China’s largest sportswear company Li Ning will attempt to rival international brands like Adidas and Nike by expanding its website and boosting online sales, the Wall Street Journal reported. Li Ning, founded two decades ago by the Chinese gymnast of the same name, will launch a new website next year to attract a bigger share of China’s 338 million strong internet community. The sale of goods online accounted for only 1.2% of total retail sales in China last year, but is expected to have grown by 89% by the end of 2009, with total sales amounting to US$35.6 billion, according to estimates by Credit Suisse. Despite Li Ning having almost 7,000 stores in mainland China, the Chinese sportswear market is still dominated by Nike, which accounts for 18.8% of sales.
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