Miniso, which was nurtured by overseas markets and TOP TOY, where is its next growth driver?

At a time when global consumer spending continues to face many uncertainties, Miniso Group (MINISO) released its annual results announcement for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025 on March 31.

During the reporting period, the company achieved total revenue of RMB 21.444 billion, representing a year-over-year increase of 26.2% from 2024. Of this, revenue from the core brand Miniso reached RMB 19.525 billion, up 22%, while revenue from the subsidiary brand TOP TOY totaled RMB 1.916 billion, up 94.8%.

From the figures on the books, this is a scorecard with both growth in scale and growth in pace.

However, behind revenue surging strongly, the profit side has revealed a contradiction: “higher revenue but not higher profits.”

The financial report shows that net profit attributable to the parent company during the period was only RMB 1.205 billion, plunging 53.96% year over year. The main reason for this “halving” of profit was the company’s large losses stemming from its heavy investment in Yonghui Superstores (holding 29.4%).

That said, if such non-recurring profit and loss items are stripped out, its adjusted net profit recorded RMB 2.898 billion, up 6.53% year over year—showing that the profitability base of its core business remains intact.

But once you set aside the headline growth rates and look through the evolution of its revenue structure, you can clearly see the real business context Miniso is facing today: the domestic market is entering a stock-and-exchange-style game with limited room for growth, overseas markets are taking on the “pioneer” role, and new business lines are seeking balance between scale expansion and the profit model.

In the core brand’s revenue of RMB 19.525 billion, one signal that cannot be ignored is that the growth momentum has shifted outward.

The financial report specifically pointed out that this growth was driven jointly by the Chinese Mainland and overseas markets. Overseas market revenue grew sharply by 29.3% year over year, significantly outpacing the core brand’s overall growth rate of 22%.

Objectively speaking, the overseas market is indeed becoming Miniso’s core incremental growth area at its current stage.

Against the backdrop of extreme competition in domestic retail channels and the peak of dividends in lower-tier markets, it is Miniso’s inevitable choice to seek incremental growth in North America, Europe, and Southeast Asia. Leveraging cost advantages from its domestic supply chain to achieve a “dimension-reducing” advantage overseas is the underlying logic for maintaining nearly 30% overseas revenue growth.

However, the other side involves the marginal costs and potential risks of cross-border operations.

High growth in overseas markets is usually accompanied by the construction of heavy-asset company-operated stores, more complex local compliance costs, and logistics and warehousing expenses that remain high.

In 2025, as global trade frictions intensify and geopolitics becomes more complex, a model that relies solely on the Chinese supply chain to “fund” the rest of the world is facing a two-pronged squeeze from both tariff barriers and exchange-rate fluctuations.

Miniso needs to move overseas from “channel expansion” to “brand deepening.” Its capabilities in refined operations and cross-cultural management are being tested more severely than ever.

The most eye-catching metric in the financial report is the revenue growth rate of TOP TOY at as high as 94.8%. With annual revenue of RMB 1.916 billion, this means the subsidiary brand has fully moved past the early-stage concept incubation phase and now has the ability to produce a meaningful impact on the group’s total revenue.

The capital market has also assigned a high valuation to its phased results. It is understood that TOP TOY has already received strategic investment from Temasek, with an estimated valuation of about HKD 10 billion. On the channel front, its global store footprint has expanded to 334 stores, including 30 overseas stores—suggesting that its overseas layout is beginning to take shape.

But for the toy and collectibles (trading card/“trendy toy”) industry, doubling revenue does not automatically mean that a moat has been built. TOP TOY’s rapid growth still largely depends on the quick rollout of its store network—channel-driven growth—as well as a “scattershot” strategy across all categories (blind boxes, building blocks, collectible figurines, etc.).

Unlike the mode used by leading players in the industry, who rely on strong proprietary IP, TOP TOY currently still has a strong “collectible toy and fan shop” attribute and remains relatively dependent on external well-known IPs.

Although its proprietary IP has recently started to gain traction and created some buzz in certain fan circles, overall across the mainstream merchandise market it still remains dominated by licensed IP, and it has not yet formed an absolute original-IP barrier.

This leads to a key financial and strategic concern: the procurement cost of external licensed IP will continue to suppress its gross margin space. Once the revenue scale approaches the RMB 2 billion threshold, the marginal benefits brought by store expansion alone will gradually diminish.

If TOP TOY cannot prove to the market within the next one to two years that it has the ability to continuously incubate “phenomenon-level” proprietary IP, then the quality of its high growth and its long-term profitability will be left with question marks.

Miniso is indeed working to tell the capital market a new story: it is no longer just a “ten-yuan shop” that moves product primarily through extreme value-for-money, but a global “IP design and consumer operations operator.”

Its revenue base of RMB 21.444 billion demonstrates the preliminary effectiveness of its strategic transformation. However, in the next cycle, the metrics the market will scrutinize will become even more demanding:

First, does the overseas market’s high growth come at the cost of sacrificing cash flow or incurring excessively high marketing expenses? Is the revenue per store (store productivity/efficiency) healthy?

Second, after TOP TOY gains scale momentum, can it run through a profit model and achieve a turnaround from a “channel merchant” to an “IP originator”?

For Miniso, fiscal year 2025 is a breakout in step with the shift in the consumer cycle. It wins through decisive action in tapping previously blank overseas markets and an early positioning for the value of emotion-driven consumption.

But after crossing the RMB 20 billion threshold, the real test is only just beginning. How to stabilize its fundamentals amid a complex and shifting global landscape will determine the direction of this retail giant’s next voyage.

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