Johnson & Johnson said to buy local baby-care brand

Rumored deal would further boost US firm's dominating market share

The multibillion-dollar baby-care market has been rife with rumors in recent weeks that the US consumer-product vendor Johnson & Johnson has made a bid for Shanghai-based Elsker for about $100 million.

Such a transaction, if it were to go through, would provide Johnson & Johnson, which has an extensive sales network in China, an even more dominating share of the ballooning baby-care market, with annual sales estimated to reach 2 billion yuan ($310 million) by the end of 2015.