Dissecting the 2025 annual reports of four leading tea beverage companies: Who's "raging," and who's "facing a crisis"? Where did all the money go?

Ask AI · How can the franchise model become a profit engine for a tea drink giant?

By Le Daily China Journalist: Wang Ziwei Editor: Zhang Yiming

In March, several leading companies in China’s new-style tea beverage sector—Mixue Bingcheng, Guming, Chalice Tea (Cha Baidao), and Nayuki’s Tea—successively released their full-year 2025 annual financial results “answer sheets.” Four hefty reports showed the “ice and fire” reality of the tea drink industry.

Mixue Bingcheng netted nearly RMB 6 billion in a year; Guming’s profit doubled; while Chalice Tea significantly restored profits despite revenue slowing; and Nayuki’s Tea is still struggling to adjust while remaining loss-making, with its store footprint beginning to contract.

Selling the same cup of milk tea, the four companies delivered drastically different answers in 2025. Behind the divergence in revenue, profit, and store data are differences in brand strategy: this year, with a direct-operation gene, Nayuki’s Tea struggled between building a “third space” and adopting open franchising before making its choice; while other tea drink brands that grew in lower-tier markets and rely mainly on franchising, wearing the new-style tea beverage “cloak,” grew into giants of efficient, high-functioning supply chains.

“Ice and fire” in revenue and profit

In 2025, the three powerhouses surging through lower-tier markets and Nayuki’s Tea, which has direct-operation genes, faced an abyss-like gap in revenue and profit.

By Le Daily China, figures

Mixue Bingcheng and Guming’s revenues were RMB 33.56 billion and RMB 12.91 billion respectively, both exceeding the RMB 10 billion scale; their net profits were RMB 5.927 billion and RMB 3.115 billion respectively. Mixue Bingcheng earned nearly RMB 6 billion net in one year, backed by a network of nearly 60,000 stores globally. Guming’s profit grew year over year by an astonishing 108.6%. According to the financial reports, Guming’s growth engine came from the lower-tier markets it has long cultivated: the proportion of its township and village stores has risen to 44%. Also a milk tea brand dominated by franchising—Chalice Tea—achieved net profit of RMB 821 million in 2025, up more than 70% year over year.

In 2025, when Mixue, Guming, and Chalice Tea were raking in money every day, Nayuki’s Tea was going through painful “tribulation.”

In 2025, Nayuki’s Tea’s revenue fell 12.0% year over year to RMB 4.331 billion. Not only did it post a net loss of RMB 243 million, its store footprint also shrank along with revenue. In 2025, the total number of Nayuki’s Tea beverage stores dropped from 1,798 to 1,646. That year, Nayuki’s Tea proactively entered a period of store closures and adjustments, and tightened the franchising policies that it had once placed great hopes on. By the end of 2025, Nayuki’s franchise stores were only 358, a slight increase of just 13 for the full year.

From the financial reports, over the past year, the whole industry showed a common trend: average ticket prices kept hitting new lows, while the number of cups served surged wildly. As disclosed in the reports, Guming’s average cups sold per store per day jumped from 384 cups last year to 456 cups; Nayuki’s average orders per store per day also rose from 270 orders to 313, but its average sales value per order declined from RMB 26.7 to RMB 24.4.

Profit largely comes from franchisees—these three tea drink companies are more like B2B supply chain companies

Judging from the revenue structure of Guming, Chalice Tea, and Mixue Bingcheng, for these tea drink brands with annual revenues from several billions to more than ten billions, the main share of their profitability comes from franchisees. A franchise-dominated tea drink brand is more like a B2B (business-to-business) supply chain company draped in a new-style tea beverage “operating outfit.”

The same revenue model keeps Guming and Chalice Tea’s gross margin nearly at the same level: according to disclosed data, in 2025 Guming’s gross margin was 33.0%, while Chalice Tea’s was 32.5%.

On March 30, Lin Yue, Chief Consultant and analyst for the food service and fast consumption industries at Lingyan Management Consulting, told a reporter from Le Daily China: “For a franchise business, the gross margin is jointly determined by the brand’s profit demands and the franchisee’s survival bottom line. Perhaps this 30%-ish gross margin spread is the subtle balance point between the brand and the franchisee.”

The difference is that revenue from franchisees varies across companies. Mixue Bingcheng and Chalice Tea’s revenue mainstays (97% and 94.9%) both come from selling products and equipment to franchisees; while for Guming, products and equipment account for 79% of revenue, and it also has as much as 20.35%, with over RMB 2.6 billion in revenue coming from franchise management services—emphasizing operational services may be a key reason its profit performance stands out.

