Ladies and gentlemen, good morning to you. Welcome to the Leaning Company Limited 2021 Interim Results. Today, we will have a webcast and online conference. You'll be able to see the PPT from our online platform, and we have simultaneous interpretation for you. And then we will have the relevant information available on our IR platform.
We have the Chairman and CEO, Mr. Li Ning and we also have Terrence and also Mr. Chen with us. First of all, we have the CFO, Mr. Dong, to review the financial highlights for that.
And then with Mr. Leaning, we'll be talking about the strategic directions. And then Mr. Kawamu will be talking about the developments of our business, and then we will have a Q and A session for further discussion with the management. First of all, the management, please.
During first half of twenty twenty one, along with the recovery of the negative impact from COVID-nineteen And the high recognition and support towards local sports brands as well as the continued operation improvements that we implemented, We have achieved solid performance both financially and operationally. Financially, We're able to achieve a net profit margin improvement of 8 10 basis points to reach 19.2% with our revenues up 65%. Such improvement was mainly driven by 6.4 percentage point in gross margin expansion as well as 4.8 percentage points in expense ratio reduction. Our operating cash flow increased almost 6 folds and our net cash increased 44 percent to RMB8.3 billion compared to same period last year. While revenues went up by 65%, Our average gross working capital was down over 10% and our cash conversion cycle further improved by 17 days to 13 days level.
Operationally, we achieved low-90s growth in our retail sell through for total platform, including both online and offline channels for the leading core brand. Both our channel inventory and company inventory decreased notwithstanding such a high growth in sell through and revenues. Thus improving our inventory turnover with enhanced aging structure. Our offline new product performed very well With retail sell through register a mid-90s increase coupled with high single digit percentage point Improvement in retail discount rates compared to the same period last year. New product sellout rates for both 3 months 6 months improved by approximately 21 percentage points compared to same period last year.
Even compared to same period in 2019, the pre COVID-nineteen sellout rate also improved over 15 percentage points for both 3 months and 6 month period. Clearly, you can see our greatly improved performance in the channel operation during the first half of the year. Now let's take a look at the revenues. During the first half of twenty twenty one, our revenues rose 65% with all product categories driving the increase. Our balanced channel strategy for leaning core between wholesale and the direct to consumer channels, Which also known as the DTC has played a very important part at times like this.
DTC has been leading the way with the mix increasing from 50% to 55% during the comparable period. Our direct retail recovering from a low base last year due to store closure in Q1 of 2020 increased 87% and expands its mix 3 points to 25% of total. Electronic commerce channel continue its growing trend over the past few years with sales revenue rose 78%, Driving its contribution to 30% of the total from the previous 28%. Our wholesale revenues grew 47% with revenues mix declined 5 points to 45%. On the right hand side of the slide, you can see that our sell through from new products category aged 6 months or less improved by 3 points to 85%.
As I said during our last conference call, a healthy retailer should be at the mid-80s level and we are encouraged Retailers should be at the mid-80s level, and we are encouraged to hit that initial target in the first half. Coming to the same store sales performance, as there is no off line store that opened throughout Q1 last year, Hence, we will just discuss the Q2 performance. Our overall same store sales in Q2 increased Low 80s with off line SSSG stood at high 70s increase driven by low 90s increase in direct retail as well as a low 70s increase in the wholesale channel. Meanwhile, our online SSSG accelerated to high 80s in both Q2 and the first half. As you can see, our revenues Increase is driven by a healthy organic growth in all the channels.
As far as our channel strategy is concerned, the number of stores for total platforms stood at 6,745, a decrease of 238 stores as compared to June of 2020. Of this decline, leaning core brand accounted for 2 69 stores and offsets by leaning Yang's addition of 31 stores during the last 12 months. Comparing to end of 2020, Our leading core brand store counts also declined by 208 as we continue with our channel optimization of closing the below standard stores and expansion of bigger high productivity store. So even with mid single digit decline in store count, our selling square footage actually went up by low teens as compared to end of June 2020. From the sell through standpoint, Our offline channel has propelled to a high 80s growth.
