New | Sportswear maker Anta sets pace for industry rebound in China with 29pc profit rise
Top sportswear firm posts 29pc profit jump with turnover at level before Beijing Games
Anta Sports Products, the mainland's largest sportswear firm, reported full-year profit jumped 29.3 per cent, the first in the sector to get back on its feet as its burgeoning children's products, distribution of Fila and e-commerce sales took off.
Profit for the year ended December was 1.43 billion yuan on turnover that grew 22.5 per cent to 8.92 billion yuan.
Anta shares rallied after the announcement to close 6.8 per cent higher at HK$14.10.
The company will pay a final dividend of 28 HK cents per share and a special dividend of eight HK cents a share.
"This full-year same-store sales growth should be about the same as last year in the high single digits," executive director James Zheng said. "We are quite optimistic about 2015."
Anta said it was back to its 2011 revenue levels before the sportswear sector stumbled. Post-Beijing Olympics sportswear firms including 361 Degrees, Li Ning and Xtep all suffered from lack of brand differentiation, overexpansion of stores and poor inventory management.
Anta's strategy has been to focus on the mass market with its shoes averaging about 300 to 500 yuan and has created partnerships to co-brand products with the NBA.
The firm is still in the midst of adjusting its store network. The number of stores fell to 7,622 from 7,757 but children's stores grew to 1,228 from 881. "Even though our overall store network shrank, our sales grew by over 20 per cent," Zheng said.
Anta was the first major sportswear brand to actively focus on the children's category, which is expected to be boosted by a growing middle class.
Competitor Xtep International Holdings recently announced a series of "smart" children's shoes fitted with a GPS tracker to go on sale next month. When hooked up through a phone app, parents can keep track of where their children are.
Anta chairman and chief executive Ding Shizhong said store network rationalisation would continue and would focus on building "bigger, more efficient stores". He said it was evolving its e-commerce business to provide a mix of exclusive models to avoid product cannibalisation.
