Bull Group has reported its first simultaneous decline in both revenue and profit since going public. According to the financial report, the company achieved revenue of 16.026 billion yuan in 2025, a year-on-year decrease of 4.78%. Net profit attributable to shareholders was 4.071 billion yuan, down 4.72% year-on-year. Net profit after deducting non-recurring gains and losses was 3.625 billion yuan, representing a decline of 3.13%. The lack of strong growth in both its traditional main business and new ventures is considered the primary reason for the performance downturn. The persistent growth challenges facing Bull Group remain unresolved. Regarding the growth difficulties in the company's traditional main business, an internal source at Bull Group stated that the company's operations are inherently relatively stable. The decline in revenue and profit is indeed influenced by broader market demand factors, linked to consumption, real estate, and renovation sectors. Under relatively weak demand conditions, this has indeed presented greater operational challenges and difficulties. In reality, Bull Group has been actively seeking to develop new markets such as new energy in recent years. However, their contribution to overall revenue has remained low, and the growth rate of the new energy business has plummeted, dropping from 104% in 2024 to 5.71% in 2025. Despite the weak performance, Chairman Ruan Liping's compensation saw a slight increase compared to 2024, with a raise of 2%. Furthermore, during the fourth quarter of 2025, Vice Chairman Ruan Xueping (Ruan Liping's brother) executed a significant reduction in his holdings. He sold a total of 36.17 million shares, representing a 2% reduction in his stake in Bull Group, cashing out a substantial 1.456 billion yuan.
Traditional Main Business Faces Dual Challenges Electrical connection products, smart electrical and lighting products, and new energy products constitute Bull Group's three main business segments and serve as a barometer for its performance. Financial data from the 2025 report shows that while the gross profit margins for Bull's electrical connection products and smart electrical and lighting products increased slightly, their revenues decreased by 7.9% and 2.8% year-on-year, respectively. Meanwhile, the new energy products segment saw a significant 14.24% increase in operating costs, leading to a 5.26 percentage point decrease in its gross profit margin.
(Financial data for main business segments from the 2025 annual report) Analysts believe Bull's traditionally strong businesses are confronting dual challenges. On one hand, Bull's electrical connection and smart electrical and lighting businesses are typical post-real-estate-cycle industries. The downturn in China's domestic real estate market has directly suppressed demand for new home decoration and renovation, directly impacting sales of the company's core products such as wall switches, circuit breakers, and LED lighting. Against this backdrop, Bull's smart electrical and lighting business generated annual revenue of 8.098 billion yuan, down 2.8% year-on-year, while the electrical connection business revenue was 7.077 billion yuan, a decrease of 7.9%. On the other hand, the civilian electrical and lighting market has entered a stage of competition within a saturated market, facing a "siege" from both traditional rivals and new entrants. Bull's position as the "socket leader" has been frequently challenged. Previously, Bull and a competitor initiated lawsuits against each other over an advertising slogan, a case that is still under trial. The incident stemmed from several months ago when multiple sales personnel from Zhongshan Jiade Electric Appliance Co., Ltd. posted videos on social platforms, claiming that the long-used promotional slogan by Bull Group—"7 out of 10 Chinese households use Bull"—was misleading. Bull Group subsequently sued Jiade Electric, seeking 4.2 million yuan in compensation. Jiade Electric also filed a separate lawsuit, alleging compliance issues with the advertisement, accusing it of false advertising and unfair competition. When asked about the market share of Bull Group's main products, an internal source at Bull Group stated that the relevant case is currently ongoing. As a company with many years in the industry, Bull bears responsibility for the industry's development and hopes the entire sector can move forward healthily to achieve long-term growth in the future. "We won't comment; it still depends on the rights and wrongs of the matter," the source said, adding that the final outcome of the case will not be swayed by the opinions or statements of any party but will be determined by legal assessment, subject to the court's final judgment.
