Live coverage of the earnings meeting | Miniso's 2025 plan: Fight hard for large stores, learn from Pop Mart, invest in Yonghui with losses exceeding 800 million yuan

Questioning AI · MINISO invests in Yonghui with losses exceeding 800 million, why does Ye Guofu still insist on long-termism?

Meiri Reporter: Wang Fan Meiri Editor: Dong Xing Sheng

“MINISO will always be my top priority; I will never divert my focus because of investments.” On the afternoon of March 31, at the 2025 performance teleconference for MINISO (HK09896, stock price 32.50 HKD, market value 39.39B HKD), the company’s founder and CEO Ye Guofu reassured investors in this way.

The night before, Yonghui Superstores, in which MINISO invested nearly 6.3 billion yuan, released its earnings report, showing a loss of 2.55 billion yuan in 2025, which also caused MINISO’s investment loss to exceed 800 million yuan.

At this time last year, Ye Guofu’s promise to lead Yonghui Superstores to reduce losses was still fresh in everyone’s mind. Now, during the teleconference, in response to investors’ concerns about Yonghui’s business, Ye Guofu changed his usual confident style, merely stating that the two companies operate independently, and asked investors to rest assured.

Whether this investment decision was wise or not, the market remains divided. Returning to MINISO itself, by 2025, its global stores had grown to 8,485, and continued expanding, with same-store sales improving; abandoning the label of discount grocery store, transforming into an IP (creative content or brand with commercial value) operation platform, and focusing on proprietary IP. This also involves competition with Pop Mart. During the teleconference, Ye Guofu also frankly said that they plan to emulate competitors and top celebrities to promote their own IP.

Image source: Meiri Reporter Wang Fan Photography

The money lost in Yonghui will be recovered through MiniMax

On the afternoon of March 31, MINISO released its 2025 financial report, showing that the company achieved operating revenue of 21.44B yuan in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 26.2%; net profit for the period was 1.21 billion yuan, down 54.1% year-on-year, partly due to an investment loss of 813 million yuan in Yonghui Superstores.

Yonghui Superstores’ performance report released the day before showed that in 2025, it achieved operating revenue of 53.51B yuan, a decrease of 20.82% year-on-year; net loss attributable to the parent was 2.55 billion yuan, compared to a loss of 1.47B yuan in the same period last year.

Meiri reporter noticed that at the beginning of 2025, Ye Guofu had said: “Yonghui’s goal in 2025 is two words: reduce losses! Improve gross margin by a few points, and scale up again.” But now, in the “training period,” Yonghui’s scale has not increased, and losses have not decreased.

During the earnings teleconference, some investors asked about MINISO’s views and plans for Yonghui’s business. Ye Guofu emphasized: “I want to clarify to all shareholders that my core focus remains on MINISO, which is our foundation and the core of our future sustained efforts and growth breakthroughs. So rest assured, I devote over 90% of my energy to MINISO, and this will always be my top priority; I will never let investments distract me.”

He further added: “Yonghui has completed management team adjustments and has officially appointed Mr. Wang Shoucheng as CEO. Under his leadership, Yonghui now has a complete management team capable of independently managing daily operations and strategic implementation.”

Regarding Yonghui’s future, Ye Guofu simply said, “We believe everyone should adopt a long-term perspective and have confidence in this business,” brushing over what was once a broad blueprint when the acquisition was announced. Now, his words are notably sparse.

Interestingly, as a MINISO external investment project, the returns from its investment in star AI company MiniMax may help fill the gap left by Yonghui’s losses. MiniMax listed in Hong Kong in January this year, with a market value exceeding 330 billion HKD. Ye Guofu revealed that MINISO invested early in MiniMax at a relatively low valuation, so the current returns are quite good.

MINISO CFO (Chief Financial Officer) Zhang Jingjing explained: “We initially estimate that in the first quarter of this year, this investment will bring a one-time gain of about 850 million to 900 million yuan.”

Net increase of 705 stores in the year, with improved same-store sales

Zhang Jingjing emphasized during the meeting: “Management believes that the investment gains or losses, equity payment expenses, exchange gains and losses, etc., do not reflect the profitability of MINISO’s core main business. We should exclude these from operating profit and net profit.”

