"First Yao Bird" Yan Zhiwu's revenue faces pressure; growth in the high-end tonic track encounters obstacles

Reporter Yan Na @E1@ Sun Jizheng @E2@ Chengdu Report

Recently, “the first bird’s nest stock” Yanziwu’s 2025 financial report was released, drawing market attention to its growth model. According to the financial report, during the full year, Yanziwu achieved revenue of 2B yuan, down 2.41% year over year. Net profit increased 19.3% year over year to 191 million yuan, showing the characteristic of “profit recovery while revenue is under pressure.”

A reporter from China Business Journal reviewed the financial report and noted that Yanziwu’s rise in profit this time was not driven by market expansion or strong product sales, but achieved through internal measures such as cost compression, staff streamlining, and expense controls. In addition, in recent years, as the high-end tonifying supplements market has cooled, Yanziwu has also seen an offline channel contraction and slower growth in core categories. Yanziwu has attempted to break through through brand youthfulness and overseas expansion, but no obvious results have been observed either.

Multiple industry experts pointed out that Yanziwu’s short-term profitability relies on cutting costs and improving efficiency, but it lacks long-term growth momentum. If R&D and other investments are continuously compressed, relying only on financial optimization will not be able to support sustainable development. The reporter contacted Yanziwu regarding questions such as performance, transformation outcomes, and channel pressure; as of the time of publication, the company had not responded.

Profit depends on cost cutting

Yanziwu’s financial report shows that in 2025, revenue fell 2.41% year over year to 1.27B yuan, while profit reached 191 million yuan, up 19.3%, exhibiting the characteristic of “profit recovery while revenue is under pressure.”

Lin Yue, an analyst in the catering industry, believes that the core reason for Yanziwu’s revenue decline and net profit rebound lies in internal cost reduction and efficiency improvement rather than business expansion on the market side. This kind of profit recovery can optimize financial metrics in the short term, but its long-term sustainability is weaker. A company’s core growth drivers should come from opening up new sources. If R&D investment and other efforts are continuously compressed, and growth in core categories remains weak, it may fall into a cycle of declining market share and increasing pressure on cash flow.

Zhang Yi, CEO of iiMedia Consulting, holds the same view: “Profit growth achieved by compressing costs is a financial-style recovery. Without revenue scale support, it will weaken investments in marketing, R&D, and channel building over the long term, further reducing growth momentum. If the company cannot reverse the trend of revenue decline, it may face pressure from shrinking scale and declining competitiveness.”

The reporter reviewed financial reports from prior years and learned that in 2025, Yanziwu ended a long period of revenue growth and for the first time saw year-over-year revenue decline. Yanziwu attributed the reasons to adjustments in macro consumer spending structure, slowing demand for high-end tonifying products, and offline store performance not meeting expectations.

The financial report shows that in 2025, Yanziwu’s cost of sales was 930 million yuan, down 10.36% year over year. The decrease in costs mainly benefited from the new production base coming into operation, digital transformation of production processes, and continuous optimization of raw material procurement and production methods, with improved production efficiency leading to an overall improvement in the cost structure. In the same period, its R&D expenditures were 25.50 million yuan, down 10.63% year over year. The company said the reduction in R&D investment was mainly due to optimization and integration of experimental plans, resulting in a corresponding reduction in direct R&D material inputs. Sales and distribution expenses, which had grown for consecutive years, returned to decline for the first time; full-year spending was 664 million yuan, down 1% year over year.

With the combined effects of multiple cost and expense controls, Yanziwu’s gross margin in 2025 rose to 53.53%, up 4.13 percentage points from the same period last year, providing direct support for profit growth. To further optimize operating costs, after listing, Yanziwu continued to adjust its headcount. By the end of 2025, the company employed 1,635 people, down 234 from the end of 2024, a decline of 12.52%.

In terms of channels, in 2025, Yanziwu achieved offline channel revenue of 730 million yuan, down 9.6% year over year, accounting for 36.49% of total revenue. Of this, offline distributor sales revenue was 422 million yuan, down 13.13% year over year. Direct sales revenue to offline customers was 308 million yuan, down 4.38% year over year, indicating that offline distributor terminals’ momentum for product sales and the trend of reduced intent to repurchase were fairly obvious. The number of offline stores was adjusted in tandem. By the end of 2025, Yanziwu’s total number of offline stores was 732, down 26 from the previous year, reverting to the level of 2023.

Online channels maintained modest growth: in 2025, revenue was 580k yuan, up 2.29% year over year, and its share of total revenue rose to 63.51%. Yanziwu maintained its online sales scale through interest-based e-commerce and KOL content “seed planting,” among other methods. For private-domain operations, relying on its 580k Jin Yanzi Hui members, Yanziwu carried out activities such as golf events, member salons, and operations of the global members’ home to strengthen user stickiness. However, the financial report did not disclose the specific performance contribution of private-domain business.

Transformation results not yet evident

In 2008, endorsement line “Eat bird’s nest, I only choose Yanziwu’s bowl nest” by spokesperson Liu Jialing quickly brought Yanziwu recognition, but this buzz was not sustained. Faced with changes in demand in the high-end tonifying supplements market, Yanziwu set brand youthfulness, expansion into new categories, and overseas layout as important transformation directions. In 2025, it rolled out multiple market initiatives, but based on actual effects, these arrangements have not yet formed effective performance support.

