李宁上半年营收微增2.8%至152.4亿元 毛利率提升至50.9%

This article reveals key results from Li-Ning’s H1 2026 interim report, showing the company’s overall steady growth with the following core highlights:

1. Core financial performance: The group generated total revenue of RMB 15.24 billion in the first half, a slight 2.8% year-over-year increase, with net profit of RMB 1.82 billion. Its overall gross margin rose to 50.9%, up 0.9 percentage points year-over-year. By category, apparel was the fastest-growing segment at 11.8% growth, while revenue from equipment and accessories declined.

2. Product strategy: Li-Ning maintains six core categories including running and basketball, and has increased R&D investment in high-end professional running shoes, integrating its self-developed super Boom capsule technology into its core Feidian and Chitu series. It is also actively expanding into emerging niche segments such as outdoor sports and pickleball.

3. Marketing and distribution: All three major domestic channels – wholesale distribution, direct retail, and e-commerce – delivered slight revenue growth, with e-commerce accounting for nearly 30% of total revenue. The brand has also secured partnerships with China’s national Olympic team and Stephen Curry Brand, and is testing new offline store formats to drive new growth.

Li-Ning’s H1 2026 results offer key takeaways for business and product strategy across the sports brand industry, as outlined below:

1. Product R&D and portfolio: Li-Ning focuses on upgrading core categories with professional technology, ramping up R&D for high-end professional running shoes and rolling its proprietary technology out across all core product lines. It is also positioning early in high-growth emerging niches including outdoor sports, tennis and pickleball to capture new opportunities, while its mature basketball category relies on core signature models and channel-aligned strategy to stabilize its core business.

2. Brand marketing direction: The company amplifies brand exposure through partnerships with top-tier sports IPs: it reinforces its professional positioning through national Olympic team kit collaboration, and expands reach among younger consumers via long-term cooperation with an NBA star’s personal brand.

3. Channel innovation: Instead of sticking to traditional store formats, brands can test new offline concepts such as pop-up flagship stores, standalone outdoor stores and cultural-themed sections to unlock new channel growth. Li-Ning currently maintains a balanced multi-channel portfolio, with e-commerce accounting for nearly 30% of revenue.

Sports category sellers can identify market opportunities and draw actionable operating lessons from Li-Ning’s interim results, summarized below:

1. Growth opportunities: The athletic apparel segment currently holds the strongest growth momentum: Li-Ning’s apparel revenue grew 11.8% year-over-year in H1, outpacing all other categories. Emerging niches including outdoor sports, tennis and pickleball still offer large untapped blue ocean opportunities worth early positioning.

2. Actionable operating lessons: For mature categories facing competitive pressure, an e-commerce-led promotion strategy can help stabilize overall sales volume. Partnering with top-tier sports IPs is an effective customer acquisition tactic that reaches target audiences with high accuracy.

3. Risk warning: Deepening discounts in wholesale business directly drags down overall top-line growth, so maintaining a healthy pricing system is a critical priority. Given limited overall market growth today, sellers should pursue new growth via new channels and new categories rather than relying solely on mature markets.

Li-Ning’s financial report offers guidance on product demand and new business opportunities for sports goods manufacturers, with key takeaways below:

1. Product manufacturing and design requirements: Brands are increasingly demanding higher technological content for high-end professional sports equipment. High-end running shoes require proprietary tech materials, while core professional categories such as basketball require higher design and craftsmanship standards for signature and professional models. To secure core orders, factories need to upgrade their production processes to match brands’ R&D requirements.

2. New business opportunities: Li-Ning is expanding into emerging niche categories including outdoor sports, tennis and pickleball, and rolling out a variety of new specialty offline store formats. This has created new cooperation gaps for manufacturing related category products and store-exclusive derivative products, which aligned factories can pursue.

3. Insights for digital and e-commerce transformation: E-commerce now accounts for nearly 30% of Li-Ning’s total revenue, and brands have higher requirements for flexible production to fulfill e-commerce orders. Factories need to accelerate the development of flexible supply chains to adapt to the "small batch, fast turnaround" demand of e-commerce.

Li-Ning’s interim results reveal new industry trends in the athletic apparel sector and offer strategic guidance for service providers supporting sports brands, summarized below:

1. Industry trends: Leading domestic sports brands are placing increasing focus on professional technology R&D and top-tier IP marketing, driving growing demand for supporting marketing and product R&D services. Meanwhile, as brands aggressively explore new offline consumption scenarios, demand for store design and scenario operation services is also rising.

2. Core pain points of brand clients: The overall athletic apparel industry is facing slowing growth and exhausted growth in traditional channels, while mature categories such as basketball face intense market competition. Brands are urgently searching for new growth drivers to break through current bottlenecks.

3. New business opportunities: Service providers can capture new industry growth by developing tailored marketing solutions for emerging niches such as outdoor sports and pickleball, offering space design and operation services for brands’ new offline store formats, and providing content operation and promotion support for brands’ IP collaborations.

Li-Ning’s interim results reflect sports brands’ current demand for retail platforms and offer guidance for platform merchant recruitment and operations, with key takeaways below:

1. Core demand from brands: Sports brands are increasingly relying on e-commerce channels to drive growth for mature categories. For example, Li-Ning’s basketball category relies on an e-commerce-led promotion strategy to stabilize overall sales, and e-commerce already accounts for nearly 30% of the company’s total revenue. Platforms need to provide more traffic support and promotional tools for sports brands.

2. Guidance for merchant recruitment and operations: Sports brands are increasingly investing in emerging niche categories such as outdoor sports and pickleball, and testing innovative offline store formats. Platforms can step up recruitment efforts for brands targeting these emerging segments and innovative channel formats, and allocate more traffic resources to support them.

3. Guidance for risk management: Given overall industry slowdown, wholesale business has seen notably weak growth due to excessive discounting. Platforms should guide brands to maintain a reasonable pricing system, avoid overheated price competition that harms industry health, and encourage brands to pursue new growth through new category development.

As an interim report from a leading domestic sports brand, Li-Ning’s results reveal new development trends in China’s domestic athletic apparel industry and offer high value for industrial research, as outlined below:

1. Current overall industry characteristics: Leading domestic sports brands have entered a phase of low single-digit steady growth. Li-Ning delivered only 2.8% YoY revenue growth in H1, but its gross margin continued climbing to 50.9%, indicating brands are boosting profitability through product structure optimization. Apparel has become the core growth driver, e-commerce accounts for nearly 30% of revenue, and the overall channel structure is maturing.

2. New industry trends: Leading brands are increasing technology investment in high-end professional products to capture the premium professional market, while positioning early in emerging niches such as outdoor sports and pickleball. They are also expanding their user base through cross-industry IP collaborations (with the national Olympic team, star athlete brands, the Palace Museum cultural and creative program, among others) and exploring new offline scenarios to drive new growth.

3. Key emerging issues for the industry: Wholesale business faces weak growth amid deeper discounting, revenue for traditional equipment and accessories categories has declined notably, and competition in mature categories is intensifying. These are all new challenges that China’s domestic athletic apparel industry currently needs to address.