China's ANTA Sports Products Ltd said on Tuesday its 2015 net profit surged 20 percent due to growth in children's lines and e-commerce businesses, as China's sports sector began to recover from years of industry-wide restructuring and decline.

ANTA, China's biggest sportswear retailer by market value, said earnings rose to 2.04 billion yuan ($313 million) for the 12 months ended December, from 1.70 billion yuan in 2014. That compared with a mean forecast of 2.03 billion yuan from 25 analysts' estimates.

ANTA said the organic growth in China's sportswear market will be relatively stable despite the gloomy economic outlook.

"Ongoing urbanisation, rising population due to the new two-child policy and growing popularity of sports in China are also boosting consumer demand for sportswear with different functioning, quality and design," it said in an earnings statement.

Revenue jumped 24.7 percent on year to 11.13 billion yuan, while gross profit margin increased by 1.5 percentage point to 46.6 percent.

The company's shares rose 1.4 percent in early afternoon trade on Tuesday after the results announcement, outperforming a 0.5 percent decline in the benchmark Hang Seng Index.

Smaller rival Li Ning Co Ltd said earlier it expected to report that it broke even in 2015 as its efforts to reverse years of losses began to pay off.

 

Source : reuters.com

Report Abuse