MINISO: Larger stores increase revenue, overseas profits grow, is IP retail about to enter a favorable period?

Ask AI · How Can a North American Cluster-Store Rollout Improve Overseas Profit Margins?

At 3:00 PM Beijing time on March 31, Miniso Group (9896.HK) (MNSO.N) released its 2025 Q4 results. Overall, while Miniso’s performance in Q4 from the revenue side was strong and exceeded the upper bound of the guidance previously provided by the company, the biggest issue remains the same as before: “revenue growth without profit growth.” The key points are as follows: $Miniso Group (MNSO.US) $Miniso Group (09896.HK)

1、Revenue exceeded the upper bound of guidance: In 4Q25, Miniso Group achieved total revenue of RMB 6.25 billion, up 32.6% year over year, exceeding the 20%-25% guidance the company provided in the prior quarter. Breaking it down, benefiting from the full implementation of the Miniso big-store strategy and the impact of the November 《Zootopia 2》 collaboration, Q4 domestic same-store revenue returned to double-digit growth. Miniso main brand revenue grew 25.2% year over year and accelerated sequentially. Top Toy, driven by breakout IPs such as Miangmi’er, grew 112% year over year, continuing the strong growth seen in Q3.

Overseas: While business transformation and adjustments in Southeast Asia and Latin America (moving from agency to direct operation / strong control model) led to generally weaker performance, North America delivered 30% year-over-year growth in overseas results through earlier cluster-based deployment and more refined operations.

2、Store openings accelerating sequentially. In terms of store opening cadence, because China closed a large number of low-performance low-tier city stores in the first quarter, leading to negative store growth, starting in the second quarter, Miniso’s pace of opening stores accelerated sequentially, reaching the peak for the year in the fourth quarter, mainly in second-tier, third-tier, and lower-tier markets where the strategy sinks deeper. Overseas added 159 stores, concentrated in high purchasing-power regions such as North America and Europe. The proportion of directly operated stores further increased by 0.9 percentage points to 19.5%.

3、Gross margin slightly declined. On gross margin, HaiDun Jun speculates that on the one hand, during peak shopping seasons like Double 11 and Black Friday, to capture market share the company increased the share of high-value-for-money, low-gross-margin products. On the other hand, to manage seasonal inventory, Miniso also temporarily increased discount intensity. Ultimately, gross margin fell 0.6 percentage points year over year to 46.4%.

4、Expense ratios still rising, and profit release falling short of expectations. On expense deployment, because Miniso is still in the overseas business expansion phase (especially in North America), facing large upfront investments such as opening many stores, hiring personnel, and running brand promotions, both the sales expense ratio and the general and administrative expense ratio increased in Q4. Ultimately, in 4Q25 Miniso achieved adjusted net profit of RMB 850 million, up 7.7% year over year, slightly below expectations.

5、Financial details at a glance:

HaiDun Jun’s overall view:

For Miniso, the market’s focus in Q4 is on two points—whether the trend in domestic same-store growth can be sustained and whether overseas profit margins can recover. We analyze them in order:

First, although Miniso did not disclose the specific details of domestic same-store growth in its financial report, based on survey information, compared with the low single-digit same-store growth in Q3, Q4 delivered high single-digit growth close to double digits, indicating that the big-store strategy Miniso has emphasized over the past year has been fairly successful.

In fact, starting from Q2, Miniso began to accelerate the process of closing smaller stores (low-efficiency stores below 200㎡) and opening bigger stores (the average area of newly opened stores is close to 300㎡). According to the company’s management’s own framing, after store renovation, store efficiency generally improved by around 30%.

HaiDun Jun believes the underlying reasons are essentially that on one hand, the big-store strategy builds immersive experiences through IP-themed areas, extending dwell time and improving conversion rates; on the other hand, it improves one-stop purchasing through category and SKU optimization, increasing attach rates and average transaction values, ultimately driving the recovery of store efficiency and same-store growth. When combined with the company’s 2026 Jan–Feb high single-digit same-store growth at the earnings call, the growth momentum does indeed look fairly good as well.

