ANTA Sports (HK: 02020) is navigating a subtle yet significant transition. In the first half of 2026, the group's core metrics—revenue, gross profit, and profit—all trended upward, with revenue reaching RMB 43.51 billion, a 12.9% year-on-year increase. Gross margin improved by 0.5 percentage points to 63.9%, while operating profit climbed 16.1% to RMB 11.76 billion, pushing the operating margin up 0.7 percentage points to 27.0%.
However, a closer look at the segments reveals a different picture. The core ANTA brand saw its first-half revenue rise just 4.8%, yet its operating margin contracted by 0.8 percentage points to 22.5%, lagging the group's overall 27.0%. This places the brand in an uncomfortable zone of "revenue growth without profit growth" amidst intensifying competition in the mass-market segment.
FILA continues its well-documented deceleration. Its first-half revenue growth of 6.1% trailed the group's overall 12.9% expansion. With both growth engines that have powered the company for over a decade now slowing down, the pressure has shifted entirely to the "other brands" segment. The pivotal question is whether the growth momentum can successfully transition from a "dual-engine" model to a truly diversified multi-brand portfolio.
In early July, just over a month before the earnings release, Xu Yang, then CEO of the core ANTA brand, departed, adding a footnote to the brand's sluggish performance. On July 15th, the group confirmed Xu's resignation for "family reasons." Over a month later, Xu publicly addressed the departure on social media, citing "betraying trust" as his reason for not holding any farewells, a phrase widely interpreted as a reference to unmet performance targets.
At an investor day in October 2023, Xu had set ambitious goals: compound annual growth of 10-15% for the ANTA brand's retail sales from 2023 to 2026, a target of RMB 60 billion in single-brand revenue by the end of 2026, and even a bold claim to surpass Nike in China within three years. The reality fell short. In 2025, the main brand's revenue was RMB 34.754 billion, up only 3.7% year-on-year, significantly below the group's 13.3% growth. Operating profit grew just 2.5% to RMB 7.211 billion, with the operating margin falling to 20.7%. Its share of group revenue shrank from 48.6% in 2023 to 43.3%.
To be fair, ANTA wasn't alone in facing a tough year. Li-Ning grew only 3.2% in 2025, and Xtep's main brand managed just 1.5% growth. Only 361 Degrees, which has resolutely focused on the mass market, maintained double-digit growth. However, Xu's ambition seemed mismatched with his execution.
His strategy was conceptually simple: "miniaturize" the brand by using different store formats to target various consumer segments. The ANTA brand was split into multiple formats—including ANTA Champion, Super ANTA, ANTA SV, Arena, Palace, and ANTA ZERO—aiming to move beyond traditional channels into prime commercial districts and trendy landmarks. But consumers, upon entering these new stores, might marvel that "this is ANTA," only to glance at the price tags and walk away, largely indifferent to which specific format they were in.
This brand upgrade came at a considerable cost. Applying an asset-heavy, high-end direct-retail model to a vast mass-market product portfolio and a complex distributor network, while simultaneously splitting departmental functions, created internal silos and slowed overall operational efficiency. This methodology of overhauling a mass-market distributor model with a luxury-grade organizational structure ultimately runs high-end operating costs against mass-market turnover, making it difficult to achieve both revenue and profit growth.
However, in the sportswear industry, where growth and efficiency are paramount, a grand brand upgrade that fails to deliver on these fronts is a fundamental flaw. Signs of retrenchment are already apparent. ANTA has confirmed that the SV business unit is being dissolved and integrated into the main brand's sportswear product division. Super ANTA is shifting from rapid store expansion to a focus on "refined operations," maintaining its current scale at least through 2026.
The new head of the ANTA brand, Lai Shixian, has a resume marked by "efficiency." Joining in 2003 and becoming co-CEO in 2023, he has a background in finance and is known for supply chain management and efficiency optimization, having previously overseen the main brand, brands other than FILA, and group procurement. Chen Jingjing, founder of Jingjie Brand Consulting, believes Lai's appointment signals that ANTA has elevated the need for a second growth curve to a group-level strategy, requiring a re-coordination of brand, product, supply chain, channel, and organizational resources to find a new growth mix. She notes the core brand now faces a balancing act: defending its RMB 30-plus billion mass-market base while avoiding dilution within the group's portfolio, and maintaining scale advantages while enhancing brand equity and professional credentials. The key, she argues, is to rediscover sources of consumer growth, product premium, and international influence to build the next phase of organic growth capability.
