GIANT BIOGENE, once hailed as the "first recombinant collagen stock," delivered an unexpectedly disappointing performance in 2025 after years of rapid expansion. The leading Chinese recombinant collagen company not only reported its first-ever annual decline in both revenue and net profit but also showed weakness across several key metrics. Based on the latest full-year 2025 results announcement, this analysis examines six core risks and potential issues currently facing the company.
First, Growth Engine Stalls: Structural Crisis Behind First Dual Decline Financial reports indicate that GIANT BIOGENE achieved approximately RMB 5.519 billion in revenue for 2025, a slight decrease of 0.4% year-on-year, while net profit fell about 7.1% to RMB 1.915 billion. This marks the first simultaneous decline in both revenue and net profit since the company's listing on the Hong Kong stock market in 2022, across six years of financial disclosures. The contrast with historical data is stark. Between 2019 and 2024, revenue grew steadily from RMB 957 million to RMB 5.539 billion, with year-on-year growth rates hovering around 50% for three consecutive years from 2022 to 2024. In 2024, the company even achieved high growth of 57.2% in revenue and 42.1% in net profit on a high base. The sudden stagnation in 2025 appears not as a simple cyclical fluctuation but rather a critical turning point following a period of rapid expansion.
Second, Product Structure Imbalance: Over-reliance on Flagship Product and Weak Second Growth Curve GIANT BIOGENE's excessive dependence on its flagship brand "Kefumei" has become its most significant structural risk. In 2025, revenue from the Kefumei brand decreased by 1.6% to RMB 4.470 billion. Although the decline seems modest, since this brand contributes over 80% of the group's revenue, even a slight drop significantly dragged down overall performance. Meanwhile, the "Kelijin" brand, once seen as a promising second growth driver, grew against the trend by 9.2% to RMB 918 million, but its scale remains insufficient to fill the gap left by Kefumei. Additionally, revenue from the medical dressing business fell 4.8% to RMB 1.160 billion, with its contribution to total revenue shrinking from 22% in 2024 to 21%. The company attributed this to efforts to maintain price systems and strengthen channel control, which also reflects the business's lack of growth resilience amid intensifying market competition.
Third, Channel Transition Pains: Online Traffic Peaks and Risks of Influencer Livestreaming Model Exposed Changes in the channel structure highlight the potential risks of GIANT BIOGENE's past over-reliance on the influencer livestreaming model. In 2025, while the direct sales channel's contribution remained stable at 74.9%, its internal composition underwent significant adjustments: online direct sales revenue through DTC stores such as Tmall and Douyin official flagship stores decreased by 5.2% year-on-year. The company acknowledged that this decline was mainly due to increased industry price competition and a drop in influencer livestreaming revenue caused by external shocks. Although enhanced operations in self-operated livestreaming rooms and channel diversification, such as a 34.8% growth in online direct sales on platforms like JD.com, partially offset the pressure, this volatility clearly indicates that sales models dependent on external traffic have weaker risk resistance when traffic costs rise and the landscape of top influencers changes.
Fourth, Profitability Under Pressure: Cost Growth Outpaces Revenue, Gross Margin Continues to Decline While revenue remained almost flat, GIANT BIOGENE's cost of sales increased by 9.4% year-on-year to RMB 1.085 billion, directly leading to a decline in gross margin from 82.1% in 2024 to 80.3%. At the same time, selling and distribution expenses continued to climb to RMB 2.056 billion, accounting for 37% of revenue, an increase of 2.4% year-on-year. This situation of "increasing revenue without increasing profit" or even "no revenue growth but rising costs" severely eroded the company's profit performance. Notably, administrative expenses also rose by 11.9% due to expansion of management personnel and investments in digital upgrades. The comprehensive increase in costs resulted in a 4.4% decline in pre-tax profit and a 7.2% year-on-year drop in net profit attributable to owners.
Fifth, R&D Investment Shrinks: Concerns Over Core Competitiveness Emerge In the increasingly competitive recombinant collagen sector, R&D investment is considered key to a company's moat. However, in 2025, GIANT BIOGENE's R&D expenditure was approximately RMB 88.8 million, accounting for 1.6% of revenue. This not only fell below the RMB 106.5 million (1.92% of revenue) in 2024 but also represented a significant reduction in absolute terms. Although the company has over 140 R&D projects and added 42 new patents, against the backdrop of industry price wars and accelerated technological iteration, the reduction in R&D investment could weaken its long-term technological barriers and impact the pace of launching innovative products in the future.
Conclusion In its 2025 financial report, GIANT BIOGENE described the period as an "extraordinary year." However, judging from the financial data and operational details, this appears to be more than just a short-term slowdown due to external shocks; it is the concentrated manifestation of structural contradictions accumulated during the high-growth phase. Over-reliance on a single brand, insufficient risk resistance in channels, continuous cost erosion of profits, shrinking R&D investment, and a crisis of public trust constitute multiple pressures currently facing the company. Whether GIANT BIOGENE can successfully transition from "high-speed growth" to "high-quality growth" during this deep adjustment period will directly determine its next phase in both the capital and consumer markets.
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