So-Young's "Heavy Asset Game" Awaits Its Moment of Profitability

Last year's second quarter marked the most difficult financial period for So-Young. At that time, So-Young was at a crossroads, transitioning between its platform advertising business and its heavy-asset chain medical aesthetic service business, with the pain of transformation being particularly severe. By directly entering the offline light medical aesthetics market and "competing for business" with its original medical aesthetic institution clients on the platform, So-Young inevitably accelerated the loss of traditional advertising clients, making the pain of transformation particularly severe. Now, with the growth of its offline chain business, So-Young's difficult period has finally reached a staged turning point. In 2025, So-Young's revenue was 1.523 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3.87%. Of this, the fourth quarter generated revenue of 461 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of over 20%. The heavy-asset offline light medical aesthetic chain business, on which it has bet heavily, has finally supported half of its revenue. In the fourth quarter of 2025, So-Young's medical aesthetic medical service (i.e., offline store business) revenue reached 248 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 205.3%, with its share of total revenue surpassing 50% for the first time. As of the end of 2025, So-Young's offline store count had reached 49. Although the transformation of the business structure has initially shown results, So-Young has not yet fully emerged from the mire of losses, with a net loss of 242 million yuan in 2025. In response, So-Young told All-Weather Technology that it aims to achieve single-quarter profitability in the fourth quarter of 2026. To achieve the goal of turning losses into profits, So-Young's core drivers lie in "improving efficiency in existing stores" and "expanding into lower-tier cities." In 2026, So-Young plans to add no less than 35 new stores, while densifying its network in first-tier cities and focusing on expanding into high-quality second-tier cities. On the earnings call on the evening of March 25, So-Young's management explained the business logic of increasing investment in second-tier cities: compared to first-tier cities, China's second-tier cities still have significant gaps in medical delivery capabilities and operational levels in the medical aesthetics field. So-Young's "standardized delivery capability" can ensure that stores in second-tier cities provide services and results comparable to those in first-tier cities. According to further introductions from So-Young's management, as of December 2025, the average sales per square meter for stores in mature second-tier cities such as Wuhan Tiandi and Changsha was 7,000 yuan. Among recently opened stores in second-tier cities, the Suzhou Suyue Plaza store exceeded one million yuan in monthly revenue within three months, fully proving the feasibility of replicating the model in second-tier cities. "From the profitability of mature stores in second-tier cities, because the salary levels of medical control personnel and rent are lower than those in first-tier cities, the profit margins of stores in second-tier cities are even slightly higher," So-Young's management pointed out. With the dividends from expansion into second-tier cities and higher profit margins, whether So-Young can successfully establish its profitability model is attracting attention.