Saying Goodbye to Single-Gift Thinking: How Yanzhiwu Truly Wins the Young Market Through Youthification?

Question: How does AI and smart factories support cost reduction and efficiency improvement to promote brand youthfulness strategy?

Produced by | China Visitor Network

Reviewed by | Li Xiaoyan

As the “Number One Bird’s Nest Stock” in the Hong Kong stock market, Yan Zhiwu has become a benchmark enterprise in industry standardization and branding development through nearly 30 years of deep cultivation in the bird’s nest sector. By 2025, against the backdrop of macro consumption structure adjustments and a temporary slowdown in high-end health supplement demand, the company delivered a resilient and growth-oriented performance: total revenue of 2.001 billion yuan, maintaining a solid twenty-billion-yuan revenue base; net profit of 191 million yuan, up 19.3% year-over-year, with steadily improving profitability. Facing external environment changes, Yan Zhiwu consolidates its operational foundation through cost control and efficiency enhancement, strengthens market roots via omni-channel optimization, and embraces new consumer trends through brand youthfulness. In short-term challenges, it seizes long-term opportunities, demonstrating the stability and innovative vitality of a leading health supplement enterprise.

In 2025, Yan Zhiwu’s revenue slightly declined by 2.41% year-over-year, which the company attributes to macro consumption adjustments, a phased slowdown in high-end consumption, and short-term pressure on offline stores—common features of the health supplement industry during the consumption upgrade and transformation period. Notably, the company’s net profit grew by nearly 20%, with continuous improvement in profit quality, mainly driven by full-chain cost optimization and refined operational upgrades. With the full deployment of new smart factories, digital transformation of production processes, and ongoing optimization of raw material procurement and manufacturing techniques, Yan Zhiwu’s production costs decreased by 10.36% to 930 million yuan in 2025, a significant drop exceeding revenue fluctuations, marking a new level in production efficiency and cost control. Meanwhile, the company proactively optimized expense structures, reasonably adjusted R&D, sales, and distribution costs, ensuring resource allocation efficiency while safeguarding core operations and innovation investments, thus supporting steady profit growth.

Industry experts point out that Yan Zhiwu’s strategic shift from prioritizing scale to emphasizing quality and efficiency aligns with the broader trend of rational consumer market recovery, representing a mature response by leading enterprises to cyclical fluctuations. Through smart manufacturing to reduce costs, operational management to improve efficiency, and precise resource allocation, the company has moved away from dependence on high investment and aggressive marketing, transitioning toward a sustainable endogenous growth model, laying a solid foundation for long-term healthy development.

Product matrix iteration and upgrading are core strengths enabling Yan Zhiwu to navigate industry cycles. The company has established a product system covering pure bird’s nest core series, bird’s nest + innovation series, and functional bird’s nest series, supporting high-end gifts, daily health supplements, and functional wellness scenarios. In 2025, as a revenue pillar, pure bird’s nest products generated 1.771 billion yuan, accounting for nearly 90% of total revenue, ensuring product stability; meanwhile, innovative derivative products are advancing in tandem, tailored to meet young consumers’ needs with optimized formulas and formats, continuously enriching product choices. In response to market changes, Yan Zhiwu maintains strict quality standards, improves full-chain traceability, and ensures product stability through standardized production, building a quality barrier in industry competition.

Channel structure continues to optimize, with online and offline channels working together, becoming an important support for Yan Zhiwu to withstand market fluctuations. Offline, the company has optimized dealer networks and store layouts, closing underperforming stores and focusing on core commercial districts. By the end of 2025, there were 732 stores, with channel quality steadily improving. Although offline revenue faces short-term pressure, the store network covers key cities nationwide, retaining core scenarios for high-end experiences and gift consumption, providing a solid platform for brand image. Online channels maintained steady growth, with revenue reaching 1.271 billion yuan in 2025, up 2.29% year-over-year, accounting for 63.51% of total revenue, becoming a performance ballast. The company is investing in interest-based e-commerce, live streaming sales, KOL content marketing, and other emerging models, expanding instant retail and community operations to enhance online reach and conversion efficiency. At the same time, Yan Zhiwu actively addresses service and quality control challenges in online operations, continuously optimizing after-sales systems and strengthening quality management, driven by user reputation for long-term growth.

Currently, the bird’s nest industry is shifting from high-end gifts to daily wellness products, with young consumers emerging as a new growth driver. Data from the National Bird’s Nest Committee shows that consumers aged 18-30 account for 31.29%, with convenience, functionality, and high cost-performance becoming mainstream trends. In response, Yan Zhiwu is fully advancing its brand youthfulness strategy through ambassador upgrades, new product categories, and scene innovations, aiming to resonate with young consumers. By 2025, the company plans to establish a dual endorsement system featuring Gong Li and Zhu Yilong, balancing high-end brand heritage with youthful vitality, using online co-branded gift boxes and offline airport billboard campaigns to break the “aging and gift-oriented” label of bird’s nest products and integrate them into young people’s daily lives.

In product innovation, Yan Zhiwu accelerates scene expansion and category extension, piloting “Yan Yu New Tea” to create a “tea + bird’s nest” scenario targeting young daily consumption; launching its own brand YANPEP to develop bird’s nest peptide oral drinks, collagen essence, functional beverages, and other products, extending bird’s nest applications into beauty, health, and daily hydration—shifting from low-frequency gift items to high-frequency fast-moving consumer goods. Additionally, leveraging patented technology for bird’s nest peptide preparation, the company strengthens R&D innovation, using technological barriers to empower product upgrades and support its youthful transformation.

Industry analysts believe that the bird’s nest sector still has room for expansion, with ongoing growth driven by expanding consumer groups, diversified scenarios, and convenient products. As an industry leader, Yan Zhiwu’s advantages in branding, supply chain, R&D, and channels underpin its long-term growth despite short-term revenue fluctuations. Cost control and efficiency improvements enhance profitability resilience; omni-channel optimization solidifies operational foundations; and youth-oriented transformation opens new growth space. The combined effect of these three core drivers is expected to propel the company back onto a steady growth trajectory.

Of course, intensified industry competition, rapid consumer demand iteration, and offline channel recovery remain short-term challenges for Yan Zhiwu. However, with nearly three decades of brand accumulation, intelligent manufacturing capabilities, omni-channel experience, and a proactive innovation spirit, the company possesses the core competencies to navigate cycles and withstand volatility. Looking ahead, as the youth-oriented strategy continues to unfold, new product categories expand, and offline channels gradually recover, Yan Zhiwu is poised to seize opportunities in the health supplement industry transformation, solidify its leadership position, and deliver higher-quality bird’s nest products and services to consumers, creating long-term value for capital markets.

Standing at a new starting point in industry development, Yan Zhiwu responds to short-term challenges with steady management, embraces long-term opportunities through innovation and transformation, and drives the dual engines of cost control and youthfulness to lead the standardization, health, and mass adoption of the bird’s nest industry.