Adidas hopes to make hay while the Olympics shine and is looking to more than double the number of its retail outlets on the mainland by 2010 as a result of the Olympic effect.

It has been a bit of a slow start but more than a decade after Adidas sneakers were first introduced at a shopping mall in Beijing, the brand has now become a household name.

The success of Adidas in China coincides with the country’s growing enthusiasm for sports.

Nationwide, there are more than 2,500 Adidas outlets in 300 Chinese cities attract millions of sports fans. Adidas, is the world’s No.2 sporting goods maker after Nike and is expecting the number of its outlets in China to grow to over 5,000 by 2010.

Adidas, which has been the official supplier of the World Cup since 1970, is also committed to the Olympic Movement. The partnership between the Olympics and the company dates back to the 1928 Amsterdam Games.

On January 24, 2005, Adidas signed a deal with the Organizing Committee of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games to became one of 11 official partners of the 2008 Olympics.

The German company is estimated to have paid as much as $100 million in cash and extras such as uniforms to win the Beijing Olympics sponsorship bid. The company will supply approximately 40,000 volunteers, staff and technical officials with sportswear. The illustration is of an Adidas factory in Suzhou which is no doubt going flat out to cope with the expected demand.

Note that in this article Adidas is spelled thus. In fact, it was registered as ‘adidas’ and was one of the first companies with such a damn silly idea regarding capitalization of a name. Since when it has spread like a disease.

Adidas was founded by Adi Dassler in the 1920s in Herzogenaurach, near Nuremberg. His brother, Rudolf Dassler, who worked with him, later formed the other shoe company, Puma and became a bitter rival.
Source: China Daily