German sports goods firm Adidas expects a turnaround in sales at U.S. subsidiary Reebok by the end of the year, a German magazine quoted the group's chief executive as saying.

I am confident that we will see rising order intakes in the final quarter of this year, Adidas CEO Herbert Hainer told Focus Money in an interview due to be published on Wednesday.

While we still expect sales to fall in the middle single digits for 2006, we see rising sales in 2007, Hainer said.

Adidas blames the weak footwear business for Reebok's declining sales. In addition, it is now Adidas and not Reebok that equips the U.S. NBA basketball league.

Still, Reebok will contribute to the group's earnings per share in 2006.

In 2006 costs for the transaction will not exceed Reebok's profit contribution to the group, Hainer said.

We are targeting a two-digit operating margin by 2010, Hainer added.

For the whole group, Hainer expects an operating margin of 11 percent by 2008.

Adidas was also planning to expand further in Europe and Asia, especially in China.

The company was planning on doubling its stores in China to more than 5,000 by 2010 and was also expecting sales of about 1 billion euros ($1.28 billion) by then, the CEO said.

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