Banned swimmer Sun Yang can be ‘the Li Jiaqi of sports’ after selling US$7.8 million worth of cosmetics in 2 days on his live-stream debut
- With his swimming career on hold, Sun Yang is using his high-profile brand and personality to sell products online and fans are lapping it up
- Li Jiaqi is known as the ‘King of Lipstick’ in China with tens of millions of Douyin followers, compared with Sun’s 3.8 million
Banned Chinese swimming star Sun Yang has the potential to become the “Li Jiaqi of mainland sports” after he helped sell around 50 million yuan (US$7.8 million) worth of cosmetic products online, a sports analyst said.
The 30-year-old hosted a two-day live-stream sale on Douyin, China’s Tik Tok equivalent over the weekend, on behalf of the Sanya Duty Free Mall, reaching almost 7.4 million users and attracting 180,000 new subscribers.
Three-time Olympic champion Sun was reported to have sold goods valued at more than 33 million yuan on day one and added another 16 million on his second day on Saturday. He received a 20 per cent commission on sales, earning around 6 million yuan after tax.
“It should be pointed out that Sun Yang’s choice of beauty goods is very insightful. The overall profit of beauty products is high, and the beauty products of duty-free stores are very attractive to female users,” wrote analyst Fu Zhenghao on the mainland’s Sports Money website.
“They are one of the most imaginative subdivisions for live broadcasting and goods. Sun Yang is expected to further expand his scale in this field, and even truly become ‘Li Jiaqi in sports’.
“The traffic and sales generated by Sun Yang’s live-stream are comparable to the data of top stars in the live broadcasting industry.”
Austin Li Jiaqi is known as the “King of Lipstick” in China after he sold 15,000 lipsticks in five minutes a few years ago. In 2020, he had around 40 million fans on Douyin and is recognised as China’s best live-stream salesman.
