The year 2025 presented a stark contrast in China's consumer market, a tale of two extremes. Looking back at the end of 2025, the market has never appeared more surreal and fragmented.
If one only looks at side A, it seems like the "best of times." The gong at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange rang incessantly, with new tea beverage giants rushing to the secondary market. Restaurant veterans like Green Tea Restaurant and Meet Noodles finally reached their IPO moment. The stock charts of POP MART, Mixue Bingcheng, and Lao Pu Huang Jin drew an upward curve that would make tech stocks envious. They proved that even within the grand narrative of so-called "consumption downgrading," some could still capture the last coin in the market through extreme efficiency or irreplaceable emotional value.
However, flipping to side B, 2025 was a year of brutal "violent clearance." We witnessed the dramatic collapse of "unicorns" once placed on a pedestal by capital. They were once darlings in the eyes of VCs, traffic kings on Xiaohongshu and Douyin, and synonyms for consumption upgrades. But when the tide went out, the fate of those swimming naked was no longer embarrassment, but death. From the final liquidation of the "ice cream assassin" Zhong Xue Gao, to the complete exit of the "first baking stock" Christine, to countless once-billion-yuan-funded viral restaurant brands closing stores, defaulting on wages, and declaring bankruptcy in the cold wind of 2025.
This is not just the demise of a few companies, but the collective disillusionment of a business model. The year 2025 marks the complete farewell of China's consumer market to the reckless era of "trading losses for scale and telling stories with valuations." The survivors are no longer the loudest, but those with the strongest ability to generate their own cash flow.
The "shock" scene of the 2025 consumer market is startling not because of the quantity of failures, but because of the intense sense of contrast. Those falling were not unknowns, but names that once commanded the market, enjoyed top-tier capital backing, and even represented the future of "China's new consumption." If 2018 was the first year of new consumption, then 2025 is its "tombstone." This year, the last vestiges of fantasy surrounding "high price, viral fame, and traffic" were completely shattered, with the most typical footnote being the formal conclusion of Zhong Xue Gao.
Who would have thought that the brand which once defined the middle-class summer with a 66-yuan "Ecuadorian Pink Diamond" ice cream would end so disgracefully in 2025. It took seven years to complete a circle: it began with traffic and ended with liquidation. Its fall signifies the complete failure of the "heavy marketing, light assets, high premium" strategy in 2025—when consumers return to rationality, "high-end" without a product moat is just a soap bubble that bursts at a touch.
A similar fate befell Tiger Head Bureau. As one of the twin stars of "New Chinese-style baking," it once created the myth of a single store valuation exceeding 100 million yuan, with long queues once being a traffic indicator for shopping malls. But in 2025, Tiger Head Bureau completely disappeared from the commercial map. The convening of creditors' meetings declared any hope of brand revival dead; those once day-and-night operating ovens now appear on Xianyu and judicial auction websites, becoming bargain equipment for other small bakeries.
If the death of new favorites was due to aggressiveness, then the fall of old giants was due to arrogance and obsolescence. In 2025, we witnessed the collapse of several behemoths, a shock far more profound than the closure of trendy shops. As the former "first baking stock," Christine was officially delisted and liquidated in 2025. The red and white signs that carried thirty years of memories on Shanghai streets were dismantled, leaving hundreds of thousands of consumers with stored-value cards with nowhere to turn. Christine clung to a decades-old central factory model, helpless against the impact of new tea beverages and fresh-baked goods, ultimately leaving the stage in the most undignified manner.
Meanwhile, Hui Lau Shan, representing the golden age of Hong Kong-style desserts, also virtually disappeared from the mainland market in 2025. Following large-scale liquidations in Hong Kong, the last few franchised stores in mainland China quietly closed this year. As young people's afternoon tea is completely occupied by milk tea and coffee, this once-popular bowl of mango sago pudding ultimately became a relic of its era. The nightmare for traditional supermarkets continued in 2025. The old retail giant Bubugao, although undergoing bankruptcy restructuring and barely maintaining its listing status, saw its business landscape fragmented, with many stores changing hands and its former glory as a regional retail king fading.
The chill winds of 2025 also blew towards seemingly glamorous high-end service industries, even triggering a crisis of trust in "prepaid systems." The nearly 40-year-old fitness giant Physical closed all its stores in a complete collapse, with news breaking late at night, instantly freezing billions in prepaid fees from hundreds of thousands of members. This was not just the death of one company, but a devastating blow to the credit system of the entire fitness industry. Following closely, other large chains like威尔士 frequently faced wage default rumors. In the yoga sector, the aftershocks of the formerly long-termism-promoting梵音瑜伽 had not settled when, in 2025, several high-end lifestyle Pilates studios and yoga chains (like Pure's regional contraction) became mired in broken capital chains. The middle class suddenly discovered that the "self-discipline" and "lifestyle" they paid heavily for were worthless in the face of商家跑路.