Correspondingly, franchise-dominated tea drink brands are, without exception, strong in supply chain and continue to deepen their focus.

The disclosure items strongly correlated with supply chain spending are cost of sales. Mixue Group, Chalice Tea, and Guming’s cost of sales were RMB 23.108 billion, RMB 3.641 billion, and RMB 8.651 billion respectively, accounting for 68.8%, 67.5%, and 67.0% of total revenue.

Mixue Bingcheng has achieved 100% independent production of core beverage ingredients, with five production bases and 28 warehouses. In this financial report, Mixue continues to step up investment in fixed assets: of its capital commitments, about RMB 301 million mainly goes toward building plants and purchasing equipment. Guming has 24 warehouses; 75% of its stores are within a 150-kilometer radius of warehouses, and 98% of stores achieve “delivery every two days.” With this extremely high physical density, Guming compresses delivery-to-store distribution costs to below 1% of GMV (gross merchandise value). Chalice Tea, meanwhile, has set up 26 store-delivery and warehousing distribution centers nationwide, and about 93.7% of stores achieve next-day delivery after placing an order.

By contrast, without scale economies, Nayuki’s Tea has been bleeding more, related to supply chain costs being higher and the increase in delivery orders. The financial report discloses that in 2025 Nayuki’s material costs reached RMB 1.470 billion, accounting for 34.0% of total revenue. With high spoilage driven by high-quality fresh fruit and fresh milk, and with only a little over 1,000 stores, it cannot spread costs the way brands with tens of thousands of stores can.

Moreover, the financial report shows that in 2025, among Nayuki’s direct-operated stores’ revenue, delivery orders accounted for as much as 52.6% (RMB 2.009 billion), while in-store counter orders dropped to just 9.3%. For Nayuki’s Tea—emphasizing “third space” offline experiences—more delivery orders are not good news. This also led it to pay third-party platforms delivery service fees of up to RMB 462 million, accounting for 10.7% of total revenue.

Where did the money of these “cash cows” go?

The new-style tea beverage giants with exceptionally strong profitability have long turned into well-capitalized “cash cows.” In this 2025 results set, all four tea drink brands have a substantial cash balance on their books. Mixue’s cash and cash equivalents, term deposits, restricted cash, and financial assets measured at fair value with changes recognized in profit or loss total RMB 19.99 billion; Guming’s cash and cash equivalents, term deposits, and large-denomination certificates of deposit total over RMB 10 billion; Chalice Tea’s cash and cash equivalents reach RMB 3.071 billion; and Nayuki’s Tea has cash and cash equivalents, term deposits, and large-denomination certificates of deposit totaling over RMB 2.6 billion.

They all have ample cash, but different companies have taken completely different paths.

In addition to deepening its supply chain, Mixue Bingcheng also wants to replicate its supply chain capabilities across other categories. In its 2025 financial report, Mixue Group disclosed a transaction: it bought the fresh beer brand Fulu Family and acquired 1,354 of its stores. Lin Yue told the reporter that Mixue Bingcheng’s acquisition of Fulu Family is an integration of “moving from the left pocket to the right pocket,” aiming to empower each other on the supply chain—for example, sharing production bases, sharing warehousing and cold-chain logistics systems, and expanding purchasing advantages. At the same time, Mixue Bingcheng is also vigorously promoting intelligent liquid-dispensing machines in its stores to free up more labor through automation and improve efficiency. As of now, intelligent liquid-dispensing machines have covered more than 13,000 stores.

Guming, on the other hand, in early 2026 in its home base of Hangzhou spent RMB 455 million to acquire a plot of land, planning to build a new operations headquarters building. Industry insiders believe that after sprinting to tens of thousands of stores, Guming urgently needs a physical space to support its operational core—further centralizing its digital control over franchisees and its supply chain scheduling. Meanwhile, Chalice Tea’s cash is used more to maintain on-book liquidity and to make precise refinements in the supply chain.

In its financial reports, Chalice Tea emphasizes “AI automated inspection and patrol” and an “intelligent replenishment and intelligent preparation system” covering 8,000 stores. Entering 2026, Chalice Tea stores are piloting in certain cities and starting to roll out a coffee category.

Behind the cup of milk tea in consumers’ hands is a race among the giants built on supply-chain and other asset foundations. When the number of domestic stores is approaching the ceiling, how much pressure from further expansion can the massive franchisee system still bear? For these “cash cows” that are currently earning a full bowl of profit, the challenge has not ended.

Le Daily China