With the e commerce sell through doubled, the total online and offline sell through stood at an impressive low-90s growth during the first half. Our offline channel growth is driven largely by the low 60s increase in units sold and to a smaller extent, a high single digit percentage point in discount improvement at the retail end. Wholesales of leaning brand excluding international and leaning young channel saw a 47% increase with the number of Stores decreased 118 over same period last year. This growth is all due to the high-40s increase in the new product unit sell in to the wholesalers driven by the significant growth in their retail sell through. On the right hand side of this slide, you can see our core wholesalers sell through increased by high 80s, which far exceeded the high 40s growth in sell in, demonstrating our sell through and channel inventory focus on our wholesale business priority.
As you can imagine, our wholesale channel inventory is further optimized. Moving on to retail channel, the revenues of directly managed stores grew 87% with 151 stores less in ending store count compared with June of 2020. Building on the low base from first half of last year due to temporary store closures, the revenues growth was largely driven by the existing stores Increase in productivity. As you can see from the right hand side of this slide, The increased revenues from the existing stores contributed RMB965 1,000,000, accounting for 84% of the total increase. We believe in addition to the macro and market dynamics, The impressive growth is also driven by our continued improvement in our retail operations as well as merchandising.
This can be witnessed by the fact that our retail discount rate has improved a high single digit percentage point to go along with high 80s increase in retail sell through. Consequently, Our 4 wall store contribution margin rate improved to high 20s, which has been the highest we ever achieved in the recent years. Turning to gross margin. Our gross margin accelerated 6.4 percentage points. The major drivers were improvement in e commerce gross margin resulted from improved retail discount rate, contributing 2.5 percentage points.
Improvement in product gross margin in direct retail Due primarily in improvement in discounts on new products as well as the improvement of new And all product mix in our retail sell through contributing 1.5 percentage points. Reduction in inventory provision due to lower inventory and better aging structure as well as lower R and D cost as a percentage of revenues adding 1.5 percentage point. Improvement in channel mix due to higher growth in revenues from the direct to consumer channels, which have higher gross margin than the wholesale channels adding 0.5 percentage points. Improvement in other wholesale business units contributing 0.4 percentage point. Now let me walk you through the profitability analysis driven by 65% increase in revenues And 6.4 percentage point improvement in gross margin rate, we saw a RMB2.64 billion Renminbi addition in gross profit.
As far as expenses are concerned, We carried out disciplined cost control on variable cost to ensure better leverages. As you can see from this slide, the total sales related variable costs such as commission, direct store expenses As well as logistic costs increased a total of rmb648 1,000,000, representing 16.1 percent of incremental revenues, which is reasonable considering our variable cost structure. Even with such a high revenues growth, we still have our cost control focus on productive spending only, making sure there is a return on investment. Our advertising and promotion expenses increased RMB191 1,000,000 or 34% comparing to a much reduced spending level During first half of last year, as a percentage of revenue, it stood at 7.3% of revenues, down from the 9% of revenues in the comparable period. Other platform expenses increased RMB140 1,000,000 mainly due to the increase in incentives accrual resulted from over target performance.
Other income and interest increased RMB 55,000,000, mainly due to increase in share Profit from investment in joint venture and associates during the comparable period. As a result, our operating margin improved from 14.5% in first half of twenty twenty to 24.9% in 2021. Consequently, our net margin improved by 8.1 percentage points to 19.2% from 11.1% last year. Moving on to channel inventory. Our channel inventory decreased mid single digit notwithstanding such a significant growth in retail sell through.
Consequently, our inventory turnover cycle has improved to 3.1 months. Our effort is more evidence if you look at the aging. The proportion of inventory aged over 6 months improved to 17% from 29% a year ago. Even if you look at the pre COVID-nineteen level During first half of twenty nineteen, it still represents a 9 percentage point improvement. At the company level, our gross inventory declined 17% compared to a 65% increase in revenues.
The proportion of inventory aged over 6 months declined 8 percentage point to 23% from 31% in the comparable period last year. This result Validated the effectiveness of our inventory control, and this improved balance and aging structure provides a good foundation for a sustainable business growth. As far as trade receivables are concerned, Our gross trade receivable increased a mere 2% in relative to the 65% revenues growth. That's why our day sales outstanding has improved to a very impressive 13 days level. As far as working capital efficiency is concerned, we continued our trend of improvement since 2015 and our working capital remain at a very healthy level.
