A Perspective on MINISO's 2025 Financial Report: Original IP Enters the "Harvest Period," Core Operational Resilience Becomes Evident

Ask AI · How does YOYO, an original IP, quickly become a blockbuster with over 70B in sales?

On March 31, 2026, Beijing time, Miniso Group announced its 2025 financial results, outlining a growth picture of “simultaneous increase in scale and quality.”

Against the backdrop of uneven consumer recovery and fierce offline competition, the core highlight of this financial report is not only impressive revenue and profit figures but also the strategic ecosystem centered on original IP, with large-store scenarios as carriers and globalization as wings, entering a value realization phase, providing a replicable transformation model for more companies to break through growth bottlenecks.

From the fundamentals of performance, the group’s total annual revenue reached 21.44 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 26.2%, showing an accelerating trend quarter by quarter—the fourth quarter revenue was 6.25 billion yuan, with a year-on-year growth rate rising to 32.7%, surpassing the 6 billion milestone. Profitability remains resilient, with gross profit of 9.65 billion yuan, up 26.3% year-on-year, gross margin stable at 45.0%; adjusted net profit of 2.90 billion yuan, up 6.5% year-on-year, maintaining core business profitability in a complex environment. The performance of segmented brands is equally impressive: core brand MINISO revenue of 19.52 billion yuan, up 22.0% year-on-year; trendy toy brand TOP TOY revenue of 1.92 billion yuan, a significant increase of 94.8%, highlighting the synergy of a diversified matrix.

A close look at the data reveals that Miniso’s growth has moved beyond the traditional retail “land grab” dependency, forming a three-dimensional growth model of “IP ecosystem + scenario empowerment + globalization,” marking a transition from “retail company” to “cultural and creative group.”

From “Incubation” to “Explosion,” the IP ecosystem barrier continues to strengthen

In the era of interest-based consumption dominated by IP consumption, Miniso has long broken out of the shallow logic of “IP collaborations for traffic,” building a complete ecosystem driven by “international IP + proprietary IP,” and 2025 is also the harvest period for its own IP.

This shift is no coincidence. Previously, Miniso accumulated full-chain operational experience—from product development and supply chain coordination to scenario implementation—through deep cooperation with over 180 top global IPs such as Disney and Sanrio, laying a solid foundation for proprietary IP incubation. In recent years, the company has systematically built an IP incubation system through initiatives like the “IP Genius Youth Program,” recruiting creative talents worldwide with annual salaries ranging from hundreds of thousands to millions, signing 18 trendy toy artist IPs, and establishing dedicated IP business teams, forming a closed-loop capability covering creative R&D, product implementation, and full-domain operations.

Today, this investment has yielded rich returns. The proprietary IP “YOYO,” launched in June 2025, achieved global sales exceeding 8B yuan within half a year, becoming the fastest IP product in the domestic market to reach this milestone; in the first quarter of 2026, sales hit 165 million yuan, with an average monthly sales of 50 million yuan. Based on this trend, domestic sales are expected to surpass 600 million yuan for the year, and combined with overseas markets, it will enter the “1 billion club.”

More strategically valuable, Miniso has found a long-term growth path for its proprietary IP: not only reserving 30-40 IPs across the full pipeline to avoid reliance on single hits but also planning to promote collaborations between YOYO and international IPs, making it the fastest proprietary IP to achieve cross-IP cooperation, continuously extending IP lifecycle value. This “incubation–explosion–deposition–iteration” IP operation capability allows Miniso to upgrade from “IP user” to “IP creator,” building core barriers in IP management.

Stores shift from “selling products” to “selling experiences,” with large-store flywheel effects

If IP is the core attraction for consumers, then the large-store strategy represented by MINISO LAND is the key carrier to activate IP value and accumulate user assets. Miniso’s “opening good stores and big stores” is not simply about expanding store count but about reconstructing scenarios to achieve a fundamental leap from “selling products” to “selling experiences,” and from “traffic business” to “fan business.”

