Powered by Overseas Markets and TOP TOY: Where is Miniso’s Next Growth Pole?

At a time when the global consumer market still faces many uncertainties, Miniso (MNSO) released its annual results announcement for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025, on March 31.

During the reporting period, the company achieved total revenue of 21.444 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 26.2% compared to 2024. Among this, revenue from the core Miniso brand reached 19.525 billion yuan, up 22%, while revenue from the sub-brand TOP TOY reached 1.916 billion yuan, up 94.8%.

From the book data, this is a report card showing growth in both scale and pace.

However, behind the surging revenue, the profit side has exposed a contradictory gap of "rising revenue without rising profit."

Financial reports show that net profit attributable to the parent company for the period was only 1.205 billion yuan, a sharp year-on-year decline of 53.96%. The primary cause of this profit "halving" was the drag from significant losses associated with the company's heavy investment in Yonghui Superstores (29.4% stake).

However, excluding these non-recurring items, its adjusted net profit was 2.898 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6.53%, proving that the underlying profitability of its core business remains intact.

But if the superficial high growth rate is stripped away, by examining the evolution of the revenue structure, one can clearly see the real business context facing Miniso: the domestic core market has entered a stage of stock competition, overseas markets are tasked with "pioneering," and new business lines are seeking a balance between scale expansion and profit models.

In the main brand's 19.525 billion yuan revenue, a signal that cannot be ignored is the outward shift of growth drivers.

The financial report specifically points out that this growth was driven by both mainland China and overseas markets, with overseas revenue jumping 29.3% year-on-year, significantly outperforming the main brand's overall growth of 22%.

Objectively, overseas markets are indeed becoming Miniso's core incremental growth engine at this stage.

Amid intense domestic retail competition and the peaking of dividends in lower-tier markets, seeking growth in North America, Europe, and Southeast Asia is an inevitable choice for Miniso. The underlying logic for its nearly 30% overseas revenue growth is leveraging the cost advantages of the domestic supply chain to disrupt international markets.

However, the other side of the coin involves the marginal costs and potential risks of multinational operations.

High growth in overseas markets often entails asset-heavy direct-store construction, more complex local compliance costs, and persistently high logistics and warehousing expenses.

In 2025, a year of intensifying global trade frictions and geopolitical complexities, the model of relying solely on the Chinese supply chain to supply the world is facing dual pressures from tariff barriers and exchange rate fluctuations.

For Miniso to move from "channel layout" to "brand cultivation" overseas, its refined operational capabilities and cross-cultural management skills are facing more severe tests than ever.

The most eye-catching metric in the financial report is TOP TOY's 94.8% revenue growth. Its annual revenue of 1.916 billion yuan indicates that the sub-brand has completely moved past its early incubation stage and now possesses the ability to significantly impact the group's total revenue.

The capital market has also highly valued its phased achievements. TOP TOY reportedly secured strategic investment from Temasek, with a valuation of approximately HK$10 billion. On the channel side, its global store network has expanded to 334 stores, including 30 overseas locations, with its international footprint beginning to take shape.

However, in the trendy toy industry, doubling revenue does not mean a moat has been built. TOP TOY's rapid growth still largely depends on the rapid expansion of its store network (channel-driven growth) and a broad-category strategy (blind boxes, building blocks, figures, etc.).

Unlike top players in the sector driven by strong proprietary IPs, TOP TOY still functions more as a "trendy toy collection store," heavily reliant on external well-known IPs.

Although its proprietary IPs have recently started to gain traction and caused some ripples in certain market segments, the overall product mix is still dominated by licensed IPs and has not yet formed an absolute barrier of originality.

This leads to a core financial and strategic concern: the procurement costs of external licensed IPs will continue to squeeze gross margins. As revenue approaches the 2 billion mark, the marginal benefits of store expansion will gradually diminish.

If TOP TOY cannot prove its ability to hatch phenomenal "proprietary IPs" in the next year or two, the quality of its growth and long-term profitability will be questioned.

Miniso is indeed trying to tell a new story to capital markets: it is no longer a "ten-yuan store" relying on volume through extreme value-for-money, but a global "IP design and consumption operator."

The 21.444 billion yuan revenue base proves the preliminary success of this strategy. However, in the next cycle, market scrutiny will be harsher:

First, is high overseas growth coming at the cost of sacrificing cash flow or excessive marketing? Is the store's sales per square foot healthy?

Second, after scaling up, can TOP TOY establish a profitable model and pivot from "distributor" to "IP source"?

Fiscal year 2025 was a breakthrough for Miniso during a shift in consumption cycles. It won through decisive expansion into untapped overseas markets and early positioning in emotional consumption.

But after crossing the 20 billion threshold, the real test has just begun. How it stabilizes its base amid complex global dynamics will determine the future course of this retail giant.