Gross average working capital was down by almost 11% to support 65% growth in revenue. The working capital as a percentage of our revenue further declined by 4 percentage points to 6%, giving us sufficient resource to capitalize on future growth opportunities. We were able to capitalize on the impressive revenues and retail sell through increase and convert that into substantial operating cash flow growth. Our operating cash flow increased almost 6 folds to RMB3.3 billion. And consequently, our net cash improved by RMB2.55 billion to RMB8.31 billion compared to RMB5.76 billion at the same period last year.
We will be making further appropriate investment in our brand elevation and operations to support a consistent healthy business growth as well as to capitalize on the ample growth opportunities in this market, particularly at the current state of economy. In conclusion, we are pleased with the first half result and the progress of the operations improvement. Nonetheless, we also recognize the macro and market dynamics also played a big part in the first half results. No one can predict how the market dynamic plays out in the second half. And as a reasonable and responsible management team, we need to be prudently conservative.
In addition, as I said during March presentation, The COVID-nineteen is far from totally over impacting our daily lives and economy. Just look at what happened on the recent rebound on infection cases in many parts of the world, including China. Hence, for the full year of 2021, We revised our target with top line growth at low to high 40s with net profit margin expected at 16% to 17.5 percent of revenues. And now Chairman will walk you through our strategic direction. Thank you.
Thank you, Terence. Good morning. In the first half of the year, China's economy gradually stabilized And the national policy helped the development of sports undertakings. In addition, the pandemic boosted people's health wellness And the China Sports Industry ushered in more business opportunities. At the same time, more and more domestic Consumers have affirmed the progress of domestic brands in science and technology design and ecology.
Under these circumstances, leaning brand focuses on the innate sports genes, strengthens Product technology and design continuously release market potential and deepens leaning style experience value. And we continue to deepen our genes and upgrade our values. The company continue to adhere to the strategy of single brands, multi category and multi channel, focusing on strengthening the sports attributes of the products And the infusing diversified fashion styles, cooperating with multi category metrics and the multichannel layout and continuously optimizing the business model. With the continuous upgrading of brand power and product power and the continuous attention of domestic consumer to domestic friends, the whole platform retail sell through Of the 5 core categories of the group recorded a strong growth of 92% in the first half of the year. And among them, The performance of the sports casual, sports fashion category is still outstanding.
And this retail sell through is increased by 116% in the first half of the year. In addition, the running category obvious achieved a quantified breakthrough in the growth rate with an 87% increase in retail sell through in the first half of the year. In terms of the categories, basketball continues to be guided by specialty And its core product combines with the science and technology Thus establishing a good reputation among Chinese fans, the BAT5 series enriches Basketball product align with the street style and the combined trend trendy design with out of the circle of marketing So as to continuously achieve breakthroughs in consumer circle. And for the marketing, We fully focused the contracted resources at home and abroad and improved the total product through exclusive Our color matching story package of the stars and this is also for categories. In terms of running, we focus on the application and upgrading of the technology platform with leanin, Boom Technology as the core and constantly expands the metrics of professional running shoes.
And from the protection to raising and to satisfy the needs of our consumers. And in the first half of the year, the word of mouths Accumulated in the early stage of the running category began to turn into business opportunities. At the just concluded Tokyo Olympic Games, Our elite racing running shoes, FADIAN2.0 Elite appeared in the marathon and it was the only Chinese brand running shoes among the runners Who finished the marathon and the choice of the Olympic athletes represents the recognition of product professionalism, and we firmly believe that leaning's professional running shoes will have more potential in general in the future. In terms of training, we are deeply involved in the fitness center Training and women's fitness and spools dance. For the first half of the year, the business share And the sales out Rates of women's training increased significantly and in the future we will continue to explore business opportunities for women's Training, in terms of materials technology, In the first half of the year, we upgraded technology of a quick drying fabrics and focusing on the actual needs of consumers and creating the best sports experience.
In addition, we continue to upgrade the Star IP No Boundary series of training categories to create professional strength training shoes. In sports casual, sports fashion, we highlight creative, interesting and young design style. In the first half of the year, we focused on launching skateboarding series, enriching the sports fashion product line with the street element. At the same time, we catch the potential of women's consumption and the women consumption power and in the target In order to reach more female consumers and in terms of the marketing, we cooperate with young high quality artists to increase product Exposure by bringing goose with stars and continuously expand the brand's influence among young people. In terms of professional sponsorship, we deeply cultivate the professional resource metrics and endorsed the brand with high standard professional events and athletes resources.
