Adidas has the edge in soccer usually. I saw another article that Nike is investing a fortune in World Cup marketing and they actually sponsor more teams now.
I guess these are some of the Chinese kicks whooping up on Nike. I believe you mentioned Li Ning to me previously. Some look nice but what happens when a rock or stick gets wedged in that big hole in the bottom? Not nice feelings. Experience has taught me holes and nooks on shoes tend to be a bad idea.......aka On Cloud....
Regarding the $, you can find year old Western brands on sale for less. So cheaper but not exactly crazy discount here.
Anta and Li-Ning are doing very well in China. Anta is definitely number one in the casual running market. The thing they both did very well is they went in very heavy into the smaller cities and towns where no western shoe company ever went. There are hundreds of these towns/cities in China. Anta and Li-Ning literally built thousands of stores here. Nike (or any Western brand) had none. No western brand saw the boom coming this soon from these smaller cities. Anta and Li-Ning did.
Worth noting that Table tennis is the national sport and badminton is the most popular casual adult activity. Both have specific shoes. This used to be dominated by Japanese and Taiwanese companies and Li-Ning went in hard and now sponsor the national teams of both sports.
As far as insight I can add, I can speak of basketball. In the US/Canada most basketball is played indoors. Most basketball shoes are made exclusively for indoor courts where traction is very important because all courts get dusty. In China, basketball blew up but they play outdoors. An indoor basketball shoe’s outsole will get obliterated on an outdoor court. Anta and Li-Ning focused on making outdoor basketball shoes with different levels of quality and price points. I personally think this is why they killed it. Nike (nor Adidas) had many options for quality outdoor basketball shoes.
But my biggest gripe with Nike is this - the most popular shoe in the NBA are still early Kobe’s (4,5,6). Nike just “Protros” (Performance Retro) them. The issue here, imo, is Protro-ing has limitations because you obviously have to keep properties of the silhouette to keep it “retro” and since it's a retro, they aren't going to manufacture them to them levels of sigs like Jas. These Kobes are also extremely popular with collectors, which makes them almost impossible to cop with out paying 2-5x to a reseller which now throws in the risk of getting a fake. One could say Nike has no incentive to upgrade materials on these because they well sell out at any price point in seconds regardless.
Jalen Brunson was recently asked if he would want a signature shoe and he said he would prefer a lifetime supply of Kobes - that says a lot imo. What Anta, Li-Ning, SPO, Volante, 361, and more are doing is taking the Kobes and making them for all price points, all surfaces, and giving them differentiation.
But at the end of the day, it's still a copy of Nike shoes and everyone knows it. If Nike can get a gameplan together they could take the Asia basketball market back over imo.