Good morning. Welcome to Li Ning Company Limited's 2022 interim results presentation. This is taking part both, online and, physically, so you're able to see the webcast. For the slides, you can download them on the webcast platform. We provide both Chinese and English simultaneous interpretation for your choice. Let me introduce to you our management.
Mr. Li Ning, Executive Director; and Joint CEO, Mr. Qian Wei; and also CFO, Mr. Zhao Dongsheng. In today's presentation, our CFO, Mr. Zhao Dongsheng, will present a financial overview. After that, Mr. Li Ning is going to present the strategic directions. Finally, Mr. Qian Wei will go through operational progress, followed by a Q&A session. You are most welcome to ask questions. If you want to ask questions, please press Raise Hand button. Now I will pass the floor to the management. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
I am Zhao Dongsheng. I'm very honored to see you all here during this results announcement. This is the first time I am communicating with you after I assumed position. Now I'm going to present the first half 2022 financial highlights. In the past half a year, because of the pandemic, the overall consumption environment was threatened and put to a test, and there was big increase in cost.
Together with the high base effects of last year, there was pressure on the finance and operation of the company. Financially, our company in the first half achieved 22% revenue growth. Because of cost increase and also on the retail, and there was more intense competition, gross margin came down 5.9 percentage points to 50%. Given the very volatile market environment, the company effectively controlled expenses and costs.
As a result, operating expense ratio came down 0.9 percentage points. Together with government subsidy and an increase in interest income, we achieved a net profit growth of 11.6% to RMB 2.189 billion. Net profit margin came down 1.6 percentage points to 17.6%, which is still in line with our target. Operating cash flow down 52.4%. During the pandemic, in order to ensure that the supply chain is stable and effective, we increased support to suppliers and we shortened the payment cycle. With increase in raw material price, procurement value went up, and so, operating cash flow came down. Still, we are able to achieve operating cash flow of RMB 1.583 billion.
Even though there is an increase in the average operating capital, it still accounted for a flat ratio of the revenue. Cash conversion cycle is 21 days, still at a healthy level. In terms of operation, we strengthened our optimization of operating efficiency. To a certain extent, we're able to cancel out some of the negative impact from the pandemic.
For Li-Ning brand, in terms of retail sell-through with the high base figure of same period of last year, we achieved a high single digits growth, year-on-year growth of the whole channel. Channel inventory was up 40%-50%. Because business scale increased, we seized the opportunity to make early preparation. Inventory over sales was 3.6 months. It is still at a healthy level.
The age structure of inventory kept on improving. There is pressure on the retail environment still. For our retail sell-through, we still achieved 10%-20% growth for offline new products. For new products sell-through, it's up 6 percentage points. Comparing with last year for new products, three-month sell-out rate came down 9 percentage points. Six-month sell-out rate came down 7 percentage points.
Comparing with same period of 2020, three-month and six-month sell-out ratio improved double digits percentage points. Comparing with same period 2019, there was also an improvement by high single digits. In the first half of the year, even though there was big challenge from the pandemic, we are still able to strengthen our operating efficiency, so we are able to alleviate some pressure on the retail end.
For our revenue in the first half of the year, it's up 22% year-on-year. This is because of our focus, strategic focus on professional categories. Footwear revenue was up 47% year-on-year. At the same time, apparel revenue was slightly down 3% year-on-year. The market environment was very volatile, but Li-Ning brand continues to focus on a balanced channel strategy.
Wholesale and DTC were of more or less the same proportion. We're able to mitigate the risk in relation to operating capital and profit and loss. Because of the pandemic's impact, DTC revenue share came down 2%, two percentage points to 23%. Its share is more or less the same as in e-commerce.
In the past, the company gave a lot of support to distributors, and we exercised stringent requirements on channel efficiency. Before the resurgence of the pandemic, the wholesale channel was very healthy. For old products, inventory share was low. In fact, the inventory share went up 2 percentage points to 47%. We have very stable share of channel, and we kept on improving our channel management and also merchandise management. For offline sell-through, well, for new products within six months, sell-through was up 6 percentage points to 91%. We achieved our target earlier. We improved the situation, and you can see that our retail operational capability kept on improving. For same-store sales performance, in the first half, for the whole platform, same-store sales growth, low single digits.
