By 2020, more than half a billion people in China could be playing a sport or exercising regularly, according to one forecast. This is good news to the sportswear industry, which has already seen stellar growth in the past decade.
In Fujian province, a cluster of manufacturing bases is built on the success of some of China's leading sportswear companies. Li Ning, Anta Sports, 361 Degrees, Erke, Xtep and Peak have each carved out a share of the market for themselves.
While the Chinese growth has been compared with the American experience in the 1980s, industry players say the difference is that the Chinese market has not yet reached saturation.
Terry Rhoads, a former Nike executive in China who now runs the Zou Marketing sports consultancy in Shanghai, said: 'China is the closest to emulating what happened in the US in a relatively short period. There is so much appetite in China as the middle class emerges to really embrace a sports lifestyle.
'Right now it's more just people wanting to wear the apparel and footwear. But what's more encouraging is the buying for participation in sports ... If you look back you think 'Wow, what an amazing story', but if you look forwards, there is some amazing growth and opportunities coming.'
The sportswear market in China is now a fraction of that in the US, but it could one day overtake the current leader. China's education and health ministries have been encouraging more people, especially students, to take up sports as a lifelong hobby to beat stress and compensate for a richer diet.
'All this growth to date happened with little sports being played,' Rhoads said. 'As incomes rise and people have more time for sports, of course it's going to impact on the industry.'