Now turning to the profitability issue: actually, the core reason behind the continued decline of more than 20% after the Q3 report is that the market worries that after North America and Europe opened a large number of directly operated stores, the mismatch between upfront investment and output will suppress overseas business profit margins.

But after the U.S. team completed a localized leadership change in 2025 (the new CEO comes from U.S. home retailer Five Below), the company made two major important adjustments to its North America business:

a）Cluster-based store openings: Compared with the previous “spray-and-pray” decentralized opening approach, the new CEO focuses on densely opening stores in 24 core states in the U.S. that account for 76% of the population (such as California, Florida, New York, Texas, etc.), abandoning peripheral regions with low population density and low consumer purchasing power, and maximizing scale effects to enable rapid inventory-to-store reallocation from warehouses and reduce logistics costs.

b）Established a North America–dedicated merchandising team: The new CEO also tilted the assortment according to different store formats and store positioning in the U.S. For example, in regions in California and New York with higher concentrations of Chinese and Asian customers, it increased the mix of popular Asian IPs. In the Midwest regions, it instead increased more locally appealing and practical home products, greatly reducing the probability of store merchandise becoming unsold and improving store turnover rates.

Based on survey information, in terms of actual effects, Q4 operating profit margin in North America increased by low single digits (around 6%-7%, versus 3%-4% in the same period last year), and this is the part HaiDun Jun considers positive.

From a valuation perspective, based on the company’s 2026 guidance for high double-digit revenue growth, and on the profit side, HaiDun Jun assumes neutrally that the overseas regions’ profitability—represented by North America—continues to recover in line with the revenue growth pace. Finally, at a 22% growth rate, adjusted net profit for 2026 would be around RMB 3.5 billion, which corresponds to about 9x. Clearly, that looks somewhat undervalued. Considering Miniso’s domestic “core base” and that North America’s company-operated stores are developing in a positive direction, HaiDun Jun believes there is an opportunity for a staged valuation repair. For execution, it suggests trading in the 10x-15x range, corresponding to between RMB 35 billion and RMB 52.5 billion.

Below is a detailed interpretation of the financial report:

I. Revenue exceeded the upper bound of guidance

In 4Q25, Miniso Group achieved total revenue of RMB 6.25 billion, up 32.6% year over year, exceeding the 20%-25% guidance the company provided in Q3.

Breaking it down, benefiting from the full rollout of the Miniso big-store strategy and the impact of the November 《Zootopia 2》 collaboration, Q4 domestic same-store revenue returned to double-digit growth, Miniso main brand revenue reached RMB 2.88 billion, up 25.2% year over year, accelerating sequentially. This shows that the “Chief Growth Officer” team established at the end of last year led by Miniso’s merchandise center has been effective. The team integrated five departments—merchandise, operations, channels, marketing, and digital—making execution and rollout in specific tactics more efficient than the previous organizational structure.

As Miniso’s collectible toy brand, Top Toy recorded revenue of RMB 600 million in Q4, up 112% year over year, reaching a new quarterly revenue high and performing impressively.

HaiDun Jun has said that Top Toy’s prior weakness was overdependence on licensed IP. And for the copyright holders to maximize their interests, they often license the same IP to multiple manufacturers. In addition, the IP remix (IP re-creation) step does not differ much, which ultimately leads to Top Toy’s relatively low profitability.

But this changed in 2025. In the first half of 2025, Top Toy invested RMB 5.1 million to take control of collectible toy company HiTOY (HaiChuang Culture) with a 51% stake, obtaining three major IPs: “Nommi,” “Honey Sweetheart,” and “MayMayi.” It aimed to further strengthen the development of its own IP assets by acquiring and holding external collectible toy companies.

In terms of results, through marketing and operations of its own IP, core owned IP “Nommi Miangmi’er” achieved sales of RMB 70 million in Q4 alone, accounting for nearly 20% of Top Toy’s Q4 revenue. This also drove the share of own IP sales to jump from 10%-12% in Q3 to 18%-22% in Q4.

