Good afternoon. Welcome to today's event. I would like to introduce to you members of the management. We have miss, the CEO, Missus. Mister.
Mr. Lu Yong Hua, Mr. Lai is going to introduce to you the interim performance to be followed by Mr. Zhang's introduction for business review, outlook, and finally, q and a. Mister Zeng and the rest of the management team will take your questions.
Mister Lai, we'll hand the floor over to you. Investors, good afternoon. First of all, on behalf of the board, concerning the first half performance, I will do some review. We believe there are six highlights of the interim results. Standing as the third highest market capitalization spot by company in the world, we are proving our industry leading position.
Secondly, our group's revenue rebounded strongly after the pandemic by 50.5% to historical high of 22,810,000,000.00. Certainly, we have well proven single focus multi brand omnichannel strategy with each brand recording outstanding performance, driving up overall gross profit margin by 6.4 percentage points to 63.2%, a historical high, among which, Entyles revenue grew 56.1% year on year, maintaining the leading position among Chinese sports brands. Sales revenue grew by 51.4% year on year, maintaining growth for ten consecutive years. Total revenue of other brands, including Descent Column Sports increased by 90.1% year on year. Other brands become the group's growth driver.
Coming off last year's high base, overall ecommerce revenue maintained a strong growth of 61%, fully grasping the growth opportunity online. Number four, profit attributable to equity shareholders with JV surged by a 31.6% to RMB 3,840,000,000.00. Margin and profit attributable to equity shareholders with JV grew 5.5 percentage points to 16.8%, maintaining high quality growth. Number five, net operating cash inflow increased by approximately a 60% to RMB 6,310,000,000.00. Free cash inflow increased by approximately 210% to RMB 5,860,000,000.00, proving the group's strong cash generation capability.
Sixth, interim dividend increased by 185.7% to 60%, bringing a satisfying return to shareholders. Our group revenue grew by 55.5% to RMB 22,800,000,000.0. For revenue, 10,578,000,000.000, which is 46.4% of group revenue, growth of 56.1%. Fila revenue, 10,827,000,000.000 renminbi, 40 7 point 5 percent of revenue, growth of 51.4%. For other brands, 1,400,000,000.0, which is 6.1% of revenue, a growth of 19%.
For anti brand reaching high level of revenue, there are a number of reasons. Growth of ecommerce business is one of them. We also have increase in revenue as a result of the adoption of the DTC model virtually. Better Mainland China retail market performance of the brand with more customer demand and less retail discount as a result of the reduced impact of the pandemic. Feel the brand grew by 51.4% mainly because of the growth of ecommerce business, and better Mainland China retail market performance of the brand with strong demand after the pandemic.
For Descent, it entered high speed growth, driving up the revenue. For ecommerce business, the contribution was 27% to our revenue, For the growth, 61%. For Anta, CTC, we're paying about 3,700,000,000.0, 30 5 percent of revenue, and ecommerce, 3,600,000,000.0, which is 31.3% of revenue. Traditional wholesale and Autumn, 3,660,000,000.00, 30 point 9 percent of our revenue. Gross profit margin grew by 6.4 percentage points to 632%, mainly because Enter and Silla and other brand shipping margin improved across the board.
Enter shipping margin increased to 52.8%. Filler increased to 72.3%, and the other brand into 70.4%. Enter has grew by a bigger margin because of DTC model. Retail GP margin has been driven higher. Of course, Anton, Villa, and other brands, retail discounts with improvement over the pandemic, things have also recovered very well, driving up the GP margin.
Operating profit margin, an increase of 1.3 percentage point to 25.9%. There is 6.4 percentage point increase in overall gross profit margin of the group, but better operating efficiency arising from the relatively fast expansion of retail business of Zealand and other brands. This is also partially offset by the increase in operating expenses to revenue ratio after the adoption of PC model for enterprise business in the second half of twenty twenty with increased store level lease expenses and staff cost. So you can see the OP margin has decreased from 24.7% to 29%. Other grew from 2.6% to 21%.
Entire proportion has expanded. The operating profit margin compared to traditionally hotel business is slightly lower. So enter opening margin is slightly lower. Operating expenses ratio, advertising and promotional expenses dropped to 9.4%. Staff cost ratio dropped from 0.6 percentage points to 14.4.
R and D cost ratio slightly dropped to 2.2% by 0.5 percentage point. For the expenses, because of the sales scale has been expanding and in terms of advertisement and staff cost, the company has made continuous investment driving up the sales proportion and driving down the expense level. Check loss of JV and margin of profit attributable to equity shareholders. The loss of JV, 246,000,000, which shows a great improvement. For our JV, first half of the year was the first time it went beyond €1,000,000,000.
