Aimeike's IPO marks a turning point in performance: soaring expenses eat into profits, and South Korean acquisitions pose compliance risks

Our reporter Zhang Siwen and Ou Na, reporting from Beijing (chinatimes.net.cn)

On March 20, Aimeike Tech Development Co., Ltd. (hereinafter “Aimeike,” stock code: 300896.SZ) released its “2025 Annual Financial Report.”

The financial report shows that in 2025, Aimeike achieved operating revenue of RMB 2.453 billion, down 18.94% from RMB 3.026 billion in the same period of the previous year. Net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies was RMB 1.291 billion, down 34.05% year over year. Net profit after deducting non-recurring gains and losses was RMB 1.100 billion, with a year-on-year decline of 38.01%.

(Data source: Wind)

This is the first time since the company’s IPO in 2020 that both annual revenue and net profit have fallen year over year.

Behind the double decline in performance

Regarding the decline in performance, Aimeike told reporters from Huaxia Times that the company’s results were mainly affected by both the macro environment and the industry’s competitive landscape. In 2026, the company will seize the historical opportunity for the industry to transition from scale expansion to high-quality development, driving growth with the “R&D innovation + industrial integration” dual-engine approach. It will deepen the product ecosystem layout across full categories, full scenarios, and full life cycles, accelerate the implementation of its internationalization strategy, and continue to create outstanding value for shareholders.

Judging from its business composition, both of the company’s two core product lines saw declines to varying degrees.

As the company’s pillar product line, solution-based injectable products generated revenue of RMB 1.265 billion in 2025, down about 28% from RMB 1.744 billion in 2024, and the share of total revenue fell from nearly 58% to about 51.6%.

(Revenue by product category for Aimeike in 2025; source: East Money)

Gel-based injectable products generated revenue of RMB 890 million in 2025, down about 24% from RMB 1.216 billion in 2024. The revenue share fell from 40% to 36%.

(Revenue by product category for Aimeike in 2024; source: East Money)

In response, Yuan Shuai, executive vice president of the China Urban Development Research Institute and the Agrifood and Tourism Industry Revitalization Research Institute, told reporters from Huaxia Times that the decline in Aimeike’s 2025 solution-based product revenue indicates that the golden era of medical aesthetics upstream relying on a single “big product” to monopolize a segmented track has come to an end. The benefits that had been released in the Hite neck wrinkle market are exhausted, proving the fragility of technical barriers in the face of homogenized competition and consumption moving downward. Upstream medical aesthetics manufacturers must realize that once hyaluronic acid or regenerative products enter a battle over an existing stock, the second growth curve must have two key features: “clinical differentiation” and “multi-scenario synergy.” This means that new products cannot be merely minor adjustments to existing categories; they should address unmet pain points through breakthroughs in material science—such as longer maintenance cycles or more natural biocompatibility—and should also be able to form combination solutions with existing single products, locking in institutions and doctors through additive treatment efficacy rather than a single-price war.

On the other hand, the pressure on the cost side last year was particularly prominent for Aimeike, becoming a key factor dragging down net profit performance.

The financial report shows that the company’s selling, general and administrative expenses rose significantly in 2025. Among them, selling expenses reached RMB 387 million, up 39.72% year over year. The report explains that this mainly resulted from the expansion of the sales personnel team, along with corresponding increases in market promotion spending such as meeting expenses and advertising and publicity.

General and administrative expenses had the largest increase, reaching RMB 183 million, up 48.62% year over year. The underlying reason was that during the year, consulting and legal fees from M&A and investment transactions increased sharply, coupled with rising personnel costs.

In addition, financial expenses shifted from net gains of RMB 31.2763 million in 2024 to net expenditures of RMB 7.5023 million. This dramatic fluctuation was mainly due to foreign exchange losses arising from purchasing foreign currency for overseas investments.

With costs rising across the board while revenue failed to grow in step, the company’s profit margins were directly squeezed, which became one of the reasons for its declining profitability.

Overseas acquisition risks have not been eliminated

While performance declined, Aimeike is also facing a major legal dispute that may affect the company’s future development.

To seek new growth drivers, in 2025 Aimeike completed its acquisition of South Korea’s REGEN Co., Ltd., attempting to bring its well-known “Baby Facial Injection” product AestheFill (艾塑菲) into the Chinese market. However, there is serious controversy over who holds the exclusive distribution rights for this product in mainland China.

The former exclusive distributor, Datoro Medical, has filed for arbitration, with a claim amount as high as RMB 1.6 billion. Even more seriously, the Shenzhen Court of International Arbitration has issued a decision requiring Aimeike’s subsidiary not to sell AestheFill in mainland China on its own before the arbitration award is issued, and to continue supplying the product to the original agent. This means that although Aimeike spent a huge amount of money to complete the acquisition, it is temporarily unable to monetize this international hit product domestically, and the expected performance growth point has been put on hold. At the same time, it also faces the potential risk of a large amount of compensation.

In response, Aimeike told reporters from Huaxia Times that the arbitration case is currently being accepted, and for specific progress, please refer to subsequent related announcements.

Regarding the specific synergies produced after acquiring a South Korean company in product R&D and distribution channels, Aimeike told reporters from Huaxia Times that this acquisition and subsequent integration indicate that the company has completed a key layout in building its overseas R&D, production, and sales network, successfully connecting key links for matching with the international market. This not only represents a substantive breakthrough in the company’s internationalization strategy, but also helps it deeply integrate into the global medical aesthetics industry chain’s division of labor and cooperation, laying a solid foundation for continuously improving long-term competitiveness.

It is worth noting that after the completion of the transaction to acquire 85% of the equity interest in South Korea’s REGEN for about USD 190 million, Aimeike’s goodwill at the end of 2025 soared to RMB 1.641 billion, up 489.78% from the beginning of the period—an increase of nearly fivefold.

In addition, the acquisition also caused an increase in the company’s long-term payables. Data show that the company’s net cash flow from operating activities in 2025 fell by 31.29% year over year.

For this acquisition, Yuan Shuai believes that although internationalization through M&A is a shortcut for Chinese medical aesthetics companies to shorten R&D cycles and obtain cutting-edge technology, high premiums and legal risks come hand in hand. The agency rights dispute that Aimeike encountered when acquiring assets such as REGEN in South Korea serves as a warning that when integrating overseas assets, the most core risk prevention point is not the technology itself, but the legal rigor of the underlying contracts and the compliance of cross-border governance. The overseas M&A wave must shift from “buying assets” to “buying systems.” It is not only patents that matter—attention must also be paid to overseas R&D teams’ retention mechanisms and the clinical pathways for bringing products to China. If it is not possible to realize technical internalization and localization transformation, the high goodwill impairment will become a black hole that consumes profits.

Overall, 2025 has become a watershed since Aimeike’s listing. In a critical period when the industry moves from scale expansion to high-quality development, whether Aimeike can truly achieve the leap from product leadership to system-level competitiveness is something reporters from Huaxia Times will continue to monitor.

责任编辑：姜雨晴 主编：陈岩鹏

A massive flow of information and precise interpretation—available on the Sina Finance app