And focusing on the company's key core categories, we have deep Cooperation with Qingdao Marathon and CBA and other events and the sponsored champion athletes and the teams in the fields of running basket for badminton and table tennis. So as to increase brand exposure in different professional fields and drive the attention and sales of professional products. In addition, At the just concluded, Tokyo Olympic Games, leaning brand joined hands with 3 gold medal teams, National shooting team, national diving team and national table tennis team and returned from the Olympic Games with honors. And the 3 teams won a total of 15 gold medals, 9 silvers and 6 bronze medals this time. And the Olympic athletes explain the belief and attitude of everything is possible to the public with their achievements.
In terms of brand co branding, in the first half of the year, we cooperate with international artists to convey brand value and attitude through fashionable art design. In the future we will continue to convey Yining's brand values to outside world through diversified joint names and deepen the brand influences. In Fashion Week, we constantly explore the combination of Chinese culture and avant garde design. And in April this year, we held a press conference. And on China Leaning's autumn and winter 2021 trend In fantasy, a city of drama in Zhengzhou, Fenan Province.
And this event breaks the tradition and combines catwalk And live performances and the trend, 20 schools and it also showed infinity potential of leaning brand. The strategic direction of the 1st year It's ended here and I will introduce company's operation, CEO, Mr. Chen to share with you on this business development strategy. Good morning and thank you, Chairman, Ling Yi. And for the first half of the year, Based on the business development strategy, we continue to strengthen the company's core competitiveness and promote The realization of muscle in enterprise values, so as to establish [SPEAKER
UNIDENTIFIED COMPANY
REPRESENTATIVE:] And enterprise management and operation system with sustainable developments and sustainable improvements of profitability. We promote the transformation from wholesales to retail operation mode by focusing on consumers, markets and commodities and the stores. At the same time, we constantly pursue efficiency optimization in commodity operation and inventory store operation, channel cost and organizational structure. And based on the above business development strategy, In the first half of the year and the background of the positive recovery of the economy and industry development, we focus on the optimization of the Company's operating efficiency and will accelerate the business strategy in the aspects of the commodity operation and the channel development, E Commerce Business, Retail Operation, Supply Chain Management and KeyesWell Business. I will introduce the operation progress and achievements of the above aspects 1 by 1.
In terms of the commodity and operation, we set up the commodity Plan management system to realize this commodity operation. We adhere to the monthly sales planning meeting and this Weekly sales review meeting and implement the collaboration commodity sales plan with Different stores and marketing and inventories management And we also increased our wholesale and also the other retail The synergy and we will increase And narrow down this width of our commodities and the increase The debts, in the first half of the year, the commodity weight has been reduced to low teens And the debt has increased by 40% to 50%. At the same time, the quota discounts of new products has increased to 80% to 90%. And we also accelerates the digestion of the unsellable goods in the current quarters. In this period, the sales rate of the new products increased to 60% to 70% in the current quarter.
In terms of the inventory, we finally achieved Our goal and continues to optimize the inventory structure. For this Strategy implementation will define and define the mentally inventory targets And we actively digested this old emitteries. And also to increase the efficiency of our store and efficiency and strengthen the supply guarantee management and the delivery management to of new products and ensure The new products are used to do the business and all the Inventory chain is transparent. [SPEAKER UNIDENTIFIED COMPANY REPRESENTATIVE:] And we see this is a very big adjustment In our first half of the year and in terms of our inventory And for our channels, we adhere to the strategy of expanding high quality profitable stores and accelerate opening of high quality stores and open Netmark flagship stores, improve channel efficiency, reduce rental and the sell through ratio and improved store image and the store construction quality. In the first half of the year, we'll continue to accelerate the closure of inefficient and the loss making stores And also strengthen the strategic cooperation with important commercial entities and accelerated distribution of channels.
And during the period, the total area of our store increased by low double digits, And average area of a single store exceeds 118 Square Meters And average monthly store efficiency increased by 80% to 90%. And for our large stores, And we accept the opening of channels in high level markets and increase the proportion of business in high level markets. And for this Core cities, we see this sell through Our rates increased by the high teens.
