Two announcements from Mixue Bingcheng were released to the capital market on March 24, 2026. One was the 2025 annual report: revenue reached 33.56 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 35.2%; net profit attributable to shareholders was 5.88 billion yuan, up 32.7% year-on-year. The other announcement concerned a management adjustment: founder Zhang Hongfu stepped down as CEO and assumed the role of co-chairman; his successor is the 35-year-old former CFO, Zhang Yuan.
These two announcements, one highlighting performance and the other signaling change, formed a complete footnote to Mixue Bingcheng's first anniversary as a public company. The market's reaction was particularly telling: on the day the annual report was released, MIXUE GROUP's stock price rose by 5.95%, closing at HK$341.8; however, by March 25, its market capitalization had shrunk by nearly HK$100 billion compared to its peak in June 2025. The capital market was simultaneously voting for short-term performance with the price increase, while pricing long-term concerns through the decline in market value.
The leadership change at "Snow King" was never a simple personnel handover. It represents a precise alignment with capital logic and a strategic deployment in the battle to defend its hundred-billion market valuation.
From a financial perspective, Mixue Bingcheng's performance in 2025 could be described as stable. Revenue of 33.56 billion yuan and net profit approaching 6 billion yuan both achieved growth exceeding 30%. By the end of 2025, the total number of global stores was nearing 60,000, including 55,000 stores in mainland China, with a net increase of 13,000 stores in one year. On the supply chain front, core ingredients are 100% self-produced, and a logistics network comprising 28 domestic warehouses and 8 overseas storage systems enables end-to-end operations. Cash and financial assets on the books increased from 11.1 billion yuan to 19.99 billion yuan, a rise of nearly 80%, indicating that the capital benefits from the IPO have not yet been fully realized.
This is a report card that would be the envy of most consumer brands. However, upon closer inspection, underlying concerns are equally clear. The first concern is slowing profit growth and pressure on gross margin. The 32.7% year-on-year net profit growth in 2025 was lower than the 39.8% growth in 2024. More notably, the gross margin for product and equipment sales decreased from 31.2% to 29.9%, which the company attributed to "changes in revenue structure and rising costs for some raw materials." For a company whose core moat is "extreme cost-effectiveness," any fluctuations on the cost side can directly erode its profit foundation.
The second concern is obstacles in overseas expansion. By the end of 2025, the number of overseas stores was 4,467, a decrease of 428 stores compared to the previous year. The company explained in its financial report that this was due to "operational adjustments and optimization" in markets like Indonesia and Vietnam. However, the other side of "adjustments" is that international expansion is not without challenges—differences in consumer habits and difficulties in localizing the supply chain are testing "Snow King's" global capabilities.
The third concern is weak same-store sales growth. Foreign institutions such as UBS, Goldman Sachs, and CLSA have all expressed concerns about Mixue's same-store sales growth, projecting a potential decline of 4%-5% in 2026. As store density approaches saturation, the diversion of traffic from established stores is a scenario franchisees are least willing to see.
This "impressive yet uneasy" report card precisely explains the timing of the leadership change—completing the transition while performance remains strong is far more strategic than making a hasty change amid a crisis.
Zhang Yuan, the new CEO born in 1991, holds a master's degree in finance from Tsinghua University, and his resume is filled with "capital operations": experience at Bank of America Securities, Hillhouse Investment, and investments in the consumer sector, including participation in early due diligence and investment decisions for Mixue. He joined Mixue as CFO in 2023, became Executive Vice President in June 2025, and took over as CEO in March 2026. This promotion path was completed efficiently within three years.
Zhang Hongfu's "step back" is equally significant. He has not left the company but has transitioned to co-chairman, joining his brother Zhang Hongchao in steering strategic, cultural, philanthropic, and innovative areas—the "visionary" domains. New CEO Zhang Yuan succinctly summarized the division of labor during the earnings conference: those who "look up at the stars" and those who "keep their heads down to forge ahead" each have their roles.
