Price increases and cost reductions boost Master Kong’s profits by over 20% in 2025

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On the occasion of its thirtieth anniversary as a listed company, the veteran food giant Master Kong has entered a new stage.

According to the financial report, in 2025 Master Kong achieved revenues of 79.068 billion yuan, a slight year-on-year decrease of 2.0%; the gross profit margin increased by 1.7 percentage points, driving shareholder attributable profit to reach 4.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 20.5%.

Over the past year, the prices of beverage packaging bottles and core instant noodle ingredients such as palm oil have entered a downward cycle, providing buffer space for gross profit release.

Meanwhile, the retail price for major bottled products such as Master Kong iced black tea and iced pear drink increased from 3 yuan to 3.5 yuan, and the price of 1L products rose from 4 yuan to 5 yuan.

Although such price increases have to some extent curbed sales expansion and caused a slight decline in overall revenues, they have effectively offset operating costs and preserved core profits.

By business segment, beverage business revenue decreased slightly by 2.9% year-on-year to 50.123 billion yuan, accounting for 63.4% of the group’s total revenue. Although the revenue scale shrank, it contributed greater profit elasticity.

The instant noodle business performed steadily, achieving steady upgrades under the “quality-price ratio” trend.

In 2025, the instant noodle business earned 28.421 billion yuan, a slight year-on-year increase, accounting for 35.9% of the group’s total revenue. Benefiting from the dual advantage of lower raw material costs and higher selling prices, the gross profit margin for instant noodles rose to 29.7%, and shareholder attributable profit surged 10.1% year-on-year to 2.252 billion yuan.

Master Kong adheres to the strategy of “consolidating major products and cultivating innovative products” in the instant noodle field.

In the high-priced noodle market, it strengthens brand loyalty through aerospace patent technology and IP linkage; in the ultra-premium market, it pioneered the “Special Te” premium fresh instant noodles and “He Mian” with meal-level quality to cater to the white-collar group’s demand for health and taste.

As an important indicator of channel confidence, “customer prepayments” experienced some fluctuations in 2025: at the interim report in 2025, this figure shrank to 912 million yuan, triggering market discussion on established distributors’ willingness to place advance orders.

However, the annual report shows that as of December 31, 2025, the group’s customer prepayments had rebounded to 2.16 billion yuan, up from 1.975 billion yuan at the end of 2024.

At the organizational level, Master Kong has also ushered in a transformative change.

In early 2026, Wei Hongcheng, son of Master Kong founder Wei Yingzhou, officially took over from Chen Yingrang as Group Chief Executive Officer (CEO).

With the completion of second-generation succession at Master Kong, two core positions are now held by brothers Wei Hongming and Wei Hongcheng. The brief era of professional managers at the company has ended, and the family governance model has resumed.

This annual report clearly puts forward the entrepreneurial spirit of “Back to Day 1,” aiming to activate the endogenous momentum of a hundred-billion-level enterprise by clarifying divisions of responsibility and improving organizational efficiency.

As of the end of 2025, the group’s bank deposits and cash (including long-term time deposits) reached 19.486 billion yuan, an increase of 3.484 billion yuan over the end of the previous year; the company is in a net cash position.

The board of directors recommends a final dividend and special final dividend totaling 79.84 RMB cents per share, with a total amount of about 4.5 billion yuan, essentially returning the full amount of annual profits to shareholders.

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