Anta's revenue exceeds 80 billion yuan: gross profit margin under pressure, accelerating overseas expansion | Sports Financial Report Review

Ask AI · Export expansion, how does Anta’s globalization strategy face challenges?

**21st Century Business Herald reporter He Hongyuan **

Anta Group is moving to a new stage amid market volatility.

On March 25, Anta Sports released its 2025 performance results announcement. The financial report shows that in 2025, Anta Group’s revenue grew 13.3% year on year to RMB 80.219 billion; profit attributable to shareholders was RMB 13.59 billion, down 12.88% year on year. Excluding accounting impacts related to the listing and share allotment of the Amer Sports Group in 2024, profit attributable to shareholders increased 13.9% year on year to RMB 13.588 billion.

Also, according to statistics cited by the company from international authoritative institutions, Anta Group’s market share in China’s sports footwear and apparel market continues to rise. Excluding the Amer Sports Group, Anta Group’s market share is about 21.8%, maintaining its leading position. Adding Anta Group and the Amer Sports Group it controls, total revenue is approximately RMB 127.8 billion.

It also needs to be seen that Anta’s expansion is all-round. By the end of 2025, Anta Group’s total number of global employees was about 69,100, compared with 65,900 in the same period last year.

But it also cannot be ignored that as market competition intensifies, Anta’s gross margin is under pressure. The financial report shows that in 2025, Anta Group’s overall gross margin fell slightly by 0.2 percentage points year on year to 62.0%.

On March 25, Anta Sports closed at HKD 75.75 per share, down 1.05%.

Objectively, Anta’s “multi-brand” strategy has indeed helped stabilize growth.

In 2025, revenue from all other Anta Group brands grew 59.2% year on year to RMB 16.996 billion. Compared with 2020, it grew nearly 7 times, while the average annual increase in stores was only a dozen or so.

Among them, DESCENTE’s growth is especially notable. In this brand, annual sales for the first time exceeded RMB 10 billion. DESCENTE is positioned as a high-quality, professional sports brand, focusing on specialized sports scenarios such as skiing, golf, and triathlon.

Also, according to Anta’s disclosure, MAIA ACTIVE, which focuses on women’s yoga, has become the fastest-growing brand within the group and is in an accelerated incubation stage. JACK WOLFSKIN has formulated a global five-year brand revitalization plan, and to achieve growth, it matches goods and channels with its positioning as a professional hiking brand across all scenarios.

By contrast, Anta’s core business Anta brand and FILA have seen noticeably slower growth rates. Of course, this also has the factor of a larger base.

In 2025, sales of Anta’s main brand rose 3.7% year on year to RMB 34.754 billion; FILA brand revenue grew 6.9% year on year to RMB 28.469 billion.

In fact, that is also considered a decent performance.

In the same year, Li Ning’s revenue grew 3.2% year on year to RMB 29.6 billion. In the latest quarterly results ending at the end of November 2025, Nike’s sales in China fell 16% year on year to USD 1.423 billion.

Looking specifically at FILA, with the appointment of Jiang Yan as the new head, the brand is also rolling out a round of reforms. It has established the “ONE FILA” core strategy, clarified its positioning as premium sports fashion, and at the same time focuses on two major sports markets: tennis and golf.

But it should be noted that the increasingly fierce competition has left its mark on Anta Group, especially in the operation of the main brand Anta and FILA.

In 2025, Anta’s main brand gross margin declined by 0.9 percentage points to 53.6%, while FILA’s gross margin fell by 1.4 percentage points to 66.4%.

Among them, the reason for Anta’s gross margin decline is that it increased cost investment in professional products; the share of e-commerce business continues to rise, and e-commerce business typically has lower gross margins.

FILA follows a similar logic: it strategically strengthens and upgrades product functions and quality, which increases costs; its e-commerce business is also growing.

According to Tmall data, in the “Double 11” sports and outdoor full-cycle transaction rankings in 2025, FILA ranked first, Adidas ranked second, and Nike ranked third. In recent years, this is the first time Nike has fallen from the top spot.

Faced with such a situation, multiple executives from leading sports brands also told 21st Century Business Herald reporters frankly that due to the high discounts online and the relatively high return rate, each company is actively controlling the scale of its “Double 11” campaign.

This explains FILA’s rise to the top, and also explains its fluctuations in gross margin.

Also to be seen is that under a multi-brand strategy, “internal racing” within Anta Group may be intensifying. For example, both FILA and DESCENTE are pushing into the golf market.

As mentioned above, Anta maintains advantages in the domestic market, but the cost of competition is becoming higher and higher.

Under such circumstances, going overseas has become an important strategy for Anta. It is understood that Anta Group has already established an international business division to comprehensively advance its globalization strategy and overseas business development.

In terms of regional layout, Anta Group’s multi-brand expansion has been carried out in multiple markets across Singapore and other parts of Southeast Asia, and the “bridgehead” position of globalization has initially taken shape.

In South Asia, it has reached cooperation with international retailer Brandman Retail to carry out distribution and operate physical stores in India. Anta’s main brand is expanding into the Middle East and Africa, covering countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, and Kenya. In North America and Europe, it cooperates with major global retail channels and platforms such as Foot Locker, DSG, and JD Sports, and has opened North America’s first flagship store in Los Angeles’ Beverly Hills in the United States.

By the end of 2025, Anta Group had opened more than 460 single-brand stores in regions outside China, and it plans to open 1,000 Anta-branded retail outlets in Southeast Asia by 2028.

In fact, Anta’s overseas expansion strategy has also affected its acquisition strategy.

In 2025, Anta completed its wholly-owned acquisition of JACK WOLFSKIN; it also invested with the fashion group MUSINSA to establish MUSINSA China, promoting the rollout in Shanghai of its own brand “MUSINSA STANDARD” and multi-brand concept stores such as “Musinsa Store,” among other businesses; and in 2026 it announced the acquisition of 29.06% of the equity interest in PUMA SE, the company owned by PUMA.

“These arrangements are not aimed at pursuing scale expansion, but rather are long-term investments made around building future global capabilities.” In a public letter released on March 25, 2026, Anta Group’s chairman of the board, Ding Shizhong, explained the acquisitions of equity in JACK WOLFSKIN and PUMA.

“Our goal is not to chase interim rankings, but to build Anta Sports into a world-class company with global influence and the ability to create sustained value.” Ding Shizhong added. It can be seen that in his mind, the importance of going overseas is clear.

It also needs to be seen that digitalization and AI development have become one of the four core areas in which Anta Group is investing for the future.

At present, Anta is using AI to reduce costs. The company has released the “AI365 strategy,” clarifying three main directions: “improve quality and efficiency, strengthen experience, and drive growth.” It has launched the first industry-dedicated AI design large model in China, the “Linglong Design Large Model,” and claims that it significantly improves product design efficiency and greatly shortens the design cycle.

According to Anta’s disclosure, AI has been deeply applied in six major areas: marketing, design, products, the supply chain, retail, and operations. In the next three years, it aims to achieve an AI usage rate for the company of over 50% and create value of over RMB 5 billion.

Overall, Anta has not insulated itself from volatility in the market, but the company has long kept to its pace.