"Good to Come" and Mingming are very busy, and neither of them can become Snow Ice City.

Author |  Xie Yunzi 

Editor |  Zhang Fan 

In late September, Wanchen Group, the parent company of Haoxianglai, submitted a listing application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, competing with Mingming Henmang for the title of "the first listed company in the bulk snack sector on the Hong Kong stock market".

It's worth mentioning that if Wanchen Group successfully lists in Hong Kong, it will become the first "A + H" dual - listed company in the bulk snack field. In the A - share market, Wanchen Group has long been a well - known "speculative stock".

In April 2021, Wanchen Biology, originally focused on "edible fungus R & D", was listed on the Growth Enterprise Market of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. The following year, Wanchen Biology established its subsidiary Nanjing Wanxing and changed its name to Wanchen Group. Through investment and mergers and acquisitions, it rapidly developed into a bulk snack enterprise with "Haoxianglai" as its main brand and more than 15,000 stores.

The latest financial report data shows that in the first three quarters of 2025, the company's revenue was 36.562 billion yuan, a year - on - year increase of 77.37%; the net profit was 855 million yuan, a year - on - year increase of 917.04%. During the reporting period, the cumulative revenue of Wanchen Group's bulk snack business was 36.158 billion yuan, and the net profit was 1.595 billion yuan. After adding back the accrued share - based payment expenses, the net profit was 1.693 billion yuan.

Meanwhile, as a scarce "bulk snack" target in the A - share market, since August 2024, the stock price of Wanchen Group has increased by more than 767% in total. As of October 22nd before press time, the closing price of Wanchen Group was 177.34 yuan per share, and the total market value was 33.498 billion yuan; when Mingming Henmang transferred its equity in April this year, its valuation was 10.9 billion yuan.

From the perspective of industry competition, Wanchen Group and Mingming Henmang are in a situation of "close combat".

The picture is taken from Wanchen Group's financial report

"Busy in the South, Wanchen in the North": Close combat within 1 kilometer

Although bulk snacks are a new concept that emerged in the past two years, people are relatively familiar with them.

For consumers, bulk snacks always claim to "save money for everyone" by "breaking up large - package products and selling them by weight". Offline, with store decorations in bright red or yellow, they quickly attract people's attention. Even in the northern market where it gets dark earlier, bulk snack brands represented by Haoxianglai and Zhaoyiming Snacks often operate from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m., or even have a "24 - hour long - standby" service.

In terms of business models, bulk snack enterprises often directly cooperate with brand owners or upstream manufacturers, eliminating intermediate costs. With the simple logic of "more purchases, more savings", they can negotiate relatively low purchase prices with upstream enterprises.

Compared with e - commerce platforms, bulk snacks can provide an immediate offline shopping experience; compared with traditional supermarkets, bulk snacks are indeed more cost - effective.

A Haoxianglai store in Changping District, Beijing; the picture is from 36Kr

So, how popular are bulk snacks under the consumption segmentation?

A report from CICC shows that in China's snack consumption in 2024, bulk snack stores accounted for as high as 37%, far ahead. Traditional supermarkets and e - commerce platforms, ranking second and third respectively, accounted for 22% and 20%, and their proportions are declining year by year.

In the bulk snack track with the highest market share, Mingming Henmang and Wanchen Group rank among the top two in terms of market share. Judging from the data disclosed in the IPO prospectus and financial reports, this is also the case for the actual business operations of the enterprises.

Compiled by 36Kr, data from Hua'an Securities

The IPO prospectus shows that from 2022 to 2024, Wanchen Group's revenues were 549 million yuan, 9.294 billion yuan, and 32.329 billion yuan respectively. During the same period, the adjusted net profit attributable to the parent company was 39 million yuan, - 28 million yuan, and 823 million yuan respectively.

In contrast, Mingming Henmang's revenues during the same period were 4.286 billion yuan, 10.295 billion yuan, and 39.344 billion yuan respectively, and the adjusted net profit attributable to the parent company was 81 million yuan, 235 million yuan, and 913 million yuan respectively.

The picture is taken from Wanchen Group's IPO prospectus

In terms of store layout, with Anhui as the boundary, Mingming Henmang and Wanchen Group have clearly formed a situation of competing in the north and the south.

As of December 31, 2024, Mingming Henmang had 14,394 stores, focusing on the sinking market represented by counties and townships, and had a first - mover advantage in the southern market. Wanchen Group is mainly distributed in North China and East China, mainly targeting low - tier cities, with 14,196 stores.

The Jihai Brand Monitoring Platform shows that 55% of Haoxianglai's stores are located in third - and fourth - tier cities, and nearly half of them are in close combat with Mingming Henmang within 1 kilometer.

Low gross profit and high leverage, benefiting from both upstream and downstream

However, it is precisely this kind of "land - grabbing" expansion that has exposed the hidden concerns in the bulk snack industry. In fact, both Wanchen Group and Mingming Henmang have grown and expanded with the support of mergers and acquisitions and franchisees.