FILA serves as a cautionary tale. Once a struggling brand that ANTA transformed into a "second growth curve" generating annual retail sales in the tens of billions, its first-half performance wasn't entirely weak—its operating margin improved by 1.0 percentage points to 28.7%, a notable highlight. But beneath this respectable figure lies the fading dividend of the premium sport-fashion market, with competitors like lululemon and On also showing signs of "intentional slowdowns" in recent quarters. FILA's retail sales growth decelerated sharply from low-double digits in Q1 to low-single digits in Q2, resulting in only mid-single-digit growth for the entire first half.
With both primary engines slowing, the baton has been passed to the "all other brands" segment, which includes Descente, Kolon Sport, MAIA ACTIVE, and Jack Wolfskin. This segment's revenue surged 44.2% in the first half to RMB 10.691 billion, crossing the RMB 10 billion mark for a half-year period for the first time. It now accounts for nearly a quarter of group revenue, up from 19% a year ago. At this pace, this segment overtaking FILA to become the group's second-largest revenue source is only a matter of time.
The company attributes this growth to two factors: precise differentiation strategies for Descente and Kolon that have captured growth in the premium niche market, and incremental revenue from the consolidation of Jack Wolfskin, acquired on May 31, 2025. However, the outdoor sector, which underpins these two drivers, is showing signs of hitting its ceiling. Retail sales of sports and entertainment goods above a certain size fell 2.4% year-on-year in the first half, with the sports category underperforming the overall consumer market for the first time. Furthermore, the premium outdoor segment is no longer ANTA Group's exclusive domain. Competitors like Kailas are attracting professional enthusiasts, and Piccobi is attacking with a "half-price for 80% performance" strategy, repeatedly courting the same cohort of middle-class consumers.
A more immediate constraint is physical retail space. After years of expansion, prime commercial locations in high-tier cities are largely saturated. Data from Jihai Brand Monitoring shows that in first-tier cities, there is a 36.07% probability of encountering at least two Descente stores within every 1000 meters—the highest among all city tiers. With store expansion opportunities visibly narrowing, the question becomes: what will sustain growth above 35% once the benefits of new store openings are exhausted? Whether store efficiency can hold up remains uncertain.
However, Chen Jingjing suggests that the slowdown isn't entirely negative. The deceleration in Q2 suggests Descente and Kolon are transitioning from hyper-growth to a normalized growth phase. If same-store sales, store efficiency, full-price sales ratios, and gross margins remain healthy, a moderate slowdown isn't necessarily bad; it signals a shift in focus towards growth quality. But there's a danger of the two brands diluting the professional foundations they rely on. Descente, jokingly nicknamed "Northeast Province Uniform" in China, has its core customer base anchored in middle-class men aged 30-50, with its professional skiing DNA increasingly overshadowed by commuter-oriented consumption. Kolon, labeled "the system's uniform," derives its growth from commuting scenarios rather than authentic outdoor activities—a fundamental disconnect from the professional outdoor image it has built over half a century, including its sponsorship of South Korean polar expeditions.
Kolon appears to have recognized this, actively trying to "de-commute" this year. It launched the FIRRA, a heavy-duty hardshell jacket developed with GORE-TEX, signed trail runner Deng Guomin, who holds the best finish record for a Chinese male at UTMB, and sponsored the Ninghai Trail Challenge by UTMB, accelerating its push into trail running and heavy-duty hiking. Yet, the majority of its current customers remain commuting middle-class consumers, making this strategy feel like "locking the stable door after the horse has bolted." Chen Jingjing advises that Descente should build brand height through professional sports like skiing and golf before expanding into a broader premium sports lifestyle. For Kolon, the focus should be on capitalizing on the current window to quickly develop signature scenarios, hero products, and a unique brand identity, converting consumer interest in "the outdoors" into loyalty for the brand itself. Building brand stature through professional sports and scaling commercial success through lifestyle offerings is the way to convert category dividends into long-term brand equity.
Beyond Descente and Kolon, ANTA's multi-brand strategy faces three brand-new challenges in its second half: MAIA ACTIVE, Jack Wolfskin, and Puma. In October 2023, ANTA acquired approximately 75% of MAIA ACTIVE, a locally-grown women's sportswear brand. This marked ANTA's first acquisition of a fully domestic brand, with the clear goal of filling a gap in women's yoga apparel and aiming to "build the next RMB 10 billion brand." Reality, however, has been sobering. By the end of 2025, MAIA ACTIVE had only expanded its store count from 47 to 52 nationwide, indicating a very cautious expansion pace.
