Yue Yuen, which suffered a 12 percent sales decline to $4.15 billion and a 52 percent drop in profitability to $83.6 million for the six months ended June 30, cited a sluggish global macroeconomic environment coupled with inventory destocking across the footwear industry for the lowered short-term performance of its footwear manufacturing business. The Hong Kong-based firm is the largest manufacturer of branded athletic and casual footwear in the world, making footwear for brands such as Adidas, Asics, New Balance, Nike, Salomon and Timberland.

The company, which is seeing an increasing number of vendor orders requesting shorter lead times of 30 to 45 days, has reduced its global workforce by 14 percent over the last 12 months to 276,800. H1 sales fell in all footwear manufactured categories by double-digits. Athletic/outdoor sales declined by 16 percent to $2,063.4 million; fell 28 percent in casual/sport sandals to $315.6 million and stepped 31 percent lower to $194.9 million.

The volume of shipped footwear in H1 slipped to 109.8 million pairs, but ASP (average selling price) rose by 7.5 percent to $21.67 a pair, a factor that YY attributed to robust demand for higher-end styles. In FY22, YY shipped 272.7 million pairs of footwear.