ANTA Sports Products Limited (2020) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to today's event. I would like to introduce to you members of the management. We have Mr. Shizhong, the CEO; Mr. Jie Zheng; and Mr. Lai Shixian; Mr. Yonghua. Mr. Lai is going to introduce to you the interim performance to be followed by Mr. Zheng's introduction for our business review, outlook and finally Q&A. Mr. Ding and the rest of the management team will take your questions. Mr. Lai, we'll hand the floor over to you.

Investors, good afternoon. First of all, on behalf of the Board, concerning the first half performance, I will do some review. We believe there are 6 highlights of the interim results. Standing as the third-highest market capitalization sportswear company in the world, we are proving our industry-leading position. Secondly, our group's revenue rebounded strongly after the pandemic by 55.5% to historical high of CNY 22.81 billion. Thirdly, we have well-proven, single-focus, multi-brand, omnichannel strategy, with its brand recording outstanding performance, driving up overall gross profit margin by 6.4 percentage points to 63.2% a historical high, among which ANTA's revenue grew 56.1% year-on-year, maintaining the leading position among Chinese sportswear brands. FILA's revenue grew by 51.4% year-on-year, maintaining growth for 10 consecutive years. Total revenue of other brands, including DESCENTE, KOLON SPORT increased by 90.1% year-on-year. Other brands become the group's growth driver. Coming off last year's high base, overall e-commerce revenue maintained strong growth of 61%, fully grasping the growth opportunity online. Number four, profit attributable to equity shareholders with JV surged by 131.6% to RMB 3.84 billion. Margin of profit attributable to equity shareholders with JV grew 5.5 percentage points to 16.8%, maintaining high-quality growth. Number five, net operating cash inflow increased by approximately 160% to CNY 6.31 billion. Free cash inflow increased by approximately 210% to CNY 5.86 billion, proving the group's strong cash generation capability. Fixed interim dividend increased by 185.7% to HKD 0.60, bringing a satisfying return to shareholders. Our group revenue grew by 55.5% to CNY 22.8 billion. ANTA revenue, CNY 10.578 billion, which is 46.4% of group revenue, a growth of 56.1%. FILA revenue, CNY 10.827 billion, 47.5% of revenue, growth of 51.4%. All other brands, CNY 1.4 billion, which is 6.1% of revenue, a growth of 90%. Our ANTA brand reaching a high level of revenue. There are a number of reasons. Growth of e-commerce business is one of them. We also have increase in revenue as a result of the adoption of the DTC model. Better Mainland China retail market performance of the brand with more customer demand and less retail discount as a result of the reduced sale due to the pandemic. FILA brand grew by 51.4%, mainly because of the growth of e-commerce segments and better Mainland China retail market performance of the brand with strong demand after the pandemic. For DESCENTE, it entered high-speed growth, driving up the revenue. For e-commerce business, the contribution was 27% to our revenue for a growth, 61%. For ANTA, this is the about CNY 3.7 billion, 35% of revenue; and e-commerce, CNY 3.6 billion, which is 31.3% of revenue; traditional wholesale and others, CNY 3.266 billion, 30.9% of our revenue. Gross profit margin grew by 6.4 percentage points to 63.2%, mainly because ANTA and FILA and other brands, GP margins improved across the board. ANTA GP margin increased to 52.8%, FILA increased to 72.3% and the other brands growing to 70.4%. ANTA grew by a bigger margin because of DTC model. Retail GP margin has been driven higher. Of course, ANTA, FILA and other brands retail discounts with improvement over the pandemic, things have also recovered very well, driving up the GP margin. Operating profit margin, an increase of 1.3 percentage points to 25.9%. There is 6.4 percentage point increase in overall growth profit margin of the group with better operating efficiency arising from the relatively far expansion of retail business of FILA and other brands. This is also partially offset by the increase in operating expenses to revenue ratio after the adoption of DTC model for ANTA business in the second half of 2020 with increased store-level lease expenses and staff cost. So you can see the OP margin has decreased from 24.7% to 29% and other brands grew from 2.6% to 21%. ANTA retail proportion has expanded. The operating profit margin compared to traditional wholesale is slightly lower. So ANTA's OP margin is slightly lower. Operating expenses ratio. Advertising and promotion expenses dropped to 9.4%; staff cost ratio drop of 0.6 percentage points to 14.4%; R&D cost ratio slightly dropped to 2.2% by 0.5 percentage points. For the expenses, because of the sales -- scale has been expanded and in terms of advertisement and staff cost, the company has made continuous investment, driving up the sales proportion and driving down the expense level. Share of loss of JV and marginal profit attributable to equity shareholders, the loss of JV CNY 346 million, which shows a great improvement. For our JV first half of the year was the first time, it went beyond EUR 1 billion. Revenue was RMB 7.988 billion. Our EBITDA grew historical high as well in the first half, it reached RMB 557 million, which is a recent record because normally, it is low season in the first half. So it has greatly improved. There's an increase of 5.5% of margin of profit attributable to equity shareholders to 16.8%, mainly because of increase in operating profit margin, net finance income and a drop in share loss of joint venture and also the effective tax rate. Management of working Capital. Average inventory turnover days dropped by 18 days 117 days. Increase in cost of sales driven by