By | Financial Gossip Author: Yuè Yuè

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Over the past year, the gold market has been unreal.

International gold prices have been surging nonstop, and the per-gram prices of gold jewelry have been hitting new highs—yet just as March had barely begun, gold prices started staging another act of a blowout upturn followed by a wild reversal…

So the question is: against the backdrop of a “golden year,” are companies that sell gold jewelry actually making money? Recently, more and more listed companies are starting to give the answer.

Selling gold—some brands have customers lined up outside until the flow is limited, making in a year several times what they earned in the past; but some brands lose so badly that you wouldn’t even recognize them, managing to turn a great hand into utter ruin…

Today, let’s take a closer look: who is eating until they’re full, and who can’t even get a sip of the soup?

1./ After selling over 30 billion yuan in a year, young people keep疯狂抢 “Hermès of the Gold World”!/

Let’s start with the ones eating well. There are two fairly typical cases: “Laopujin’s Hermès of the Gold World” and Chaohongji.

In the past two years, Laopujin has gone viral in a big way. Just search any social media or short-video platform and you’ll find almost everything: posts saying “we lined up for two hours and finally got it,” and “how amazing Laopujin really is.”

More importantly, what used to be middle-aged and older women fighting to buy gold is now a group of post-90s and post-00s young people standing in line outside Laopujin for four or five hours just to buy a piece of gold jewelry priced per gram far higher than the benchmark gold price.

And this kind of hot-selling scene is directly reflected in the financial statements. Not long ago, Laopujin released a profit forecast notice. Let’s look at some key figures:

For FY2025, sales performance is expected to be about 31.38B yuan, an increase of about 220.3% year over year; revenue is about 27.3B yuan, an increase of about 221.0%; and profit is about 4.87B yuan, an increase of about 230.5%.

That’s crazy—this one year earned more than the past two and more years. Its capital-absorbing ability is terrifying. Also, this doubling performance is far above what many institutions had predicted previously. It’s fair to say Goldman Sachs and Citibank were still too conservative.

Why is Laopujin so strong? In plain terms, it comes down to a good marketing strategy—selling gold as a luxury product.

While other gold stores are still competing with basic playbooks like “reduce per gram by 20” or “discount the labor fee,” Laopujin goes straight with “one price for all,” and its gross margin can reach 37% or more.

Moreover, Laopujin’s stores are all located in top luxury malls such as SKP, Hong Kong’s Hysan Place, and Vientiane City. The average overlap between consumers and major luxury brands like LV and Hermès is as high as 82.4%.

Last year, Laopujin opened 9 stores in top luxury malls again. Some netizens joked:

“I used to think buying gold was something for moms’ generation. Now if you don’t have a gold gourd, you feel like you don’t fit in at work.”

Here’s a set of data that’s quite interesting:

In China, in the fourth quarter of last year, gold jewelry demand fell 23% year over year, but the consumption amount still rose 19% year over year; total gold jewelry demand for all of 2025 decreased by 25%, but the total spending increased by 8%.

In short, even though gold prices are rising and fewer people are buying, people are generally buying more expensive items.

Laopujin can be said to have nailed this consumption trend firmly. Last year it raised prices three times. Right before almost every price increase, there would be a fresh wave of people lining up to buy. Many items in both its physical stores and online stores were snapped up completely. The scene is almost identical to what happened a few years ago before Chanel and LV raised their prices.

At the end of February this year, Laopujin completed its first price increase for 2026, with an increase range of 20% to 30%. After multiple rounds of adjustments, the price increases for most items in-store exceeded 50%.

With Laopujin’s development momentum being so strong, investment banks on Wall Street couldn’t sit still. Citibank, Nomura, and others have issued “Buy” ratings, saying it’s also “China’s first truly luxury brand.”

Another quiet money-maker is old-brand jeweler Chow Sang Sang. For the year ended December 31, 2025 (FY2025), net profit for the full year is expected to be between HK$1.6 billion and HK$1.7 billion, which is directly doubled compared with the same period last year.

What’s interesting is that Chow Sang Sang itself said that it made more money because gold prices were favorable and because pricing gold jewelry was selling well, so the gross margin kept rising.

There is also Chaohongji, the “first A-share listed jewelry chain company.” For 2025, net profit is expected to be 436 million yuan to 533 million yuan, a year-over-year increase of 125% to 175%, and the company added 163 net new stores within one year.

Unlike Laopujin’s path of traditional gold, this brand mainly follows a youth-driven route: IP collaborations, cartoon bead strings, and so on—turning gold directly into fashionable products. In a way, this also continues its earlier business thinking of “the king of K gold.”

Eighty Sisters found that if you want to eat well, you still need to position accurately. Selling gold the same way as everyone else simply won’t work anymore.

2./ When gold prices rise, can you still lose money? Some people “cross into other areas and court disaster,” while others玩金融玩脱了…/

Amid the nationwide gold-chasing craze, listed companies that sell gold jewelry have lived out “icy and fiery extremes.” Some people are eating well, while others can’t even manage to drink a sip of the soup.

Why does this happen? Because when gold prices rise, fewer people buy. Laofengxiang and China Gold fall into exactly this kind of predicament.

According to earnings pre-announcement data, in 2025, Laofengxiang achieved operating revenue of 52.82B yuan, a year-over-year decrease of 6.99%; and attributable net profit of 1.76B yuan, a year-over-year decrease of 9.99%. It didn’t lose money, but both revenue and net profit fell. Against the backdrop of gold prices soaring, it’s undeniably a bit awkward.

