Leading Chinese shopping mall operators continue to gain in popularity at the expense of traditional department store chains, according to our latest survey of 1,428 Chinese shoppers.

Nike remains the most popular sportswear maker in our consumer surveys and has made progress in clearing excess inventory and boosting direct sales in China, helping to support a return to positive sales and earnings growth in recent quarters 

Attempts to expand its online presence and adopt a multi-brand strategy are unlikely to prevent a further sales slowdown for the outdoor sports product manufacturer in 2014.

The Chinese sportswear maker is slowly making progress towards a return to positive revenue and profit growth, but continues to lose popularity in our consumer surveys and faces an extremely challenging outlook.

The German sportswear maker continues to outperform in China thanks to its larger exposure to casualwear, strong brand equity, extensive store network and favourable product mix.

With leading sportswear makers making progress in shedding excess inventory, and with demographic and behavioural shifts likely to support future sector growth, China’s sportswear market finally appears to be on the brink of recovery after several years of painful transition.

DANWEI – The Chinese education services company Tarena is set for a Nasdaq IPO. This week we consider online complaints about the company that suggest important lines of enquiry for potential investors. Also this week, new players are set to threaten the big three Chinese telecom operators, and in the Mai-Mai Index we look at Chinese sportswear brands on Weibo.

While fast-growing multinational casualwear brands continue to outperform domestic rivals, all leading players will find it challenging to continue to grow sales and market share without sacrificing margins in an increasingly competitive market.