September in Wuhan still brings scorching heat, with burning pavement barely showing any pedestrians.
However, walking along Wuyang Avenue, the Winner Medical Wuhan production base located in Yangluo Economic Development Zone of Xinzhou District sees a constant flow of heavy trucks, with workers occasionally shuttling between trucks and factory buildings in the shadows to unload cargo.
On-site staff explained: "These are high-quality natural cotton shipped from distant Xinjiang."
Inside the workshop, preliminarily processed cotton is neatly stored in bales, yet few workers are present. Staff clarified: "Most of our production lines are highly automated, achieving 'lights-out factories' that basically require no personnel stationed beside machines."
On the highly industrialized assembly line, raw cotton undergoes opening and carding into webs, then experiences high-pressure water-jet entanglement processes to form soft yet durable all-cotton spunlace nonwoven fabric. These nonwovens will be processed in a Class 300,000 medical clean environment through a series of precision procedures including infrared defect detection, non-contact cutting, and automated packaging, ultimately becoming household cotton soft wipes.
The base currently operates three production lines with a comprehensive monthly capacity of 1,500-1,600 tons.
Five years ago, Winner Medical listed on the ChiNext board, with one of its IPO fundraising projects being the intelligent storage center of the Wuhan Winner Medical Park. The second-phase intelligent warehouse in Wuhan covers 150,000 square meters and has become a major production hub for mid-to-high-end medical materials.
Reflecting on the five years since listing, Winner Medical Chairman Li Jianquan stated: "The keyword for the past five years has been globalization. The medical business took the lead in globalization, which is tangible and already underway. Currently, Winner Medical operates primarily through OEM in international markets, with proprietary brands accounting for about 10%."
Standing at a new starting point, Li Jianquan further noted: "Over the next five years, the company's medical segment will fully promote 'proprietary brand internationalization,' aiming to increase the proportion of proprietary brands in overseas markets from the current 10% to over 90%, achieving transformation from OEM to brand export."
**Overcoming Growing Pains**
Winner Medical is well-known in the capital markets.
In September 2020, Winner Medical went public as a leading medical and health company, receiving enthusiastic pursuit from investors. At that time, the pandemic led to surging demand for Winner Medical's protective products, and under investors' enthusiastic pursuit, its IPO raised over 2.1 billion yuan in excess funds.
Soon after, as the pandemic ended and demand for related protective products returned to normal levels, Winner Medical experienced several years of performance volatility.
Whether during peak moments or industry downturns, Li Jianquan maintained clear awareness, believing that disaster-driven demand is unsustainable, and only core competitiveness can weather cycles.
Therefore, the company invested more heavily than ever in technology R&D, brand building, and manufacturing. By the end of 2024, Winner Medical's IPO fundraising projects achieved an overall completion rate of 95.2%, forming industrial clusters in Changde, Hunan, and Jiayu, Hubei, constructing a nationwide supply chain network.
Currently, Winner Medical has overcome its growing pains with performance gradually returning to normal. In the first half of 2025, the company's operating revenue and net profit attributable to shareholders reached 5.296 billion yuan and 492 million yuan respectively, growing 31.31% and 28.07% year-over-year.
By segment, in the first half of 2025, the company's medical segment achieved operating revenue of 2.52 billion yuan, up 46.4% year-over-year; the second quarter alone generated 1.26 billion yuan in operating revenue, up 46.5% year-over-year. Excluding external contributions from newly acquired GRI, the medical segment achieved operating revenue of 1.95 billion yuan in the first half, up 13.2% year-over-year, with quarterly revenue growth accelerating.
In the consumer sector, PurCotton achieved operating revenue of 2.75 billion yuan in the first half of 2025, up 20.3% year-over-year, with gross margin and operating profit margin steadily improving. Through breakthrough products like "Nice Princess" sanitary pads and cotton soft wipes, the company entered mainstream markets, with 2025 scale expected to exceed 1 billion yuan and 2 billion yuan respectively.
Previously, some investors questioned whether Winner Medical's two main businesses - medical segment and consumer business - could achieve deep synergy.
However, in Li Jianquan's view, the company's two main businesses are not separate operations but can achieve synergy through the same supply chain and technical standards.
According to him, this synergy first manifests in shared raw materials: "Whether it's medical dressings in operating rooms or cotton soft wipes and sanitary pads in household settings, their core materials all come from the same all-cotton spunlace nonwoven production line. Medical-grade raw materials extending to consumer end provide differentiated advantages in functionality and safety."
Second is manufacturing extension. Li Jianquan pointed out that the company's intelligent, digitized factories not only meet high-quality requirements for medical products but also provide efficiency and cost advantages for large-scale consumer goods production.
"Are there precedents worldwide for companies covering both medical and consumer sectors? Yes, Johnson & Johnson. J&J is a professional serious medical company that also has consumer products. However, we weren't established by learning from J&J; rather, reaching today's position, we find many of J&J's business philosophies worth learning from," Li Jianquan said.
**Future Growth Points**
Notably, despite achieving high-speed performance growth in the first half of this year, the company's profit margin was only around 9%, not reaching the previous 12% level.
