The world's largest fishing gear company is going for an IPO despite struggling to hit the core category in its fishing-focused business | IPO Observation

Author | Zhang Ziyi

Editor | Peng Xiaoqiu

The global fishing market is booming, with the overall scale exceeding tens of billions of US dollars.

In the United States, fishing is the second most popular outdoor travel activity after hiking. In Europe, the sea - fishing community spends up to 10.5 billion euros annually on fishing activities and related equipment. Europe is also the second - largest fishing tackle market in the world after North America.

In China, the number of fishing enthusiasts exceeds 150 million, and young people and even teenagers are becoming the new main force in the fishing sport. It can be said that fishing, which was once regarded as one of the "three treasures of middle - aged men", now has enthusiasts far beyond middle - aged men. Currently, the world's largest fishing tackle brand is Shimano, with revenue from fishing tackle reaching 5.22 billion yuan last year. In the 1990s, it established its position in the high - end fishing reel market by leveraging its high - precision technology in manufacturing bicycle gear systems.

Recently, Lexin Outdoor International Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Lexin Outdoor"), which has long been an OEM manufacturer of fishing equipment for overseas enterprises, has submitted its prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange for the second time, attempting to transform from a contract manufacturer through the capital market.

01 "Marginal Enterprises" in the Fishing Industry

Lexin Outdoor's performance is not outstanding and has declined for three consecutive years.

The prospectus shows that from 2022 to 2024, Lexin Outdoor's revenues were 818 million, 463 million, and 573 million respectively; the net profit decreased from 114 million yuan to 59 million yuan, almost halving. Although the revenue in the first four months of 2025 increased by 27.8% year - on - year to 223 million yuan, showing signs of recovery, the overall performance has not returned to the peak level during the pandemic.

Lexin Outdoor explained that during the pandemic, the demand for fishing surged due to its "low - social - interaction" nature. However, as life returned to normal and entertainment options became more diversified, the popularity of fishing declined. This can also be seen from the production capacity data: the company's actual output decreased sharply from 7.933 million pieces in 2022 to 4.168 million pieces in 2024, and the factory utilization rate dropped from 95% to 83.4%.

In fact, the global popularity of fishing has not declined; it's just that the market competition has become more intense.

According to data from Global Growth Insights, the global fishing tackle market reached 160.1 billion US dollars in 2024, is expected to grow to 165.8 billion US dollars in 2025, and will have an average annual growth rate of 3.6% from 2025 to 2033.

Public data shows that there are approximately 785,000 fishing - related enterprises in China. In the first half of 2023, more than 245,000 new enterprises were registered, a 109.8% increase compared with the same period in 2022.

Prospectus

The real problem with Lexin Outdoor is that its business mainly involves fishing chairs, fishing beds, fishing tents, fishing bags, and other fishing equipment. However, the core category in the fishing market is fishing tackle, which Lexin Outdoor hardly participates in.

The prospectus shows that in 2023, the global retail sales of fishing equipment were 6.8 billion yuan, while the retail sales of fishing tackle were 131 billion yuan, about 19.3 times that of fishing equipment. It can be seen that there is more market space for fishing rods, fishing lines, baits, and other fishing tackle.

A fishing industry insider told 36Kr: "Lexin started with fishing bags, then expanded to other peripherals, and now mainly focuses on hunting tents. It should have a good market share in Europe. It mainly takes OEM orders and has no self - owned brand. It is a marginal company in the industry in terms of product categories and scale."

The fishing equipment market itself is relatively small in scale. Moreover, more than 90% of Lexin Outdoor's revenue depends on OEM/ODM business, and the top five customers contribute nearly 60% of the revenue.

Internationally renowned outdoor brands such as Decathlon, fishing tackle brands like Rapala VMC and Pure Fishing are its important customers. Lexin Outdoor's deep - seated binding with large customers limits its profit and bargaining power. It also faces the risk that if a major customer terminates the cooperation, its performance will be greatly affected.

