Quick Summary
- What Miniso is: a Chinese value-lifestyle retailer founded in Guangzhou in 2013 by Ye Guofu, now running roughly 7,900 stores worldwide.
- How it grew: low prices, fast product turnover, an asset-light franchise model, and a heavy pivot into licensed IP and blind boxes.
- Where it’s going: overseas is now about 39% of MINISO-brand revenue and its fastest-growing engine, with FY2025 revenue of RMB 21.4 billion, up 26%.
- The lesson for foreign brands: Miniso’s China story is a masterclass in localization (it dropped its fake “Japanese” styling), IP co-branding, and supply-chain discipline.
Miniso is one of China’s biggest retail success stories, and its journey holds direct lessons for any brand eyeing the Chinese market. The company scaled from a single Guangzhou store in 2013 to roughly 7,905 stores worldwide by mid-2025 (Miniso IR, August 2025), selling affordable, design-led everyday goods. The Miniso China story matters to foreign brands because it shows what actually works here: localization, licensed IP, and a supply chain built for speed. It also carries a warning, because Miniso spent years pretending to be Japanese and had to publicly walk it back.
We help foreign brands build their own China success stories, so we study the local winners closely. Here’s how Miniso did it, and what you can borrow.
Updated July 2026. Store counts, revenue, and expansion figures are current as of this date.
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| Miniso at a glance | |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2013, Guangzhou, China |
| Founder | Ye Guofu (chairman and CEO) |
| Listings | NYSE: MNSO, HKEX: 9896 |
| Stores (mid-2025) | ~7,905 total: ~4,300 mainland China, ~3,300 overseas, ~290 TOP TOY |
| FY2025 revenue | RMB 21.4 billion (~$3.0B), up 26.2% year on year |
| IP licensors | 150+ (Sanrio, Disney, Chiikawa, Harry Potter, Barbie) |
| Key holdings | TOP TOY chain; 29.4% stake in Yonghui Superstores |
What is Miniso?
Miniso is a Chinese variety and lifestyle retailer that sells affordable, design-led products, with a core range priced around 10 to 30 RMB. Think homeware, cosmetics, stationery, toys, snacks, and accessories, all under a clean, minimalist look. The brand is built on five stated values: simplicity, quality, natural materials, and respect for both consumers and nature. What that means in practice is a store full of things that look more expensive than they cost, which is exactly the promise that pulled shoppers in.
The scale today is far past the “10-yuan shop” origin. Miniso ran about 7,780 stores at the end of 2024 (4,386 in mainland China and 3,118 overseas, plus 276 TOP TOY outlets), and reported FY2024 revenue of RMB 17.0 billion (about $2.3 billion), up 22.8% year on year (Miniso IR, March 2025). Growth then accelerated: FY2025 revenue reached RMB 21.4 billion, up 26.2% (Miniso IR). Note the fiscal year ends in June, so these labels matter when you compare periods. Which means the business roughly doubled in the space of a few years, on the back of the model below.
The Miniso business model
Miniso runs on three engines: low-cost C2M sourcing, fast product turnover, and an asset-light retail-partner model. Each one is worth understanding on its own, because together they explain how a store selling cheap goods funds a global rollout.
Value pricing and the supply chain
The pricing works because of how Miniso buys. It uses a consumer-to-manufacturer (C2M) model: it designs the product, hands production to contract factories, and buys in enough volume to squeeze the unit cost down. Its “711” product cadence keeps the shelves fresh, roughly 100 new SKUs launched every seven days, selected from a library of around 10,000 design ideas (Miniso). That combination of low price, high quality, and constant newness is the whole pitch, captured in the old slogan “ten yuan each, quality of life.” The frequent drops give shoppers a reason to come back weekly, which lifts footfall without extra marketing spend.
The retail-partner model
Most Miniso stores are run by partners, not the company, which is how it scales so fast without tying up its own capital. Under this asset-light franchise structure, Miniso keeps control of the brand, the products, and much of the inventory, while retail partners fund and operate the storefronts and take a share of the daily turnover. That lets the company add hundreds of stores a year while keeping its own balance sheet light. Where the model strains: as Miniso leans harder into licensed IP, licensing costs rise, and its 2024 bet on Yonghui Superstores (more on that below) brought integration losses that pressured short-term profit even as revenue climbed.
The IP and blind-box strategy
Miniso’s biggest growth engine now is intellectual property. The company works with more than 150 licensors, including Sanrio, Disney, Chiikawa, Harry Potter, and Barbie, and turns those characters into affordable collectibles (Miniso, 2024-2025). The blind box, a sealed package where you don’t know which figure you’ll get, is the star of this strategy: Miniso sold more than 30 million blind boxes in just the first nine months of 2024. This is the “interest-based consumption” pivot, and it reframes Miniso from a cheap-goods store into an IP design retailer. Its dedicated collectibles chain, TOP TOY, reached about 276 stores by the end of 2024 and is one of the fastest-growing parts of the group. For a foreign brand, the takeaway is that IP co-branding turns a functional product into something people seek out and collect.