the notable growth in overall revenue, leading to inventory turnaround date. Despite of the DTC model transformation of ANTA business and the expansion of retail of FILA and other brands, inventory level was similar as at the end of financial period and as at end of 2020, reflecting our effective inventory management and strong product sell-through conditions. Average trade receivables turnover days dropped by 18 days to 28 days due to expansion of our scale and better management of receivables. At the end of June, the balance of receivables compared to 2020 year-end, there is a drop. So expansion of scale, but short-term receivable turnaround date. Payable turnover days dropped by 28 days to 44 days. Our cash flow is very strong. Our strategic suppliers are very on time in terms of payments. Liquidity, first half operating cash flow, CNY 6.3 billion; CapEx, CNY 458 million; free cash flow, CNY 5.8 billion, a great improvement. Net cash, more than CNY 10 billion, big improvement as well. We've more than CNY 20 billion as savings. We have announced that the board lot size for trading shares will be changed from 1,000 shares to 200 shares with effect from 9:00 a.m. on Monday, 4th of October 2021. Based on the closing price of HKD 170.1 per share as quoted on the stock exchange on 23 of August, the market value per each board lot of the shares before the change in board lot size is HKD 170,100 and will be HKD 34,020 after the change in board lot size. So we are promoting the transactions and liquidity of the shares, enabling us to attract more investors and therefore broaden shareholder base of the company. So that is the performance overview. Thank you. We have very strong performance in the first half, so we are even more confident that we can meet all the targets. So Mr. Zheng, please take us through the market review and also prospects.

Investors, good afternoon. Welcome to 2021 first half interim results announcement. Mr. Lai, concerning first half performance, has already given us a presentation. I'm going to take over now to talk about market review. As we all know, the pandemic has continued to overwhelm most countries around the world and the economies. According to National Bureau of Statistics of China, China's economy has enjoyed more rapid recovery. According to the Bureau's GDP grew by 12.7% year-on-year in the first half and 7.9% in Q2. Total retail sales of consumer goods reached RMB 21.2 trillion in the first half, increasing by 23%. Online sales of physical goods increased 18.7% to RMB 5.03 trillion in first half. At the same time, for areas related to our business, the State Council renewed National Fitness Plan for 2021 to '25. By 2025, the target is to raise sports participation to 38.5%. Sports industry market scale estimated to reach CNY 5 trillion comparing to CNY 3 trillion in 2020, CAGR growth of 11%. At the same time, the Education Bureau has launched a very important reform direction. So for primary school students, secondary school students, this is going to be a mandatory policy to do sports. And as we all know, we have the Three Child policy. So all these current [ policies ] will give a good push to our industry. This is very positive push. When it comes to consumer and sports product, we have even accessible. Sportswear market is still on the part of rapid development. It is taking up 15% in global markets and in post-pandemic era, Brand Z Global most valuable brands said that there are more Chinese brands than European brands in top 100 with average value increasing by 43%. ANTA becomes the only Chinese brand in the top 10 of apparel category. For the entire market, the leader is clear, according to market figures between 2015 and 2020 in Chinese sportswear industry, market share of the top 5 brands increased by 15%. ANTA's market share has increased by 5.2% over the past 5 years. Another scenario of rapid development of sportswear is becoming more professional, customized and niche, especially for high-end professional brands. We have identified great potential. So we're talking about very good rapid growth momentum. [Indiscernible] is also inside this group. For the group, we have a clear strategic road map that's been shared several times. Our vision is to become a leading world-class multi-brand sportswear group, under which, beginning from 2016, we have talked about single-focus, multi-brand omnichannel. So this is a very clear strategic direction in the past 5 years. We have deepened our roots with start-up, 3 major sports group and leading the Performance Sports Group and then FILA, taking the Fashion Sports Group and also DESCENTE and KOLON and Amer Sports forming the Outdoor Sports Group. They create 3 growth curves. For example, the curve supported by ANTA and then another one supported by FILA and led by DESCENTE, KOLON and Amer Sports with good potential growth. So ANTA has completed a very good growth model, setting a good foundation for better growth and development in the future. At the same time, with supply chain digitalization, we can realize faster design development and production, so every brand can be well supported. In the first half, we have sped up DTC transformation, allowing us to our customers using straightforward ways to create value for our consumers. Digital transformation and restructuring have also supported future development trends. So I will quickly talk about business review of our major brands in the first half. ANTA, we have launched Champion Dragon Outfit to share the joy with our Chinese Olympics athletes. We focus on Tokyo Olympics Summer Games and Beijing Winter Olympics games. We have attracted a lot of support. So 88 medals have been received by the athletes wearing ANTA outfits and a sort of number of hits for Weibo, ANTA also signed a number of top celebrities, Wang Yibo and Eileen Gu. They are endorsers. We