The state of freshly brewed tea drinks in the takeaway battle: half growth, half burden

At the beginning of the year, after several brands completed their listings, the "tea beverage war" opened a new chapter.

Currently, among the six newly listed tea beverage companies, four completed their listings this year, and the industry has shown a clear tiered differentiation.

Among them, Mixue and Guming achieved nearly 40% year-on-year revenue growth in the first half of the year, with net profit margins maintained at around 20%, continuing to lead the first tier of the industry.

Chabaidao and Hu Shang Ayi are at a mid-tier level, with adjusted net profit margins of 13.6% and 13.4%, respectively.

NAYUKI, as the only player primarily using a direct sales model, is still in a loss phase despite store closures, but the loss amount has narrowed by more than 70% year-on-year, showing signs of stabilization.

The US-listed Bawang Chaji leads with a net profit margin of 19.4%, ahead of Mixue and Guming, maintaining the highest profitability efficiency.

However, due to not deeply participating in this round of delivery subsidy wars, coupled with the high base effect from last year, the second quarter single-store GMV declined by more than 20% year-on-year, and the profit decline reached 30%, appearing to lag behind in the subsidy-driven growth wave.

To some extent, this round of chaotic delivery subsidies is not only reshaping the competitive rhythm of brands but also becoming a special lens to observe the direction of the tea beverage industry.

As the peak period of intensive store openings and rushing to go public comes to an end, the head effect in the ready-to-drink tea industry is becoming increasingly significant. The differences in strategic positioning and operational models among different brands are becoming clearer.

The capital market's focus on profitability certainty and quality is forcing companies to more rationally control their expansion pace, cautiously invest in subsidies, and steadily promote product innovation.

The industry seems to be deeply realizing that the traffic dividends brought by short-term subsidies are difficult to sustain, especially as the traditional peak season for tea consumption gradually approaches its end after marketing nodes like "the first cup of milk tea in autumn."

As the noise of delivery subsidies gradually subsides, the tea beverage industry may welcome a true "autumn" amid cooling and rationality.

Who Benefited from the Subsidies

Summer has always been the peak sales season for the tea beverage industry and the period of most intense price competition.

Unlike previous years, the entire industry welcomed a "flood-like" delivery platform subsidy in the second quarter of this year.

The intervention of external forces significantly lowered the consumption threshold for consumers and stimulated demand across the industry.

This is intuitively reflected in the increase in average daily sales per store driven by the growth in cup volume.

In the first half of the year, Guming's average daily cup sales per store increased from 374 cups to 439 cups, a year-on-year growth of 17.4%, with average daily GMV increasing by 1,400 yuan to 7,600 yuan.

NAYUKI, under the background of store closures and performance pressure, saw a counter-trend growth of 7.5% in sales revenue from delivery orders at direct-operated stores, with average daily order volume increasing by 11.4% year-on-year, and average daily GMV increasing by 300 yuan to 7,600 yuan.

Due to the industry's current common practice of calculating GMV using the "product face price + original delivery fee" metric, the increase in the proportion of delivery sales in the second quarter has led to some inflation in the actual GMV figures.

For brands that are already on the brink of stagnation, delivery subsidies have injected a new round of momentum.

In the second quarter, Chabaidao's average daily GMV per store reached the highest quarterly level in nearly a year, with a month-on-month increase of about 15%; the overall revenue growth rate changed from -13.8% in 2024 to a positive growth of 4.3% The Auntie in Shanghai, which maintained the same performance as the previous year, also achieved nearly 10% growth in the first half of the year.

However, the traffic dividends brought by takeaway subsidies are not evenly distributed among brands.

From a pricing perspective, low-priced brands have further lowered the consumption threshold with the support of subsidies, benefiting significantly from this.

At the same time, the large order scale places extremely high demands on the brand's production capacity and supply chain responsiveness, and currently, only leading enterprises can bear such high concurrency order processing pressure.

Therefore, the platform will concentrate more subsidy resources on leading brands to ensure service stability during peak order periods.

Among the leading brands, the high unit price and the fact that "do not participate in short-term discount activities" of BaWangChaJi have significantly diverted its customer base.

In the second quarter, the number of active members of BaWangChaJi dropped sharply, decreasing by 14% quarter-on-quarter to 38.6 million. In the previous four quarters, the active members of BaWangChaJi had remained above 42 million.

The average monthly GMV per store was 404,400 yuan, with a year-on-year decline of 24.8%. This marks the sixth consecutive quarter of decline in single-store GMV.

In July, the industry welcomed a peak in takeaway subsidies, with a large release of "0 yuan beverage coupons," driving the industry into a true surge in orders in the third quarter.

There are widespread concerns in the market about whether the industry can maintain same-store growth next year under high base pressure.

How to effectively convert short-term subsidized traffic into sustained repurchase and user loyalty has become a key challenge affecting the stability of the brand's next phase of operations.

Pressure on Franchisees

The platform's flood-like subsidies, during the process of ultimately flowing to consumers through tea brands, leave the stores directly bearing the order surge pressure with minimal profits.

The reason is that, due to the need to pay commissions and delivery fees to the platform, an increase in the proportion of takeaway sales often means a decrease in the actual income rate for franchisees.

As Meng Hailing, Chief Financial Officer of Guming, stated, in the takeaway war, the profit margins of the vast majority of franchisees are declining, only masked by the operating leverage brought by the increase in order volume.

This phenomenon can be confirmed in NAYUKI, which mainly operates under a direct sales model.

In the first half of the year, the proportion of takeaway order revenue for NAYUKI increased from 40.6% in the same period last year to 48.1%.

As a result, the fees paid to third-party delivery service providers increased by 18% year-on-year to 200 million yuan, with the proportion of revenue rising from 6.7% to 9.2%.