For e-commerce, same-store sales growth was between 10%-20%. Offline, same-store sales came down single digits. As you can see from the chart, in the first half, same-store pressure was mainly in Q2. This is because of the resurgence of the pandemic. There was lockdown in some places and also, there were also restrictions on going out. In Q2 last year, for the whole platform, same-store sales growth exceeded 80%.
So there was a lot more pressure on this year's same-store sales growth. For channel development in the first half, there were total 7,112 stores and up 367 year-on-year for Li-Ning main brand. There was an additional 233 stores, Li-Ning Young, an increase of 134 stores.
Because of the pandemic in the first half, store opening plan was somewhat delayed. Despite that, for Li-Ning main brand, we still focus on highly efficient stores and also stores in shopping centers. There was still a mid-single-digit growth in the number of stores. Also store area, and also the average area went up 20%. For retail sell-through, because of the pandemic, and also last year in the first half, whole platform sell-through went up 90%.
This is a pressure because of high base effect. For overall sell-through, there is an increase of single digits, high single digits year-on-year. For e-commerce sell-through, 10%-20% growth. For offline sell-through, mid-single-digit growth. For ASP, it is still able to increase at a low single digits.
Sales volume, low single digits growth. For our wholesale business, it doesn't include international market and Li-Ning Young. In the first half, revenue was up 27% year-on-year. Number of stores up 56. For professional categories, for example, badminton, table tennis, revenue grew quite significantly, mainly because the group was focused on professional categories, so distributors have more confidence.
In the past two years, for such business and organizational structure, there was reorganization which benefits the high speed growth of this category. Besides, the base figure was relatively lower. As shown in the right chart, the wholesale revenue of professional category was up 10%-20%. For wholesale sell-through, because of the pandemic, last year the growth was over 80%, so there is high base figure. In the first half, it's a growth of mid-single digits.
Under the pandemic, we have to make sure that there is enough sell-in of new products in order to drive recovery of sell-through. In the long run, we will continue to focus on retail operational capability of the distributors to make sure that the channel inventory is healthy and there will be sustainable growth of the channels.
For direct retail, revenue up 10% year-on-year, number of stores up 177. As you can see from this chart on change of revenue growth is mainly because of new openings and also same-store sales growth. New opening contributed CNY 195 million or 80% of the total revenue increase. The pandemic, to a certain extent, affected the revenue growth of direct channel. Last year, the base figure was high.
However, we still improve our direct channel performance, and there is also high-quality new opening driving revenue growth. In the first half, our gross margin was down 5.9 percentage points to 50%. The main reasons are as follows. First, for the direct operation gross margin, because there is deeper discounting and also cost increase. As a result, there is negative impact on the cost over tag price ratio.
As a result, gross margin was affected by 1.7 percentage points. For e-commerce gross margin, because there is more competition in sales promotion, there's deeper discounting. There was an impact on gross margin by 1.7 percentage points. For wholesale gross margin, there's increase in raw materials and wages. As a result, there is negative impact on cost over tag price.
There was impact on gross margin by 1.4 percentage points. DTC channel usually has higher gross margin. However, their revenue came down in terms of share. It led to a 0.7 percentage point decline in gross margin. Inventory increased, and this led to a 0.4 percentage point decline in the group's GP margin. Even though there is decline in GP margin, 22% revenue growth still led to a gross profit increase of CNY 502 million. For expenses, we have exercised effective cost control, and we are able to achieve a better rate of return on investment. For expenses related to sales, for example, direct store expenses, platform commission, logistics cost and so on, they increased CNY 425 million. It is comparable to revenue growth.
Advertising and marketing expenses up CNY 234 million, and the expense ratio was up 0.6 percentage point to 7.9%. Selling expenses increased. This is mainly because of a recovery in retail sell-through. For other platform expenses, down CNY 51 million. Other income and interest increased CNY 399 million. This is because of an increase in government subsidy and a big increase in net cash. Overall speaking, our operating profit margin last year was 24.9%. It came down 3.6 percentage points to 21.3%. Net profit margin in the same period last year was 19.2%. It came down 1.6 percentage point to 17.6%. Regarding channel inventory, in the first half, total channel inventory was up 40%-50%.
On one hand, business scale of the company expanded. As a result, there's increase in inventory. On the other hand, as I explained in the wholesale section, under the pandemic, we have to make sure that there is enough supply of new products to drive post-pandemic recovery. In the first half of last year, there was shortage of inventory. So as a result for this year, the increase in inventory was even more apparent.
