Unpacking Mingming’s very busy performance: setting up the goods well, running a strong store, and delivering the certainty to break through the cycle

Ask AI · Mingming is busy: How can emotional value enhance consumer loyalty?

In recent years, the capital market has often regarded snack mass retail as a typical sinking market business. It seems to only succeed when consumption weakens and prices are sensitive; it can only expand through low prices, flourishing in county towns and rural areas. But Mingming is busy’s 2025 annual report and earnings conference provided a more complex and interesting answer: Snacks are not just a stock business, but an incremental demand based on “happy emotions,” and in China’s current market, this demand is real and continuously growing.

At Mingming is busy’s earnings presentation, management gave a straightforward and powerful judgment: where there are people, there is demand for snacks, and there is room for Mingming is busy. China has a vast territory, and Mingming is busy has achieved coverage from top-tier cities to county towns, with stable market penetration across different levels and regions.

Therefore, the ceiling of this business might be higher than many imagine.

Business Logic: Value-for-money and Incremental Demand

From the bustling streets of first-tier cities to the vast sinking markets in townships, high-quality, cost-effective snack foods are releasing huge real demand and business opportunities. This is evident from Mingming is busy’s just-released 2025 annual report.

Mingming is busy’s GMV for 2025 reached 93.57B yuan, revenue was 66.17 billion yuan, and adjusted net profit was 2.69B yuan. The company’s gross profit margin increased to 9.8%, benefiting from economies of scale and the natural recovery after subsidy reductions.

The company opened 7,813 new franchise stores throughout the year, closed 265, with the store closure rate dropping to 1.2%; at year-end, total stores numbered 21,948, a 52.5% increase from the end of 2024. The total number of franchisees was 10,327, with 60% of new stores coming from existing franchisees, indicating a healthy and sustainable franchise model.

We cannot simply attribute Mingming is busy’s performance to low prices; a more accurate definition is the maturity of consumption concepts. Young consumers, facing life pressures, still need dopamine release, but they are no longer willing to pay for inflated brand premiums. The mass snack retail model perfectly matches this psychological expectation.

In Mingming is busy’s business model, the consumption threshold is lowered to an extremely low level. Consumers only need to spend 10 yuan to buy 5-8 snack products, allowing the public to pursue happiness without bearing financial burdens. Essentially, this model is not competing for the existing market share of traditional supermarkets but is creating and capturing a large amount of genuine incremental demand through supply-side optimization.

Whether for holiday gatherings, spring outings, camping, or daily home binge-watching, snacks are a routine essential, inherently carrying happiness attributes. This business model, built on genuine human needs, demonstrates extremely strong vitality.

More importantly, it is not a story limited to a single market tier. By the end of 2025, Mingming is busy had 4,178 stores in first-tier and new first-tier cities, 3,394 in second-tier cities, and 14,376 in third-tier and below cities, with about 60% located in county towns and townships. This structure is highly representative, indicating the company has tapped into the consumption potential of sinking markets.

Management also mentioned at the earnings conference that Hunan is currently the most mature market. In terms of regional market size, Guangdong, Jiangxi, Jiangsu, and even northern provinces are steadily approaching Hunan’s scale. Structurally, the distribution of populations across different levels of regions roughly aligns with the company’s store deployment. This means that snack mass retail is not an anomaly in a certain region but has its ecological position across various consumer tiers nationwide.

Data Confirmation: Good Stores Lead to More Stores

The capital market ultimately needs data to verify the effectiveness of the business model.

In terms of store expansion, the company has demonstrated remarkable execution. The number of new stores in 2025 was roughly the same as 8,083 in 2024. Fosun Sliwen’s report even predicts that by 2029, China’s retail market for snack foods and beverages will reach 4.9 trillion yuan, proving that market capacity is far from peaking.

“Open good stores to open more stores” is a repeatedly emphasized point at this earnings conference. Management clearly stated that by 2025, the company will largely no longer charge franchise fees, nor does it plan to in the future. The Chinese market is large enough, and the company is still in the stage of benefiting from growth dividends while preparing to tap operational dividends.

For example, to better explore operational dividends, Mingming is busy has empowered every business link with digital capabilities, including self-developed site selection systems, data-driven ordering systems, AI remote store inspections, and AI cashiering.

In 2025, Mingming is busy’s nationwide store GMV grew by 68.5% year-over-year, thanks to proactive adjustments in inventory optimization, extended operating hours, and middle-platform operations, as well as fundamental, pragmatic operational actions like “filling shelves, arranging neatly, and displaying accurately,” making products abundant, tidy, and precisely presented.

Emotional Value: An Invisible Asset the Capital Market Needs to Reassess

Traditional retail often falls into a bottomless cycle of price and efficiency competition. When analyzing Mingming is busy’s value, if you only see it as a brick-and-mortar channel selling low-priced snacks, you underestimate its core business.

Mingming is busy possesses a strong emotional value premium. Customers spend an average of 6 minutes in a 150-200 square meter store. This is vastly different from the purpose-driven shopping of traditional convenience stores; it reflects a rare “leisurely browsing” attribute. Facing a dazzling array of tasty, affordable products, consumers gain a sense of freedom of choice and a feeling of a prosperous life.

Eighty percent of the store’s products are completely different from conventional retail channels, creating a high degree of differentiation that fundamentally distances it from homogeneous red ocean competition, building a unique ecological barrier.

The capital market assigns high valuations to tea economy brands (like Mixue Bingcheng) and trendy toy brands (like Pop Mart) mainly because they satisfy the spiritual pursuits of today’s youth. A cup of milk tea not only quenches thirst; a blind box not only offers a plastic toy. They are tiny happiness in modern life. Mass snack retail shares this attribute: it not only satisfies the appetite but also conveys happiness and releases stress as an emotional carrier.

Membership data exemplifies this emotional stickiness best. By the end of 2025, registered members reached 210 million (a significant increase from 120 million at the end of 2024), with a repurchase rate of about 76%. Member order value is 70-80% higher than non-members.

These figures show that as consumption becomes more fragmented, those who can better capture small, instant, shareable happiness will enjoy higher repurchase frequencies. Once consumers recognize the emotional value the brand provides, they are willing to commit to longer-term consumption.

China remains a supermarket with extremely diverse levels and vast depths. Mingming is busy’s business model has proven to be highly universal and compatible. From first-tier cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen to the bustling streets of sinking markets, this format can take root and flourish. As management said at the earnings conference, where there are Chinese, stores can open.

The company is not content with its current product structure but actively explores new boundaries.

Management revealed that the company is laying out cold chain and hot food businesses. Testing shows that hot food items like sausages and egg tarts have excellent market feedback. The company is also exploring refrigerated foods with short shelf lives and fewer additives, as well as frozen products catering to health-conscious consumers. The introduction of new categories and new consumption scenarios will further increase average order value and repurchase rates, unlocking the ceiling of single-store profitability.

On the management side, this long-distance running enterprise is shifting from rough land grabbing to refined digital operations; establishing product middle platforms, promoting AI store inspection systems, and launching self-developed site selection systems are part of its digital infrastructure.

In this complex and volatile economic cycle, Mingming is busy has proven a simple business truth: companies that can continuously provide genuine value and happiness to the masses possess cyclical resilience. From office buildings in first-tier cities to lively streets in sinking markets, snack consumption is building a happiness industry chain that spans different economic layers.

Tea drinks offer instant comfort, trendy toys project identity, and snacks provide the most basic and universal sense of satisfaction. Mingming is busy’s stores and supply chain are the skeleton; emotional value is the flesh and blood. It’s time for the capital market to reevaluate this sweet-tasting emotional asset.