More painfully, throughout last year, Laofengxiang closed 499加盟店. For a “time-honored brand” whose business relies mainly on offline channels, this is not a good sign.

China Gold also isn’t doing well. In 2025, its attributable net profit is expected to be only 286 million yuan to 368 million yuan. Compared with the same period last year, it’s basically cut in half, a year-over-year reduction of 55% to 65%.

The company summarized the reasons itself: severe fluctuations in gold prices combined with policy adjustments hit sales of various products. At the same time, the speed of the gold price increase exceeded the inventory turnover cycle, leading to fair value changes and losses in its gold leasing business, temporarily weighing on profits.

Plainly speaking, those selling gold got caught by gold price hikes.

But there are even more ridiculous cases than the two above: Shandong Weifang couple—Dream Gold (Mengjin) Yuan. In 2025, its attributable net profit was only 96.52 million yuan, a year-over-year plunge of 49.03%, basically cut in half.

The big drop wasn’t because gold jewelry couldn’t be sold, but because it玩金融玩脱了.

Mengjin Yuan put together a bunch of Au(T+D) contracts and gold leasing businesses. The original plan was to lock in gold costs and hedge the risk of gold price fluctuations. But it didn’t expect gold prices to surge relentlessly. The hedging contracts suffered huge losses, and its full-year loss expanded to 1.01 billion yuan.

Among them, the realized loss from Au(T+D) contracts was 706 million yuan, the realized loss from gold leasing was 217 million yuan, and the unrealized loss from gold leasing was 74.39 million yuan.

This 1-billion-yuan loss directly wipes out all the benefits brought by rising gold prices and strong product sales. In years when gold prices rise, the gold stores ended up losing money because of financial operations—no matter how you think about it, it’s more and more ironic.

There’s also an old-school jewelry enterprise, Mingpai Jewelry. Its jewelry business was clearly fairly stable, but it couldn’t stand the urge for a listed company to “cross into other areas and court disaster.” Instead of selling jewelry properly, it went to do solar cell batteries.

In the end, the solar industry price war was fought to the point of blood—an asset impairment of 170 million yuan was proposed to be recognized. Finally, the annual report performance forecast says that 2025 will result in a loss of between 280 million yuan and 380 million yuan, turning from profit to loss compared with the same period last year. It was supposed to be able to do jewelry business steadily, but after a series of moves, it ended up losing all the way through.

There’s another case that’s more complex. Cuihua Jewelry expects attributable net profit of 21 million yuan to 31 million yuan in 2025, a year-over-year decline of about 90%. But after excluding non-recurring gains and losses, profit is expected to increase by 154% to 280%. This is mainly because changes in the scope of consolidation in the financial statements caused it. In plain terms: the books show a loss, but the main business is still okay.

But a few years ago, Cuihua Jewelry cross-entered into lithium battery, accumulated a pile of debt, and has already been put under the ST risk warning. Recently, it also released an announcement saying: “the total principal amount of overdue borrowings for the company and its subsidiaries is 234 million yuan in total,” involving six financial institutions including Bank of Communications and SPDB. If this issue isn’t handled properly, the trouble afterward will be even bigger.

3./ Gold prices ride a roller coaster, but is it harder to do gold jewelry business?/

So you see, with gold prices still hovering at a high level, the differentiation among listed companies in the gold jewelry circle is becoming clearer and clearer.

Some people rely on brand premiums to live well; others lose everything because of “random messing around in crossovers.” Besides that, there’s also a group of “older brothers” making difficult transitions and trying to make themselves younger.

For example, the former “No. 1 gold store”—Chow Tai Fook. Actually, throughout the entire FY2025, it has been busy with transformation. In just one year, it closed 896 stores, and its market value was overtaken by Laopujin, which has only a few dozen stores.

Sensing things were going wrong, Chow Tai Fook started learning from Laopujin’s urgent transition: shutting down less-good stores, focusing on high-margin products, and selling gold jewelry as if it were a luxury product. Its so-called “Chuan Fu Series” and “Palace Museum Series” became hit products. It also worked hard to make itself look less “old-fashioned.”

Finally, in the second half of last year, Chow Tai Fook caught its breath. The data shows that from July 1, 2025 to December 31, 2025, it achieved operating revenue of HK$1B, up 5.92% year over year; and net profit of HK$12.83B, up 15.26%.

There are also Beijing time-honored retailer Cai Bai Co., Ltd. For 2025, attributable net profit is expected to be 1.06 billion yuan to 1.23 billion yuan, up 47.43% to 71.07%.

Cai Bai’s strategy is somewhat different from other jewelry listed companies. It has always stuck to a直营模式, giving it stronger control over channels. In an environment where gold prices fluctuate violently, this kind of “we can decide for ourselves” channel model turns out to be an advantage instead.

In the final analysis, in the gold business, it’s already not the era where you can make money just by opening a store. Brand strength and product strength are the real moat.

For example, recently, the “four traditional gold sisters”—Laopujin, Junpei, Linchao, and Baolan—have already completed their first round of price increases this year. Even more importantly, after the prices go up, there are still long lines outside the stores.

So, industry differentiation itself is an opportunity. Only companies that adapt to changes can stay on the table.

One last question: Did you buy gold this year? How long did you line up for?