On the one hand, bulk snacks rely on low prices to increase sales volume, and enterprises are highly dependent on store scale. The larger the store scale, the higher the bargaining power with upstream suppliers during procurement.

On the other hand, when enterprises enter the stage of rapid and extensive expansion, both product selection and store formats are becoming more and more homogeneous. In the intensifying price war, it is very important for enterprises to control their operating efficiency.

Analysts have always compared bulk snack enterprises with Mixue Bingcheng, which also "wins with cost - effectiveness and expands through the franchise model". However, both in terms of gross profit margin and adjusted net profit margin, Wanchen Group and Mingming Henmang are far lower than Mixue Bingcheng.

The net profit attributable to the parent company and the net profit margin of Wanchen and Mingming Henmang are both adjusted. The data of Gaoxin Retail is for the fiscal year 2025. Compiled by 36Kr based on Wind and IPO prospectus

Public data also shows that in 2024, the gross profit margins of Wanchen Group and Mingming Henmang were 7.6% and 10.7% respectively. During the same period, the gross profit margin of Mixue Group was 32.5%. With limited gross profit space, the pressure on Wanchen Group to control costs is also increasing.

In the previous year, Wanchen Group's selling expenses increased to 1.431 billion yuan, mainly due to the increase in marketing expenses and sales staff salaries caused by store expansion. Referring to the revenue of 32.329 billion yuan in that year, Wanchen Group's selling expense ratio slightly dropped to 4.43%. As of the first three quarters of 2025, this figure further dropped to 2.92%.

The selling expense ratios of Wanchen and Mingming Henmang. Charted by 36Kr based on Wind data

In addition, in terms of inventory turnover, Wanchen Group and Mingming Henmang have a similar number of SKUs in their stores, generally between 1,800 and 2,000. However, Wanchen Group has a relatively longer inventory turnover days.

In 2024, Wanchen Group's inventory turnover days were 17.93 days, while Mingming Henmang's was only 11.6 days. In the third quarter of this year, Wanchen's inventory turnover days further increased to 18.99. This seems to indicate that Wanchen Group's enterprise operating efficiency and management efficiency are weaker than those of Mingming Henmang.

It's worth mentioning that bulk snack enterprises always need to rely on relatively high current liabilities to leverage more capital turnover, thereby increasing sales volume and enhancing control over upstream and downstream.

Taking Wanchen Group as an example, in the first half of this year, its total liabilities reached 5.124 billion yuan, of which current liabilities were 4.399 billion yuan. Among the current liabilities, "trade payables" were 1.533 billion yuan, and "other payables" were 1.572 billion yuan.

Generally, trade payables can be regarded as payments owed to suppliers; other payables come from advance payments from franchisees, membership card balances, and franchise deposits. Calculated in this way, the "debts" of Wanchen Group to suppliers account for 29.9% of the total liabilities; the liabilities caused by "holding back funds" from downstream franchisees account for 30.7%.

The picture is taken from Wanchen Group's IPO prospectus

However, a relatively high debt ratio will still make the outside world worried about the company's cash flow, and Wanchen Group's debt ratio is always higher than that of Mingming Henmang.

As of September 2025, Wanchen Group's total liabilities were 6.112 billion yuan, of which the total current liabilities were 5.526 billion yuan, and the cash and cash equivalents at the end of the period were 4.134 billion yuan.

The future of the industry: Hard discount or community supermarket?

It is a clear fact that in the increasingly competitive bulk snack market, the development models of enterprises are becoming more and more similar.

In addition to Wanchen Group and Mingming Henmang, the number of stores of brands such as Lingyouming and Tangchao has exceeded 1,000. Traditional snack brands like Three Squirrels and Liangpin Puzi have also entered this track and proposed policies of "0 franchise fee, 0 decoration fee". But in terms of business models, the entire industry still generally adopts the strategy of "direct supply from factories + community penetration + low - price competition".

Fortunately, the major players in the industry are actively exploring differentiated development paths in order to change the "low - gross - profit" development bottleneck of bulk snacks.

At the end of 2024, Wanchen Group launched "Laiyoupin Saving Supermarket" targeting community family shopping.

In January this year, "Haoxianglai Whole Food Preferred" was launched, expanding the concept of snacks to multiple categories such as daily chemicals, fresh food, and frozen products. Then in March, the "Whole Food Preferred 5.0 store" was officially unveiled, which significantly increased and launched products such as freshly - made baked goods and fresh fruits.

In the prospectus, Wanchen Group also clearly stated that it plans to focus on developing its own brands through "Laiyoupin Saving Supermarket". So far, Wanchen Group has two product lines of its own brands, "Haoxianglai Super Value" and "Haoxianglai Selection". Among them, Haoxianglai Selection focuses on differentiated high - quality SKUs, achieving a certain degree of brand premium.

On the other hand, Mingming Henmang also launched two series of its own brand products in February this year - the red label focusing on cost - performance and the gold label focusing on high - quality. Not long ago, Mingming Henmang also launched a 3.0 store model, adding multiple categories such as daily chemicals, stationery, and fresh food, aiming to build a "one - stop hard - discount supermarket".

Compiled by 36Kr based on public information