So our inventory turnover months was 3.6 months, still very healthy. Structure of inventory improved. For inventory over six months, its share came down 5 percentage points to 12%. In the future, we will continue to very stringently manage our inventory to make sure that inventory turnover efficiency and structure will be maintained at a very healthy level.
For our inventory, company inventory, because of the business platform continues to expand, and last year in the same period, there was shortage of inventory. In the first half, before provision, inventory cost increased 50% year-on-year. Inventory over six months came down 2 percentage points in share to 21%.
Company inventory structure is reasonable and controllable. Healthy inventory structure is very important to sustainable growth. We believe that in the future, with continuous improvement in product efficiency and operating efficiency, we still have room for improvement. Trade receivables. Comparing with 22% revenue growth, our receivables before provision was up 16%. This increase is reasonable. Receivable turnover increased by one day to 14 days, still very healthy. As shown here, receivable within 90 days last year was 75%. It increased to 83%.
Even though there's negative impact from the pandemic, in the past, we gave support to distributors and also we have stringent requirement on channel efficiency management. Our distributors are at relatively healthy position. In the future, we will continue to maintain our support and management strategy for distributors. Working capital efficiency. Our working capital is still on a healthy level.
Working capital over annualized revenue was stable at 6%, so we have adequate resources to drive future business recovery. During the pandemic, in order to ensure that the supply chain is effective and stable, we gave more support to distributors. We shortened payment cycle and there's increase in raw material price, so procurement cost went up. Operating cash flow came down. However, we are still able to have positive operating cash flow of CNY 1.583 billion.
Our net cash was up RMB 9.785 billion year-over-year to RMB 18.098 billion. Last year in November, we completed a placement. As a result, we have more adequate cash resources. We have sound cash position, so when we face the pandemic, we are better able to withstand pressure and risk.
Besides, we are in a better position to very flexibly seize future business growth opportunities. Right now, the pandemic is still not stable. There are multiple outbreaks, and there are also very stringent anti-epidemic measures over a long period of time, so there is continuous impact on the economy and consumption. Together with very volatile international situation, the economic and consumption environment in the second half is still uncertain. We are very prudent in relation to the second half of this year.
In the second half, the pandemic and the consumption environment is relatively stable. We will maintain our beginning of the year guidance. We expect that for the whole year, revenue growth will be at the high range of 10%-20%.
To the low, low end of 20%-30%. Net profit margin will be towards the high end of 10%-20%. Of course, it is difficult to forecast the future. Right now, visibility about the second half is still low. We will keep a close eye on the recovery of channels in the second half in order to make the best preparation for any sudden risks. That's all about financials. Now I will pass the floor to our chairman to present the major strategic directions for the first half of the year. Thank you.
Good morning. In the first half of 2022, different places in China were subject to a new wave of pandemic impact. There was orderly anti-epidemic measures, so the society as well as the economy gradually resumed normal. The state is putting a lot of effort in expanding the consumption market, so there is further release of consumption in the sports sector.
At the beginning of the year, the Beijing Winter Olympics was successfully held, and people now pay more attention to sports. There is bigger demand for made in China sportswear products. This gives a lot of development potential for our brand. We continue to improve the experience and value of Li-Ning, and we upgraded our product technology, we optimized our product matrix.
We improved our retail end service in order to offer a long-term drive for sustainable development of the brand. We continue to be focused on single brand multi-categories diversified channel strategy. We focus a lot on function, product function, R&D, technological innovation, and we also take into consideration the fashion elements of sports.
With the multi-categories and diversified channel strategy, we are able to offer very professional and trendy sports products to drive sustainable growth of our business. In the first half of the year, we cultivate very deeply into professional categories. We strengthen product layouts of professional categories and of which basketball was up 30% year-on-year, running up 10% year-on-year. With the resurgence of the pandemic and also high base figure, overall retail sell-through was still up 8%.
For other categories, centered around badminton and table tennis, well, they are mainly sold through specialized stores. If you look at the revenue data in the first half of the year, there was growth of 82%.
Among the specific categories, we continue to improve the professional product matrix of our basketball segments, optimizing the product quality, working alongside the sports trends and the street basketball trends and current culture to inject more vitality into professional basketball products in order to win over many basketball fans.
In the first half of the year, our classic shoe, the Way of Wade 10 and our Badfive 2 and the Way of Wade 10, All City 10 and Badfive 2 products. At the same time, we were able to improve its technology and continue its good reputation and further consolidate the professional standing of Li-Ning basketball brand. Among the running category products, we continue to use our Boom Fiber technology as its core, to comprehensively enhance our running shoes product matrix.