completed processes to establish a complete DTC organizational structure and retail business processes and operational standards based on customers, products and channels. In the first half, DTC transformation was very successful, rationalizing all processes, so that there is higher integration between ANTA and retail network. In the first half, footwear product sales increased, especially high-end products. They are getting a lot of recognition. They are sub-brands under ANTA. They have launched new models and we have exceeded various sales performance targets. We have set up our new Kids sports R&D center. The performance of our footwear has been greatly enhanced. We continue to do on the -- we have introduced [Indiscernible] so on and so forth as our endorsers. For the first half, for footwear FILA enjoyed very good growth. We have done a number of product crossover. We continue to launch FILA flagship shops, including the one in on in Beijing. So we are talking about retail happening, not just one individual but also the entire family. Success of FILA KIDS and FILA FUSION enabled FILA to capture opportunities from different age group and become a successful brand that every member of the family can enjoy. I have heard from Mr. Lai about DESCENTE. It is positioned as a high-end and high-quality professional sportswear brand. After more than 5 years of development, it has established a high-quality brand positioning recognized by consumers in China and has successfully caught the attention of high-end customers. We have omnichannel for retail growth, allowing DESCENTE to achieve great successes. Online, off-line, At the same time, we maintain high-speed growth. So doubling the revenue. In Shanghai, we have set up 2 flagship shops and some experience shops in November. In Beijing Summit 2021, we're going to set up the first -- or the #1 flagship shop under the brand. So setting such shop will continue to help us position ourselves among in brands and attract consumers. This is setting very good foundation for future growth. We've also developed 2 other brands, DESCENTE GOLF, it's one of them. It is the best brand for -- among all golf-related brands. And we set a very good foundation for golf players. We have also set up the D-MOVER CLUB and organized different sporting activities in 15 cities in China to interact with more than almost 1,000 core-targeted consumers and accumulated 130,000 viewers for our broadcast. KOLON SPORT. Good performance again. The growth rate is more than 32%. In the first half, we have also turned losses into profits to the parts growth. Liu Shishi has become brand endorser. We have also alongside Chen Kun Chinese actor, to interpret Your Best Way To Nature. Our Amer Sports, Mr. Lai talked about this earlier, in the first half, we have overall breakthrough around the world for 3 core brands [Indiscernible], They got very good growth, pushing the overall performance of over CNY 1 billion. In the first half, compared to before the pandemic, we're looking at 2-digit growth. Amer Sports China. In the first half, we achieved very good results compared to last year. We're talking about doubling the outcome, mainly from [Indiscernible] rapid growth in China. Amer Sports global performance more than EUR 1 billion and EBITDA reached RMB 557 million. So this is the best performance yet in the first half. Our distribution network. If you look at the figures, there is no obvious growth. We are looking at a deduction of 300. So our performance increased by [ 50.7% ] through enhancing our sales network, enhancing our shop efficiency. So high-quality distribution network construction for all our brands. At the same time, we have stepped up digitalization before our smart products, and membership program, enhancement, our CRM system inside the industry is actually the best. For online business, we have reached a high level of growth on Tmall ANTA Group between January and July. The traffic level is #1 among all the enterprises, and it was actually the first time for us to achieve that. Supply chain. Optimized process and reduce unnecessary cost through refined management. We have introduced quality suppliers and set up collaboration with them, so that we can better the overall increased capacity by 2025. The Top 3 supplier cover a share of more than 60%. At the same time, ANTA footwear and apparel accounted for 26.4% and 10.5%, respectively; FILA footwear and apparel, 23.5% and 3.9%. We'll continue to leverage the advantage of supply chain platform and realized value-added overall supply chain through centralized procurement and overall planning. Our outlook. In the following 5 months and also next year, we will continue to uphold single-focus, multi-brand omnichannel strategy, continue to be consumer-centric to achieve high-quality control, so the group can become a true leading sportswear company. Our major brands, last month, we have given new an introduction of our 3-year plan. We will focus on professionalism and foster our leading position. FILA will continue to be on top tier and a multi-brand improved brand accessibility and facilitate high-quality growth. DESCENTE and outdoor lifestyle KOLON SPORT, they will be future growth drivers. Amer Sports will continue to carry out reform, especially DTC transformation. And for the 3 core brands, there will be global breakthroughs. In the Chinese market, you can see products have obtained very good success [Indiscernible] will also expand their footprint in Chinese market. So all the core brands will enjoy great success. So this is the presentation for the first half of the year. And hopefully, with this presentation, you understand better of high-quality operations on top of our financial figures. You now have a better understanding of our operations. Thank you. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]