Dissecting the 2025 financial reports of four leading new tea beverage companies: Who's soaring, who's facing "crisis"? Where is the money going?

In recent days, several leading companies in China’s new-style tea beverage (xinchaxin chay) sector—Mixue Group (Mixue Bingcheng Co., Ltd.), Guming, ChaBaidao, and Nayuki Tea—have all released their 2025 “scorecards” in succession. These four “scorecards,” each with a different quality of performance, showcase the “icy and fiery extremes” of the tea beverage industry.

Mixue Bingcheng made nearly RMB 6 billion in net profit in a year; Guming’s net profit doubled and grew; ChaBaidao saw a major rebound in net profit despite slowing revenue growth; while Nayuki Tea is still struggling to adjust while remaining in losses, and its store footprint has begun to shrink.

Economic Daily (Yicai) Media Database Huang Songlun photo

Selling the same cup of milk tea, these four companies delivered completely different “answers” in their 2025 financial reports. Behind the divergence in revenue, net profit, and store data are different strategic choices by their brands: this year, Nayuki Tea—having a directly operated gene—struggled between building a “third space” and opening up to franchising, and ultimately made a choice; meanwhile, other tea beverage brands that grew from tiered-down markets and rely mainly on franchising, wearing the new-style tea beverage “outerwear,” have grown into major supply-chain operators with efficient execution.

“Icy and fiery extremes” in revenue and net profit

According to 2025 financial report data, among the “three giants” that surged aggressively in tiered-down markets and Nayuki Tea with a directly operated gene, there is a seemingly bottomless gap—both in revenue and in net profit.

In 2025, Mixue Bingcheng and Guming recorded revenue of RMB 33.56 billion and RMB 12.91 billion, respectively—both exceeding the RMB 10 billion scale; their net profits were RMB 5.927 billion and RMB 3.115 billion, respectively. Mixue Bingcheng, backed by its network of nearly 60,000 stores worldwide, earned nearly RMB 6 billion in net profit in a year. Guming’s net profit surged year over year by an astonishing 108.6%. From the financial reports, Guming’s growth engine comes from deep cultivation of tiered-down markets—its share of township stores has already risen to 44%. Likewise, in 2025, ChaBaidao, another milk tea brand dominated by franchising, achieved RMB 0.821 billion in net profit, up more than 70% year over year.

In 2025, when Mixue Bingcheng, Guming, and ChaBaidao were raking in money day after day, Nayuki Tea was instead going through a painful “trial by ordeal.”

In 2025, Nayuki Tea’s revenue fell 12% year over year to RMB 4.331 billion. Not only did it suffer a net loss of RMB 243 million, its store base also shrank along with revenue. In 2025, the total number of Nayuki Tea stores dropped from 1,798 to 1,646. During this year, Nayuki Tea proactively entered a period of store closures and adjustments, and tightened the franchising policies that it had previously placed high hopes on. By the end of 2025, Nayuki Tea’s franchised stores numbered only 358, increasing by a mere 13 stores for the full year.

Judging from the financial reports, in 2025, the entire industry shared a common pattern: average transaction value kept sinking while the number of cups prepared kept surging wildly. Guming’s average number of cups sold per store per day increased from 384 cups in 2024 to 456 cups in 2025. In the same period, Nayuki Tea’s average number of orders per store per day rose from 270.5 to 313, but the average sales value per order fell from RMB 26.7 to RMB 24.4.

Profits largely come from franchisees

Based on the revenue mix of Guming, ChaBaidao, and Mixue Bingcheng, the bulk of their profits comes from franchisees. A tea beverage brand dominated by franchising is more like a B2B (business-to-business) supply-chain company wearing the “new-style tea beverage” coat.

With the same revenue model, Guming and ChaBaidao kept their gross margin at nearly the same level: in 2025, Guming’s gross margin was 33.0% and ChaBaidao’s gross margin was 32.5%.

On March 30, Lin Yue, chief consultant and analyst for the catering and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry at Lingyan Management Consulting, told a reporter from Economic Daily: “The gross margin for a franchise brand’s business is jointly determined by the brand owner’s profit expectations and the franchisee’s bottom line for survival. This roughly 30% gross-margin gap may be a delicate balance point between the brand and the franchisees.”

What differs is that revenue from franchisees varies from company to company. Over 90% of Mixue Bingcheng’s and ChaBaidao’s revenue comes from selling goods and equipment to franchisees; while Guming sells goods and equipment accounting for 79% of revenue. It also has as much as 20.35%—over RMB 2.6 billion—in revenue coming from franchise management services. Focusing on operational services may well be the core reason its net profit performance stands out.

