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Sports gear maker Wilson sees 15% annual sales growth in China
Online Edition
SPORTS equipment maker Wilson is targeting annual sales growth of up to 15 percent in China, where tennis is a rapidly growing sport thanks to the success of star players such as Li Na.
People are turning increasingly professional on tennis gear here, creating more demand for services such as racquet stringing. On average, Chinese would restring their rackets 1.5 times per year, compared with the average of four times in mature markets, according to Patrick Wong, Wilson’s commercial manager in China.
“We expect the rapid growth here to continue in the next five to 10 years,” he said in an interview in Shanghai today.
To meet growing demand for professional service, Wilson last month opened its first five stringing center in China, in partnership with Belgium’s Luxilon Industries NV, which provides high-end strings for racquet sports.
The five stringing centers are in Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Chengdu as well as Wuhan in central China -- hometown of Li Na, currently ranked world No.2 by the Women’s Tennis Association.
Wilson also sees the online market a key distribution platform in China, where it has opened an official store on Alibaba’s Tmall.com. Wilson plans to open a new store at JD.com, another top Chinese e-commerce site, later this year, Wong said.
Still, Wong said brick and mortar stores will always be essential for industries such as tennis equipment, because professional stringing service is a key part of the sport.
Chicago-based Wilson also makes equipment for other sports such as baseball, badminton and golf.
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