Decathlon pushing to becom bigger player
By Zhang Lu (China Daily)
Updated: 2004-04-05 08:59

Decathlon, Europe's leading producer and retailer of sporting goods, is seeking to seize a bigger share of China's potentially huge sports market.

"We are expecting to speed up the development of our retail business in the country," said Herve Danilo, the company's Asia managing director.

With rapid economic growth and improving living standards, China is going to increase its demand for sports products, Danilo said.

"You can imagine how big a market the country is, when it has 1.3 billion people and achieves an economic growth of over 8 per cent," Danilo said.

He added that his company has 212 stores, with an average selling space of 3,000 square metres in France.

The French company opened its first self-service sports store in the country in Shanghai last November, which provides sportswear and equipment from big international brands as well as its own brands for some 60 sports.

"Sales in the Shanghai store are 30 per cent better than what we expected during the past five months," he said.

"With the success of the Shanghai store, we decide to open as many as possible in the country," Danilo told China Daily in an exclusive interview.

The company moved its Asian headquarter from Hong Kong to Shanghai last year to better develop its retail business on the Chinese mainland.

It will first focus its retail business in Beijing and Shanghai then expand to Guangzhou, Shenzhen and other big cities, he said.

"We are expecting to have a minimum of one store in Beijing next year and at least four by 2008," he said.

Meanwhile, another two stores are being planned for Shanghai.

At present, the company is trying to find an appropriate piece of  land in Beijing and is in talks with potential Chinese partners to build its second store in the country.

As a large-surface specialized sporting goods retail chain, Decathlon is likely to put pressure on China's traditional sports products stores, industry insiders said. But this may pose a challenge for the retailer..

"An ideal location for us is a big piece of land with a surface area of 10,000 to 20,000 square metres, which would allow us to build a typical Decathlon store in the country," Danilo said.

He said that most Decathlon stores elsewhere in the world provide an outdoor field for customers and sports lovers.

In Beijing, however, finding such a large plot of land in a good location is difficult.

"(It is a) pity that we do not have enough space for the playing ground in our first store in the country. We hope we'll have it in the second store," he said.

Established in 1976, the company now has 320 stores around the world, with a sales volume of US$3.5 billion last year.

And it has manufacturing bases in 18 countries around the world.

In China, it has built four factories in Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Tianjin since 1992, producing 40 per cent of goods for its global sales.

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