Correspondingly, tea beverage brands dominated by franchising are, without exception, strong in supply chain operations and continue to deepen their efforts.

A disclosed item that is highly tied to supply-chain spending is cost of sales. Mixue Bingcheng, ChaBaidao, and Guming’s cost of sales were RMB 23.108 billion, RMB 3.641 billion, and RMB 8.651 billion, respectively—accounting for 68.8%, 67.5%, and 67.0% of total revenue, respectively.

Mixue Bingcheng has achieved 100% in-house production of core beverage ingredients, with five production bases and 28 warehouses. The financial report shows that Mixue Bingcheng continues to increase investment in asset-heavy capabilities; among its capital expenditures, about RMB 301 million is mainly used for building production facilities and purchasing equipment. Guming has 24 warehouses. Seventy-five percent of its stores are located within a 150-kilometer radius of warehouses, and 98% of its stores achieve “delivery in two days and one replenishment.” With this extremely high physical density, Guming compresses delivery costs to less than 1% of GMV (gross merchandise value). ChaBaidao, meanwhile, has set up 26 warehouse-and-distribution centers nationwide, with about 93.7% of stores delivering the next day after an order is placed.

By contrast, Nayuki Tea—without scale economies—was “bleeding” partly because of higher supply-chain costs and a rise in takeout orders. According to disclosures in its financial report, in 2025, Nayuki Tea’s material costs were as high as RMB 1.470 billion, accounting for 34.0% of total earnings. High waste brought by premium fresh fruits and fresh milk is simply impossible to spread across costs the way a brand with 10,000-plus stores can.

In 2025, among Nayuki Tea’s revenue from directly operated stores, takeout orders accounted for as much as 52.6% (RMB 2.009 billion), while in-store counter orders were left at only 9.3%. More takeout orders are not good news for Nayuki Tea, which emphasizes the offline “third space” experience. This also leads it to pay delivery service fees to third-party platforms of up to RMB 462 million, representing 10.7% of total earnings.

Where did the money from the “cash cow” go?

New-style tea beverage giants with exceptionally strong overall operating capabilities have long turned into well-funded “cash cows.” In this 2025 “scorecard,” all four companies show a large cash balance on their books. Mixue Bingcheng’s cash and cash equivalents, time deposits, restricted cash, and financial assets measured at fair value with changes recorded in profit or loss totaled RMB 19.99 billion. Guming’s cash and cash equivalents, time deposits, and large-denomination certificates of deposit totaled over RMB 10 billion. ChaBaidao’s cash and cash equivalents reached RMB 3.071 billion. Nayuki Tea’s cash and cash equivalents, time deposits, and large-denomination certificates of deposit totaled over RMB 2.6 billion.

Companies had plenty of cash as well, but different firms followed entirely different paths.

Besides deepening its supply chain, Mixue Bingcheng also wants to replicate its supply-chain capabilities across other product categories. In its 2025 financial report, Mixue Bingcheng disclosed a transaction: it acquired the fresh beer brand Fulu Family and merged with its 1,354 stores. Lin Yue told reporters that Mixue’s acquisition of Fulu Family is an integration of “left pocket into right pocket,” with the goal of cross-enabling on the supply chain—for example, sharing production bases, sharing warehousing and cold-chain logistics systems, and expanding purchasing advantages. Meanwhile, Mixue Bingcheng is also actively rolling out intelligent liquid-dispensing machines in its stores, freeing up more labor through automation and improving efficiency. As of now, intelligent liquid-dispensing machines have covered more than 13,000 stores.

Guming, on the other hand, early in 2026 in its Hangzhou headquarters area, spent RMB 455 million to purchase a plot of land and plans to build a new operations headquarters building. Industry participants believe that after sprinting to 10,000 stores, Guming urgently needs a physical space to host its operations core—further centralizing its digital control over franchisees and supply-chain scheduling. As for ChaBaidao’s cash, it is used more to maintain liquidity on the books and to fine-tune the supply chain.

In its financial report, ChaBaidao emphasized “AI (artificial intelligence) automated inspection and patrol” and a “smart replenishment and smart preparation system” that covers 8,000 stores. Entering 2026, ChaBaidao is piloting stores in certain cities and starting to roll out a coffee category.

Behind the cup of milk tea consumers hold are giants competing for advantages based on supply-chain and other assets. When the number of stores in China is approaching the ceiling, how much expansion pressure can the massive franchisee system still bear? Clearly, new challenges are just beginning.

Economic Daily