For e commerce, we continues to could we continue to drive the development of our leaning omnichannel business model? We were able to to find the omnichannel business strategy to enhance integration and synergy of our online and off line business. And we also strengthened a high turnover product sales model and strengthen our product supply channels and also manage our inventory risk as well as increasing our inventory efficiency. We were able to in the first half of the year with our efforts in retail sell through, we were able to achieve sell through of online retail business and increased by 100%. As for our retail indicators, our online traffic conversion rate increased by 0.3 percentage points, and our average retail discount rate increased by a high single digit percentage point.
And at the same time, for our channel structure, the we were able to increase our single store sales. And also, we were able to provide active supply expansion on our online channels. And at the same time, the number of our low efficiency online wholesale stores were decreased by mid-40s. And our sell through contribution of online retail business increased by low teens. We were able to optimize our operation in our channel structure.
For member developments, the number of our members exceeded KRW 36,000,000 and sales contribution of members increased by low teens. For omnichannel, we were able to, with our inventory sharing and logistics orders system achieved omnichannel O TO O cross store sales increase of 120%. Next, let us go through the retail operation. We focus on the KPIs driving the enhancement of retail operation capability. We focus on progressively developing single store business model to achieve products and point of sales merchandising and efficiency.
We continue to institute our sales weekly and monthly regular meetings. And with our KPI, we focus on conversion rate and our discount rate and also our unit sales linked rate. And we increased our wholesale and retail synergy increased our accuracy by adopting the monthly planning and weekly feedback and management system. And we also looked at and focused on the implementation of our sales toolkit. We set up cases with follow-up resolution mechanism, and we were able to, for our direct operation subsidiaries, review P and L and Institute adjustments.
We were able to build synergistic platform with our wholesale business and also strengthened large store operation. And also, we were able to increase our large store for profitability, build single store operation model and also enhance our retail standard system. We were able to, in the period, also increase our store performance per square meter and also increase our store profitability overall, we were able to increase our customer professional sports expansion at the stores, increase our staff training and also build the career for them. We were able to build retail customers and also transform our store managers. And at the same time, for supply chain, there is continuous optimization of our supply chain organization.
We transitioned from passive production to proactive production, ensuring production capacity and flexible supply. In terms of quality, we were able to strengthen our QC quality control, and we were able to continuously enhance our product quality. In production capacity, we are capable of meeting large increase in orders in increasing our production capacity in tandem so that more consumers can experience the leaning product experience. Our supply chain productivity raised some increased some 20% to 30% during the period, and our shoes production capacity increased 30%, apparel production capacity increased 20% to 30%. The production capacity for footwear increased by more than 30% in the period and apparel increased by mid-20s in the period.
And for our suppliers, based on our strategy, we adopted a supplier matrix, ensuring our core suppliers stability in their supply volume and also providing our products with insured product quality. In the first half of the year, there were 37 less Suppliers for our overall shoes increased 1, apparel decreased by 38. The Top three supplies is 40% of our total supply. For material integration, we continue to have cross product use of materials, thus lowering our costs and also increasing our supply chain efficiency. For Kids Wear Business, We define a clear positioning driving our business growth.
We focus on strategic positioning of our professional kidswear, improving product matrix, optimizing and upgrading our channels. For retail efficiency, tell sell through increased by 100%, and our average selling price increased by mid teens. Retail count rate improved by high single digit and the same store sales growth increased over 60%. As for our Products, we rationalized our kidswear products on a matrix of professional sports technology and increased our professional positioning overall for kidswear. We also meet demand from our different scenarios with a increased in terms of our product synergy.
We strengthened our merchandising management and increased our sellout rate and also our discount rate, further digesting our aging products and optimize our overall inventory structure. At the same time, we in terms of product efficiency, we were able to achieve high single digit in terms of product retail count and new product 3 month sellout rate improved by low 20s. Our channel efficiency was also achieved with a number of stores totaling 10.41 for our Kidswear, and average monthly store productivity increased by a impressive 70%. That was the review for you. And in the future, we will continue to increase our profitability and also to speed up our operation system enhancement so as to increase our profitability and also to cover more our high tier markets and also optimize our