(Yicai Global) March 24 -- Shares in Chinese sportswear maker Anta Sports Product jumped nearly 8.3 percent today after the firm posted a 30 percent profit gain for 2019 but advised performance will slow in the coming year.

The Fujian province-based company's shares [HKG:2020] closed at HKD53.65 (USD6.91) a share.

Anta Sports made CNY5.3 billion (USD748 million) in net profit last year and a 40.8 percent gain in revenue to CNY33.9 billion, it said in a statement today, adding that the rise will level out in the second half of this year as the novel coronavirus cools down.

The firm's main brand, Anta, raked in CNY17.5 billion in revenue, up 21.8 percent annually and making up more than half of the total with kids products the star of the show. Fila revenue soared nearly 74 percent to CNY14.8 billion to make up 43.5 percent of the overall figure.

Anta had 10,516 stores in China at the end of last year and expects this to fall to between 10,200 and 10,300 by year-end 2020. Fila had 1,951 stores on the Chinese mainland and in Hong Kong, Macao and Singapore as of the end of 2019, and Anta Sports expects this to grow to between 2,000 and 2,100 by the end of this year.

Anta Sports bought Fila for CNY332 million (USD47 million) in 2009 and Finnish sporting goods firm Amer Sports for EUR4.6 billion (USD5 billion) last year, and hopes to turn the latter into its new growth engine with a EUR1 billion splurge on e-commerce development and re-positioning the brand globally.

Editor: James Boynton