Prospectus

In terms of different markets, the proportion of Lexin Outdoor's revenue from the North American market has dropped sharply from 18.8% in 2022 to 3.4% in 2024. North America has the world's largest fishing market, and the continuous sharp decline in revenue is sufficient to show its limited competitiveness.

02 Slow Transformation through Brand Acquisition

Lexin Outdoor has long realized the drawbacks of over - relying on OEM business and has tried to develop its OBM (Original Brand Manufacturer) by acquiring brands.

In 2017, Lexin Outdoor acquired the British fishing brand Solar.

Although Solar's sales tripled in 2024 compared with 2018, its proportion in the overall revenue is still relatively small. The prospectus shows that from 2022 to 2024, the revenue from self - owned brands only increased from 35.5 million yuan to 40.6 million yuan, and the proportion increased from 3.9% to 7.9%.

Lexin Outdoor's current product matrix covers more than 9,000 SKUs, including bed and chair accessories (50.7%), bags (25.1%), and tents (22.9%). The revenue gap between OEM and self - owned brand business is significantly large.

In the prospectus, Lexin Outdoor also talked about its plan for OBM business. The company said that in the future, it will targetedly expand the scale of Solar. For example, it plans to broaden Solar's product line by introducing new fishing equipment categories that match its brand positioning; cooperate with more downstream retailers, expand Solar's sales team, and further explore sales channels.

In the future, Lexin Outdoor plans to launch or acquire more fishing tackle brands, apply this operating model to optimize cross - market and cross - customer group growth, and thus increase its investment in OBM.

Acquiring mature brands is indeed one way for Chinese enterprises to achieve transformation, but it also requires good performance and a firm determination to transform.

The embarrassing situation for Lexin Outdoor is that its performance is declining, and it is highly dependent on OEM business.

The prospectus shows that the revenue from the OEM/ODM model accounted for 94.1%, 90.2%, 92.3%, and 92.9% of the total revenue in 2022, 2023, 2024, and the four months ended April 30, 2025, respectively.

Lexin Outdoor, founded in Hangzhou, has enjoyed many advantages of the times. It is a subsidiary of Zhejiang Taipusen Holdings.

Yang Baoqing, the founder of Taipusen Holdings, started his business in outdoor leisure products in 1993. In July 2002, he founded Zhejiang Taipusen Leisure Products Co., Ltd. In 2008, Taipusen Holdings was established. Taipusen mainly produces outdoor furniture, tents, bags, garden furniture, fishing tackle, hunting equipment, beach equipment, and their supporting products. As a subsidiary, Lexin Outdoor focuses on the fishing field.

The prospectus shows that during the past performance record period, Lexin Outdoor's total R & D cost was approximately 9.7 million yuan. As of the last practicable date, the company holds 76 patents in China, including 56 utility model patents, 6 invention patents, and 14 design patents, and 35 patents in countries or regions outside China.

As a fishing equipment manufacturer with more than 9,000 SKUs, Lexin Outdoor has only over 100 patents. Such a huge disparity in proportion makes people question its emphasis on product R & D and its future competitiveness.

It should also be noted that Lexin Outdoor completed an almost full - scale dividend distribution on the eve of its IPO.

The prospectus shows that on July 29, 2024, Lexin Outdoor distributed a cash dividend of 65 million yuan to its controlling shareholder, Zhejiang Taipusen Industry. The company paid the total dividend in September 2024. According to the company's shareholding structure, Yang Baoqing and related parties are the controlling shareholders, holding approximately 94.77% of the total issued share capital of the company. Therefore, almost all of the above - mentioned dividend went to the controlling shareholders. The company's net profit last year was even less than 60 million yuan.

It is still unknown whether Lexin Outdoor can become the "first fishing - related listed company". However, there are indeed too many problems in front of it. Not all IPOs are for growth. Sometimes, it is more like the last "cast of the fishing rod".