---
title: "Yonghui Superstores Expects 2025 Net Loss of 2.14 Billion Yuan: The Painful 'Pangdonglai-style' Transformation"
description: "On January 20, Yonghui Superstores issued a profit warning for 2025, projecting a net loss attributable to shareholders of 2.14 billion yuan, widening from a loss of 1.47 billion yuan in the prior year. The company also expects a net loss after excluding non-recurring gains and losses of 2.94 billion yuan, compared with a loss of 2.41 billion yuan in 2024. The 2.14 billion yuan loss is a stark figure that has dampened enthusiasm for the Pangdonglai model and exposed the underlying challenges of Yonghui's transformation."
author: "何雯"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2026-01-21"
categories: "Retail Formats"
language: "en"
canonical: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/yonghui-superstores-expects-2025-net-loss-of-2-14-billion-yuan-the-painf-6c682210/"
markdown: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/yonghui-superstores-expects-2025-net-loss-of-2-14-billion-yuan-the-painf-6c682210.md"
original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/w7Bg4kxnMJEL08adupsC1g"
translation: "https://xinjignxiao.com/zh/articles/2025%E5%B9%B4%E9%A2%84%E4%BA%8F21-4%E4%BA%BF-%E6%B0%B8%E8%BE%89%E8%B6%85%E5%B8%82-%E8%83%96%E6%94%B9-%E5%BE%88%E7%97%9B-6c682210.md"
attribution: "New Distribution — https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/yonghui-superstores-expects-2025-net-loss-of-2-14-billion-yuan-the-painf-6c682210/"
citation: "何雯. “Yonghui Superstores Expects 2025 Net Loss of 2.14 Billion Yuan: The Painful 'Pangdonglai-style' Transformation.” New Distribution, 2026-01-21. https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/yonghui-superstores-expects-2025-net-loss-of-2-14-billion-yuan-the-painf-6c682210/"
usage_policy: "https://xinjignxiao.com/ai-policy.txt"
---

# Yonghui Superstores Expects 2025 Net Loss of 2.14 Billion Yuan: The Painful 'Pangdonglai-style' Transformation

> On January 20, Yonghui Superstores issued a profit warning for 2025, projecting a net loss attributable to shareholders of 2.14 billion yuan, widening from a loss of 1.47 billion yuan in the prior year. The company also expects a net loss after excluding non-recurring gains and losses of 2.94 billion yuan, compared with a loss of 2.41 billion yuan in 2024. The 2.14 billion yuan loss is a stark figure that has dampened enthusiasm for the Pangdonglai model and exposed the underlying challenges of Yonghui's transformation.

