China Mengniu Dairy Co on Thursday reported its full-year results for 2025, with revenue declining while gross profit margin, operating cash flow and several other financial indicators showed improvement.
The Chinese dairy giant's revenue decreased 7.3 percent year-on-year to approximately 82.25 billion yuan ($6.43 billion), according to its annual financial statement. Its gross profit margin rose 0.3 percentage points to 39.9 percent. Operating cash flow reached 8.75 billion yuan, and free cash flow stood at 6.3 billion yuan, with all three indicators achieving record-high levels.
Gao Fei, the company’s chief executive officer and executive director, said that due to category price declines and intense industry competition, the full-year sales volume fell 4 percent in 2025, dragging down the company's overall revenue.
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However, fresh milk, cheese, and domestic ice cream business segments all recorded double-digit growth for the full year. Among them, the cheese business revenue increased by more than 93.6 million yuan from the previous year to 5.26 billion yuan, representing a growth of 21.9 percent.
Gao said that prices across the overall dairy industry stabilized in the second half of last year, with clear signs of recovery. At the same time, he said that the dairy industry should not rely entirely on low-price competition but instead focus on product innovation to tap into incremental markets opportunities.
He pointed out that Mengniu is accelerating its overseas expansion in categories including milk formula and cheese, covering markets such as Southeast Asia, Australia, and the Middle East. In 2025, Mengniu's ice cream brand Aice maintained its leading market position in Indonesia.
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Overseas revenue accounted for less than 10 percent of the 2025 total, but Mengniu's overseas business has outpaced the group’s average growth rate every year recently, said company vice president Chen Yiyi. He said that overall risks in the overseas business are controllable and demand remains strong. Therefore, the company will continue to develop its overseas operations.
Meanwhile, profit attributable to equity shareholders rose approximately 13.8 times year-on-year to 1.55 billion yuan for the period.
Chief Financial Officer Shen Xinwen said that the dividend per share will steadily increase over the next three years, while maintaining the share repurchase pace of 2024 and 2025 to further enhance shareholder returns. Mengniu plans to pay a final dividend of 0.52 yuan per share, up 2.2 percent year-on-year.
Looking ahead, Shen predicted the company’s revenue will rebound this year, achieving mid-single-digit growth for the full year, and said it will continue to focus on revenue growth and margin expansion.