However, from a financial perspective, Bull has still failed to resolve the issue of revenue growth. Analysts point out that Bull's overseas market revenue has consistently remained small, contributing minimally to total revenue. Furthermore, in 2025, the overseas market achieved a gross profit margin of only 22.31%, nearly half that of the domestic market, which is perplexing. New Business Growth Plummets Precipitously When Bull Group first went public in 2020, some analysts noted that while the company's fundamentals were solid, its biggest issue was growth potential. "If the company cannot find a second growth curve, it will face a growth crisis." In fact, Bull Group has attempted in recent years to build new growth drivers through three major strategies: "smart ecosystem, new energy, and internationalization." However, the new business segments currently remain unable to shoulder significant responsibility and are struggling to reverse the overall downward trend in performance. "Dabbling in energy storage, data center support, chasing every hot topic—currently it contributes very little to increasing revenue," industry insiders believe Bull's new business development is not ideal. Regarding Bull's new business segments, corporate strategy consultant Tang Songtao believes Bull has embarked on three new paths but lacks a main battleground. He analyzed that pursuing three tracks simultaneously—new energy (photovoltaic, storage, charging), AI smart home (MOSGPT), and data center PDU—sounds comprehensive, but allocating resources equally across three paths means progress is slow on all fronts. "Bull's new energy business only generated over 800 million yuan in revenue last year, accounting for 5% of total revenue, and its growth rate has already dropped from 104% last year to 5.71%. Which track is the true main battleground requiring heavy investment?" In fact, in both 2022 and 2023, Bull's new energy business revenue achieved astonishing growth exceeding 100%. In 2023, new energy business revenue was 380 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 148.64%. In 2024, it reached 777 million yuan, growing 104.75% year-on-year. However, 2025 saw a cliff-like drop in the growth rate of the new energy business. Bull's new energy products include new energy charging guns/piles, energy storage products, etc. An internal source at Bull Group admitted that the energy storage business is still in a relatively early stage for Bull, with a very small contribution to revenue. "The focused market is in Europe, serving decentralized household users and some small and medium-sized commercial and industrial entities." When asked whether the energy storage segment involves capacity investment, the source stated that in the initial phase, the energy storage business would be developed through external supply chain integration. In the long term, Bull's core product categories essentially follow the path of self-research and self-manufacturing. As a new entrant in the energy storage business, can Bull carve out a path in an already relatively mature industry? The aforementioned source indicated that currently, leading energy storage enterprises primarily focus on large-scale energy storage, at the source-grid side. For the decentralized C-end demand that Bull is targeting, companies that have successfully emerged are not yet prominent. Everyone is exploring how to conduct business in this area because it is also relatively decentralized in terms of channels, differing from the playbook of B2B enterprises.
Bull Group has long been a typical family business. Chairman and President of Bull Group Co., Ltd., Ruan Liping, born in 1964, holds a bachelor's degree and previously worked as an engineer at the Hangzhou Mechanical Design Institute of the Ministry of Water Resources and Electric Power. Vice Chairman of Bull Group, Ruan Xueping, is Ruan Liping's younger brother, born in 1972, with a junior high school education. Ruan Xueping and his elder brother Ruan Liping are the controlling shareholders and joint actual controllers of Bull Group. The two brothers collectively control over 80% of the company's shares. It is noteworthy that in the fourth quarter of 2025, Ruan Xueping executed a significant reduction in holdings, selling a total of 36.17 million shares, representing a 2% reduction in his stake in Bull Group, and cashed out 1.456 billion yuan. Although the company's performance declined in 2025, the compensation for Bull Group Chairman Ruan Liping increased compared to 2024. In 2025, Ruan Liping received a total pre-tax compensation of 3.0341 million yuan from the company, up from 2.9747 million yuan in 2024. Regarding the future of Bull Group, Tang Songtao believes that although Bull Group's finances remain relatively healthy—for instance, with an ROE of 24.9% and a PE ratio of 18 times, which is at a historical low—now is the best time for transformation, and also the final window of opportunity for transformation.
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