On the youthfulness transformation front, Yanziwu continued to adjust its spokesperson lineup. In 2025, Yanziwu officially announced Zhu Yilong as the global brand ambassador, forming a two-ambassador combination together with Gong Li, aiming to reach younger audiences with a young idol while using Gong Li, an international film star, to strengthen high-end brand mindshare. In the same year, in March, Yanziwu invited Wang Shi to endorse the “President’s Bowl Bird’s Nest,” attempting to tap into the male high-net-worth tonifying supplement market. The product was priced at 3,168 yuan per box (6-bowl pack), with a per-bowl price of 528 yuan, but market acceptance was limited. The official Taobao flagship store showed that the product had only 41 purchasers.

Judging from how the brand has operated in past years, Yanziwu has long relied on spokesperson endorsements to reinforce its high-end positioning. In 2025, its selling and distribution expenses amounted to 664 million yuan, and its selling expense ratio rose from 32.72% in 2024 to 33.19%, increasing for three consecutive years. However, heavy marketing spending has not translated into sustained growth in core product revenue. According to the financial report, in 2025, Yanziwu’s core pure bird’s nest product revenue was 1.77B yuan, down 1.35% year over year. Accounting for 88.5% of total revenue, the slowdown in main-business growth directly affected the overall revenue scale.

In addition, Yanziwu launched the tea-drink brand “Yanyu Xin Tea,” entering younger consumption scenarios with a tea-drink + bird’s nest model; it also launched the standalone brand YANPEP to expand into functional foods such as bird’s nest peptides and collagen drink products, pushing bird’s nest consumption scenarios toward everyday use. But the financial report mentioned that the “bird’s nest +” and related derived products did not meet expectations in market promotion, with revenue down 7% year over year to 216 million yuan. Other product revenue fell 39.53% year over year, reaching only 13.76M yuan. “Yanyu Xin Tea” did not disclose operating data, indicating that its youthfulness transformation is still in the stage of market exploration.

In response, Zhang Yi said that when traditional tonifying brands break through to reach younger audiences, the key is not swapping spokespersons or launching cross-border new products. Instead, it requires a systematic re-creation of product value, brand mindshare, and consumption scenarios—shifting brand positioning from high-end gift items to everyday, functional, and lightweight health consumption products, and truly embedding into young people’s daily life scenarios and core needs in order to achieve effective audience breakthrough.

The overseas market layout is also at an early stage. In 2025, Yanziwu opened offline stores in New York and Singapore, with products entering Costco and other channels, and it conducted advertising placement and brand promotion locally, expanding the market relying on Chinese communities. The financial report shows that during the reporting period, revenue from Hong Kong, China, and overseas markets was only 1.46 million yuan, accounting for less than 0.1% of total revenue, meaning the internationalization layout has not yet formed a growth engine.

Zhang Yi analyzed that bird’s nest “going global” faces multiple challenges: first, cultural recognition barriers. The philosophy behind bird’s nest tonifying is rooted in Chinese culture, and mainstream overseas markets lack a foundation of understanding, making market education costly. Second, regulatory and compliance barriers. Developed countries have strict import inspections and ingredient standards for food and health products, and cross-border supply chains and compliance costs are high. Third, product suitability obstacles. Shelf life, cold-chain requirements, and pricing models for freshly cooked bird’s nest need to be adapted to overseas supermarkets and consumer habits; localization changes are difficult. Fourth, brand and channel barriers. Overseas offline networks are blank, and online customer acquisition costs are high, while strong local health brands also squeeze competition, making it hard to form competitiveness. “Going global is not simply exporting products. It requires a systematic project to complete product compliance, build the supply chain, and re-create the brand through localization,” Zhang Yi emphasized.

Lin Yue also said that overseas food standard systems are complex, and consumers have doubts about the safety and nutritional value of bird’s nest. The market cultivation cycle is long, so in the short term it is difficult to become a growth engine for a company.

Although the overseas layout has not shown results, on its official website Yanziwu still stated: “Next, relying on its overseas market strategy, Yanziwu will build on the recognition foundation for bird’s nest categories within overseas Chinese communities, gradually open offline stores in countries such as the United States and Singapore, and start cross-border e-commerce business between the United States and Southeast Asia.”

At the industry competition level, Yanziwu also faces multi-dimensional competitive pressure. In the traditional bird’s nest category, pharmaceutical companies represented by Tongrentang occupy the high-end gift market with brand endorsement. In the fresh-bird’s-nest segment, Xiaoxiantang uses a C2M subscription model (that is, users choose monthly or annual packages, and the factory freshly stews and delivers weekly) to enhance user stickiness, competing with Yanziwu. In addition, cross-industry companies such as Yili have launched products like bird’s nest porridge by leveraging supply-chain advantages, quickly capturing market share in the mass market, and competition in the industry is becoming increasingly intense.

However, in the view of Zhu Danpeng, an analyst of China’s food industry, as the first listed company in the bird’s nest industry, Yanziwu still has multiple advantages including brand, scale, supply chain, and user base. Faced with changes in the consumer environment, the company proactively cuts costs and focuses on direct sales and private-domain operations. Fundamentally, this is a form of strategic optimization. Looking at the overall Chinese tonifying supplements sector, categories such as bird’s nest, donkey-hide gelatin, and sea cucumbers still maintain growth, and the outlook for industry development remains positive.

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