Haidilao (06862) First half of 2025: Resilient performance, multi-brand driving initial results

The Zhitong Finance App learned that on August 25, Haidilao (06862) announced its financial report for the first half of 2025, which achieved operating income of 20.703 billion yuan during the period, showing resilience compared to peers; and maintained relatively stable profitability. During the period, core operating profit was 2,408 billion yuan and shareholders' net profit was 1.76 billion yuan. Profit margins were 11.63% and 8.5% respectively, which were higher than those of peers.

Haidilao actively rewards shareholders' returns. The board of directors has decided to declare an interim dividend of HK$0.338 per share. The dividend ratio is as high as 96.6%, while the dividend rate (TTM) exceeds 6%.

In fact, the hot pot industry is still in the midst of continuous exploration in 2025, and the entire industry is facing major survival challenges. On the one hand, Haidilao is able to stand out by continuously exploring innovative hot pot scenarios, developing specialty products, optimizing stores, and strengthening supply chain and digital capabilities; on the other hand, the company is steadily advancing a multi-brand strategy, with the “Red Pomegranate” plan being the most prominent, creating a new business growth curve.

From a business perspective, Haidilao restaurant operations are still the company's core business, with revenue of 18.58 billion yuan in the first half of the year, with a revenue share of 89.8%. However, the performance of other businesses was impressive. Among them, the revenue growth rate of the takeout business and other restaurant business reached 59.7% and 227%, respectively, and the total revenue share increased by 3.9 percentage points to 7.4%.

As a basic model, the company improves quality and efficiency in multiple dimensions of restaurant operations, using customers, employees, products, and scenarios as a starting point to create a rich sense of experience of “a thousand stores, one thousand faces”. Among them, innovation on the scene side. For example, in takeout revenue in the first half of the year, the takeout of Haidilao's “hot pot dishes”, which focused on the “one-person meal” scenario, grew rapidly, contributing more than 55% of revenue. In August of this year, the company launched the country's first innovative concept store in Yizhuang, Beijing. It has greatly innovated in terms of functionality, vision, and scene, creating a new “dining+entertainment+lifestyle” ecosystem.

Furthermore, the company deepened implementation of the “Woodpecker Plan” and took the initiative to shut down some stores that did not meet expectations. As of June 2025, the company operated 1,363 restaurants and 41 franchised restaurants. In the first half of the year, it opened 25 new self-operated restaurants and 3 franchise restaurants. The company's overall turnover rate during this period was 3.8 times per day. Overall, the average customer consumption was 97.9 yuan. The per capita consumption in the Mainland, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan regions all increased year-on-year.

While stabilizing the basic market, Haidilao is also actively developing a diversified brand strategy to create a second growth curve. This also enables the company to gain new growth points in the countercycle of operations, maintain resilience through diversified brands, and stay ahead of peers in terms of profitability.

In August 2024, the company proposed the “Red Pomegranate Plan”, which aims to encourage the incubation and development of more new catering brands and promote innovation in food service. As of June 2025, after nearly a year of incubation, in addition to the Haidilao Hot Pot brand, the company has successively formed a total of 126 restaurants, including “Flame Requests Yakiniku Restaurant”, “Zengqian Yinxiang”, and “Xiaohi Ai Fried Food”. Among them, Yancheng Yakiniku Restaurant has become a new growth highlight. 46 new stores were opened in the first half of the year, and the number of stores reached 70. Driven by multiple brands, the company's revenue from other restaurants increased by more than 2.2 times.

Notably, Haidilao has a complete supply chain, which is the core competitiveness of the company's ability to quickly incubate and develop diverse brands. For example, when entering a new category, the product has a group combat advantage from the 0-1 development stage and at the level of initial model supply chain support. At the same time, management talent reserves in the operation process, site selection and construction in the construction process all go through Haidilao's mature system, which greatly reduces the marginal costs of entrepreneurs.

The cost of trial and error for entrepreneurs is low, and with multiple guarantees such as supply-side and client-side resources, brand incubation has achieved immediate results. The company has also accelerated the layout of startup brands by easing the entry threshold, revising and improving the entrepreneurship system, and formulating an incentive mechanism for introducing excellent external brands. In the second half of the year, the company focused on optimizing the single-store model and building prototype stores for key brands, which will greatly improve the success rate of startup brands.

Moreover, Haidilao's gradually growing franchise model, while developing the main brand, will also help the 'Red Pomegranate Plan' to replicate the model and accelerate the development of startup brands. Obviously, the company is forming a “basic market+growth market” dual-driven multi-brand pattern.

In fact, the multi-brand matrix is a common path for chain companies to create a second growth point. In particular, industry leaders will basically form a multi-brand-driven development model, such as Anta, a leader in the footwear industry, and Yum China in the fast food industry, etc., and it usually takes a long cycle to gradually stabilize the second growth curve. As a leader in the hot pot industry, Haidilao took the lead in initiating the second growth curve challenge and achieved remarkable results, and various brands grew at an accelerated pace.

For the capital market, a diversified brand strategy means expanding the room for growth and creating a second growth curve. Valuation will also break away from the fundamentals of the original industry and usher in a complete revaluation. Of course, there are also cases of failure, leading to continued setbacks and falls in valuations. The hot pot industry is in an adjustment cycle, and sector valuations continue to bottom out. Haidilao's valuation has investment opportunities on the right: first, the valuation is solid and the downward trend is limited; second, its diversified brand strategy is beginning to bear fruit. Second, the growth curve is obvious. Performance is resilient and there is an inflection point in growth, and there is plenty of room for upward valuation.

Major investment banks are also very optimistic about the company's diversified brand development. Among them, Dongwu Securities Research reports that the results of Haidilao's “Red Pomegranate” plan have been realized, and the innovation incubation results are remarkable. It is expected to create a second growth curve for the company. The target price of all major banks exceeds HK$20. At the same time, Haidilao has maintained a high dividend payout ratio all year round. The average payout rate in the past three years is over 90%, and the current dividend rate is also very high, over 6%, which is very attractive to value investors.