SINGAPORE — As ONE Championship aims to widen its reach in Asia, the biggest challenge facing the Singapore-based mixed martial arts (MMA) promoter is how to crack the China market.

While the world’s largest MMA promoter, Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), has had little luck with it, ONE Championship CEO Victor Cui is now pulling out all stops to try to engage the increasingly affluent Chinese market of about 1.4 billion people.

Last year, ONE Championship had planned to host 10 events in China, but only managed two — in Beijing and Guangzhou — reportedly due to regulatory and licensing issues.

But Cui clarified yesterday that the company did not face licensing issues in China but, rather, was unable to assemble enough human resources “to execute like how we wanted” there.

He added that the ONE Championship is now better equipped to take on that challenge, hence the plan to host 10 events in China this year.

“China is a large market and is rich in martial arts history. And every company that we partner wants us to go to China,” said Cui, 44, who has 250 fighters on the company’s roster and more than 100 staff members.

“But we have been growing so fast, that keeping up with that growth as a company has been a big challenge. We need to hire more people across every aspect of the company to meet that challenge.”

Into its fifth year of operations this year, ONE Championship now has 24 events planned across Asia, including 10 in the China market, and maiden events in Vietnam, Thailand and Hong Kong.

On May 6, ONE Championship will be holding the Ascent to Power event at the 12,000-seater Singapore Indoor Stadium, where there are nine fights on the card — including the Middleweight World Championship bout between defending champion Vitaly Bigdash and challenger Aleksei Butorin.

With its events shown to more than 1 billion homes in 75 countries, it is also the only sports property in Asia that has a 10-year television deal with FOX. In 2014, Filipino boxing icon Manny Pacquiao acquired an undisclosed stake in ONE Championship, and now sits on its board of directors.

To grow the business further, Cui, a Canada-born Filipino, is targeting hosting an event in Asia every week by 2018.

“I really think we are just still scratching the surface (of ONE Championship’s potential),” he told TODAY in a phone interview.

“There’s still a long way to go for our business and, eventually, we want to be holding events in 100,000-seater stadiums.”

To do that, ONE Championship recently entered a collaboration with global music industry giant, Universal Music Group (UMG) — a move Cui believes will offer fans the best of sports and entertainment. The UMG stable of artists include Rihanna and Taylor Swift.

“I believe people come together around two things — music and live sports events — and now we have the two companies best in the business for that. It is going to be massive,” said Cui, whose company also counts top brands such as Disney, Facebook and Kawasaki as partners.

Plans for an initial public offering (IPO) listing in the next three years are also under way, he said.

“That is what the best companies in the world want to get to, and we have to take it step by step,” he said.

“There’s always a plan to build the business like it’s a public company.

“To get listed, we must continue to execute our plans and do what we are doing, increase our reach, our partners, and grow the business.”