Therefore, in the 2025 financial report, MINISO prefers to use adjusted financial data. The report shows that in 2025, adjusted operating profit was 2.9B yuan, up 6.5% year-on-year. In other words, after excluding non-recurring factors, MINISO’s net profit still grew, though at a slower pace (the previous year’s growth was 15.4%).

By the end of 2025, the company’s total stores reached 8,485, a net increase of 705 stores from the previous year. Among them, MINISO brand had a total of 8,151 stores, and TOP TOY had 334 stores. Recently, Ye Guofu has repeatedly emphasized the need to close 80% of stores, “restructuring and opening larger, better stores.” The company revealed that by the end of 2025, flagship “Amusement Park” stores in China had reached 26.

Image source: Meiri Reporter Wang Fan Photography

During the teleconference, Ye Guofu again stressed: “Looking back at our development, MINISO has gone through two major strategic phases: first, rapid expansion and global store opening; then, upgrading to an IP strategy, transforming the company from a discount grocery store into an interest-driven consumption destination. Now, we are entering the third phase—upgrading stores into ‘amusement parks.’ This is not just about expanding stores but integrating the core capabilities from the previous two phases, creating larger spaces to host more IP categories, using immersive scenes to evoke emotional resonance, and leveraging continuously iterated IP to drive repeat purchases. It’s a fundamental shift from selling products to selling experiences, from a traffic business to a fan business.”

The reporter noted that compared to 2024, when MINISO relied on large-scale store openings to boost revenue but same-store sales performed poorly, in 2025, same-store sales have already recovered. The financial report shows that overall same-store sales growth for MINISO increased to a low single-digit percentage.

Ye Guofu said: “In Q4 2025, domestic same-store sales growth for MINISO reached a mid-double-digit level, hitting a new high for the year, with average daily sales per store surpassing 2023 levels. 2023 was a year of post-pandemic revenge spending, and MINISO was able to break through the previous peak in 2025 in a normalized market, indicating real structural improvement, not just benefiting from red-hot market conditions.”

“By 2026, we plan for key markets like China and North America to continue healthy low-double-digit growth in same-store sales, with a net addition of 510 to 550 stores throughout the year. We will focus on the quality of store openings rather than sheer quantity,” Zhang Jingjing added.

Learning from Pop Mart and top celebrities, but proprietary IP still has shortcomings

As MINISO transforms into an IP operation platform, market discussions often revolve around Pop Mart.

During the teleconference, Ye Guofu did not hide from competitors: “Everyone knows that our competitor (referring to Pop Mart) has an IP (LABUBU) that was driven by Lisa (a member of the Korean girl group BLACKPINK), which boosted global sales. So collaborating with top global artists can amplify the promotional effect of our own IP and bring huge value.”

The reporter noticed that MINISO has also begun to imitate this promotional approach. Coincidentally, the company chose to collaborate with Jennie, a member of Lisa’s team—on March 20, MINISO’s “Jennie Ruby” pop-up store opened at Shanghai Hongqiao Henglong Plaza, with sales exceeding 2.2 million yuan on the first day.

However, MINISO’s own IP, which Ye Guofu has high hopes for, still faces shortcomings. In terms of quantity, as of the end of January this year, MINISO had 16 proprietary IPs, far fewer than the 180 internationally licensed IPs; in sales, only one, YOYO, has emerged. He revealed that YOYO had sales exceeding 100 million yuan within less than half a year of launch, and in the first quarter of this year, monthly sales reached 50 million yuan. He hopes YOYO can sell 600 million yuan domestically this year, and enter the 1 billion yuan club overseas.

MINISO’s proprietary IP YOYO Image source: Meiri Reporter Wang Fan Photography

In comparison, Pop Mart’s 2025 revenue from proprietary artist IPs accounts for 90%, with 17 artist IPs exceeding 100 million yuan in revenue, including THE MONSTERS family led by LABUBU, which earned over 14.1 billion yuan in 2025. In contrast, MINISO still has a long way to go.

Ye Guofu concluded that MINISO will continue to adhere to a “licensed IP + proprietary IP” combined IP matrix. “From operational data, proprietary IPs, with higher user stickiness, stronger pricing power, lower licensing costs, and greater uniqueness, contribute more to gross profit margin than third-party IPs; third-party IPs, on the other hand, help us attract new users, break through traffic barriers, and enhance content marketing. The synergy of both drives our high-quality, sustained growth in the IP business.”