Furthermore, some once-hot niche sectors experienced a "spiral of silence" in 2025. "New Chinese-style noodle shops" like Chen Xiang Gui, Ma Ji Yong, and Zhang La La, which were fiercely contested by capital in 2021, did not completely vanish in 2025 but underwent massive store closures and valuation resets. The crazy era when a bowl of noodles was valued at 100 million yuan became a joke in 2025.
Reviewing this 2025 "list of the dead," we see not accidental operational errors, but the collective failure of old business logics. Whether it was Zhong Xue Gao's traffic rules, Gome's channel dominance, or Physical's funding pool games, all were mercilessly discarded by the market at this 2025 watershed.
However, the business world follows the conservation of energy. As these behemoths fell, releasing vast market space, another force was growing rampantly upon the ruins.
The feast of the survivors stands in stark contrast to the grim "list of the dead" in the first part. As the dinosaurs of the old era fell, species adapted to the new climate aggressively seized ecological niches.
Let's first quickly scan this "2025 Survivors List": In the new tea beverage赛道, an unprecedented "queue to ring the bell" occurred. Following Mixue Bingcheng's stellar performance and major overseas expansion, mid-tier giants like Cha Bai Dao, Gu Ming, and Hu Shang A Yi finally completed their final sprint to HKEX IPOs in 2025. They are no longer mere street-side shops but have become codes in the capital market. In the restaurant赛道, brands known for standardization like Green Tea Restaurant and Meet Noodles successfully listed. In the secondary market, POP MART's stock price hit new highs, while Lao Pu Huang Jin not only doubled its performance but also became a "safe-haven asset" among consumer stocks.
Why them? In 2025, a公认的 "consumer winter," why could these companies thrive so vigorously? First, the "dimensionality reduction strike" of supply chains: from selling products to selling efficiency. The collective breakthrough of new tea drinks and mass餐饮 in 2025 is essentially a victory of supply chain industrialization. The market in 2025 only believes in "extreme cost-performance." Mixue Bingcheng's market dominance stems not from better-tasting tea but from being essentially an agricultural technology and logistics company. Through self-built lemon plantations, tea factories, and a global logistics network, it compressed costs to levels incomprehensible to competitors. The same logic supported the listings of Gu Ming and Cha Bai Dao. Their most competitive move in 2025 wasn't launching new products, but frantically building cold chain and storage facilities. Whoever could reduce the fulfillment cost of a fresh fruit tea by 0.5 yuan would survive the end-price war. The listing logic for Green Tea Restaurant and Meet Noodles is similar; they are benchmarks for "de-chefing" in the餐饮 industry. Increased central kitchen preparation rates make single-store models extremely stable, not reliant on chefs, reducing labor costs, and crucially, ensuring quality control doesn't falter during expansion. Capital values not astonishing taste, but the certainty of "making food like manufacturing cars."
Second, the极致化 of the "lipstick effect": selling cheap dopamine. In the macroeconomically pressured 2025, consumers cut major expenses (housing, cars, luxury goods), but demand for "small pleasures" exploded. This is the psychological basis for the soaring stock prices of POP MART and new tea drinks. New tea drinks in 2025 transcended being mere beverages, becoming a "cheap social currency" and "emotional comfort." A cup of milk tea for over ten yuan is the lowest-cost source of happiness for young people in high-pressure lives. This high-frequency, low-price, addictive consumption characteristic gives it strong anti-cyclical properties. POP MART's performance surge is due to its precise grasp of "emotional value." In 2025, it successfully transformed from a mere blind box seller into a global IP operation company. The explosion of its core IPs (like Labubu, Skullpanda) in Southeast Asian, European, and American markets proved that "cuteness" and "a sense of companionship" are universal languages. Consumers aren't buying plastic toys, but emotional sustenance. This irrational emotional premium constitutes POP MART's extremely high moat.
Finally, it must be objectively pointed out that a core reason these companies were favored by capital in 2025 is "involution spilling overseas." Whether it's Mixue Bingcheng's ten-thousand-store scale in Southeast Asia, POP MART's phenomenon-level queues in Thailand, or new tea drink brands collectively expanding into Europe and America, they all tell a compelling grand narrative to the market: the first year of globalization for Chinese consumer brands. The domestic market has hit a ceiling with limited growth and severe involution. But when these leading companies replicate the "extreme efficiency" and "mature models" honed in China overseas, they achieve a dimensionality reduction strike. The high valuations given by the capital market largely anticipate them becoming the "next Starbucks" or "next Lego." Clearly, the winners of 2025 are not centrists.
