In 2025, Anta Group's revenue surpasses 80 billion yuan: breaking through with a multi-brand matrix, accelerating the formation of a global footprint

Ask AI: How Can Anta Build a Third Growth Engine Through a Multi-Brand Matrix?

This article is sourced from Times Finance, authored by Zhou Hang.

Local sportswear giants have gradually released their 2025 results.

On March 25, Anta Sports Products Co., Ltd. (hereinafter “Anta Group,” 02020.HK) released its 2025 performance. As of December 31 last year, Anta Group’s revenue hit a new high, up 13.3% year over year to RMB 80.22B. Compared with Anta Group’s 2024 revenue of about RMB 70.8 billion, this is equivalent to adding the scale of a listed company with over RMB 10 billion. The group’s overall gross margin was about 62%; operating profit increased 15.0% year over year to RMB 13.59B; excluding the impact of Anta Group’s 2024 listing-related matter involving Amer Sports, profit attributable to shareholders increased 13.9% year over year to RMB 80.22B.

According to statistics from international authoritative institutions, Anta Group continues to gain market share in China’s sports footwear and apparel market; excluding Amer Sports Group, Anta Group’s market share is about 21.8%, remaining the industry leader and also firmly ranked among the top three globally. Anta Group and Amer Sports’ market capitalizations both sit within the top five among global sports brands. As of 4:16 PM Beijing time on March 25, Anta Group’s market cap was about HKD 211.8 billion, comparable to Adidas. The two have been in ongoing competition for positions second and third, while Amer Sports is ranked fourth, above lululemon.

The recently concluded 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan also adds a note of endorsement to Anta Group’s hard-core capabilities.

During the event, brands under Anta Group supported a total of 13 Chinese national teams. Among them, the Anta main brand provided equipment supply for 10 teams. The Chinese delegation ultimately won 5 gold, 4 silver, and 6 bronze medals, setting the best overseas Winter Olympics performance for a Chinese team. These medals were all won by teams supported by brands under Anta Group.

Performance hits another record high, and the third growth engine rises

Behind the record-breaking performance in 2025 lies a qualitative change in Anta Group’s business structure.

For a long time, the Anta main brand and Fila have been viewed as the “two engines” driving the group’s revenue growth. But in 2025, other brand segments represented by DESCENTE and KOLON SPORT, are accelerating from strategic reserves into a true “third pole.”

In 2025, Anta Group’s full-year revenue was RMB 34.75B, up 13.3% year over year. Revenue from the Anta main brand was about RMB 28.47B, up 3.7%; Fila brand revenue was about RMB 17B, up 6.9%; and revenue from all other brands was about RMB 4.41B, up 59.2%.

A comparison point is that in 2022, Anta Group’s revenue from the “all other brands” segment was about RMB 4.405 billion. That means that over three years, the annual revenue scale of that segment grew by nearly three times year over year.

Looking at it in detail, DESCENTE continues to deepen its focus on elite sports scenarios such as skiing, golf, and triathlon, improving store-level operational efficiency and profitability through the “Big Store Upgrade Plan.” Its global flagship store in “Future City” landed in Beijing, and the brand’s store sales volume in 2025 first surpassed RMB 10 billion. KOLON SPORT adheres to the principle of healthy growth; it opened flagship stores in core cities that match brand positioning and are close to the target consumer groups. Average monthly store performance broke through RMB 2 million, making it the fastest-growing brand within Anta Group. MAIA ACTIVE, focused on women’s yoga, is accelerating incubation. JACK WOLFSKIN has also clearly defined its positioning as an “all-scenario professional hiking brand,” and its five-year brand revival plan is accelerating.

Emerging brands are growing from strategic reserves into important growth pillars for Anta Group.

From an offline channel perspective, by the end of 2025, the number of stores for the DESCENTE, KOLON SPORT, and MAIA ACTIVE brands was 256, 209, and 52, respectively. Compared with the previous year, they net added 30, 18, and 5 stores, respectively—so the pace of expansion is not aggressive. This also means that the impressive growth of the “other brands segment” is not primarily driven by store count, but more by operational efficiency—especially improving store performance.

According to the financial report, Anta Group expects that by the end of 2026, the number of stores for the DESCENTE, KOLON SPORT, and MAIA ACTIVE brands will fall in the ranges of 260–270, 220–230, and 60–70, respectively.

From another angle, while industry giants have increasingly treated the outdoor segment as a boom area and rushed to grab market share, Anta Group has not expanded blindly. Instead, it has chosen to focus deeply and operate with precision, steadily building value in terms of professionalism. True strategic resolve is not chasing short-term hype, but consistently keeping its sights on consumers’ real needs. Such strategic resolve often leads to more sustainable growth and brand accumulation.

While the new growth engine is surging ahead, Anta Group’s main brand trend has also become more stable. Behind this “stability” is the inevitable outcome of Anta’s and Fila’s continued focus on product innovation and advancing channel upgrades. This is also the firm execution of Anta Group’s increased long-term investment in R&D and its “good products” strategy.

