Nike

Nike, Inc. also known as Nike, is a major American designer and supplier of athletic shoes, fashionable apparel and sports equipment. The Nike Company’s was named after a Greek goddess called Nike…pronounced ny-kee. Nike has several different brands of shoes and apparel like Nike Golf, Nike Pro, Air Jordan, etc. and several subsidiary companies that include Bauer, Hurley International, Converse and many others. Nike is the largest sportswear designer/supplier in the world today.

Nike has a huge variety of sports equipment availble on the market. The very first products Nike marketed were basketball and running shoes. Nike eventually expanded their product line to include jerseys for many different sports including football, baseball, tennis, soccer, cricket, and many other types of sports. The most recent additions to their line are the Nike 6.0 and Nike SB shoes, designed for skateboarding enthusiasts who durability with the great Nike style.

Nike recently introduced a line of accessories to go with the sports apparel, namely the new line of Nike sunglasses. Nike markets its products to try to appeal to the youthful and more materialistic crowd. Nike is marketed as a premium performance brand. But Nike also makes shoes and apparel and the sunglasses for discount stores like Wal-Mart under the Starter and other name brands.

Nike has more than 500 factories around the world and they have offices located in 45 different countries outside the United States. Most of Nike’s factories are located in Asia and includes the countries of China, Taiwan, India, Turkey, Thailand, Vietnam, Pakistan, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Korea. Nike is extremely reluctant to give out information about the other companies that Nike has contracts with. However, due to some sever accusations of violating certain labor practice laws that include using slave labor, Nike has had to give up information about its contract factories in its Corporate Governance Report. Because Nike designs and markets items for a wide variety of sports, they now have competition from every sports fashion brand now in business. In the beginning Nike had no competition because there was no single sports brand, which could be in direct competition with Nike’s line of sports oriented gear until Reebok showed up on the scene in the 1980s. Reebok now has contracts with the National Football League and the National Hockey League in the United States, and was bought by Adidas in 2006.

Along with the new line of sunglasses Nike also has watches, headbands, keychains, and an assortment of other fashion accessories.