China’s challenging sportswear market has seen 361 Degrees International Limited cull 13 stores in the first quarter of the year.

The Chinese sportswear chain opened 149 new stores while 162 were closed during the period, coming to a total of 8069.

Other local sportswear companies also suffer from challenging environment such as Li Ning which lost 2 billion yuan in 2012 and Peak Sport whose net profit plunged by more than 50 per cent last year.

However, German company Adidas bucked the trend by posting six per cent sales growth in the first quarter of the year across Greater China.