For Mary Kay Inc., direct selling is no longer a forbidden practice in China.

RYAN PYLE/Special Contributor

Mary Kay's China operations thrived even under the ban against direct sales. The company expects China to become its largest market within a decade.

On Friday, the Chinese government granted a direct-selling license to the Addison-based skin care and cosmetics company.

The license enables Mary Kay to continue to operate in its most important market outside the United States and tailor its Chinese operations more closely to those in other parts of the world.

"It will be much easier to communicate to the citizens of China that we are a viable, law-abiding company," said Randall Oxford, a Mary Kay spokesman.

Mary Kay is counting on fast-growing China to drive its sales growth. Within a decade, Mary Kay executives predict, China will become the company's largest market, surpassing the U.S.

China banned direct sales in 1998 after fly-by-night companies posing as direct sellers had set up pyramid schemes and other scams, cheating unsuspecting victims of their life savings.

To survive, Mary Kay's China operations altered the company's business model. Unlike in the U.S., beauty consultants in China don't own the products they sell.

And sales directors, known as distributors in China, earn fees based on sales at their workshops' beauty classes, instead of commissions based on a percentage of their recruits' sales.

Even with the ban against direct sales, Mary Kay's China operations have thrived.

Its sales force numbers more than 350,000, and it's been profitable since 2001.

Now, with the end of the ban on direct sales and a license, Mary Kay is "going to operate as a direct seller in China," as it does everywhere else, said Wendy Wang, Mary Kay China's chief legal officer.

She had not yet had a chance to review the exact details of the license.

Mary Kay was among the last foreign companies to receive a direct-selling license by the government's Dec. 1 deadline.

Its much larger rival, Avon Products Inc., received China's first direct-selling license in February.

E-mail kyung@dallasnews.com