Yi, er! Yi, er! Lodge near a Chinese school and you may find yourself awoken before dawn by yells of “One, two!” as bleary-eyed youngsters are cajoled through their morning exercises. Universities feature weekly mandatory runs: students shuffle around sports tracks, attired in regular day wear from jeans to denim skirts.
China wants to develop its sports industry, starting with its youth. Even if they do not all change into tracksuits and trainers to exercise, the sports apparel market will grow. Last year, retail sales of sportswear in the US reached $91bn, Euromonitor says. In China, they were around a quarter of that. The market researcher expects Chinese growth of nearly one-tenth per annum between 2014-2019, twice the rate forecast for the US.
While the expanding pie should allow most participants to grow, some are likely to gain greater heft than others. In the year to May, Nike’s China sales rose to $3bn, up by nearly one-fifth and the fastest growth of any geography. Thus, according to Euromonitor, Nike leads the market with 14 per cent share; rival foreign brand Adidas has a similar portion.