【Epoch Times News, March 30, 2025】Haidilao Dining Management (China) Holdings Co., Ltd. (Haidilao Group) recently released its 2024 financial report, showing a loss of 398 million yuan (RMB) for the year 2024. The cumulative loss since 2021 has reached 1.2 billion yuan, with the stock price falling to 0.86 Hong Kong dollars per share.
On the evening of March 27, Haidilao Group released its 2024 financial report, indicating that the group’s revenue for 2024 was 4.755 billion yuan, a decrease of 19.7% year-on-year. The group incurred a loss of 398 million yuan for the full year, resulting in a total shareholder’s loss of 401 million yuan, compared to a loss of 199 million yuan in the same period last year. Haidilao Group stated that the decline in revenue was mainly due to intensified industry competition and rational consumption trends.
Founded in 1998, Haidilao Group went public on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2014. The group owns major hotpot brands such as Haidilao and Yuanyuan. According to data from Dahe Caifang on March 27, in 2021, Haidilao Group experienced its first annual loss since going public, with a loss of 293 million yuan. The losses continued in the following years, with losses reaching 353 million yuan and 199 million yuan in 2022 and 2023, respectively. Within four years, Haidilao Group accumulated losses exceeding 1.2 billion yuan.
Simultaneously with the operational losses, Haidilao Group’s number of stores has been decreasing. In 2024, the group closed 219 restaurants, including 138 Haidilao and 73 Yuanyuan restaurants. As of December 31, 2024, the total number of restaurants under Haidilao Group was 957.
Dahe Caifang believes that the reduction in restaurants has led to an overall decline in Haidilao Group’s food and beverage business revenue. Specifically, Haidilao Group’s business income decreased by 13.1% from 30.24 billion yuan in 2023 to 26.29 billion yuan in 2024; Yuanyuan’s business income decreased by 26.5% from 26.52 billion yuan in 2023 to 19.48 billion yuan in 2024.
On March 29, Rongzhong Finance stated that Haidilao Group once occupied a place in the hotpot industry with its unique “Taiwanese-style hotpot” model and precise market positioning. However, faced with intensifying competition in the hotpot market, hotpot brands need to differentiate themselves through product innovation, service upgrades, marketing expansion, and supply chain optimization to actively seek new growth opportunities.
In May 2024, facing declining performance, Haidilao Group announced price reductions, with most set menu prices dropping to around 50 yuan. However, the strategy has not yet shown positive results based on the performance after the price reduction.
Rongzhong Finance analysis suggests that the intense competition in the hotpot industry has diluted the impact of price reductions. The industry is undergoing a fierce reshuffling: in 2023, 66,000 new hotpot companies emerged nationwide, with emerging brands in the 30-yuan price range grabbing market share with extreme cost-effectiveness. Despite Haidilao Group’s reduced price of 50 yuan, it still exceeds the average price of competitors, lacking differentiated service support and leading consumers towards lower-priced alternative options.
Rongzhong Finance believes that the current predicament of Haidilao Group reflects a broader issue in the hotpot industry. In an era of intensified consumer stratification, the recovery of catering brands cannot rely solely on price leverage but needs to reconstruct the value triangle of “precise positioning – cost optimization – experience upgrade.”
Haidilao Group’s declining profits have become a microcosm of the lackluster performance of the Chinese catering industry.
Data from QiChaCha shows that in 2024, the number of closed catering companies in China reached a historical high, nearing 3 million.
According to Reuters on March 20, An Dawei, a seller of second-hand kitchen equipment, stated that last year, their team contacted 200 closed restaurants every month, a 270% increase from the previous year. An Dawei said, “In first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, the monthly closure rate of restaurants exceeds 10%, sometimes even surpassing 15%.”
Analysts indicate that the average lifespan of Chinese restaurants is only around 500 days, with Beijing restaurants seeing their lifespan reduced to a year. Municipal data shows that in the first half of 2024, net profits of Beijing restaurants plummeted by 88%.
As of 16:00:00 Beijing time on March 28, Haidilao’s share price was reported at 0.860 Hong Kong dollars per share, a decrease of 1.15%, with a total market value of 934 million Hong Kong dollars.
Data reveals that Haidilao’s share price has plummeted from 27.15 Hong Kong dollars per share in 2021 to 0.86 Hong Kong dollars per share in 2025, evaporating 97% of its market value.