Live Performance Conference: Opened 22k snack shops, Mingming is very busy and no longer wants to collect franchise fees

Ask AI · Mingming is busy giving up franchise fees, how to deepen the profit linkage with franchisees?

Many investors have worried that the density of convenience snack stores will soon reach a ceiling. China’s largest leisure snack chain Mingming is busy, and its first annual report after going public provides an alternative answer.

By 2025, the company’s revenue reached 66.17 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 68.2%; gross profit was 6.51 billion yuan, up 116.9%; annual profit was 2.329 billion yuan, up 180.9%. As of the end of 2025, the total number of stores reached 21,948, including 21,927 franchise stores, with GMV of 93.569 billion yuan, covering 30 provinces and all city levels.

On April 1st, Mingming is busy held its first post-listing performance communication in Hong Kong. The company’s chairman and CEO Yan Zhou, CFO Wang Yutong, and other management faced investors directly, elaborating on future development strategies.

If you only look at the numbers, Mingming is busy seems like a channel company still expanding rapidly. But from the management’s statements at the performance meeting, the company prefers the capital market to understand it as a food retail platform driven by supply chain, product selection, and franchise systems, rather than a chain brand that profits mainly from franchise fees.

The annual report shows that the company’s revenue still mainly comes from selling goods and franchise service fees to franchisees; however, CFO Wang Yutong added at the performance meeting that by 2025, franchise fees have basically ceased to be charged, and may not continue in the future. Most of the income now comes from supply payments, with a small portion from delivery fees.

In other words, this company wants to prove that its profit distribution mechanism is shifting from collecting entry fees to growing the total transaction volume together with franchisees.

This model’s premise is that stores can still continue to open and do so sustainably. Mingming is busy attributes its expansion capability in the annual report to the synergy effects after deep integration of dual brands. The snack chain “Snacks are busy” and Zhao Yiming Snacks have completed integration in management systems, processes, and organizational structure, leading to improved supply chain efficiency and cost competitiveness.

In 2025, the company opened 7,813 new franchise stores, closed 265 stores throughout the year, and the total number of franchisees at year-end reached 10,327. About 60% of stores are located in counties and towns, covering 1,401 counties, with a county coverage rate of about 75%. This indicates that its growth still mainly comes from the breadth of China’s sinking markets, rather than depth in a single city.

Good store operation is the key to opening more stores

Management is actively correcting the inertia of pursuing land expansion in recent years. CFO Wang Yutong admitted at the performance meeting that in the first half of 2025, same-store GMV was under pressure, partly because the company had focused on rapid store opening for many years, combined with subsidies and price competition in 2024, which caused operational actions to lag behind expansion.

The company realized this problem in the second half of 2024, and in 2025, it adjusted its organization, delegating more authority to a dozen branch offices, enabling frontline teams to handle franchisee and store issues more quickly. Meanwhile, headquarters provided systematic, process-driven, and standardized capabilities. Especially in the second half, and particularly in Q4, same-store GMV has already recovered.

Management’s outlook for 2026 is also cautious, only saying that the whole year will definitely improve compared to last year, but not encouraging linear extrapolation.

This is the most noteworthy part of Mingming is busy’s current story. The real challenge is no longer whether they can open a few thousand more stores, but whether they can achieve operational efficiency across a 10,000-store network. Management repeatedly emphasizes a simple principle: good stores lead to more stores.

The company’s approach is straightforward: fill the shelves, organize the products properly, and ensure the right products are available, so franchisees can stock what they want to sell; avoid stockouts in warehouses; and match store hours better with holiday demand. During the Spring Festival, sales improved, and management only partly attributed this to their actions, with the rest credited to a warm winter and longer holidays. This explanation is more credible than simply emphasizing high growth.

Product strategy: not blindly trusting own brands

On product strategy, Mingming is busy trying to define its boundary from traditional retail.

Stores generally require at least 1,800 SKUs. By the end of 2025, the product selection team had 281 members, carefully curating and customizing products based on consumer purchasing patterns. At the performance meeting, Chairman and CEO Yan Zhou further explained that the company is not in a hurry to make its own brands the core strategy, because about 80% of the products in stores differ from traditional retail channels, and the company doesn’t need to rely on own brands for differentiated pricing.

Instead, they value the rich shopping experience and the emotional value it brings. For new categories, the company explicitly abandons standard product tracks like daily chemicals, believing those businesses are too competitive and difficult to generate sufficient profit for franchisees.

More notably, the logic behind choosing new categories. Yan Zhou mentioned at the performance meeting that future efforts will focus on systematizing hot foods and cold chain products. The former includes hot items like sausages and egg tarts, while the latter involves refrigerated and frozen products, emphasizing less additive, short shelf-life, and healthier foods.

Mingming is busy does not want to become a large, all-encompassing retailer; it is more like expanding a high-turnover, high-frequency platform centered around snacks and food.

Opening a store with 800,000 to 1 million yuan

Franchise policies and franchisee benefits remain fundamental to the company’s continued expansion.

The company defines its franchise model as a long-term mutually beneficial support platform for franchisees. At the performance meeting, management provided more tangible figures: opening a store typically costs 800,000 to 1 million yuan, with a cash flow breakeven period of about two years. The average gross margin per store is around 19%, with an average customer spend of about 30 yuan, and daily foot traffic of 400 to 500 people per store.

Management also said that in 2025, store profitability should be at its best historically, with about 60% of new stores coming from existing franchisees. They also insist on a 500-meter protection distance, not easily compressing franchisees’ operating space for the sake of density. For a franchise-based company, these statements are more critical than high growth because they determine whether the store network can continue to expand on the basis of franchisee profitability.

Supporting this model is a more and more robust backend.

By the end of 2025, Mingming is busy had established cooperation with over 2,500 suppliers, operated 56 warehouses totaling about 1.232 million square meters, with stores generally within 300 km of the nearest warehouse, enabling 24-hour delivery. The digital team has grown to 432 members, with systems covering store operations, supply chain, and inventory control.

At the performance meeting, management added more specifics, including self-developed site selection systems, full-process visualization of franchise stores, AI store patrols, AI cashiering, and gradually transforming experience-driven ordering into forecast-driven ordering. This indicates that Mingming is busy aims to gain not just store opening dividends but operational dividends.

As of the end of 2025, Mingming is busy held 3.737 billion yuan in cash and cash equivalents, significantly increased from the previous year, and the board does not recommend paying a final dividend. This decision is understandable; for a company still penetrating nationwide, cash is better invested in warehousing, digitalization, and franchise services rather than early shareholder returns.

Management also clearly stated at the performance meeting that overseas expansion is not a current strategic focus. The Chinese market is large enough, and the company is still in the stage of benefiting from growth dividends while preparing to explore operational dividends.

In this sense, the most important signal from Mingming is busy’s 2025 annual report is not how many new stores it opened, but that the company is actively shifting the capital market’s focus from store count to store quality, franchisee returns, product selection efficiency, and digital capabilities.

In the first half of the convenience snack industry, the revolution was channel-driven. Now, Mingming is busy must answer the question of the second half: when the nationwide network is in place, can this business grow from a 10,000-store company into a truly high-efficiency food retail platform?