File photo/NBD

On March 21, ANTA Sports Products Co Ltd (ANTA, 02020.HK) disclosed its 2022 annual performance.

In 2022, ANTA's revenue increased by 8.8% year-on-year to53.651 billion yuan, surpassing the 50 billion mark for the first time, and gross margin decreased by 1.4 percentage points to 60.2%.

Compared with the growth rate of 38.9% in 2021, the growth momentum of ANTA has slowed down in the past year.

In response, ANTA explained that during most of 2022, the Company suspended the operation of some physical stores in certain areas, resulting in a significant decline in traffic and weakening consumer demand, which slowed the growth momentum of the Company's retail performance, but the expansion of e-commerce platforms offset the impact of the closure of physical stores.

It's also noticed that the fashion sportswear brand FILA, once the "cash cow", for the first time showed a decline in annual revenue.

In 2022, the revenue of FILA was approximately RMB 21.523 billion, down 1.4% year-on-year, and the previous revenue of FILA had been growing rapidly, and ANTA's acquisition of FILA was also regarded as a textbook-level acquisition case.

In fact, in recent years, the growth rate of FILA's revenue has slowed down. From 2019 to 2021, according to ANTA's financial statements, the revenue growth rate of FILA was 73.9%, 18.1% and 25.1%, respectively.