Among which the Superlight 19 shoe has become a phenomenal product with extremely high sales. The Li-Ning running shoes are now through enhancing our product quality, gradually enhancing our brand recognition among consumers. In the first half of the year, we have rolled out a brand new project, the Boom Fiber technology. The fiber is made from Li-Ning Boom Fabrics. As usual, it's light, resilient, and endurance.
Working alongside our unique weaving technology, we were able to satisfy all of the needs of running. In the next step, this technology will be used in many more professional products, leading our Li-Ning professional product matrix to continue to explore and develop upwards. Well, in terms of fitness, we are focused on enhancing our clothing technology research and enhancing our fabrics.
We have a professional and diverse lineup of product to satisfy the fitness needs of both men and women. We address the consumer experience and their actual needs to increase our technology with regards to rapid dry, smart dry, quick dry technology, and dry freeze cool feeling technology to provide a more comfortable exercise experience for our runners and fitness fans.
Furthermore, we would work more on the female space, female fitness, combining with yoga, dance, and other sides of female fitness environments to provide key products. We hope that through providing professional female fitness products with excellent performance, we could establish more communicative channels with female consumers.
In the sports casual segment, it's very close to the daily needs of our consumers, and we are trying to develop the fashionable sports trends, including developing unique and stylish fashionable products and themed store narratives. We establish our unique advantage for our product, and through leveraging Chinese culture, kung fu and streetwear culture, et cetera, we were gonna offer a product narrative to create a lot of hot topics for our products. Through enhancing our product attractiveness, we are able to win over more recognition from our consumers. In terms of brand marketing, we will continue to consolidate professional sponsorship resources to organize quality competitions in order to attract more professional athletes to become our brand ambassadors.
Through continuing to work more in areas such as basketball, running, fitness, ping pong and badminton, we are able to leverage professional resources to further drive the sales and attention on Li-Ning's professional products. We are very fortunate to be able to have the opportunity to work with fantastic athletes and fantastic teams. We became their sponsors and were able to achieve excellent results in many competitions. While we are continuing to strive for better results, we were able to exemplify the Li-Ning brand spirit of everything is possible. Apart from working with professional athletes in the first half of the year, we also worked with the Bruce Lee Foundation, which is a first in our industry. The product in this collaboration was also caught the eye of many consumers.
At the same time, we work with overseas artists to promote fashionable new toys, attracting many young consumers and fans. Apart from that, China Li-Ning has broken the mold and we are now combining virtual product, conceptual products with actual physical products to create the Bored Ape Fashionable Sports Club, a pop-up shop. We are able to perfectly recreate the classical Bored Ape Yacht Club classical elements to provide more room for imagination in all participants, while at the same time, we were able to demonstrate China Li-Ning's brand's unique attitude in the virtual space. That's it for the strategic highlights of the first half of the year. Next, may I invite our CEO, Mr. Qian Wei, to talk about the operational progress. Thank you.
Thank you, Chairman, for your introduction. Good morning, everyone. I'm Qian Wei. Now, I would offer an operational progress report with regards to our operations in the first half of 2022. In the first half of the year, our group continued to enhance our operational efficiency and to continue to operate our business with continuing to drive business performance in a healthy manner at its core. At the same time, we have offered agile responses to the uncertainties in the external market. In the first half of the year, as you all know, all around China, there was COVID-19 and therefore, this has created adverse impacts on our traffic.
In order to achieve high turnover and control inventory risks based on the different pandemic situations across different regions, we were able to adjust our business tempo to seize these business opportunities and effectively control and consolidate our fees to ensure that revenue and turnover continue to increase and to meet our profit targets. Well, because we have always insisted on being true to our business development strategy and enhance our operational efficiencies, we were able to rapidly respond to the pandemic response as well. Just a bit, as I demonstrated at our financial highlights, under the high base of the previous year, we were able to achieve a 21.7% growth of revenue, and our turnover has also increased by high single digits year-on-year. At the same time, we are effectively responding to the pandemic's impact.
