Can Nike conquer China?

The sportswear giant wants to double its business in China by 2015 — but critics doubt that Nike can just do it

A Nike advertisement in Shanghai: Nike is trying to utilize China's growing interest in sports and physical activity and expand its more than 7,000 stores.
(Image credit: Ryan Pyle/CORBIS)

Nike, already the number one sportswear brand in China, aims to double its sales in the country by 2015, and reach a target of $4 billion annually, according to Don Blair, Nike Vice President and CFO. Nike, which has 7,000 stores in the world's most populous country, has already capitalized off of China's growing basketball obsession. Can it make further inroads in a country where brand-pirating is rampant, exercise culture is limited, and the disparity of wealth is so great?

Nike faces some big obstacles: "Gyms have grown in popularity in China in recent years and sports-gear retailers have enjoyed increasing sales," says Laurie Burkitt in The Wall Street Journal. "But market watchers say a significant amount of the population doesn't harbor a Western-style passion for working out." That will make boosting sales a formidable challenge, as will increasingly fierce competition from other foreign brands, like Gap and H&M.

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