Youth fashion brand Meters/bonwe might not be widely known globally – yet.

But the Chinese company is slowly building a niche in the garment market and was recently ranked in the top 10 fastest growing global brands by research agency Millward Brown Optimor.

Meters/bonwe Group was founded in 1994 as a privately owned company. It opened its first retail store at Jie Fang theatre in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province in 1995, symbolising its step into the chain-store retail fashion industry.

Its founder, Zhou Chengjian, with a fortune of about US$5 billion, is now Shanghai’s second richest person.

Meters/bonwe is considered a slightly downmarket answer to Spain’s Zara and Sweden’s H&M, largely targeting youths. Although Meters/bonwe is a Mandarin name, its stores are transliterated into English as part of its strategy to appeal to Chinese consumers who link foreign brands with superiority of products and services.

To become even more appealing, Meters/bonwe launched an upmarket sub-brand, Me & City, which initially attracted a strong customer following thanks to its European styling and European fashion models.

But the strategy did not last as many Chinese soon saw the brand as simply an arm of Meters/bonwe. So it recently closed its flagship store in Shanghai. Chengjian plans to reposition the sub-brand to make distinction between the two.

Meters/bonwe has over 3600 stores. It competes with other local apparel companies Semir and Bosideng who say they have more than 7000 stores each.

Meters/bonwe’s net profit increased by 17 per cent to 237 million yuan (US$38 million) in the first three months of the year as sales rose by 27 per cent to 2.6 billion yuan (US$419 million). This year, Shenzhen-listed Meterbonswe forecasts a 20 per cent rise in revenues and net profit.

However, aware of the competition with local and international brands flocking into China’s apparel market, Chengjian plans to take his brand to London, New York, Milan and Paris within three to five years time for further growth.

GB