Bawang Tea Princess finally reaches the "make-up class" stage: Guidance for the year remains flat year-on-year, with "stable same-store performance" as the top priority.

Bawang Chaji has endured its toughest year after a period of rapid expansion.

In 2025, the company’s net revenue reached 12.91 billion yuan, up 4% year-on-year. Although growth continued, it noticeably slowed compared to previous years.

The fourth quarter was especially challenging: net revenue was 2.9745 billion yuan, down 10.8% year-on-year. Profits also came under pressure, due to about 320 million yuan in restructuring costs, resulting in an operating loss of 35.5 million yuan for the quarter.

The continuous decline in single-store GMV also became a focal point for the market. In the fourth quarter of 2025, the average monthly GMV per store in the Greater China region dropped by 25.5% year-on-year to 337,000 yuan; the annual average was 387,000 yuan.

External takeaway competition, pricing pressures, and a period of adjustment after rapid store expansion all emerged simultaneously in 2025.

For Bawang Chaji this meant a sharp slowdown in revenue growth, significant shifts in store models, and a half-year product gap caused by internal organizational restructuring.

Management admitted during the earnings call that they underestimated changes in the external competitive environment, and clearly set the core goal for 2026 as "stable operations", with same-store growth as the primary indicator.

Facing slowing performance, Bawang Chaji proactively began to "catch up", starting with accelerating product innovation and scenario penetration.

In December 2025, the company launched the "Return to Yunnan" series, successfully activating 51% of dormant members and boosting GMV by 16.2% month-on-month, providing initial validation for the effectiveness of product-driven logic.

Entering 2026, the brand further increased its pace of new product launches, offering nearly ten new items such as matcha and Dahongpao tea by March.

To improve store utilization throughout the day, Bawang Chaji opened dedicated "morning series" and "evening series" zones, using limited-time promotions to foster breakfast tea-drinking habits and targeting nighttime consumption scenes with low-caffeine products, while planning to penetrate diverse life scenarios such as weddings and parties.

Management revealed during the earnings call that in 2026, a new store model will be launched focusing on young customers and multi-category innovation, such as creative tea blends and tea lattes.

Bawang Chaji's business model is quietly becoming more "asset-heavy." The company is strategically converting some franchise stores to direct operation and expanding its global network of owned stores.

By the end of 2025, the total number of stores worldwide reached 7,453, an increase of 15.7% year-on-year. In the fourth quarter, 248 direct-operation stores were added, bringing the total to 615.

Meanwhile, to ease the pressure on franchisees from price wars, the company decided to shift the profit-sharing mechanism from the traditional raw material basis to a brand commission model based on GMV, aiming to deeply bind headquarters’ profits with actual store performance and strengthen the franchise system’s business foundation through shared risks.

In the short term, organizational restructuring and store model changes have brought some financial pressure.

In 2025, net revenue from company-owned stores grew by 126.2%, but due to an increase in directly managed stores from 169 to 615, operating costs surged by 130.8% year-on-year, reducing overall profit.

For 2026, Bawang Chaji has provided very restrained strategic guidance.

Management has stated explicitly that they will no longer pursue scale expansion unilaterally, but instead focus on "stable operations" and "same-store growth" as core KPIs, projecting revenue and profit for the full year to remain on par with 2025.

The domestic target for new stores has been reduced to 300, with the prerequisite of prioritizing the health of existing stores.

The overseas market carries more hope: in the fourth quarter of 2025, overseas GMV grew by 84.6% year-on-year, with per-store performance clearly outpacing the domestic market. In 2026, the company plans to add about 200 new overseas stores and enter the Korean market.

For Bawang Chaji, 2026 will be a long period of recovery; its core issue has shifted from "How many stores can be opened" to "How to make each store profitable again."

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