Revenue was 7,988,000,000.000 renminbi. For EBITDA, it was historical high as well in the past. It reached 557,000,000 randy, which is a recent record. Because, normally, it is slow season in the first half. So it has greatly improved.
There's an increase of 5.5% of marginal profit attributable to equity shareholders to 16.8%, mainly because of increase in operating profit margin, net finance income, and a drop in share loss, joint ventures, and also effective tax rate. Management of working capital, average inventory turnover days dropped by eighteen days to a hundred and seventeen days. Increase in cost of sales driven by the notable growth in overall revenue leading to a at inventory turnaround date. Despite of the DTC model transformation of VENTA business and the expansion of retail solar and other brands, inventory level was similar at the end of the financial period. As at the end of twenty twenty, reflecting our effective inventory management and strong product sell through condition.
Average trade receivables turnover days is over eighteen days to twenty eight days due to expansion of our scale and better management of receivables. At the June, the balance of receivables compared to 2020 year end, there is a drop. So expansion of scale, but shorter receivable turnaround date. Payable turnover days dropped by twenty eight days to forty four days. Our cash flow is very strong.
Our strategic suppliers are very on time in terms of payment. Liquidity, first half operating cash flow, 6,300,000,000.0. CapEx, 458,000,000. Free cash flow, 5,800,000,000.0, a great improvement. Net cash, more than 10,000,000,000.
Good improvement as well. We have more than 20,000,000,000 as savings. I would announce that all of the bought loss size for trading shares will be changed from 1,000 shares to 200 shares with effect from 9AM on Monday, 10/04/2021. Based on a closing price of hundred and 70.1 Hong Kong dollars per share as quoted on exchange on August 23. The market value per each spot lots of the shares before the change in spot lots size is hundred and 70,100 hundred dollars and will be $34,020 after the change in follow-up size.
So we are promoting the transactions and liquidity of the shares, enabling us to attract more investors and therefore broaden shareholder base of the company. So that is the performance overview. Thank you. We have very strong performance in the first half, so we are even more confident that we can meet all the targets. So, mister Zhang, please take us through the market review and also prospect.
Investors, good afternoon. Welcome to twenty twenty one first half interim results announcement. Mister Lai, concerning first half performance, has already given us a presentation. I'm going to take over now to talk about market review. As we all know, the pandemic has continued to overwhelm most countries around the world and their economies.
But according to National Bureau of Statistics of China, China's economy has enjoyed more rapid recovery. According to the bureau's figures, GDP grew by 12.7% year on year in the first half and 7.9% in q two. Total retail sales of consumer goods reached 21,200,000,000,000.0 RMB in the first half, increasing by 23%. Online sales of physical goods increased 18.7% to 5,030,000,000,000.00 renminbi in the first half. At the same time, for areas related to our business, the state council renewed national fitness plan for twenty twenty one to twenty five.
By 2025, the target is to raise sports participation to 38.5%. Sports industry market scale estimated to reach 5,000,000,000,000 comparing to 3,000,000,000,000 in 2020, CAGR growth of 11%. At the same time, the Education Bureau has launched a very important reform direction. So for primary school students, secondary school students, this is going to be a mandatory policy to do sports. And as we all know, have the three child policy.
So all these current will give a good push to our industry. This is very positive push. When it comes to consumer and sports product, we have the patience, the festival. Sportswear market is still on the part of rapid development. It is taking up 15% in global market.
And in post pandemic era, brand, the global most valuable brands said that there are more Chinese brands than European brands in top hundred with average value increasing by 43%. Enter becomes the only Chinese brand in the top 10 of apparel category for the entire market. The leader is clear according market figures between 2015 and 2020 in Chinese sportswear industry. Market share of the top five brands increased by 15% until market share has increased by five 2% over the past five years. Another scenario, rapid development of software is becoming more professional, customized, and niche, especially for high end national brands.
We have identified great potential. So we're talking about very good rapid growth momentum. Is also inside this group. For the group, we have clear strategic road map that's been shared several times. Our vision is to become a leading world class multi brand spot by group, under which, beginning from 2016, we have talked about single focus multi brand omnichannel.
So this is very clear strategic direction in the past five years. We have deepened our roots. We have set up three major sports groups and leading the performance sports group and then filler, taking the fashion sports group and also descent in Cologne, MS Sports forming the auto sports group. They create three growth curves. For example, the curve supported by Enter and then another one supported by.
And led by Desanti Cologne and Amosport with good potential of growth. So Antar has completed a very good growth model, setting a good foundation for better growth and development in the future. At the same time, with supply chain digitalization, we can realize faster design, development, and production. So every brand can be well supported. In the first half, we have sped up d two c transformation, us to confront our customers using straightforward ways to create value for our consumers.
Digital transformation and restructuring have also supported future development trends. So I will quickly talk about business review for major brands in the first half. Enter. We have launched champion dragon outfit to share the joy with our Chinese Olympic athletes. He was on Tokyo Olympic Summer Games and Beijing Winter Olympic Games.