The underlying logic of this personnel arrangement has at least three layers. First, it represents an upgrade in corporate governance for a public company. Mixue Bingcheng listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in March 2025, transitioning from a startup with strong family characteristics to a publicly-traded company subject to public scrutiny. The founder's "delegation of authority" is itself a sign of maturity in the corporate governance structure. Zhang Hongfu's resignation as CEO signifies the transfer of daily operational management rights from the founder to a professional manager, which is a basic requirement of the capital market for governance standardization.
Second, it strategically prioritizes capital operation capabilities. Mixue Bingcheng is at a critical juncture for multi-brand expansion and global supply chain layout. Whether it involves building overseas factories, investing in logistics hubs, or acquiring and integrating brands, strong capital operation capabilities are essential. Zhang Yuan's investment banking background is tailor-made for the strategic needs of this stage. A special researcher at a commercial bank pointed out that CEOs with financial backgrounds are more adept at strengthening financial control and evaluating investment returns while scaling up.
Third, it reflects an industry trend of CFOs succeeding as CEOs. This is not an isolated case. In 2023, JD.com's CFO Xu Ran became CEO, improving profits through organizational adjustments and cost compression; in 2024, Hema's former CFO Yan Xiaolei succeeded founder Hou Yi, achieving its first annual profit the following year; in January 2026, the founder of Milkground stepped down, succeeded by a financial executive from the Mengniu system. This series of personnel changes collectively signals a shift: Chinese companies are transitioning from "high-speed growth" to "intensive cultivation." As the marginal returns from scale expansion diminish, refined operations and cost control capabilities become core competencies for navigating cycles.
In the entrepreneurial narrative of Mixue Bingcheng, the "complementarity" of the Zhang brothers has always been a classic script. The elder brother, Zhang Hongchao, is introverted, steady, and focused on technology, advocating for building its own supply chain; the younger brother, Zhang Hongfu, is outgoing, expressive, and skilled in marketing, introducing the "Snow King" IP and driving brand rejuvenation and internationalization. The perfect complement of conservative and激进 approaches established the core driving model of Mixue: "low price + supply chain."
In December 2017, Zhang Hongfu became CEO, after which Mixue's stores surged from a few thousand to nearly 60,000. The company listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in March 2025, with its stock price once breaking through HK$618 and its market capitalization exceeding HK$230 billion. The wealth of the Zhang brothers also rose significantly. The 2026 Hurun Global Rich List showed that each brother's net worth reached 50.5 billion yuan, an increase of 1.24 times from the previous year.
But challenges followed the peak. Since the second half of 2025, Mixue's stock price has fluctuated downward, with its market value evaporating nearly HK$100 billion from its high. Increased store density led to traffic diversion per store, increasing profit pressure on franchisees; 2,527 franchised stores closed in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 57.1%. Food safety issues continued to simmer, with cumulative related complaints on a consumer platform exceeding 11,000.
Zhang Hongfu's resignation is not so much a "retirement after success" as it is a strategic turn "going with the flow." Handing over the burden of daily operations to a successor with a stronger capital vision allows him to focus on long-term strategy, cultural IP, and philanthropic innovation—areas where he excelled during his tenure. The move from CEO to co-chairman is not a dilution of power but a precise reallocation of functions.
If the leadership change is the overt storyline, then an "affiliated acquisition" mentioned in the financial report is the covert one—it touches on the capital market's most sensitive nerve. In 2025, Mixue Bingcheng spent 297 million yuan to acquire a 53% stake in Fresh Beer Fulujia, formally crossing into the fresh draft beer赛道. The strategic logic of this acquisition is easy to understand: complementing the "morning coffee, afternoon tea, evening alcohol" full-scenario layout and creating a second growth curve.
However, the issue lies with the identity of the counterparty. The announcement revealed that the previous actual controller of Fulujia was Zhang Hongfu's wife, Tian Haixia, who directly held 60.05% of the shares. This means it was a typical "brother-related transaction." What made the market more wary was the valuation. Fulujia had just turned a profit in 2024, with a net profit of only 1.07 million yuan. Based on the acquisition price, the price-to-earnings ratio was as high as 523 times, far exceeding the average valuation level of the A/H-share beer sector. Although the transaction followed compliance procedures and Zhang Hongfu recused himself from voting, the high-premium acquisition of assets from a related party inevitably raised investor suspicions of "benefit transfer."