The breakout of its own IP not only drove high growth in Top Toy’s revenue, but more importantly greatly improved its own profitability (own IP gross margin was more than 20 percentage points higher than licensed IP).

Against the backdrop of slower growth in China, Miniso has bet its “second growth curve” on overseas markets (especially North America), so overseas business growth has long been a point of attention for investors.

Overall, in Q4 Miniso’s overseas revenue was RMB 2.77 billion, up 30% year over year, with some sequential acceleration.

Driven by the concentration of gift consumption during peak holiday seasons such as Black Friday, Christmas, and New Year, combined with improvements in North America’s operating capabilities, and based on survey information, North America’s same-store growth surpassed 20%—this is the core growth engine overseas. But Southeast Asia and Latin America performed generally weaker due to business transformation and adjustments (moving from agency to direct operation / strong control model).

II. Store openings entering the “sprint” phase

In terms of store opening cadence, because China closed a large number of low-efficiency stores in low-tier cities in the first quarter, resulting in negative store growth, starting in the second quarter Miniso’s store opening speed accelerated sequentially, reaching a peak in store openings for the year in the fourth quarter, mainly in second-tier, third-tier, and lower-tier sunk markets.

Overseas added 159 stores; the overseas store share increased by 2 percentage points to 45.7%. Among them, the newly added stores are concentrated in high purchasing-power regions such as North America and Europe, and the proportion of directly operated stores further increased by 0.9 percentage points to 19.5%. In more mature markets such as Southeast Asia and Latin America, Miniso continues to deepen collaboration with local partners, accelerating store network densification and further penetration.

III. Same-store revenue growth rate further improves sequentially

Looking at the core indicator for measuring single-store performance—same-store revenue growth—in Q4 domestic same-store revenue achieved mid-double-digit growth, reaching a new high for the year.

On one hand, this comes from the continued rollout of the company’s big-store strategy. Big stores such as MINISO LAND create immersive consumption experiences through IP-themed scenes, effectively extending customers’ dwell time and improving attach rates and average transaction values. Meanwhile, combined with more precise store management, it further stimulates consumer vitality.

In overseas markets, same-store revenue growth is expected to be around 15%, accelerating sequentially. Compared with the frequently occurring sellout/stockout of best-selling items in the same period last year, this year—thanks to the improvement of the company’s overseas warehousing layout and enhancements in its supply-chain digital management capabilities—the fill rate for best-selling items has increased significantly.

IV. Increased expense spending, and profit release falling short of expectations

On gross margin, HaiDun Jun suggests that on the one hand, during peak shopping seasons such as Double 11 and Black Friday, to capture market share the company increased the share of high value-for-money, low-gross-margin products. On the other hand, to address seasonal inventory situations, Miniso also temporarily increased discount efforts. Ultimately, gross margin fell 0.6 percentage points year over year to 46.4%.

On expense spending: because Miniso is still in the current stage of overseas business expansion (especially in North America), facing large upfront investments such as opening stores (store openings accelerated in Q4), personnel hiring, and brand promotions, the sales expense ratio rose significantly by 5.3% year over year to 26.5%. The management expense ratio was roughly flat. Ultimately, in 4Q25 Miniso achieved adjusted net profit of RMB 850 million, up 7.7% year over year, slightly below expectations.

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Commentary:

Financial report commentary (Nov 21, 2025): 《Miniso: A “money-printing machine” for revenue, a “paper shredder” for spending》

Financial report commentary (Aug 21, 2025): 《Miniso: Big stores come to the rescue, and IP retail “bounced back”》

Financial report commentary (May 23, 2025): 《Miniso: Miniso shares plunging? No IP soul—can’t move the next “Pop Mart”?>

Financial report commentary (Mar 21, 2025): Miniso: Profitability climbs another step up—Is IP retail truly a “money-printing machine”?

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Risk disclosure and statements in this article: HaiDun Research disclaimer and general disclosures