Going global: overseas expansion
Overseas is now about 39% of MINISO-brand revenue and its fastest-growing engine, with international revenue up roughly 42% year on year in 2024 (Miniso IR). The company crossed 3,000 overseas stores in 2024 and keeps pushing into new markets. In the United States, Miniso targeted 350 to 400 stores for 2025, up from around 238 at the end of 2023, a fast climb rather than the “overnight doubling” some reports claimed. Beyond North America, it has opened flagship stores across Southeast Asia (Indonesia and Thailand among them), Latin America, and Europe. The overseas push is the clearest proof that a value-retail model born in China can travel, provided the local execution is right.
Bigger ambitions: the Yonghui stake
In September 2024, Miniso bought 29.4% of Yonghui Superstores for about RMB 6.3 billion (roughly $900 million), becoming its largest single shareholder (Miniso IR, September 2024). Yonghui is a major Chinese supermarket chain, and the move is a bet on physical-retail scale and supply-chain gains well beyond Miniso’s own store network. It signals a company thinking bigger than variety stores, though it also added near-term losses as the two businesses integrate. For a brand-strategy reader, it’s a reminder that even a fast-growing retailer places large, patient bets to secure its next stage of growth.
What foreign brands can learn from Miniso
Miniso’s rise offers four transferable lessons for brands entering China. Taken together, they’re less about copying a variety store and more about how to build trust and demand in a crowded market.
1. Localize, and mean it. Miniso spent its early years styled as a Japanese “designer” brand, complete with a katakana-style logo, despite being founded in Guangzhou by Ye Guofu. In 2022, after a marketing incident, nationalist backlash forced a public apology in which the company called itself a “proud Chinese brand through and through” and committed to stripping Japanese elements by March 2023 (Campaign Asia, ChinaTalk). The lesson isn’t “avoid foreign cues.” It’s that a borrowed identity is fragile, and authenticity ages far better than a costume.
2. Use IP as a discovery and repeat engine. The 150-plus licensing deals and the blind-box business turned everyday products into things shoppers hunt for and come back to buy again. Co-branding with characters people already love is one of the fastest ways to earn attention in China without buying it outright.
3. Grow asset-light. The retail-partner model let Miniso add stores at a pace that a company-owned model never could. For a foreign brand, the equivalent is finding local partners who fund and run the on-the-ground presence while you keep the brand and product tight.
4. Make the store an experience, not a shelf. Frequent new products, collectible IP, and clean store design give people a reason to visit in person, which is exactly what value retail needs to defend itself against pure e-commerce. Where this breaks: the IP-and-experience model raises licensing costs and complexity, so it rewards operational discipline, not just creative ambition.
We Can Help You Build Your China Story
Miniso’s approach, localization, IP co-branding, and a supply chain built for speed, is exactly the kind of thinking foreign brands need to win in China. The hard part is adapting it to your category and getting the positioning right before you scale, which is the same lesson Miniso learned the expensive way.
We help foreign brands build their own China success story, from brand positioning and localization to platform entry and IP partnerships. Get a China brand-strategy consultation and we’ll map how the lessons above apply to your brand, and where the real opportunities and risks sit for your category.
FAQ
Is Miniso Chinese or Japanese?
Miniso is Chinese. It was founded in Guangzhou in 2013 by Ye Guofu. Its early branding leaned on a Japanese “designer” image, but after a 2022 backlash the company apologized, called itself a proud Chinese brand, and removed the Japanese styling by 2023.
Who owns Miniso?
Ye Guofu is the founder, chairman, and CEO, and its largest individual shareholder. The company is publicly listed on both the New York Stock Exchange (MNSO) and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (9896).
How many Miniso stores are there?
About 7,905 as of June 2025, spread across roughly 4,300 in mainland China, 3,300 overseas, and around 290 TOP TOY outlets (Miniso IR). The company targets more than 10,000 stores by 2027.
What is Miniso’s business model?
A mix of asset-light franchising and licensed IP. Retail partners fund and run most stores while Miniso controls the brand, products, and C2M supply chain, and licensed characters plus blind boxes drive repeat purchases.
What companies does Miniso own?
Miniso operates the collectibles chain TOP TOY and holds a 29.4% stake in supermarket group Yonghui Superstores, acquired in September 2024, which makes it Yonghui’s largest single shareholder.
Why is Miniso so cheap?
Its C2M model cuts out middlemen: Miniso designs the products, orders in high volume from contract factories, and turns inventory over fast. That scale and speed, plus its “ten yuan” heritage, keep prices low while margins hold.