We have attracted a lot of support. So 88 medals have been received by athletes wearing enter outfits. In the sort of number of hits for Weibo, ANTA has also signed a number of top celebrities, Hwang Yibo and Ai Lin Gu. They are endorsers. We completed processes to establish completed DDC organizational structure, retail business processes, and operational standards based on customers, products, and channels.
In the first half, b two c transformation was very successful, rationalizing all processes so that there is higher integration between enter and retail network. In the first half, footwear product sales increased, especially high end products. They are getting a lot of recognition. There are sub brands under Anta. They have launched new models, and we have exceeded various sales performance targets.
We have set up our new kids sports r and d center. The performance of our footwear has been greatly enhanced. We continue to do R and D. We have introduced Jiangsuyin, Jinju Xian, so and so forth as our endorsers. For the first half, For footwear filler enjoyed very good growth.
We have done a number of product crossover. We continue to launch Fila flagship shop, including the one in Wangfujing in Beijing. So we are talking about retail targeting not just one individual, but also the entire family. Success of Sheila Kits and Sheila Fusion enabled Sheila to capture opportunities from different age groups and become a successful brand that every member of the family can enjoy. I have heard from mister Lai about Dissent.
It is positioned as a high end and high quality professional sportswear brand. After more than five years of development, it has established a high quality brand positioning recognized by consumers in China and has just set caught the attention of high end customers. We have omnichannel for retail sales allowing descent to achieve great successes online, offline. At the same time, we maintain high speed growth, so doubling the revenue. In Shanghai, we have set up two flagship shops and some experience shops in November in Beijing, San Yukon.
We're going to set up the first or the number one flagship shop under the brand. So setting such shop will continue to help us position ourselves among high end brands and attract consumers. This is setting very good foundation for future growth. We've also developed two sub brands. Descent Golf is one of them.
It is the best brand for among all golf related brands. And we've set a very good foundation for golf players. We have also set up this team over club and organized different sporting activities in 15 cities in China to interact with more than almost 1,000 core targeted consumers and accumulated a 30 viewers for our broadcast. For long sports, good performance again. We know that the growth rate is more than 50%.
In the first half, we have also turned losses into profit to start the path of growth. Has become our endorser. We have also, alongside Chen Kun, Chinese sector, interpret your best way to nature. Our MS board, mister Lai talked about this earlier. In the first half, we have overall breakthrough around the world for three core brands, Solomon, Version, and Terex.
They got very good growth, pushing the overall performance of MS Sports over 1,000,000,000. In the first half, compared to before the pandemic, we're looking at two digit growth. MS Sports China, in the first half, we achieved very good results compared to last year. We're talking about doubling the outcome mainly from Aterex's rapid growth in China. Amazfit's global performance more than €1,000,000,000 and EBITDA reached 557,000,000 renminbi.
So this is the best performance yet for the first half. Our distribution network, if you look at the old figures, there is no obvious growth. We are looking at a deduction of 200. So our performance increased by 50.7% through enhancing our sales network, enhancing our shop efficiency. So high quality distribution network construction is for all our brands.
At the same time, we have stepped up digitalization before our smart product and membership program enhancement. Our CRM system inside the industry is actually the best. For online business, we have reached high level of growth on Tmall and our group between January and July. The traffic level is number one among all the enterprises, and it was actually the first time for us to achieve that. Supply chain.
Optimize process and reduce unnecessary cost through refined management. We have introduced quality suppliers and set up collaboration with them so that we can better the overall increased capacity by 2025. Top three supplier cover a share of more than 60% at the same time. Enter footwear and apparel accounted for 26.410.5%, respectively. Offer the footwear and apparel, twenty three point five and three point nine percent.
We'll continue to leverage their partnership supply chain platform and realize value added of our supply chain through centralized procurement and overall. Our outlook in the following five months and also next year, we will continue to uphold single focus multi brand omnichannel strategy, continue to be consumer centric to achieve high quality control so the group can become a true leading sportswear company. Our major brands last month, we have given you an introduction of our two year plan. We will focus on professionalism and foster our leading position. CELA will continue to be on top tier in a multi brand play, improve brand desirability, and facilitate high quality growth.
Descent and outdoor lifestyle cologne sports, They will be future growth drivers. MS Sports will continue to carry out reform, especially t two c transformation. And for the three core brands, there will be global breakthroughs. In the Chinese market, you can see Cleric has obtained very good success. Solomon and Virgin will also expand their footprint in Chinese market.
So all the core brands will enjoy great success. So this is the presentation for the first half of the year. And, hopefully, with this presentation, You understand better of our high quality operations on top of our financial figures. You now have better understanding of our operations. Thank you.