segment of Chinese consumers than traditional Levi’s, which sell for more than $100 in the upscale malls along Shanghai’s Nanjing Road shopping strip.
“In the last few years we’ve seen a new group of consumers,” said Aaron Boey, president for Levi Strauss’s Asia-Pacific division. “Many of them want stylish clothes but at accessible prices,” he said. Levi is calling the new brand “dENIZEN.”
The first shop will open this month in Shanghai.
The Levi’s brand enjoys an avid following in China, among a relatively limited number of well-off younger shoppers, some of whom are collectors.
“Some people favor the classics, such as No. 501; others look for different designs and some are obsessed with Levi’s’ cowboy spirit or the history behind the brand,” said Christina Wong, managing editor of In Style magazine in Shanghai.
San Francisco-based Levi Strauss is keen to expand its base in one of the world’s biggest consumer markets, where sales of apparel and footwear hit $169 billion last year, according to a report by Bank of America-Merrill Lynch, and growing at a healthy double-digit pace.
Already, sales of garments and shoes in China have outpaced Japan, accounting for more than a third for all of Asia, and increasingly, fashion-conscious Shanghai is viewed as a foothold for the region.
Levi Strauss is honing its focus on China’s emerging middle class – a popular strategy in the recession-stricken age of less-is-more in more mature Western mar- kets.
The new-label Levis jeans will sell for the equivalent of $40 to $60, which is a price likely to suit the relatively young 20-to-40 age range that dominates China’s spending on clothing and accessories.
With Lee, Diesel and other big brands coming on strong, there will be plenty of competition.
“If Levi’s doesn’t move quickly, it might lose market share,” Wong said.
