Mingming, with 22,000 stores, is very busy, but still lacks proof of growth beyond simply opening new stores.

鸣鸣 Busy has released its first annual report since its Hong Kong IPO: Store count approaches 22,000, GMV races towards 93.6 billion RMB, announcing the full emergence of a retail giant. In 2025, 鸣鸣 Busy achieved revenue of 66.17 billion RMB, up 68.2% year-on-year; adjusted net profit reached 2.692 billion RMB, with an impressive increase of 194.9%. In terms of scale and volume, it has opened up a lead over its competitor, Wancheng Group. Over the past year, the company opened 7,813 new franchise stores, 1.66 times Wancheng's new stores; total store count is 3,600 more than Wancheng; overall revenue is 1.29 times that of Wancheng. Yet at this high-flying moment, market doubts have become clearer: As simple “linear extrapolation” can no longer be used to predict the future, who will carry on 鸣鸣 Busy’s growth momentum? Should it continue searching for the last gaps in the vast lower-tier markets, or march north to attack higher-tier cities? Should it stick to the vertical snack track, or evolve into a full-category discount supermarket? Before these grand questions settle, 鸣鸣 Busy stands at a crossroads. For it, the ceiling is still far away, but the path to the endgame remains shrouded in uncertainty. --- **Room Remains** From the perspective of industry life cycle, the expansion logic of the value snack track remains unfinished. In 2025, with continued support from capital markets, the "dual oligopoly" still maintains high growth; 鸣鸣 Busy and Wancheng Group’s store growth rates are 52.5% and 29% respectively, supporting a narrative centered on store expansion. Leading companies are accelerating their takeover of long-tail markets, continuously supplanting some traditional convenience store formats. Market concentration is expected to further rise. Goldman Sachs research anticipates that by 2028, 鸣鸣 Busy and Wancheng Group combined will approach a market share of nearly 80%. Despite the massive scale, regional structure remains uneven, and horizontal expansion logic holds. Deng Xin, an analyst at Huatai Securities, notes that 鸣鸣 Busy has completed basic layout in new first-tier and second-tier cities, with average coverage per store of about 68,000 people, generally level with comprehensive supermarkets. Given value snacks are consumed more frequently than at supermarkets, Deng believes there is still room for density increase in second-tier cities. Additionally, stores in fifth-tier cities account for 12.3%, averaging coverage of about 76,000 people, also showing development potential. **Regional dislocation is a key reason for relatively rational industry competition.** Currently, the dual oligopoly is not locked in direct consumption, but rather “each making the pie bigger”: 鸣鸣 Busy is focusing on patching historic gaps in East China and North China, while Wancheng is extending from an East China base into southwest regions. Goldman Sachs tracking data shows that between July and November 2025, Wancheng’s new store layouts in central and southern China remain in low single digits, not yet entering 鸣鸣 Busy’s core heartland at scale. This favorable expansion environment directly feeds back into financial results. In 2025, 鸣鸣 Busy cut the new store subsidy from 120,000 RMB in 2024 to 36,000 RMB, and effectively canceled competitive special subsidies. Combined with persistent Scale Effect, 鸣鸣 Busy’s gross profit margin rose 2.2 percentage points year-on-year to 9.8%, and adjusted net profit margin increased to 4.1%. **“Room remains” does not mean growth and returns will continue linearly.** In the first half of 2025, 鸣鸣 Busy’s annualized per store revenue was 3.61 million RMB, down 3.8% year-on-year; yet at the same time, per store daily orders rose from 385 in 2022 to 458. CFO Wang Yutong candidly stated at the earnings meeting, same-store GMV pressure stems from prior excessive pursuit of store opening speed and competitive subsidies, leading to operational capabilities failing to keep pace with expansion. To address this, the company began an organizational restructuring in the second half of 2024: Decentralizing power to regional subsidiaries for agile frontline response, while headquarters focuses on process and standardized capability output. Wang Yutong noted that entering the second half of 2025, especially Q4, 鸣鸣 Busy’s same-store performance has rebounded. **However, the company maintained restraint in 2026 guidance, emphasizing only “year-on-year improvement” rather than encouraging linear extrapolation.