While the overall order volume is increasing, the siphoning effect of third-party takeaway platforms on private domain orders is also very evident.

In the first half of the year, the contribution of orders from third-party platforms in the takeaway revenue structure of NAYUKI's direct stores increased to 44.2%, an increase of 8 percentage points compared to 2024.

During the same period, the proportion of takeaway order revenue from self-operated platforms fell from 5.2% to 3.9%.

The purpose of takeaway subsidies is to reshape consumer habits. After the subsidies retreat, the changes in profit margins for front-end franchise stores will be a new variable. The franchise model adopted by the ready-to-drink tea industry essentially shifts some operational risks to the franchisees.

This means that once the brand's popularity declines, the impact will first manifest as sluggish growth in front-end stores.

In a sense, the sales dynamics, store closures, and changes in franchisee data at the channel level often reflect the brand's operational status more quickly and accurately than financial statements.

The franchisee attrition rate for many brands continues to exceed the store closure rate.

This may indicate that some experienced franchisees, after reaping early benefits, have begun to exit, with new franchisees filling the gaps left by the old ones.

For example, ChaBaiDao closed 418 franchise stores in the first half of the year, with a closure rate of 5% and a franchisee attrition rate of 8.8%.

The situation for HuShang Ayi is even more pronounced: it closed 645 stores in the first half of the year, with a closure rate of 7%, and the number of lost franchisees reached 531, accounting for 9.7% of the initial total, an increase from the 9% attrition rate for the entire year of 2024.

The above performance may already be a result supported by delivery subsidies.

The order increase brought by large-scale subsidies has, in fact, provided a buffer for some underperforming stores, somewhat delaying the exit process for tail-end brands in the market.

As subsidies wane, single-store growth will once again face pressure, and the industry will re-enter a phase of consolidation and clearing.

In the long run, if franchise stores continue to exit due to profitability difficulties and investment returns being hard to guarantee, it will weaken the brand's channel expansion capability, regional penetration depth, and market competitiveness.

The brand's investment to maintain the business of front-end franchise stores will further drag down overall profitability efficiency.

Diverging Directions

The investment value of the new tea beverage industry still hinges on sustainable growth in revenue and profits.

The current oversaturation of stores has intensified homogeneous competition, compounded by the ongoing price war led by platforms, putting pressure on single-store revenue growth.

Whether it can maintain a steady pace of store expansion will largely determine the brand's growth momentum and valuation expectations.

Coffee business, lower-tier markets, and going overseas have become the main themes for growth in the industry. However, based on differences in market positioning and core capabilities, different brands still have varying core directions for growth.

Since the beginning of the year, both MiXueBingCheng and GuMing have seen their stock prices double.

The commonality between the two brands is that they have validated their profit models and operational capabilities in lower-tier markets through large-scale practice, thus achieving stable store growth.

As the only two ready-to-drink tea brands with over 10,000 stores, MiXueBingCheng and GuMing maintained double-digit store growth rates of 16.1% and 12.8%, respectively, in the first half of the year.

Among MiXueBingCheng's more than 48,000 stores in mainland China, nearly 28,000 are located in third-tier cities and below, accounting for as much as 57.6%, while stores in first-tier cities only account for 4.9%.

About 52% of GuMing's stores are located in third-tier cities and below, with only 3% in first-tier cities The two brands have different plans for future expansion.

Guming adopts a strategy of entering key scale provinces and has not yet entered core cities such as Shanghai, Beijing, and Nanjing, being considered to have only developed "half of China," with room for improvement in market penetration in multiple provinces.

With over 40,000 stores, NAYUKI has tightened the approval of its main brand, instead focusing on Lucky Coffee and overseas expansion.

Lucky Coffee, a coffee brand cultivated within the NAYUKI system for nearly five years, announced a substantial subsidy policy for both new and existing franchisees this summer and has launched an offensive in first-tier cities.

As of July, the total number of signed Lucky Coffee stores has surpassed 7,000, achieving exponential growth compared to 4,000 at the beginning of the year.

Pan Guofei, CEO of Lucky Coffee's China region, emphasized that Lucky Coffee focuses on professional freshly brewed coffee, while NAYUKI Coffee emphasizes simplified operations, and the two are complementary.

With the procurement cost advantage achieved through over 50,000 stores under the NAYUKI system, Lucky Coffee is also considered capable of competing with Luckin and Kudi in the affordable coffee sector.

In contrast, the high initial investment threshold and average transaction price of Bawang Chaji have shifted its expansion focus to overseas markets in search of new growth paths.

Bawang Chaji has opened 208 stores in five major markets, including Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, and the United States, with 52 new stores added in the first half of the year.

In the second quarter, Bawang Chaji's overseas market GMV reached 235.2 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 77.4% and a quarter-on-quarter increase of 31.8%.

Tea Baidao and Hu Shang Ayi, which are just a stone's throw away from reaching 10,000 stores, continue to emphasize improving market penetration in the domestic market.

The difference is that Tea Baidao, which saw a decline in both revenue and net profit last year, has emphasized "strengthening cost control and risk management."

Meanwhile, Hu Shang Ayi plans to "further strengthen cooperation with third-party online platforms" to explore more digital operation methods and optimize product supply and marketing strategies.

Among the six listed ready-to-drink tea companies, only NAYUKI has clearly expressed a contraction attitude:

It will continue to optimize existing stores and improve the store model of new store types launched in the first half of the year, such as "NAYUKI green," "to increase single-store revenue through a diversified product matrix and precise brand marketing strategies."

The short-term benefits brought by takeaway subsidies will eventually dissipate, and under slowing growth and intensified competition, a new round of elimination and fierce competition will be inevitable.

As the big test approaches, only brands that find a unique way to survive will be able to weather the cycle