Increase investment in the Olympics and the growth rate of running categories exceeds 20%, Li Ning demonstrates offensive "ambition"

Interface News Reporter|Wu Bingcong

For Li Ning, a veteran sports brand company born in 1990, there have been positive renewal changes in 2025.

This company has cooperated with the China Olympic Committee (COC) again after 16 years and has obtained the identity of the China Olympic Committee sports clothing partner from 2025 to 2028. Li Ning signed player Yang Hansen to enter the NBA. This is the second time that a Chinese player has entered the NBA stage as a first-round pick since 2007.

After officially replacing Anta Company with the China Olympic Committee in May, on the evening of August 21, Li Ning Company released its performance report for the first half of 2025.

In the first half of the year, Li Ning achieved revenue growth and sold more than 14 million pairs of professional running shoes. In the first half of 2025, Li Ning Company achieved revenue of 14.817 billion yuan, an increase of 3.3% year-on-year; and realized net profit attributable to equity holders was 1.737 billion yuan, an decrease of 11% year-on-year.

In the first half of this year, Li Ning's cooperation with COC has attracted attention from the industry.

Interface News reporter learned at the performance meeting that after Li Ning Group officially signed a contract with the China Olympic Committee, it has sorted out and planned major event nodes during this Olympic cycle, including the 2028 Olympic Games, the 2026 Winter Olympics and the Asian Games.

Li Ning Group Co-CEO Qian Wei explained at the performance meeting that Li Ning will match the overall business planning including products, channels, and promotion based on the levels and nodes of different competitions. Qian Wei said that Li Ning Group hopes to bring more improvements to the brand while bringing continuous popularity through various nodes to strengthen consumers' attention to the Li Ning brand.

At the performance briefing held on August 22, Li Ning executives admitted that they also felt the pressure and challenges from the market. It is particularly important to note that after cooperating with COC and increasing expenditures, Li Ning needs to continue to "make blood" profits through his core business.

After cooperating with COC, the semi-annual report disclosed that Li Ning's advertising and marketing expenses increased by 87 million yuan in the first half of the year, and the expense ratio increased by 0.3 percentage points year-on-year to 9%.

Qian Wei specifically mentioned that the increase in marketing costs is mainly due to the newly added Olympic sponsorship fees. The cooperation between Li Ning and COC is a long-term project, and it will not be rewarded immediately if it invests today. This means that Li Ning needs to continue to optimize channels, improve products, find growth points through business, and continuously increase medium- and long-term profitability.

In the current sports consumption market, Li Ning felt the "volume". For example, its gross profit margin fell slightly by 0.4% year-on-year in the first half of the year, which included the deepening of discounts caused by intensified promotional competition in direct sales channels.

Affected by the overall consumption environment, the "price for volume" model through discount promotions has been adopted by many sports brands. The gross profit margins of brands such as Nike and Xtep have also declined. One of the reasons is that under the fierce market competition pattern, the discounts on e-commerce channels have increased compared with last year.

The market environment is not the best time, Li Ning still wants to carry out healthy competition. "The process of competing between brands may not be a bad thing for the long-term development of brands," said Qian Wei.

Li Ning optimizes his performance based on several directional layouts. First of all, in terms of channels, Li Ning's actions can be summarized as "improving efficiency". Qian Wei said at the performance meeting that offline passenger flow has indeed encountered considerable challenges, and Li Ning can also deeply feel the pressure and challenges brought to business flow by the decrease in offline passenger flow year-on-year.

"So not just this year, over the past period of time, we have been continuously optimizing the offline structure, including the expansion and rectification of overall high-quality stores, and the closure of inefficient stores and rectification of stores."

Financial report shows that as of June 30, 2025, the number of Lining stores (including Lining brand and Lining YOUNG) was 7,534, a decrease of 51 from the 7,585 at the end of last year.

In addition, Li Ning also mentioned that they will make more attempts and expansions to different new channels to gain more room for contact with consumers. According to Interface News, Li Ning is also planning pop-up stores and super outlets to get close to consumers.

In terms of products and categories, Li Ning's move is to continue his advantages and focus on sectors that need to be improved. It is understood that Li Ning has six core categories: running, basketball, comprehensive training, badminton, table tennis and sports and leisure. At the same time, Li Ning has expanded to new sports categories such as outdoor sports, tennis and pickled ball.

Running business is one of the advantages of Li Ning Group. Interface News learned that in the past three years, the compound growth rate of running categories in the entire market has been about 9.5%. The compound growth rate of Li Ning brand in the past three years has exceeded 20%. In the first half of the year, its sales of omni-channel professional running shoes exceeded 14 million pairs. However, Li Ning still proposed at the performance meeting that the group needs to increase its market share in the category.

As a partner of the CBA League, Li Ning has been deeply involved in the field of basketball. In the first half of 2025, Li Ning's retail sales in the basketball sector fell by 20% year-on-year. Qian Wei responded that the entire basketball category is currently facing a sluggish market environment, and Li Ning is actively regulating the basketball delivery plan to ensure the healthy terminal business. The group said it will not pursue low-quality large-scale growth in the basketball category, but will continue to increase investment in sports resources in the basketball category.

In a Li Ning store in Wangfujing, Beijing, exhibits and sells basketball-related products/photography: Interface News Wu Bingcong

According to the company's management, in the face of a challenging external environment, Li Ning is increasing its marketing investment. This includes not only investment in top-level event resources, but also investment in various sports categories and investment in contracted athletes. Dare to "attack" when the market is uncertain, demonstrating Li Ning's ambition.

Regarding the view of the consumer market in the second half of 2025, Qian Wei said that since the third quarter, Li Ning has felt that the market situation in July and August will be greater than the expected challenges, so the group is ready to face greater challenges in the second half of the year.

Li Ning, Executive Chairman and Co-CEO of Li Ning Group, made a summary. Li Ning said that the current market challenges and opportunities are intertwined. The group will maintain a prudent attitude and continue to consolidate the basic business. At the same time, closely follow market trends, actively capture and grasp possible structural opportunities, and promote the group to achieve long-term sustainable growth through a series of strategic measures, and strive to become the first professional sports brand of choice for consumers.