Does Ye Guofu gamble big for a year, is it worth it?

Why does the market remain cautious about MINISO’s transformation?

No one can say Ye Guofu is not vigilant in times of peace.

Author | Jia Yang

Secondary market, unwilling to gamble heavily with Ye Guofu

In the past two years, Ye Guofu has taken two big risks. One was to save “Old Deng” Yonghui Retail, and the other was to give MINISO a “future” ticket.

Honestly, MINISO’s 2025 financial report has preliminarily verified that Ye Guofu’s second gamble on “IP-based transformation” is the right direction. At the beginning of 2025, Ye Guofu announced that MINISO would transform from “a retail company into a cultural company, becoming a leading global IP operation platform.”

First, after years of waiting, its own IP finally emerged—YOYO—after six months online, sales exceeded 10k yuan. Compared to the previously chaotic IP matrix, this is MINISO’s fastest-growing and most promising self-owned IP, and the first to enter the public eye. Many consumers are attracted by its very practical selling point: “it can hold things.”

However, behind this success is the entire group, including TOP TOY and MINISO, pouring resources into blood transfusion. According to 36kr, the phased comprehensive investment in YOYO has already reached tens of millions or more. Making YOYO appear on the Spring Festival Gala is a classic old retail tactic—buy in large quantities and harvest through nationwide outlets.

Secondly, with the aggressive plan of “large stores swapping out old stores for new ones,” initially, operational efficiency did improve. The MINISO group, which showed signs of slowing down in 2024, has resumed growth.

MINISO China’s revenue increased by 25.0% year-on-year, with same-store growth reaching double digits (only high single digits in Q3); the entire year, 26 new stores of the Paradise series were opened domestically, with large stores accounting for about 10% of the store count, contributing roughly 20% of GMV.

Although there are no official data, rough estimates suggest that MINISO LAND large stores can achieve a sales per square meter of 4,000 to 10k yuan per month, 3 to 10 times that of regular small stores.

However, the grand ambition to transform Yonghui has become an unspoken wound. MINISO’s profit in 2025 was 1.21 billion yuan, down 54.1% year-on-year, mainly due to the 814 million yuan loss from investing in Yonghui.

Ye Guofu repeatedly clarified at the earnings conference, “My core business that I care most about is always MINISO; this is our foundation… Rest assured, over 90% of my energy is focused on MINISO.”

I watched a video where Ye Guofu explained why he wants reform. He confidently analyzed that, like Huawei, they must control core assets—at least for now, Ye Guofu says MINISO’s core is IP. Cost performance is the first stage of survival. To reach future profits of hundreds of billions, MINISO must develop IP.

But market feedback on MINISO’s transformation is quite brutal. MINISO’s stock price trend has almost followed the bubble tea brand Pop Mart, which has been in a long decline since September last year. Pop Mart experienced some recovery in the middle, but MINISO’s stock has been falling earlier, with its PE ratio dropping below 20.

Getting more and more like Pop Mart

It’s hard to imagine a 48-year-old male boss who knows Jennie’s commercial value better than fans do.

Ye Guofu is this kind of outsider. According to public reports, the joint collaboration with Jennie launched at the end of March was very likely personally negotiated by Ye Guofu in Korea. MINISO opened a Jennie pop-up store in the top luxury mall Hysan Place in Shanghai, with first-day GMV reaching 2.2 million yuan, a new high since 2025.

And the move to collaborate with Lisa’s team, Ye Guofu openly admitted at the earnings conference, is exactly the strategy Pop Mart used with Lisa to take off globally.

Ye Guofu also emphasized that Jennie has the nickname “Luxury Goods Miss” and has many luxury brand endorsements. The implication is that this is a high-end, trendy IP.

The design of this collaboration has received quite good reviews among fans, with many posting orders worth four figures, and many fans from Malaysia and Vietnam cross-border purchasing. This has, to some extent, achieved MINISO’s goal of breaking into new circles with Jennie.

But the effect shouldn’t be overestimated. The sales effect brought by Lisa ultimately consolidates into the Labubu IP. A major problem with collaborations is that the IP audience often finds it difficult to transfer to other products launched by the channel brand.

Additionally, at the same time as collaborating with MINISO, Jennie also launched collaborations with Zara and Frankies Bikinis. The scarcity has been greatly diluted.

For Ye Guofu, although he advocates for a dual approach of third-party IP + self-owned IP, his ultimate Holy Grail is still self-owned IP. In a previous interview, he said that working with others’ IP is risky—if it catches fire, it brings profit; if missed, it results in inventory. Managing third-party IP is about managing waves. He wants to reach the top of the IP value chain.

But the retail genes of TOP TOY and MINISO, in screening and cultivating IP, are very different from Pop Mart.

Pop Mart’s most traditional approach is to sign artists, then incubate core audiences before seeking breakout opportunities. Just looking at Labubu’s plush transformation that exploded in 2024, it took five or six years from its lukewarm debut. Of course, once Pop Mart’s momentum builds, the speed of incubating stars accelerates.

MINISO’s approach, according to many industry insiders, is more like a horse race. The efficient retail logic has been brought into the IP incubation process. An artist’s IP can be quickly screened based on shelf data, potential stars are rapidly given more resources, and underperformers are eliminated.

It’s hard to say who is right or wrong. But long-term accumulation may be necessary for the long-lasting vitality of IP.

Perhaps for MINISO, which is expanding into IP, the future separation of functions—TOP TOY handling incubation and the main MINISO brand focusing on scaling—could be a way to solve the puzzle?

Is Ye Guofu reliable?

No one can say Ye Guofu is not vigilant in times of peace.

Being proactive in reform before a crisis becomes unstoppable is one of Ye Guofu’s strengths.

In Ye Guofu’s logic, business must adapt to the trends of the times. MINISO was founded in 2013, around the same time as Xiaomi, during the era of cost-effective consumption. By 2019, China’s per capita GDP exceeded $10,000, and people began to seek spiritual fulfillment.

To board the ship of the new era is a challenge faced by all brands that rose during the cost-performance boom.

So in 2020, Ye Guofu launched TOP TOY’s external entrepreneurship. This project gave Ye Guofu clearer insight into deterministic trends, leading him to see 2025 as the “IP Year Zero,” with MINISO’s entire group going all-in.

But the execution method has caused market concern. Large stores with immersive experiences and high customer spend often require huge foot traffic, and their customer profiles are very different from before. The available locations for new stores are thus quite limited. Currently, MINISO plans to open 100 stores in China and 300 worldwide.

Opening 100 large stores and closing/reopening 6,000 small stores (80%) almost amounts to severing MINISO’s original path. Is this really rational? Abandoning the existing stores also means abandoning the supply chain, franchisees, and operational teams. Will the original moat of affordable goods be lost? Is this market going to be handed over?

“Ultimate forms of consumer brands are two types of business—one is experience-oriented, the other is efficiency-oriented. The former demands extreme product content and differentiation; the latter means lower costs and better convenience.” This is He Yu’s methodology for crossing cycles.

MINISO’s leap from one extreme to another involves wear and tear, and the costs are borne not only by the group but also by original suppliers and franchisees.

Another issue is that Pop Mart delivered excellent results, but the secondary market’s faith has shattered. The core reason is the future 20% growth guidance.

People are beginning to worry: is the starry ocean of trendy toys really still so vast and boundless?

MINISO, with its daily necessities shelves, aims to turn IP consumption into a daily habit. Will MINISO’s strategic conviction be affected?