‍‍ANTA Sports Products, China's top sportswear retailer by market value, said first-half net profit rose by a fifth due to growth in sales of its children's lines and high-end FILA apparel and footwear in its offline and online stores.

The results of ANTA, which competes with domestic rival Li Ning and international giant Nike Inc, signal that China's sportswear sector is on the mend after two years of painful restructuring that involved store closures, streamlining of operations and inventory clearance. ANTA is best placed among rivals to recover, analysts say.

ANTA said its earnings grew to 965.3 million yuan ($155.48 million) for the first half of 2015 from 802.8 million yuan in the same period a year ago. Total revenue rose 24 percent year-on-year to 5.1 billion yuan and gross profit margin increased to 46.6 percent from 45.1 percent, it said.

Same-store sales growth of ANTA branded products for the second quarter of 2015 increased by a high single-digit compared to the same period of 2014, it said.

ANTA's shares surged as much as 6.4 percent to a record high of HK$21.20 before the results were announced. The stock gave up most of the gains later on Wednesday to be up 0.7 percent in the afternoon.‍‍

Taken from Reuters