By product category, retail sales of running shoes were up 25 percent year-over-year with fitness footwear up by 6 percent.
Li Ning, the Chinese group reported a 3.4 percent gain in annual operating profit to 3,678-million-yuan renminbi (€469.7m) for the 12 months ended Dec. 31 as total revenues rose by 3.9 percent in local currency to RMB 28,676 million (€3.66b). Gross profit improved by 100 basis points to 49.4 percent as Ebit declined by 3.4 percent to RMB 4,109 million (€524.8m).
Footwear revenues stepped 6.8 percent higher for the FY to RMB 14,300 million (€1.83b) and equipment/accessories sales grew by 29 percent year-over-year to RMB 2,325,057 million (€296.9m). But year-over-year apparel sales contracted by 2.9 percent to RMB 12,050 million (€1.54m).
Omnichannel sales were flat for the year at RMB 6,883 million (€878.9m), but 2.6 percent higher for those to franchised distributors at RMB 12,957 million (€1.65b) and 10.2 percent higher in the ecommerce channel to RMB 8,305 million (€1.06b). Sales to regions outside of Mainland China were flat year-over-year at RMB 530,849,000 (€67.8m).
By product category, retail sales of running shoes were up 25 percent year-over-year with fitness footwear up by 6 percent. On the downside, basketball footwear sales sunk by 21 percent last year and the fitness footwear category was down by 6 percent.
Going forward, Li Ning intends to leverage its partnership with the Chinese Olympic Committee and to continue focusing on core footwear categories. On the store side of the business, the company intends to accelerate expansion in emerging markets. The company counted 1,568 big stores, averaging 411 square meters, and 1,026 9th generation stores at year-end.