** Structural challenges persist. Consequences of rapid expansion will take time to absorb, and even aside from density issues, future competition will be more complex. A notable change is: Value snack stores are entering the core areas of first-tier cities in earnest, no longer just a business “outside the Fifth Ring”. Locations are mostly in high-footfall business districts or communities, with higher rent costs, imposing greater demands on store operations. Currently, 鸣鸣 Busy remains in the “ten thousand stores, one face” stage, yet to make differentiated matches for community, schools, office buildings and other sub-scenarios. Facing the folded and diverse demands within first-tier cities, precise site selection and refined operation have become essential lessons. --- **Path Undecided** From a long-term perspective, growth of value snack channels will ultimately return to rationality. As the marginal effects of revenue driven by store roll-outs diminish, leading players like 鸣鸣 Busy see their future value shifting from “expansion speed” to “profit depth” and “model iteration”. Underlying logical differences determine single-store operational fault tolerance. According to 鸣鸣 Busy’s disclosed standard model: Single store investment is about 800,000 to 1 million RMB, with a payback period of around 2 years. Compared with high-margin industries like milk tea, store gross margin is only about 19%, franchisee net profit margin is 8%–10%. This margin difference shows: Value snacks never rely on single-product profits, but are an extreme high-turnover game, using circulation efficiency to dilute fixed costs. **Thus, the breakthrough for growth will first occur in operations—upgrading per store square-meter efficiency.** In the last two years, 鸣鸣 Busy actively promoted next-generation store remodels, introducing daily chemical, fresh, low-temperature frozen, and freshly made bakery products, extending from “snack specialty” to “high-frequency discount retail”, broadening its product moat to raise income ceiling. This expansion remains cautious. Although the group requires each store to carry at least 1,800 SKUs, external data show snack categories still constitute 40%–50%. A long-term consumer sector investor told All Weather Technology: In a high-turnover model, consumption frequency trumps everything. Rash full-category expansion not only dilutes the “value snack” consumption anchor, but long-tail inventory easily drags down overall turnover efficiency, undermining the business model’s foundation. Supply chain collaboration methods also remain on the original path. In 2025, 鸣鸣 Busy launched cost-effective “Red Label” and quality-focused “Gold Label” private brands, but does not see them as core leverage for profit extraction. Management explains: Traditional retail develops private label mainly for pricing power and high gross margin, due to high overlap with external products. 鸣鸣 Busy’s products already offer differentiation, so the company prefers to make its stores “presentation windows” for outstanding Chinese food manufacturers, rather than pure OEM factories. **There is another reason for this restraint: Compared to front-end expansion, back-end efficiency optimization is currently a more certain, pressing, and higher-return focus.** By end-2025, despite 鸣鸣 Busy’s 3,000 more stores than Wancheng and revenue about 15 billion RMB higher, both are nearly level in net profit, with Wancheng’s net margin nearly 2 percentage points higher. In the razor-thin profit retail sector, this points to a clear management gap. To tackle this, the company is using digital tools to shift from “experience-driven” to “prediction-driven” management, including self-developed site selection, AI store inspection, and smart ordering systems, aiming to fill gaps in management premium. On the supply chain side, Yan Zhou stated at the earnings meeting that the company will systematically advance hot food and cold chain capabilities: Hot food covers instant consumables like grilled sausage and egg tart; cold chain covers cold storage and freezing, focusing on “less additives, short shelf life, health trends”. Short shelf life foods demand higher warehousing and turnover speed. Algorithmic prediction errors or logistics delays can cause inventory impairment or food safety risks. Currently, 鸣鸣 Busy owns 56 warehouses, more than half operated by third parties. Its Hong Kong IPO prospectus shows plans to use some fundraising to build smart warehouses and cold storage, and perfect the cold chain delivery system. **At the same time, 鸣鸣 Busy seems quietly to be exploring “new species”.** **Rumors in the market say the “You·Tuijian” store launched earlier this year in Wuhan is its trial in the fresh snack sector, but this has not been officially confirmed.** Huatai Securities research says the project plans to use a “direct sales first, joint venture supplement” model, deploying about 800 stores nationwide. In 2026, the core goal will be “scaling up”, focusing on key high-tier city business districts and expanding service radius via instant retail. The report further notes, on supply chain, the company has built a “central factory + cold chain logistics + store-made” full chain model. Wuhan plans a central factory of 10,000 m², with 5,000 m² already commissioned; key categories controlled in-house, other categories follow Sam’s Club production line standards. Store format expansion, efficiency optimization and supply chain deepening interleave to jointly expand 鸣鸣 Busy’s per-store model potential. For the company, the real key is not how many paths are available, but when it can distill out a replicable, scalable, certain model, thus opening new possibilities for growth before scaling speed slows. --- **Risk Disclosure and Disclaimer** The market has risks; investment requires caution. This article does not constitute personal investment advice and has not considered individual users’ specific investment objectives, financial conditions, or needs. Users should evaluate whether any opinions, views or conclusions in this article are suitable for their particular situation. Investment based on this information is at your own risk.