China’s Peak Sports on overseas expansion drive

Peak Sports, the third-largest sportswear brand in China after Li-Ning and Anta in terms of sales and market share, is focusing on increasing its international presence, especially in Asia and the Middle East.

In 2011, Peak was the top producer of basketball wear in China for the fourth consecutive year, as per China General Chamber of Commerce data. Incidentally, Peak brand has long association with NBA, the leading US basketball team.

Currently, Peak exports to over 60 countries and regions including Asia Pacific, the Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe. It also opened a basketball-themed outlet in the US in December 2011 and opened another flagship store in Los Angeles in February this year.

Speaking to fibre2fashion, Mr. Denis Tsoi, Company Secretary, Peak Sport Products Co. Ltd., said, “Our objective is to become an internationally renowned brand of sportswear. To expand in overseas markets is one of our strategies to achieve the objective.”

“Currently, our largest overseas market is Asia, notably countries in the Middle East. We rely on our overseas distributors to operate our business in foreign markets. It is because the distributors, who are local people in their home countries, know about demand for our products in their countries,” he reveals.

Informing about rationale behind opening stores in the US, he says, “The main purpose behind opening retail stores in the US is to enhance our brand image in both domestic market, i.e. China, and overseas markets. We do not expect our US stores to make a lot of profits in the coming years.”

Sharing the company’s growth in Chinese and foreign markets in 2011, he says, “The China market contributed 90.1 percent of the total Peak’s turnover in 2011, while the remaining was contributed by the overseas markets. The turnover from China market grew by 8.8 percent, whereas the sales from overseas market rose by 14.5 percent over 2010.”

“The greater increase in sales in the overseas markets was due to increased demand from emerging markets in Asia, Africa and South America during the year,” he adds.