Decathlon to launch first Korean store

France’s sports retailer Decathlon said Wednesday it will open its first Korean store near Seoul next week amid a growing popularity of sportswear products in the Northeast Asian country.

The 7,800-square-meter outlet, located in Songdo, west of Seoul, will open Saturday, along with its Korean online mall, it said.

“Songdo is a sports city. There are many parks where we can run, walk and we have many families living here too. It’s exactly what we wanted,” Decathlon Korea CEO Stephane Guy said in a press conference at the store.

The store, selling around 4,000 items under 45 sports categories, provides community spaces and test zones at each sport section.

Decathlon plans to expand the number of stores in Korea to five in two years and to 49 by 2028, developing the country into its core market in Asia.

“Many sites are under negotiation,” Guy said on the company’s plan to open a store in the capital city of Seoul, though he said nothing has been decided in detail yet.

“We wish to go further by launching our own research and development team here in Korea, because we believe that Korean sports users are some of the most demanding in the world,” Guy said.

Established in France in 1976, Decathlon currently has 1,415 stores in 47 countries, including Korea, with some 85,000 employees. In fiscal year 2017, the company’s sales came to 11 billion euros ($12.75 billion).