**Source** | Innovation Retail Society
On January 20, Yonghui Superstores released its 2025 annual performance forecast, expecting a net loss attributable to shareholders of listed company of 2.14 billion yuan, compared with a loss of 1.47 billion yuan in the same period last year.
The company expects a net loss after deducting non-recurring gains and losses attributable to shareholders of listed company of 2.94 billion yuan, compared with a loss of 2.41 billion yuan in the same period last year.
2.14 billion yuan.
This is a glaring number.
Image source: Yonghui Superstores announcement
It is like a bucket of ice water, extinguishing the blind enthusiasm for the Pangdonglai model, and also fully exposing the underlying logic and difficulties of Yonghui's transformation.
From the explosive popularity of the Zhengzhou Xinwan Plaza store with daily revenue exceeding one million yuan, to the vigorous nationwide replication, and now to the huge expected loss, why has the mythologized "Pangdonglai model" failed to stop Yonghui's bleeding?
Is this 2.14 billion yuan loss the liquidation cost of the collapse of the old model, or the inevitable pain of the new model's磨合?
**No Longer Selling Shelf Space, But Selling Products: Yonghui Has Completely Changed**
The company announcement clearly states that 2025 is a key watershed for Yonghui's shift from scale expansion to quality growth.
Looking back over the past year and a half, Yonghui's "Pangdonglai-style" transformation has been aggressive. Under the guidance of Pangdonglai founder Yu Donglai, Yonghui attempted to complete the leap from traditional hypermarket to quality retail in an extremely short period.
The main measures can be summarized as "three axes":
1. **From selling shelf space to selling products**: Drastically removed over 70% of redundant SKUs, especially second- and third-tier brands that occupied prime shelf space for a long time, relied on paying high entry fees, but had low repurchase rates; simultaneously introduced Pangdonglai's private label (DL series) as a traffic-driving tool.
For example, at the Zhengzhou Longhu Jinyicheng store, 8,243 inefficient SKUs were eliminated, and 13,936 new products were introduced, 90% of which were Pangdonglai DL series bestsellers. After the adjustment, the store's first-month sales exceeded 56 million yuan, profits exceeded 2 million yuan, and employee income increased by 30%.
2. **People-oriented**: At adjusted stores in Henan, Fuzhou, etc., the monthly salary of frontline employees was directly raised from around 3,000 yuan to 4,500-5,000 yuan, an increase generally exceeding 30%-50%.
Shortened business hours, increased employee leave, and allowed employees to sit while cashiering. This is almost a countercurrent in the retail industry where "cost reduction and efficiency enhancement" is the main theme, and it inevitably caused single-store labor costs to surge by more than 40%.
3. **Sacrificing sales efficiency for experience**: Widened traffic flow lines, canceled forced traffic lines and end caps, lowered mid-island shelves to 1.6 meters, widened aisles to over 3 meters, sacrificing a large amount of display area that could have been used for sales in exchange for shopping comfort.
This approach did create miracles in a small-scale pilot in Zhengzhou, but when it was rapidly replicated to hundreds of stores nationwide, hidden dangers began to erupt. As traffic receded, what was left for Yonghui was high labor costs, renovation depreciation, a supply chain still climbing the curve, and enormous profitability pressure.
**Where Did the 2.14 Billion Yuan Loss Come From?**
The huge loss is not without trace. Rather than saying the transformation failed, it is more accurate to say that the "scissors gap" between short-term cost surges and long-term revenue lag has been infinitely widened.
1. **Store closures to stop losses**
In the 2.14 billion yuan expected loss, in addition to operating losses, it is highly likely to include huge asset impairment losses.
In 2025, Yonghui closed more than 300 tail-end stores, leaving only 450 by the end of the third quarter. The scrapping of renovations, employee severance, and breach penalties for these stores constitute the main part of the loss. But there was no choice, because under the new model, inefficient stores not only don't make money, but may also continuously drain resources.
A large part of this 2.14 billion yuan is paying for the blind expansion of the past decade, a painful but necessary "scraping the bone to cure the poison."
2. **Disappearance of channel fees**
Traditional KA (key accounts) have long relied on backend gross profit, i.e., supplier entry fees, barcode fees, festival fees, etc. This was also an important pillar of Yonghui's profits.
The core of the transformation is to "remove channel fees" and shift to "naked price" procurement.
Ye Guofu announced at the 2025 Global Supplier Conference that Yonghui would cut 60% of middlemen and directly connect with 200 core suppliers, aiming to reduce procurement costs by 15%. At the same time, Yonghui canceled various backend fees under the traditional KA (hypermarket) model, such as entry fees, barcode fees, and end cap fees, and promised to shorten payment terms from the industry-standard 90 days to 45 days.
When the new private label and core single-product supply chain system has not yet been fully established, and the money earned from selling goods has not yet covered operating costs, the money earned from renting shelf space has already been cut off.
This gap directly led to dual pressure on revenue and gross profit. Canceling backend fees also means Yonghui voluntarily cut off an annual "stable income" of hundreds of millions or even over a billion yuan.
