Exclusive | Under Armour to use Hong Kong as its launching pad for Asia-Pacific growth and competition with bigger sportswear rivals

New York-listed sportswear brand Under Armour is scaling up in Asia as it competes with global industry giants. But it will do so, on its own terms.

The company, which will open a regional headquarters in Hong Kong later this year, will not change its products to fit in with the global “athleisure” trend, senior management said in an interview.

President and chief operating officer Patrik Frisk admitted Under Armour was much smaller than the likes of Nike and Adidas, but said the company would compete with more premium, performance-based products and use international, regional and local celebrities to promote these. The brand has partnered with Chinese athlete Zhu Ting, the No. 1 female volleyball player in the world, as well as the likes of American NBA star Stephen Curry.

Asia is a key overseas market for the Baltimore, Maryland-based company as it transitions away from its American roots. It is expanding operations in Latin America and Europe as well.

“As part of the transformation into this new operating model, one of the things that we wanted to do was to really empower our regions,” said Frisk. “So we decided to move into an APAC, Latin America, EMEA and North America structure.

“We weren’t able to scale our international business without giving the regions more horse power to drive the business.”