Price increases and cost reductions, Master Kong's profit to grow by over 20% in 2025

How will the second-generation successors activate the entrepreneurial vitality of old brands?

On the occasion of its 30th anniversary, the established food giant Master Kong enters a new phase.

The financial report shows that in 2025, Master Kong achieved revenue 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 the profit attributable to shareholders to reach 4.5 billion yuan, an increase of 20.5% year-on-year.

In the past year, prices of beverage packaging bottles and core raw materials for instant noodles, such as palm oil, entered a downward cycle, providing a buffer for gross profit release.

At the same time, the retail prices of Master Kong’s bottled mainstay products, such as iced tea and pear syrup, were raised from 3 yuan to 3.5 yuan, and the price of 1L products increased from 4 yuan to 5 yuan.

While such price increases have somewhat suppressed sales expansion, leading to a slight decline in overall revenue, they effectively offset operational costs and safeguarded core profits.

From the perspective of business segments, the beverage sector’s revenue decreased slightly by 2.9% year-on-year to 50.123 billion yuan, accounting for 63.4% of the group’s total revenue. Despite a contraction in revenue scale, it contributed higher profit elasticity.

The instant noodle business, on the other hand, performed steadily, achieving gradual upgrades under the trend of “quality-price ratio.”

In 2025, the revenue from the instant noodle sector was 28.421 billion yuan, a slight year-on-year increase, accounting for 35.9% of the group’s total revenue. Benefiting from the dual advantages of raw material prices and selling prices, the gross profit margin for instant noodles rose to 29.7%, and profit attributable to shareholders increased significantly by 10.1% year-on-year, reaching 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-end noodle market, it enhances brand loyalty through aerospace patent technology and IP linkage; in the ultra-high-end market, it has launched the “Special Special” fresh instant noodles and “He Mian,” which possess meal-grade quality, to meet the demand of white-collar workers for health and taste.

As an important indicator of channel confidence, “customer advance payments” experienced some fluctuations in 2025: during the mid-year report of 2025, this figure contracted to 912 million yuan, sparking discussions in the market about the willingness of established distributors to take risks.

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

On the organizational structure level, Master Kong also welcomed a transformative change.

At the beginning of 2026, Master Kong’s founder Wei Yingzhou’s son, Wei Hongcheng, officially succeeded Chen Yingrang as the group’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO).

With Master Kong completing the second-generation succession, the two core positions are held by brothers Wei Hongming and Wei Hongcheng, marking the end of the company’s brief era of professional managers and a return to the family governance model.

This annual report explicitly proposes the entrepreneurial spirit of “Back to Day 1,” aiming to activate the intrinsic motivation of a billion-level enterprise through clarified responsibilities and enhanced organizational efficiency.

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

The board of directors recommends distributing a final dividend and a special final dividend of 0.7984 yuan per share, totaling approximately 4.5 billion yuan, essentially returning the full annual profit to shareholders.