The subsequent integration effectiveness of this acquisition will be the first "pressure test" for new CEO Zhang Yuan. The consumer scenarios and operational logic of the beer赛道 differ significantly from those of the tea beverage赛道, and whether the expected synergies can be achieved remains highly uncertain.
During the earnings conference, Zhang Yuan clearly listed "coordinating the synergistic development of multiple brands including Lucky Cup and Fresh Beer Fulujia" as one of the key directions for 2026. This indicates that Mixue Bingcheng is evolving from a single tea beverage brand into a multi-brand platform encompassing "tea drinks + coffee + fresh beer." The sub-brand "Lucky Cup" now has over 8,200 stores, continuing the main brand's affordable pricing strategy, with a 5-yuan Americano rapidly expanding in lower-tier markets. Shanxi Securities predicts there is potential for an additional 9,000 to 17,000 stores.
"Fresh Beer Fulujia" continues Mixue's habitual tactics: using supply chain capabilities to build breweries, using the franchise model to quickly expand stores, and maintaining a consumer-friendly price of 9.9 yuan. From about 1,200 stores before the acquisition, the number exceeded 2,000 by February 2026, a net increase of over 800 stores in half a year.
Additionally, Mixue is testing new categories like breakfast and cakes, and even launched the "Snow King Paradise" project at its Zhengzhou headquarters, exploring a cultural tourism integration model combining "play + shopping + experience."
However, the challenges of a multi-brand strategy are also evident: could brand identity become blurred with boundary expansion? Will new businesses dilute management bandwidth? Can a replicable profit model be formed in overseas markets? These are mandatory questions facing Zhang Yuan.
Returning to the capital market's feedback on this leadership change—the short-term stock price increase and long-term pressure on market value seem contradictory but are actually unified. The short-term increase is the market's positive interpretation of the signal "CFO succeeds as CEO." When a company enters a phase of refined operations, a CEO with a financial background is often more skilled in cost control, efficiency improvement, and capital allocation. This reflects market expectations for "cost reduction and efficiency enhancement."
The long-term pressure on market value reflects the market's fundamental questioning of Mixue's growth logic. With the store network approaching 60,000, how much penetration space remains in domestic lower-tier markets? When overseas markets are undergoing store adjustments, can the globalization story be realized? As gross margins for the core business decline, can multi-brand expansion support the valuation?
Soochow Securities recently stated in a conference call that Mixue Bingcheng, with its steady expansion and profit model, has significant room for valuation repair. But the prerequisite for valuation repair is proving that it can not only "open stores" but also "make money"—not just for the headquarters, but for franchisees as well.
Zhang Yuan's statement about the division of labor between "looking up at the stars" and "keeping their heads down to forge ahead" during the earnings conference might be the most accurate footnote to this leadership change. Zhang Hongfu's "step back" is a strategic elevation for the founder, focusing energy on the long-term proposition of "looking up at the stars"; Zhang Yuan's "step up" is the entrance of a capital elite, shouldering the operational mission of "keeping their heads down to forge ahead."
But for Mixue Bingcheng, the real test has just begun. As "Snow King" grows from a street-side小店 to a publicly-traded company with a market value of hundreds of billions, expands from a single tea drink to a multi-brand platform, and moves from the Chinese market to global competition, it needs not only the founder's vision but also a modern governance system capable of supporting its massive scale.
The CFO succeeding as CEO is only the first step in building this system. The subsequent questions are: when extreme cost-effectiveness encounters rising costs, when store density approaches saturation, when related-party transactions raise trust concerns—can "Snow King" use solid performance to answer every question mark from the capital market?
The answer lies in every operational decision made in 2026, and in the numbers of the next annual report.
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