Financial data shows that by the end of 2025, the group had 8,485 stores worldwide, with 26 park-style stores in China. Overseas flagship stores have opened in markets like Australia and Malaysia, with 1,700-square-meter immersive spaces becoming local trend landmarks. The core value of these large stores lies in creating a business closed loop of “IP licensing–product development–scenario experience–user retention”: among 8,000–10,000 SKUs in-store, nearly 90% contain IP elements. Through three-layer immersive space design, consumer dwell time has increased from 15 minutes to over 45 minutes, with store visit rates 1.5 times higher than regular small shops. The flagship MINISO LAND store at Guangzhou Zhenjia Square opened with nearly 10,000 visitors queuing on the first day, generating 450k yuan in sales; the Nanning store boosted mall traffic by over 80% year-on-year, confirming the commercial value of scenario empowerment.

The deeper logic is that the large-store strategy has formed a self-reinforcing growth flywheel: first, high traffic density in large stores makes them the preferred channels for top IP licensing partners, prompting licensors to concede on cooperation terms and reduce costs; second, top international IPs attract traffic to stores, allowing consumers to naturally encounter proprietary IP during experience, thus accumulating users; third, high repurchase and high gross margin characteristics of proprietary IP fans feed back into store profitability, supporting the opening of more large stores. Operating this flywheel requires mastery of three core capabilities: large-store operation, IP negotiation, and original development. Miniso has accumulated these over more than ten years, as Ye Guofu said: “That’s why I am so confident in the long-term prospects of the large-store strategy. We’re not just opening big stores; we’re building a strategic ecosystem that others find difficult to enter and even harder to catch up with once inside.”

It’s worth noting that the large-store strategy has also driven a qualitative change in growth mode. Although the number of new stores in 2025 decreased compared to the previous year, performance growth was mainly driven by same-store sales, with domestic same-store growth reaching double digits in the fourth quarter, and daily sales per store exceeding the peak of consumer recovery in 2023, indicating a shift from “scale-driven” to “efficiency-driven” growth with significant structural improvement.

Overseas from “supplement” to “engine,” unlocking long-term growth potential

While consolidating its domestic foundation, Miniso’s globalization layout is upgrading from “incremental supplement” to “core engine,” becoming a key strategy to hedge against risks in single markets and amplify IP value. In 2025, MINISO’s overseas revenue reached 8.63 billion yuan, up 29.3% year-on-year, accounting for 44.2% of total brand revenue. Overseas stores increased by 465 to 3,583, with direct-operated stores rising to 700, and operational quality continuously improving.

North America’s breakthrough was particularly notable, with annual revenue up 57%, fourth-quarter same-store growth exceeding 20%, and membership sales surpassing 50% for the first time. The Plaza store model was successfully tested, boosting both average transaction value and cross-selling, marking a move into high-quality growth. More importantly, Miniso has developed a replicable overseas expansion model: combining China’s IP operation experience with the refined operational capabilities of the U.S., planning to export successful experiences to Southeast Asia in 2026, through comprehensive upgrades in channels, inventory, and organization to explore new growth space.

Additionally, as MINISO LAND expands globally, Miniso is becoming the main channel for Chinese IP to go global. Its partnership with CCTV’s Spring Festival Gala in 2026 as a trendy toy collaborator further demonstrates the brand’s ability to break through circles and influence. This “domestic incubation–global output” model continues to amplify IP value in the globalization process, further opening up growth potential.

In 2025, Miniso proved the success of its transformation with performance: from 2023 to 2025, the group’s revenue grew at a compound annual rate of 24%, exceeding the five-year commitment of “not less than 20%,” and adjusted net profit steadily increased. Cash flow remained healthy, returning 1.91 billion yuan to shareholders throughout the year, demonstrating strong operational confidence. Short-term profit fluctuations did not affect core fundamentals; instead, non-recurring gains like MiniMax investment income further optimized the financial structure.

Standing at this new point in time, Miniso’s strategic vision is clearer than ever: to become a leading global IP operation platform. Its core competitiveness is no longer just supply chain efficiency or cost performance but an ecosystem of “IP incubation + scenario operation + globalization.” As proprietary IP continues to explode, large-store models are globally replicated, and overseas markets deepen penetration, this retail company that started with “affordable good products” is building a cross-cycle, hard-to-copy business ecosystem.

This article is for reference only and does not constitute any investment advice.