Dongpeng Beverage's revenue is expected to surpass 20 billion yuan in 2025, but the stock price hits the limit down.

Ask AI · Does slowing growth of core products signal that the growth myth is nearing its peak?

21st Century Business Herald reporter Liu Jingxi

On March 30, Dongpeng Beverage (605499.SH; 09980.HK) released its 2025 annual report. The report shows that for the full year, the company achieved operating revenue of 20.88B yuan, up 31.80% year over year; and attributable net profit of 4.42B yuan, up 32.72% year over year.

This is Dongpeng Beverage’s first annual report after its successful listing in Hong Kong in February. However, the A-share and Hong Kong share prices of the company have diverged from the overall rapid-growth operating figures.

As of the close on March 31, Dongpeng Beverage’s A-shares were at 205.27 yuan per share, down 9.97% (limit down). Its Hong Kong shares were 210.8 Hong Kong dollars per share, down 6.23%, opening lower and then trending lower.

Striving to become more “balanced”

By product category, Dongpeng Beverage’s multi-category strategy is being effectively and continuously carried forward, but Dongpeng Special Drink still plays the role of the “stabilizing ballast.” This also means that when the core big single product “Dongpeng Special Drink” saw its fourth-quarter revenue growth rate drop to a rare single-digit level, the stock price immediately followed the fluctuations.

The annual report shows that in 2025, the company’s main business revenue was mainly generated from energy drink products including Dongpeng Special Drink, which accounted for 74.78% of revenue. However, operating revenue increased by only 17.25% compared with the previous year; in the same period of 2024, Special Drink’s growth rate was 25%.

This likely means that the “energy drink growth myth” driven by Dongpeng Special Drink may be approaching its peak. What the market worries about is whether other products can become legitimate successors.

In 2025, the electrolyte drink “Bupshuilah” that the company strongly promoted achieved full-year revenue of 3.27B yuan, up 118.99% year over year, and its share of main business revenue increased from 9.45% in 2024 to 15.70% in 2025. The operating revenue of “Other Drinks” was 1.99B yuan, up 94.08%. Among them, products such as “Guozhi Tea” and “Dongpeng Daca” each exceeded 500 million yuan in revenue.

Evidently, even if “Bupshuilah,” viewed as the second growth curve, grew 118.99% year over year, a share of only 15.70% still could not meet market expectations.

Objectively speaking, last year the entire beverage industry grew at a low pace. According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, the total retail sales of beverage categories in 2025 reached 329.5 billion yuan, up 1% year over year.

Against this backdrop, for a “super big single product” with sales of 15.5 billion yuan and a market share close to 40%, maintaining high-speed growth again is far from easy.

Correspondingly, the company adopted an expansion-oriented sales strategy. In 2025, selling expenses increased by 27% compared with the same period of 2024, mainly because the company increased investment in ice cabinets, causing channel promotion fee expenditures to rise by 57.55%, and in order to further expand sales scale, the increase in headcount of sales personnel led to a 23.04% rise in staff compensation expenses.

According to the annual report, last year, Dongpeng Beverage continued to intensify its efforts in deploying ice cabinets. By strengthening end-terminal displays, improving the availability of cold drinks, and combining this with refined operations, it continuously enhanced channel penetration and single-point output efficiency. On the channel side, Dongpeng Beverage has built a large distribution network: it has more than 3,400 dealers and over 4.5 million retail outlets.

At the same time, management expenses increased by 35.53% compared with the same period of 2024. The main reasons were increases in spending such as management personnel compensation, depreciation and amortization expenses, and intermediary fees. However, in 2025, the company’s top management implemented a significant overall salary reduction. The chairman and CEO Lin Muqin’s compensation was 5.3161 million yuan, down from 5.5273 million yuan last year—a decrease of 0.2112 million yuan. Board member and executive CEO Lin Mugang’s compensation was 4.3784 million yuan, down from 4.9614 million yuan last year—a decrease of 0.5830 million yuan.

“Get out of Guangdong” strategy

Besides “single-product reliance,” another challenge Dongpeng Beverage faces is excessive concentration in the South China market.

The annual report shows that in 2025, in addition to the strong South China region, Dongpeng Beverage further achieved balance in the national five major regions, and the “get out of Guangdong” strategy is being fulfilled.

In 2025, the South China region still remained the region with the highest share of revenue. Operating revenue in 2025 was 6.22B yuan, up 18.09%, and the revenue share was 29.80%.

Outside the South China region, the revenue share gradually increased. In 2025, operating revenue was 14.64B yuan, up 38.69%, and the revenue share was 70.20%. Among them, revenue growth in the North China region and West China region was particularly strong, with growth rates reaching 67.86% and 40.77%, respectively.

On the production side, Dongpeng Beverage has 14 major production bases nationwide (10 of which have been built and put into operation), covering the five major regions: South China, East China, Central China, West China, and North China. Now, Dongpeng Beverage is developing steadily at an average pace of adding 2 bases per year, and its 14th production base in Chengdu was also completed in signing last year, which will further strengthen its ability to radiate into the Southwest market.

By lengthening the time horizon, after hitting a peak around mid-2024, Dongpeng Beverage’s (605499.SH) stock price has continued to pull back.

On June 12, 2025, driven by multiple positive catalysts—including high growth in performance, expectations of consumer recovery, and A+H listing catalysts—Dongpeng Beverage’s stock price kept surging. On that day, its closing price was 336.50 yuan, and the intraday high reached 338.92 yuan, the highest point since listing. After that, the stock price entered a period of volatile decline, and as of now it has retreated by nearly 40%.

Stock price volatility also reflects market fluctuations in confidence in the “Dongpeng Special Drink growth myth.” After it managed to outcompete Red Bull and emerged as the upstart, Dongpeng Beverage needs to find a new story that can be told.