We are consciously adjusting our business to maintain a healthy level of inventory while effectively controlling our fee rates. All of these measures meant that in the first half of the year, our operational net profit and our net profit has met our expectations. Starting from year 2020, with the effective implementation of our core business development strategy and demonstrated by our financial results from the past three years, we can see that in the first half of year 2022, we continue to target to enhance our operational efficiency as our goal to continue to promote the implementation of a muscular corporation to demonstrate sustainable development and continuously maintain high profitability in a sustainable manner and operate our business accordingly to continue to enhance our core business competitiveness.
Through continuing to attract our consumers, markets, business and sales points, we've been able to implement a total transformation from wholesale to retail. At the same time, we are pursuing optimization of business operation, inventory levels, channels, cost structure and other efficiencies. Now, I'll talk about a little bit more about the operation of the first half of 2022. In terms of product merchandising, we are continuing to improve our product plans. Through enhancing the accuracy of our product plan, we would be able to achieve our product and point of sale merchandising strategy to enhance our operational efficiency. We strengthen our product operation to implement a product merchandise dual driving business model.
While maintaining a single store business width, at the same time, we are able to enhance expand into many types of shops and multilayer markets to reduce the bandwidth of our product. At the same time, increasing the depth of our core products, we are able to optimize our product structure. To start this year.
This year we have established a target of selling 3 million pairs of Superlight running shoes. We are consciously managing our sales to drive product sales and e-commerce departments to break through online to offline business. Starting from setting our business targets, we are able to follow up on our sales in a comprehensive manner. In the first half of the year, for this particular shoe, we have already sold about 2 million pairs.
We expect that this running shoe will become the most phenomenal product we have in Li-Ning's history. Through enhancing the core team's effectiveness, in the future, we will be able to replicate this successful experience in other areas, such as running and basketball, in the professional categories to significantly increase our market share in professional products. At the same time, through our business sales plans, we will seek a turnover growth. At the same time, we will be able to effectively manage the inventory levels. With regards to the pandemic, we would adjust our business tempo every week to make sure that the business grows steadily and to maintain a healthy level of inventory.
Up till the mid-year this year, the product width has reduced by low single digits and the depth have increased by low single digits. The in-season products discount is about 20% off, and the sell-out rate is about 50%-60%, high-end 50%, 60%. In terms of inventory, as we mentioned, we have a clear target, as the overall is 3.6%, it's at a healthy state. We have a clearly set inventory control target.
Every week, we will control our targets to maintain our inventory levels at a reasonable range and to optimize the aging, inventory aging structure. In the end, we would use a reasonable inventory to do better business.
As we further optimize our new and old product inventory level, the inventory level of products which are over 12 months old has declined by mid-single digits. In terms of our retail operation, we will continue to progressively develop single store business model to improve retail performance, to focus on single store strategies and develop our retail talents in order to create a retail culture.
In the first half of the year, we will continue to promote our plan for expansion and duplicate this into about 200 major stores. While optimizing our large shop operation models through specifically managing our new stores, despite the pandemic, we were able to reach our turnover target and enhance our brands and synergy.
In terms of shop operation, on the one hand we are able to re-implement and promote our sales operation manual and standardize and implement those standards. At the same time, we have established an internal standards monitoring system. In the second half of the year, our internal monitor will cover all of our direct stores nationwide to enhance our management and mandatory execution of these standards.
Through enhancing our retail business and clearly offering standards and guidance, we will be able to enhance our main product sales and manage the abnormal stores. Through offering feedback from to and enhancing the accuracy of said feedback on our sales plan, we will establish a corporate WeChat and social marketing management mechanism.
Through social management and marketing, we are increasing the number of fans, its activity and engagement rate, and significantly increase our O2O transaction, achieving online to offline business synergy. In the first half of the year, despite the pandemic, our sales-end discount has increased by mid-single digits. Our ASP has increased by low single digits. The overall transaction rate has increased by mid-single digits. In terms of channels, we insist on continue to improve quality of new store sales contribution of big store further increased. In core cities, we established flagship stores through enhancing the efficiency of the channels. We enhanced the management of our shops. We continue to improve the channel management. We want to have large stores and good store.
In the first half of the year, our total sales area has increased by 20%-30% mid- to low-tier. On average, the shops are 220 m² . On average, the monthly efficiency has increased by low double digits. In the first half of the year, our shops have increased by over 240 shops. On average, per store, the average sales area is 320 m² . With regards to the high-end market, we will continue to establish good stores with good brand image to establish the best image possible to spread our leading brand, to provide the best experience.
