Zhang Yong's first report after returning to Haidilao: total revenue of 43.225 billion yuan in 2025

21st Century Business Herald reporter Liu Jingsi

On March 24, 2026, Haidilao (06862) released its full-year results for 2025.

The announcement shows that in 2025, Haidilao’s full-year operating revenue was RMB 43.22 billion, up 1.1% year over year; core operating profit was RMB 5.4 billion, down 13.3% year over year; and net profit was RMB 4.04 billion, down 14.0% year over year.

Meanwhile, the group’s diversified business growth was impressive. Revenue from the delivery business reached RMB 2.658 billion, up 111.9% year over year; and operating revenue from other restaurants reached RMB 1.521 billion, up 214.6%.

This is the first annual financial report issued after founder Zhang Yong returned to Haidilao. Profit declined, the table-turn rate declined, but revenue inched up slightly, and the delivery business and multi-brand plan have shown early results.

Operating revenue of RMB 43.225 billion, up slightly year over year

With customer traffic declining, Haidilao’s overall revenue barely maintained positive growth.

Judging from core operating data, in 2025 Haidilao’s revenue was RMB 43.225 billion, up 1.1% year over year. At the same time, Haidilao’s core operating profit in 2025 was RMB 5.403 billion, down 13.3% year over year; net profit was RMB 4.042 billion, down 14.0% year over year; the overall table-turn rate of Haidilao’s self-operated restaurants was 3.9 times/day in 2025, compared with 4.1 times/day in 2024; and the company served a total of 383.9 million customers during the year, down 7.5% from the prior year.

In response, the company said directly that due to factors including changes in the table-turn rate and adjustments to innovative business models in products and scenarios, among others, Haidilao’s profits, core operating profit, table-turn rate, and number of customers served during the year fluctuated to some extent compared with the prior year.

In terms of the number of stores, Haidilao is shrinking the scale of its self-operated stores and expanding the number of franchise stores. By the end of the year, the Haidilao brand operated 1,383 restaurants in total. Of these, the number of franchise stores increased to 79, and self-operated restaurants totaled 1,304. Among them, 85 self-operated restaurants were voluntarily closed due to operating performance not meeting expectations, or relocated due to shifts of commercial landmarks or outdated facilities.

This is an outcome that could be expected—after all, at the industry level, the catering industry has not yet hit bottom and rebounded.

According to the latest data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, in 2025 nationwide catering revenue reached RMB 5.7982 trillion, up 3.2% year over year, accounting for 11.6% of total retail sales of consumer goods, up 0.2 percentage points from the previous year. However, growth in national catering consumption has been weak. Catering revenue grew 3.2%, marking the first time in the past three years that it fell below the growth rate of retail sales of consumer goods (3.7%).

But the trend is improving. Looking at full-year breakdown data, the improvement in operations in the second half was stronger than in the first half.

Based on the split between interim report and annual report figures, in 2025 Haidilao’s second-half core operating indicators showed marginal improvement. Year-on-year revenue performance shifted from a 3.7% decline in the first half to a 5.9% increase in the second half; the year-on-year decline in group restaurant operating revenue narrowed from 6.9% to 2.0%; the year-on-year decline in operating revenue of the main brand Haidilao restaurants narrowed from 9.0% to 5.1%; and the year-on-year decline in core operating profit also narrowed from 14.0% to 12.7%. At the same time, in the second half, the number of customers served increased by about 4.3 million compared with the first half, and the table-turn rate rebounded.

Similar to other chain catering giants (such as Yum China and McDonald’s), to respond to market changes, Haidilao is aggressively expanding its delivery business and has already achieved growth in delivery. In 2025, the delivery business became one of Haidilao’s faster-growing segments. Full-year delivery business revenue reached RMB 2.658 billion, up 111.9% year over year, mainly driven by the rapid growth of its “comfort food” business.

In its announcement, Haidilao said that the delivery business has become an important pillar for the group’s revenue growth. To date, it has completed the layout of more than 1,200 delivery outlets nationwide and has cooperated with major delivery platforms. At the same time, the company continues to research and develop new products better suited to delivery scenarios, and supports other brands under the Pomegranate Stone plan to try the delivery business.

Operating revenue of “other restaurants” reached RMB 1.521 billion

So-called “other restaurants” refer to a series of side brands incubated under the “Pomegranate Stone plan.” Multi-category side brands that have appeared in consumers’ view in the past two years—such as the Yanhqin BBQ shop and XiaoAi Loves to Fry, among others—also come from the “Pomegranate Stone plan.”

As the “second curve” driving the group’s overall revenue growth, since 2025 proposed it and after a year of exploration, the “Pomegranate Stone plan” has finally shown initial results. By the end of 2025, the operating revenue of other restaurants increased from RMB 490 million in 2024 by 214.6% to RMB 1.521 billion in 2025, accounting for 3.5% of total revenue, up significantly from the previous year. By the end of 2025, the group had successfully operated 20 sub-brands covering more granular segments such as seafood barbecue street stalls, sushi, Western-style light meals, hot pots, and Chinese fast food.

It is worth noting that in 2025, Haidilao restructured the rules of the Pomegranate Stone plan, forming a dual incubation mechanism of “head chefs” and “people’s kitchens.”

Specifically, the “head chef” system focuses on employee independent entrepreneurship, while the “people’s kitchen” system leans toward project incubation led and planned by headquarters. Haidilao said it hopes to stimulate internal entrepreneurial potential through the “head chef” system, and promote market coverage across multiple categories and levels through the “people’s kitchen” system, further improving the efficiency of coordinated development of entrepreneurial projects.

As the Haidilao brand enters a new stage of advancing multiple business formats and multiple brands in parallel, coordination among different business segments has become a new management focus, which places higher demands on the company’s executives in governance and management capabilities. It is against this background that, at the beginning of this year, Haidilao’s founder Zhang Yong returned to the company as CEO to drive optimization and adjustments to Haidilao’s business.

Overall, Haidilao, in a “transformation period,” in the short term needs to deal with the pain of a decline in the table-turn rate and profit pressure, while the multi-brand strategy provides support for long-term sustainable development.

On March 6, Everbright Securities released a research report stating that Haidilao’s operating data for the 2026 Chinese New Year, which exceeded expectations, fully validates Haidilao’s resilience in its recovery and its leading-edge barriers. Combined with efficiency improvements after management changes, growth potential brought by new categories, and value support from high dividend yields, the company’s near-term performance and long-term logic have both been strengthened. It maintains a “Buy” rating on Haidilao (06862).

Based on the group’s operating performance in 2025, Haidilao’s board of directors recommended paying a final cash dividend of HKD 0.384 per share for the year ended December 31, 2025.