Li Ning FY16 sales jump 13 percent

In 2016, the Li Ning company’s revenue reached 8,015 million Chinese yuan (1,166 million dollars), up 13 percent from 2015. The company’s gross profit rose 16 percent to 3,705 million Chinese yuan (539 million dollars), against 3,193 million Chinese yuan (464 million dollars) in 2015.

Commenting on the last year’s trading, Li Ning, Founder and Executive Chairman of the Group, said in a press release, "Riding on the success we have achieved in profitability and brand rejuvenation, we will continue to focus on areas that can be sharpened further in order to maintain healthy and sustainable profit growth for the company in the future.”

Financial highlights of the Li Ning’s performance

The group's overall gross profit margin improved to 46.2 percent as compared to 45 percent in 2015. The company said, this 1.2 percentage point increase in gross profit margin was mainly driven by increased new product sell-through mix and optimized channel revenue mix.

Operating profit for the year reached 386 million Chinese yuan (56 million dollars), representing a great leap of 146 percent compared to 157 million Chinese yuan (22 million dollars) in 2015.

Profit attributable to equity holders of the company (including the 313 million Chinese yuan net gain on disposal of 10 percent equity interest in Double Happiness) increased to 643 million Chinese yuan (93 million dollars), against 14 million Chinese yuan (2.04 million dollars) in 2015. The company said, margin of profit attributable to equity holders was 8 percent against 0.2 percent in 2015. Basic earnings per share were 29.03 cents, as compared to 0.66 cents in 2015.

Li Ning brand revenues rise 14 percent

The group's core brand, Li-Ning, recorded revenue of 7,925 million Chinese yuan (1,153 million dollars), which accounted for 98.9 percent of the group's total revenue, representing a year-on-year increase of 14 percent. Key categories of Li-Ning brand, the company said, including running, basketball and training products all demonstrated sales growth.

In terms of sales by channel, the e-commerce business of Li-Ning sustained strong growth momentum and registered a year-on-year increase of approximately 90 percent in annual revenue, with the proportion to the revenue of Li-Ning brand increasing to 14 percent. Trade fair orders, in terms of tag price, for Li-Ning brand products from franchised distributors registered year-on-year growth for thirteen consecutive quarters. The orders from the latest trade fair, which are for the third quarter of 2017, registered a low-single-digit growth on a year-on-year basis. The group also completed the POS expansion plan adopted in early 2016, achieving a net increase of 307.

In October 2016, the Li Ning company announced the cooperation with Danskin, the professional dance sports brand in the United States, for the exclusive licensing rights to operate the brand's businesses in the Mainland China and Macao. The company’s Lining label positioned as a fast fashion brand featuring sports and leisure attire, opened about 40 POS in more than 20 cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hefei, Nanning, Wuhan and Chongqing at the enf of the year. During the second half of 2016, the Group also started strategy development for Li-Nng Kids, the existing LI-NING kidswear brand.

Picture:Li Ning website