Addressing this issue, Winner Medical Director and CFO Fang Xiuyuan responded that profit margins will further improve through operational excellence.
"Profit margin improvement in the medical segment focuses on two aspects: first, product structure adjustment, such as increasing the proportion of high-end dressings while reducing traditional medical dressings like gauze and bandages, while developing cross-border e-commerce. The PurCotton segment focuses on controlling marketing expenses for precise investment while improving store operational efficiency, comprehensively reforming loss-making stores to enhance single-store profit margins; the manufacturing segment improves labor efficiency and quality control through digitization and intelligent manufacturing, with capacity substantially increasing over five years while personnel remaining relatively stable, further reducing costs," Fang Xiuyuan said.
Additionally, the post-investment integration effects of Winner Medical's previous acquisitions are increasingly evident. Fang Xiuyuan indicated that Ping An Medical and Guilin Latex have been fully integrated into the group's channel, product, and operational systems, with profit margins fully recovering since the 2023 trough; although GRI's business was affected by tariffs in the first half, profit margins, sales revenue, and gross margins have all rebounded significantly since the third quarter.
Focusing on Winner Medical's future performance growth points, relevant executives provided clear assessments.
PurCotton's growth points may come from its four strategic categories.
"When mentioning PurCotton, people always think of full categories, but today we're focusing on four strategic categories. First, sanitary pads and cotton soft wipes have exceeded 1 billion yuan scale. Next, intimate apparel and underwear will be a very large segment with broad market space, and we've conducted extensive research on channels and fabric development. We can expect intimate apparel to become the next billion-yuan category, covering men, women, infants, and older children," said Liao Meizhen, Senior Vice President of PurCotton.
Additionally, Liao Meizhen introduced that PurCotton has good growth projections for six major scenarios centered on healthy sleep and healthy home living: "In home, textile, and bathroom scenarios, we maintain product differentiation, making towels softer with each wash without adding softeners. Meanwhile, we're innovating in new sports fields, using all-cotton products to achieve functions that synthetic materials cannot."
For medical consumables, Zhang Yan, Director and Vice President of Marketing for the Medical Segment at Winner Medical, pointed out: "Medical consumables management business will continue deep cultivation of the hospital market over the next five years, focusing on integrating high-quality products and services, such as surgical kit solutions, to assist high-quality development in the medical field."
"Facing volume-based procurement and peer price competition, the company insists on not participating in vicious price wars, instead building advantages through product innovation, quality control, and comprehensive consumables product lines. For example, in the consumer end, the company closely follows healthy consumption trends, launching products from hospitals to home care including cleaning and disinfection, wound care, medical care pads, and medical repair dressings, winning markets through professionalism, product strength, and user trust," Zhang Yan further stated.
**"Next Five Years" Goals**
Winner Medical's "going global" plan has become the most concerning topic for investors.
According to Li Jianquan, his original intention in founding Winner Medical was to change the international image of Chinese products: "At that time, no one respected Chinese manufacturing; medical products were labeled as 'rubbish' internationally. I wondered if we could change international market perceptions of Chinese products through one company."
Therefore, after establishment, Winner Medical's products benchmarked international standards. Before listing, Winner Medical's export revenue accounted for about 20%, with proprietary "Winner" brand development in emerging economic markets like the Middle East and Asia, while Europe, Japan, and the US primarily used OEM sales.
After entering capital markets, Winner Medical's going-global pace significantly accelerated, gradually shifting focus from OEM to "brand going global."
On September 20, 2024, Winner Medical completed the delivery of its first international controlling stake acquisition project, acquiring US medical consumables company GRI for $120 million, rapidly expanding product lines and entering the North American market.
In the first half of 2025, Winner Medical's overseas sales channels achieved operating revenue of 1.43 billion yuan, up 81.3% year-over-year, with products covering over 30 countries and regions including Europe, America, Japan, and South Korea. The medical segment's "going global" has been relatively rapid; Winner's high-end dressing products have become the number one market share products in that category on Amazon's North American market, and Winner brand operating room consumables and high-end dressings have entered local hospitals in Malaysia, Singapore, and Saudi Arabia, with overseas market promotion proceeding intensively.
For the next five years, Li Jianquan stated he will also promote the consumer segment's "going global."
"We want PurCotton to become truly household-known among Chinese consumer families. We're also considering going global, establishing strong brand recognition through deep cultivation of the domestic market, gradually radiating to Southeast Asia and other international markets through natural communication by Chinese people going abroad, ultimately achieving global brand presence. Currently, many Chinese people traveling abroad bring our products; future international store openings will be more effective," Li Jianquan said.
Notably, recently, as Chinese companies' "going global" trend heats up, many A-share leading companies have chosen to assist international layout through overseas platform listings.
Does Winner Medical also have intentions for overseas listing? Li Jianquan gave a relatively cautious answer.
"I think overseas listing isn't currently our focus. Overall, China maintains annual growth with a huge consumer market of 1.4 billion people, so development space remains very large," Li Jianquan pointed out.
Li Jianquan further stated: "Our products and brands need to go global, but must we list overseas? At least currently, this isn't an issue I'm personally considering. If our team wants to discuss it, that's fine, but I personally feel it's not yet time."
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