&#34;The battle for the 'first stock of snack retail on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange' is intensifying.
Since Mingming Hen Mang submitted its listing prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in April this year, on September 23, Wanchen Biotechnology Group Co., Ltd. (referred to as &#34;Wanchen Group&#34;) from Fujian submitted its prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, intending to list on the main board in Hong Kong.
Wanchen Group was established in 2011 by Wang Jiankun and his family, a &#34;Walmart supplier.&#34; The company initially focused on the research, cultivation, and sales of industrialized edible fungi, with its main product being enoki mushrooms. It went public on the Growth Enterprise Market in 2021, becoming the &#34;first mushroom stock.&#34; As of the close on September 25, its A-share stock price was reported at 17.424 billion yuan, with a total market value of 32.690 billion yuan.
Faced with fierce competition and profit pressure in the edible fungi business, in 2022, Wanchen Group ventured into the snack discount store sector and quickly expanded by merging brands such as &#34;Lu Xiaochan&#34; and &#34;Lai Youpin.&#34; In 2023, Wanchen merged its &#34;Hao Xiang Lai&#34; brand with another industry giant &#34;Ling Shi Hen Mang,&#34; establishing the new Wanchen Food Group. This move significantly changed the industry landscape.
It is reported that Wanchen Group currently holds a leading position in China's snack and beverage market. According to data from Zhi Shi Consulting, based on the total gross merchandise volume (GMV) in 2024, &#34;Hao Xiang Lai&#34; is not only the number one retail brand in China's snack and beverage sector but also the first discount snack brand in the country to exceed 10,000 stores. It is noteworthy that its biggest competitor, Mingming Hen Mang, also claims to be &#34;China's largest chain retailer of leisure food and beverages&#34; in its prospectus.
So, what advantages will Wanchen Group leverage to emerge victorious in this &#34;competition&#34;?
<h2>Rapid Performance Growth, Store Network Exceeds 15,000</h2>
From &#34;the first mushroom stock&#34; to the leader in snack discount stores, Wanchen Group's cross-industry transformation is undoubtedly successful. This can also be seen from its rapidly growing performance.
According to the prospectus, from 2022 to 2024, Wanchen Group achieved revenues of 549 million yuan, 9.294 billion yuan, and 32.329 billion yuan, with year-on-year growth rates of 1592.9% and 247.8% in 2023 and 2024, respectively, reflecting a geometric growth trend. During the same period, the company achieved net profits of 68 million yuan, -176 million yuan, and 611 million yuan. Although there was a loss in 2023, it returned to rapid growth by 2024.
Entering 2025, the company continued its explosive growth momentum. By the first half of 2025, Wanchen Group achieved revenue of 22.583 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 106.9%, with a net profit of 861 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 532%.
At the same time, Wanchen Group's store network and membership scale have also expanded significantly. As of June 30, 2025, the company's store network has exceeded 15,000, covering 29 provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions in China. By the end of August this year, the number of registered members exceeded 150 million, with over 110 million active members in the first eight months of 2025. In August 2025, the average monthly consumption frequency of active members was 2.9 times
In this rapidly rising performance, Wanchen Group has several highlights worth noting.
First, it pursues a balance between &#34;scale&#34; and &#34;efficiency,&#34; maintaining a win-win situation for franchisees, suppliers, and other parties.
According to the prospectus, as of June 30, 2025, approximately 95% of Wanchen Group's products are sourced directly from brand manufacturers and distributed through 51 ambient temperature warehouses and 13 cold chain warehouses nationwide. With a massive procurement scale of over 15,000 stores, the group also possesses strong bargaining power when negotiating with upstream suppliers, enabling it to obtain more competitive prices. According to data from ZhiShi Consulting, this model allows the company to offer similar products at an average retail price 20-30% lower than large supermarkets, convenience stores, and other retailers, while maintaining healthy profit margins for both the company's franchise partners and Wanchen Group.
Second, it offers high-quality, cost-effective, and diversified products that greatly meet consumer demand.
During the track record period, Wanchen Group's product portfolio covers twelve core categories: bottled water and liquid beverages, dairy products, meat snacks, puffed foods, baked goods, nuts and seeds, convenience meals, dried fruits and preserves, candies and chocolates, vegetarian delicacies, jellies, and instant drinks. The company has selected over 4,000 SKUs from a vast array of SKUs, with each store typically stocking about 1,800-2,000 SKUs. In the first half of 2025, the company launched approximately 250 new SKUs each month while regularly phasing out underperforming SKUs to maintain product freshness.
