Adidas looking to overtake Nike

BEIJING: Global sports apparel giant Adidas said on Thursday its China marketing strategy, including plans for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, could help the German company overtake Nike as industry leader.

Herbert Hainer, Adidas chairman, told journalists that official Beijing Games sponsorship, coupled with marketing deals with national teams and individual sports stars would help the company reach its target of 1.0 billion euros ($1.27 billion) in sales in China by 2010.

"I'm always confident that China will reach this target by 2010," Hainer said.

Sales in China have nearly doubled every year for the last four years and with the Beijing Olympics only two years away revenues were slated to continue to grow with Adidas' merchandising partnership with games organizers, he said.

According to market surveys, more than 50 percent of Chinese consumers recognize the joint Adidas and Beijing Olympic logo, a positive sign for the company two years before the start of the games, he said.

"China will be the engine for Adidas here in Asia as well. Asia has been growing for us, in Asia we want to do over two billion (euros by 2010)," he said.

Hainer refused to reveal China sales figures last year, but said they were "relatively close" to the reported 600 million dollars in sales that Nike reportedly garnered in the country in 2005.

"Our main target is not to become number one, our main target is to grow our company and create more value for our shareholders," Hainer said.

"If we do all these things right, then we will become number one in the world."

Adidas was planning to increase the number of its franchised stores from about 2,500 to up to 5,000 by 2010, he said.

China would also continue to be a major manufacturing base for Adidas, with the company producing up to half of its more than 200 million pairs of shoes and 300 million sets of apparel a year, he said.

Adidas' sales goal in China would not include sales from shoemaker Reebok as it was set before the German company bought the American company for about 3.1 billion euros in Janaury, but sales of Reebok shoes would definitely show up on the company's bottom line, Hainer said.    Much of the Reebok push in China would be led by NBA All Star center Yao Ming, he said, as the company aimed to increase its 500 Reebok stores in China to between 1,500 and 2,000 over the next five to six years.

Yao signed a shoe contract with Reebok about four years ago as his NBA career took off.

"Yao Ming definitely will play a role in this because he is the most popular player here in China," Hainer said.

"He will definitely be one of the great ambassadors for Reebok."