Between 2016 and 2025, Anta Group’s annual R&D spending rose from about RMB 350 million to RMB 2.20 billion, an increase of more than five times. Continuous R&D empowerment has made product innovation the core driving force behind growth.

In 2025, Anta’s proprietary technology products saw a steady stream of hit launches: the PG7 running shoes surpassed 4 million pairs in annual sales; the C-family professional running shoes surpassed 1.2 million pairs in annual sales. Anta’s new store formats—“Anta Arena,” “Anta Hall,” “Anta Champion,” “Anta Collection,” and “Super Anta”—have been fully rolled out. While these new store formats enhance the consumer experience, they also reach target customer groups more precisely.

Fila focuses on product innovation and category breakthroughs, expanding its best-selling-product matrix driven by IP. Among them, the newly launched Heritage series sold out at a higher sell-through rate than the brand’s overall figure. The new technology dad shoes VETTA helped the entire dad-shoe family sell nearly 10 million pairs in the full year. The Unbounded POLO drove the entire POLO category to sell 2 million units in the full year. Terminal channel upgrades are also being steadily advanced. Last May, the first FILA FUSION fashion-forward pioneer store opened in Shenzhen. The first FILA KIDS art museum store settled in Suzhou. In the second half of last year, FILA FUSION also opened version 4.0 of a fashion park store in Chongqing.

The global puzzle comes together; multi-brand strong operations has become part of Anta’s DNA

In 2025, Anta Group’s global expansion entered a critical phase of implementation, with its vision of “Anta for the World” accelerating into reality.

Last September, the Anta brand launched the “Thousand-Store Plan” in Southeast Asia, aiming to open more than 1,000 Anta brand outlets in that region within the next three years. This is not simply single-brand expansion. Instead, Anta Group is using the Southeast Asian market as a “bridgehead,” with Singapore serving as the regional headquarters, taking an important step in exploring an overseas model that can be replicated.

Anta Group is also actively investing in overseas market infrastructure such as digitalization, logistics, and supply chains, and replicating its Southeast Asia operating experience to new regions, gradually entering markets such as South Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and India.

Starting in 2026, Anta Group will also open offline retail stores in major Indian cities. This is also an important achievement after Anta Group reached a cooperation with the international sports retailer Brandman Retail.

Of course, beyond Southeast Asia, this strategy of “global thinking and local execution” is equally clear in North America and Europe. Public information shows that the Anta brand has completed its brand layout through partnerships with mainstream retail channels such as Foot Locker, DSG, and JD Sports, as well as platforms like Amazon.

Over the past year, the most emblematic move in Anta Group’s acceleration of overseas expansion is that the Anta main brand opened North America’s first direct-operated flagship store in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, USA. Beverly Hills is a battleground for global luxury goods and top brands. Anta placing its flagship store here speaks for itself in strategic intent, and it precisely reflects Anta’s strategic determination to accelerate its transformation from “exporting products” to “exporting brands.”

By the end of 2025, Anta Group had opened more than 460 single-brand stores in regions outside China.

Today, with brands including Anta, Fila, DESCENTE, and KOLON SPORT, Anta Group appears to be in great shape. If you roll the timeline back ten years, market evaluations of Anta Group’s multi-brand acquisitions were far less optimistic than reality today.

Anta Group’s multi-brand success over more than a decade proves that it can not only efficiently integrate and operate many international brands under its umbrella, but also, through long-term practice, has explored a distinctive capability system. These three core capabilities—“multi-brand coordinated management + refined retail operations + global resource integration”—support and integrate with one another organically, becoming the core confidence for Anta Group to get through industry cycles and achieve high-quality, continuous growth.

Speaking at the China Brand Festival, Wang Yong, chairman of the Brand Alliance and chairman of the China Brand Festival, said that the globalization of China’s sports brands is now entering a new stage, moving from exporting products to exporting models, from capital M&A to value co-creation. “Using Anta as a template, the path is clear and replicable: first, build international brands well in the domestic market, then go out to operate global brands, and ultimately let China-born independent brands reach the world.”

Wang Yong believes that behind this is an ecosystem featuring both “empowerment and authorization.” “By injecting efficient supply-chain capabilities, digital retail capabilities, and refined operational capabilities into acquired brands, we awaken dormant value and enable shared growth. What the world needs is precisely this kind of Chinese brand that can both integrate into the global system and bring entirely new possibilities.”

With a mature multi-brand management system and global operating capabilities, Anta Group has grown from a China industry leader into a sports group with global competitiveness. As the third growth engine continues to gain momentum and its overseas footprint expands steadily, Anta’s growth story is still being written with new chapters.

Ding Shizhong, chairman of Anta Group’s board, said: “The external environment in 2025 is complex and ever-changing. Guided by the strategy of ‘single focus, multi-brand, and globalization,’ Anta Group has built capability advantages of ‘winning in products, winning in operations.’ Each brand’s differentiation is becoming more pronounced, achieving resilient growth. Over the past 35 years, Anta Group has weathered multiple rounds of industry ups and downs and consumption cycles. We are confident in strengthening technological innovation, maintaining resilience, health, and vitality, and building ‘Anta for the World’ rooted in the China market.”