The life and death of enterprises are the waves on the sea surface, while the flow of capital is the deep ocean current. Standing at the end of 2025, we need to look past the noisy IPOs and brutal bankruptcies to examine the underlying logic: where did the money actually go? The consumer capital market in 2025 can be described in one word—cliff-like cooling. Data shows that in the first three quarters of 2025, new consumer brands recorded only 74 cumulative financing rounds, nearly halving from 133 in the same period of 2024. This "halving" level data marks the capital market's complete farewell to the era of "blindly throwing money." The former狂热 of "angel round看人, A round看赛道" is gone, replaced by an extreme "two-way screening."
However, against the backdrop of overall cooling, the flow of funds showed extremely high concentration:餐饮 remained the "ballast," accounting for 45 of the 74 financings, over 60%. This indicates that in economic fluctuation cycles, the餐饮业态, with its high-frequency, essential attributes, remains the harbor capital values most. Retail brands recorded 21 financings, but the logic has changed. Capital no longer pays solely for channel expansion, but heavily bets on "tech consumption" and "hardcore IP."
In the capital-tight 2025, companies that secured funding represent the market's long-term bets on the future. Specifically, three major赛道 showed distinct survival logics. First, the餐饮赛道: the 45餐饮 financings reveal a core change—capital no longer blindly believes in viral hits but seeks security through the supply chain. For example, in the case of Si Yue He Tun, which completed a 30 million yuan Series B round, capital was interested not just in the restaurant itself, but its state-level pufferfish farming and processing qualifications. This assessment of upstream supply chain control capability has become a hard threshold for financing. Brands like Fu Lai Wei (Shaanxi snacks), Gui Feng Huang (Guizhou flavor), and E Chao餐饮 (Chaozhou lion-head goose) indicate fewer opportunities for "unified" brands, while those deeply cultivating local flavors with strong product differentiation are迎来春天.
Second, even the coffee赛道 saw a technical turn. Na Xiao Ka, backed by Starbucks investment, and WinnCafe both focus on AI and smart coffee machine technology. Capital is betting on the extreme compression of labor costs through "unmanned/intelligent" solutions. Among the 21 retail financings, it was also a tale of two extremes. Traditional retail cooled, but brands with technical barriers and emotional value secured significant funding. AR glasses brand Viture completed two rounds totaling approximately $100 million, aimed at global expansion and AI ecosystem building. Second Life, focusing on 3D printing, also received successive investments. This confirms that in the environment of cost reduction and efficiency increase, the tech consumption赛道 with disruptive potential is the only "heavy allocation area" for capital.
In潮玩IP, TOP TOY completed nearly $60 million in financing, its valuation surging to HKD 10 billion with a submitted prospectus. Letsvan was fully acquired and upgraded to "奇梦岛". These cases show that following POP MART's heat, IP assets with global potential remain the most recognized "hard currency" in the secondary market.
Beyond these, two special赛道 reveal future demographic dividend directions. Silver Economy: Gong Bi Lin, focusing on "gathering travel + community e-commerce" for the middle-aged and elderly, secured funding. Its rapid布局 in the Yangtze River Delta proves that the "affluent and leisurely" elderly group is the final bastion of consumption upgrade. Pet赛道 2.0: Pai Te Xian Sheng, co-founded by former Hema CEO Hou Yi, completed a $25 million angel round, focusing on "fresh pet food + offline retail." This is not just the halo of a star entrepreneur but represents the structural upgrade of pet consumption from "eating to be full" to "eating well."
Looking back, brands like Super Bird Bureau that fell in 2025 mostly died from失控 expansion and chaotic supply chains. In 2026, whether selling milk tea or pufferfish, all surviving brands will become "agricultural companies" or "logistics companies." Capital will completely abandon hollow shells without core repurchase ability, reliant only on marketing traffic. Technology is no longer a gimmick but a survival tool: from Viture's $100 million financing to Na Xiao Ka's smart terminals, consumer companies in 2026 must possess "tech content." AI will not only be for generating marketing copy but will directly介入 production (like 3D printed潮玩) and fulfillment (like smart coffee machines), becoming the only antidote against high labor costs. The long-run上市 of Green Tea Group, TOP TOY's HKEX冲刺, and Viture's global distribution all signal the same message: the domestic market has become a stock red ocean. In 2026, the core metric for measuring a consumer brand's value will upgrade from "a thousand stores nationwide" to "global distribution."
In conclusion, the Chinese consumer market in 2025 resembled a brutal Darwinian experiment. We witnessed the fall of Zhong Xue Gao and Tiger Head Bureau, the bursting of the old era's "traffic bubble." We observed the rise of Mixue Bingcheng, POP MART, and Lao Pu Huang Jin, the victory of the new era's logic of "efficiency, emotion, and assets." This year taught us that the gilded era of "anything sold can fly high" is over; a "steel era" testing true mettle has arrived. For all consumer industry practitioners, 2026 will not be easier, but the direction will be clearer. In this era of存量博弈, only those enterprises that respect常识, deeply cultivate supply chains, and treat consumers sincerely can穿越周期. After all, when the tide goes out, what remains are the truly solid rocks.
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