3. **Rigid costs surge**
Pangdonglai's high salaries are based on its astonishing sales efficiency per square meter. For example, the sales efficiency of Xuchang Pangdonglai Times Square is 5-10 times the industry average, so it can support high salaries.
From January to September 2025, the monthly sales efficiency of Yonghui's 47 stores that had been adjusted for a full 6 months reached 3,295 yuan per square meter, higher than the benchmark of 2,800 yuan per square meter. However, before sales efficiency fully met the standard, labor costs and renovation costs were increased first.
Let's do the math: assuming that with new renovation depreciation and inventory costs, if a store's labor costs rise by 40%, and sales cannot grow by more than 60% simultaneously, the store will fall into deep losses.
Obviously, the profitability of Yonghui's adjusted stores that have entered a stable period has not yet covered the huge investment in the transformation, and a large number of stores are in an awkward cycle of "costs have risen, but customer traffic has fallen."
4. **The false prosperity of the supply chain**
Many consumers go to Yonghui out of curiosity for the DL label and Pangdonglai's internet-famous products. This exposes a fatal problem: Yonghui still has not established its own core supply chain barrier.
Relying on Pangdonglai's supply chain can only provide emergency relief, not a long-term solution.
Compared with Sam's Club's strong global procurement and differentiated development capabilities, Yonghui's procurement team has long been accustomed to a "sitting merchant" model, lacking a true buyer gene. When the popularity of internet-famous products fades, can Yonghui's own fresh and standard products retain customers? The 2025 data gives a negative answer.
**Besides Sentiment, What Else Does Retail Need?**
Yonghui's case sounds an alarm for China's retail industry. It proves that the Pangdonglai model may be an unreplicable unique case, and it also reveals the cruelty of transformation.
Many retail companies mistakenly believe that Pangdonglai's success lies in "being good to employees" and "good service."
But the core truth is that Pangdonglai has built a closed, high-density business ecosystem in Xuchang, Henan, with absolute regional pricing power and procurement bargaining power. As a national chain, Yonghui has too long a management radius and a dispersed supply chain. Using the tactics of a regional leader to fight a national chain war is itself a strategic misalignment.
On the other hand, in the 2025 market environment, consumers are extremely rational. Sam's Club, Costco, and hard discount formats like Aldi remain strong because they have driven down prices through extreme supply chain efficiency.
Yonghui's transformation has improved quality, but it has also invisibly pushed up the average transaction value.
Many consumers have complained online: "Previously, Yonghui was a people's supermarket, but after the transformation, it raised prices and is not good anymore. There are not many livelihood products left; they are all internet-famous goods, no longer for ordinary people..."
In an era where low prices are the absolute truth, the positioning of "good products, high prices" is very awkward—the middle class goes to Sam's Club, price-sensitive consumers go to snack discount stores, and time-pressed consumers order from Puyi or Hema for home delivery. Yonghui is stuck in the middle, attacked from both sides.
**Final Thoughts**
Yonghui's 2025 is destined to be a tragic year recorded in China's retail history.
The 2.14 billion yuan loss does not mean we should completely negate the direction of the "transformation." If it had not transformed, Yonghui would face a slow death like a frog in boiling water; by transforming, it faces the pain of transition. Yonghui chose the latter, and this courage deserves respect.
Acting CEO Ye Guofu has also clarified the future strategic direction at the transformation conference: In the next three years, Yonghui will focus on "three cores"—core suppliers, core single products, and long-termism—and has set the goal of "incubating 100 single products with annual sales of 100 million yuan in the next three years."
Although the direction is clear, the asset-liability ratio of 88.73% remains a mine that cannot be ignored.
Supply chain reform requires prepayment for goods, store transformation requires renovation equipment, and store closure compensation and employee salary increases require cash payments. Although the company has disclosed a private placement plan, under huge losses, financing costs and difficulty are increasing.
Although some adjusted stores that have entered a stable period have achieved profitability and set new records, proving that the model works, the key now is whether Yonghui's cash flow can hold out until all stores complete their "transformation."
If the 2024 transformation was "learning from Pangdonglai," then in 2026, Yonghui must not only "learn to look like" but also "survive." Whether the current situation is the darkness before dawn or the beginning of an eternal night, time will tell.


---

## Citation metadata

- Publisher: New Distribution
- Author: 何雯
- Published: 2026-01-21
- Canonical: https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/yonghui-superstores-expects-2025-net-loss-of-2-14-billion-yuan-the-painf-6c682210/
- Original source: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/w7Bg4kxnMJEL08adupsC1g

## Copyright and AI use

This article is sourced from New Distribution. Search, quotation, summarization, and model training are permitted, but every use must credit New Distribution and retain the canonical source URL.

Contact: zhaobo258@gmail.com · +86 158 5481 7671