At the same time, we are gonna enhance the top 100 shopping mall shops and work more in Tier 3 to Tier 4 cities, county level cities. We will make flagship large stores to provide comprehensive services for consumers in professional categories and other categories. At the same time, bring forth a leading industry-leading customer experience.
We will continue to roll out our eighth generation shop type to optimize our shops which are over three years old to increase our sales in lower tier markets. In the first half of the year, the super large stores with over 300 m² has continued to increase their sales share by several percentage points. In the super large and Tier 1 cities, the regular shops have continued to contribute to our revenue.
Our contribution to revenue by shopping malls have increased by single-digit . In terms of e-commerce, we'll continue to expand our e-commerce business model through retail sell-through retail indicators, channel structure, and member development. In the first half of the year, around our professional technology platform, working alongside our own group's key products, we are able to implement online and offline synergy to promote member sales for our products and enhance the market penetration rate for key products. In the first half of the year, our online direct sales has increased by 10%-20% in the high end. Under the pandemic, our average discount has increased by high single-digit .
Through implementing online and offline integration channels, we are able to control the channel and shop numbers to enhance our management of the price mechanism online to make sure that the business environment online is good for us, while at the same time we are enhancing the directly owned channel operational efficiency and customer experience. In the first half of the year, our online direct turnover has increased by single digits in terms of share.
At the same time, we are better managing our community and memberships. We are optimizing our customer loyalty fans through creating original content and accurate marketing. We have to enhance and retain our membership and to activate and convert that membership into profits, and guide that traffic to our shops.
Through working with all channels, we are able to establish an all-channel closing mechanism and inventory sharing mechanism to enhance the online and offline comprehensive channel interaction. In the first half of the year, our brand members have exceeded 46 million. In terms of kidswear, we would establish professional positioning of kidswear and through optimizing our product and improving our comprehensive product matrix, we are able to optimize our channel matrix and further enhance our channels.
Through comprehensively improving our professional product matrix and performing research in kidswear sports type program, we're able to offer a comprehensive line of product, enhancing our professional and technology. At the same time, improving our basketball, integrated fitness, and sports examination types of products, enhancing our professional product career.
In the first half of the year for the kidswear, our retail revenue has recorded 40%-50% mid-teens growth. The ASP increased by 10%-20%. The correlated sales had increased by 10%, and the same shop increase had increased by 10%-20%. In terms of products, we are optimizing our product model, enhancing our core product procurement proportion, focusing more on our merchandise and enhancing the merchandise procurement efficiency.
At the same time, we are able to standardize our operational procedures to empower the client to better manage merchandise. Under the pandemic, we continue to monitor our inventory levels to accelerate the sales of old and unpopular products to optimize our inventory structure.
In terms of channel, we will continue to enhance the amount of high-tier shops we have to optimize our shop variety while accelerating the development of our own direct channels. Working alongside our distributors, we are rolling out many sample stores to comprehensively improve the management of our retail operation business. At the same time, we are accelerating the development of the business in the kidswear and our school business. In the last year, our kidswear shops have increased by 1,175. On average, the efficiency has increased by 30%-40%. In terms of supply chain, we are continuing to integrate and optimize supply chain organization.
We're gonna enhance our quality control and to strictly implement all the QC requirements as standardized, with relevant mechanisms. We continue to pay attention to enhancing our product quality. In terms of supply capacity, under the pandemic, through a differentiated supplier organization matrix, we are able to effectively make sure that we are guarantee supply and improve the product delivery cycle.
In the first half of the year, our overall supply chain capacity has increased by 30%, among which shoes has increased by 50%-60%, while clothing has increased by 30% percent. As costs are continuously driving up, through integrated procurement policies, we are able to synergize with our suppliers and effectively control our costs that way.
Through implementing our business strategy and implementing a supplier matrix, we are emphasizing, we are enhancing Li-Ning in China Li-Ning 1990 female fitness and these type of, the competitiveness and supply chain capabilities of these products. In the first half of the year, we have increased our suppliers by nine, 10 more for shoes, one less for apparel. That's basically the operational progress for year 2022, the first half of the year.
Even though starting from March, in this year, we are impacted by the pandemic, but over the past three years, we are able to continuously implement our core business developmental strategy, continuously pursuing enhanced efficiency in our operation. Therefore, despite the pandemic, the financial performance of first half of this year still meets our expectation. We will continue to operate in a more efficient manner. Under a very volatile market condition, we will be able to maintain stable, sustainable growth. Thank you.