This year, the brand was placed under the management of Ding Shaoxiang, often described as a member of ANTA's "second generation" leadership and chairman of Descente China. The official goal remains "to become number one in the yoga sector." Signs of change under the new leadership are emerging. MAIA ACTIVE opened its first Northeast China store in Shenyang MixC on July 18th, followed by its first Heilongjiang store in Harbin on August 15th, revealing a strategy centered on deep regional penetration in key cities.
MAIA ACTIVE's playbook echoes the FILA era, with an emphasis on experience, community, and single-store quality. This methodology was validated in transforming the mature FILA brand and incubating the joint-venture Descente. Applying it to MAIA ACTIVE tests whether it can work for a small, local emerging label. But the competitive benchmark isn't waiting. lululemon's comparable sales in mainland China grew 20% year-on-year (13% on a constant currency basis) in the first quarter of its fiscal 2026. The yoga apparel market is entering a phase of intense competition for existing market share. For MAIA to become "number one," it would need to take share directly from lululemon, a scenario FILA never had to confront during its own ascent.
If MAIA ACTIVE tests ANTA's ability to scale a small brand, operating Jack Wolfskin validates its capacity to navigate a mid-tier brand through intense competitive pressure. Over a year after ANTA's acquisition, Jack Wolfskin's situation can be summarized as "direction set, position still uncertain." Upmarket, it opened stores in MixC malls in Hefei, Shanghai, and Chongqing in early 2026 with a refreshed store image. But this looks more like an image overhaul than a true premium repositioning. Its core hardshell jackets are priced between RMB 1,299 and RMB 2,000, and its main down jacket range is RMB 1,000-2,000, a significant price gap from the tens of thousands of yuan charged for Descente's premium down jackets within the same group.
Downmarket, it faces even fiercer domestic competitors. Camel has maintained leading hardshell jacket sales for years and boasts nearly 10 million followers on Tmall, far surpassing Jack Wolfskin. Piccobi, which is preparing for an IPO, saw compound growth of 144% in hardshell jacket sales over two years. The fundamental issue remains the channel. Jack Wolfskin retains distributors like Jinlang and Pou Sheng, and has even opened its brand to agents of the main ANTA brand for asset-light expansion into lower-tier markets. This seems more a compromise than a strategy, as its mid-tier positioning cannot support the heavy investment required for a fully direct-operated model. This conflicts with the core of ANTA's methodology—DTC direct operation, as exemplified by FILA, Descente, and Kolon. Jack Wolfskin is essentially fighting its hardest battles with a weakened version of the playbook. The financial impact is already visible, with SPDB International explicitly warning in its interim preview that Jack Wolfskin's consolidation will drag on the group's gross margin, requiring stable retail discounts from the two major brands to offset the pressure.
Among the three new ventures, Puma presents the most unique case: the acquisition isn't complete, yet the market channels are already being repriced. In January, ANTA announced a deal to acquire a 29.06% stake in Puma SE for EUR 15.06 billion (approximately RMB 12.3 billion) at EUR 35 per share, becoming its single largest shareholder, with the transaction expected to close by year-end. On July 31st, Puma released its first-half results following the announcement, showing revenue of EUR 3.554 billion, down 7.9% year-on-year, with the Q2 decline widening to 9.7% from roughly 1% in Q1. Notably, Puma's Q2 revenue growth in Greater China slowed to just 0.9%, down from 9% in Q1. CEO Arthur Höld stated during the earnings call that some wholesale partners had adopted more cautious ordering strategies due to the acquisition news, likely anticipating that the brand would eventually shift towards ANTA's DTC model.
This creates a rare scenario: the acquirer hasn't formally taken control, yet the distribution network is already restructuring itself based on anticipated future developments. ANTA, however, cannot clarify the situation. Since the transaction is expected to close at year-end, it is not even a formal shareholder yet and has no standing to make promises to Puma's distributors on its behalf. More critically, the investment is already showing a paper loss. Based on Puma's recent share price of around EUR 27.5, ANTA's stake is down approximately 21% from the EUR 35 acquisition price, representing a loss of over RMB 2.6 billion.
From FILA to Descente, Kolon, and Amer Sports, ANTA has taught the market over two decades that being "acquired by ANTA" often equates to a value re-rating. Now, in the second half of the game, ANTA must prove to the market that it can still build brands even after the dividends from store expansion, sector tailwinds, and domestic fashion trends have all faded.