From Alibaba to BYD, Chinese sponsors jostle for attention at Euro 2024 football tournament

Chinese technology brands from Alibaba Group Holding to BYD make up a third of Euro 2024 football tournament's 13 worldwide sponsors, an example of their growing global footprint and commitment to expanding in overseas markets.

The Chinese sponsors include television and home appliance manufacturer Hisense, Alibaba's global shopping platform AliExpress, financial technology giant Ant Group, smartphone maker Vivo, and electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer BYD. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.

With many Chinese companies looking abroad amid slow domestic growth, investing heavily in publicity in major global sporting events has become a key strategy.

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E-commerce giant PDD Holdings' international shopping app Temu spent tens of millions of dollars on a marketing campaign during last year's Super Bowl, the annual championship of the US National Football League, resulting in a spike in web searches for its name.

"They focus on future international expansion, using their foundation and capital strengths in China to boost overseas market presence and revenues, particularly in Europe," said Howard Yu, professor at the International Institute for Management Development.

"What's new and interesting here is that Chinese companies, for the first time, will need to engage the Western market and learn to localise, [changing] their image from being Chinese companies with an international presence to becoming companies that consumers will associate with strong local relevance."

Chinese brands are doing more than just advertising on the football pitch.

Ant's cross-border payment service Alipay+ has launched a Euro 2024 ticket giveaway. AliExpress, which signed an advertising deal with football star David Beckham, is hosting its summer sales during the tournament.

Hisense is providing technical support for the video assistant referee system used in matches, while BYD has replaced host Germany's home-grown car giant Volkswagen as the event's official vehicle supplier.

The European Championship is expected to draw a cumulative global audience of more than 5 billion, according to the marketing director of the Union of European Football Associations. Other global sponsors of the event include Adidas, Booking.com, Coca-Cola and Qatar Airways.

Austria and France faced off on Monday, in front of a BYD advertisement. Photo: Xinhua alt=Austria and France faced off on Monday, in front of a BYD advertisement. Photo: Xinhua>

Some of the Chinese brands making an appearance at Euro 2024 already have a sizeable global presence.

Hisense shipped 25.9 million television units worldwide last year, second only to South Korea's Samsung Electronics, according to market research institute AVC Revo. Vivo controlled 8 per cent of the global smartphone market as of March, ranking it among the top five, according to data provider Statista.

BYD, which temporarily surpassed Tesla as the world's largest producer of EVs in the fourth quarter, grew its global car sales last year by 62 per cent to 3.02 million units. The Shenzhen-based company is operating or building factories in places such as Thailand, Brazil, Indonesia, Hungary and Uzbekistan.

Meanwhile, Ant in March restructured its operations into three independently-run business units that include overseas unit Ant International, headed by the group's chairman and chief executive Eric Jing Xiandong.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2024 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

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