This strategy has also led to very active terminal sales in the company's store network, with GMV (Gross Merchandise Volume) growth far exceeding revenue growth. As of the first half of 2025, Wanchen Group's GMV was approximately RMB 33.214 billion, a year-on-year increase of 124.89%, indicating that the company's real market demand remains very strong.
From the above, it is not difficult to see that Wanchen Group has transformed from a traditional agricultural enterprise into a platform retail company occupying the core track of snack consumption in China, which is closely related to the company's strong scale and network effects, forward-looking brand matrix, and regional coverage layout.
<h2>In an industry with &#34;plenty of water and fish,&#34; where is the key to breaking through?</h2>
Indeed, Wanchen Group's explosive growth in performance is also inseparable from the considerable development space in the bulk snack and beverage sector.
It is reported that the snack and beverage industry is a trillion-yuan market with strong growth momentum. According to data from ZhiShi Consulting, by 2024, the overall market size of China's snack and beverage sector is expected to reach RMB 4.0 trillion. Among these, the bulk snack and beverage retail channel is also the fastest-growing channel, with an average annual compound growth rate expected to reach 36.5% from 2024 to 2029. By 2029, this segment is expected to reach RMB 613.7 billion, accounting for 11.4% of the overall snack and beverage retail market.
At the same time, driven by multiple factors such as consumption upgrades, increased disposable income, the &#34;fourth meal&#34; concept of snacks, and diversified consumption scenarios, the bulk snack and beverage sector has become the current &#34;main theme&#34; of development in the retail beverage industry.
On one hand, against the backdrop of changes in the economic environment and consumer attitudes, consumers have become more rational, pursuing &#34;cost-effectiveness.&#34; The hard discount model (reducing costs through streamlined SKUs, bulk purchasing, efficient supply chains, and simplified store designs to achieve low prices) perfectly meets this demand, becoming one of the fastest-growing retail formats in recent years
On the other hand, as competition in first-tier cities becomes increasingly fierce, there exists a huge market gap in lower-tier cities and county areas, where consumer potential is waiting to be unleashed. Snack discount stores are rapidly expanding nationwide, presenting considerable development space.
For Wanchen Group, this represents both a hopeful and attainable development opportunity. Therefore, since entering the bulk snack and beverage sector, the company's performance has experienced explosive growth.
However, it is worth noting that while rapidly growing into an industry giant, Wanchen Group also faces significant competitive pressure.
Currently, the competitive landscape of the bulk snack industry has begun to take shape with a &#34;two super, many strong&#34; dynamic—where the Mingming Hen Mang Group, centered around brands like &#34;Snack Busy&#34; and &#34;Zhao Yiming,&#34; and Wanchen Group, centered around &#34;Good to Come,&#34; firmly occupy the leading market share. Meanwhile, the &#34;favorite son&#34; of Liangpinpuzi, Snack Wanjia, is rapidly expanding with its brand endorsement and existing resources, becoming Wanchen's most direct competitor. Additionally, smaller brands like Laiyifen, Tangchao, Snack Youxuan, and Dai Yonghong are also rising quickly to capture market share.
The store decoration styles, product categories, and pricing strategies of these snack companies are very similar, making it difficult for consumers to develop strong loyalty to any particular brand; they often choose based on proximity and price. This means that even for Wanchen Group, being in a leading industry position does not diminish the competitive pressure.
Therefore, in order to continuously strengthen its development advantages, Wanchen Group explicitly stated in its prospectus that this time it plans to use the funds raised from its Hong Kong listing to further expand and upgrade its store network, continuously enrich its product portfolio, enhance warehousing and logistics efficiency, and upgrade its digital infrastructure.
In summary, having entered the &#34;hard discount&#34; golden sector and become an industry leader through mergers, Wanchen Group already possesses significant advantages to enjoy the long-term dividends brought by economies of scale. However, for the company, maintaining its position as an industry leader is also a &#34;war of attrition,&#34; which will continue to test its operational efficiency and profitability

Wancheng Group submitted a listing prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, planning to become "the first stock of discount snacks on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange." Since its establishment in 2011, Wancheng Group has transformed from a mushroom business to a discount snack store, rapidly expanding to over 15,000 stores. According to the prospectus, revenue is expected to reach 549 million, 9.294 billion, and 32.329 billion RMB from 2022 to 2024, with annual growth rates as high as 1592.9% and 247.8%

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New Stock Preview | Explosive growth in performance, annual income exceeding 30 billion, Wanchen Group makes a strong push to become the "first stock of bulk snacks on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange"?