German sportswear company Adidas has opened a new headquarters in China, a launchpad for future growth.

Located in Shanghai’s Puxi commercial and retail district, the new office spans more than 180,000 sqft, 20 per cent larger than its previous premises.

“With our rapid growth in China, we were outgrowing our old office space and we needed to expand our headquarters in order to support our employees,” said Colin Currie, MD of the Adidas group in Greater China.

The new HQ will enable Adidas to realise long-term business plans as it move forward with its ‘Route 2015’ strategy, a plan to build the company into the leading sportswear brand in China.

“Our goal is to be in 1400 lower-tier cities by 2015, strengthen our position in key categories such as football and running, and maintain annual double-digit growth through 2015,” said the company.

In the two years since the strategy was launched, Adidas has expanded coverage to 350 new cities and currently operates more than 7000 retail stores across 900 cities.

“We’ve seen tremendous growth in recent years and our first-half results showed a 19 per cent increase in China,” it said.

Adidas will add 500 new stores across China before the end of this year.

GB