Investors, analysts, media friends, good morning. China Mengniu Dairy Company Limited's 2025 Interim Results Announcement will begin now. On behalf of China Mengniu, I would like to welcome all of you for coming, and I would like to also thank you for your long-term interest, support, and investment into Mengniu. Please take a look at the disclaimer on the screen. Now, let me introduce to you our management team. They are: Mr. Gao Fei, Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director; Mr. Zhang Ping, Chief Financial Officer; Mr. Shen Xianwei, Chief Financial Officer and Executive Director, incoming; Mr. Chen Yiyi, Vice President; Mr. Li Pengcheng, Vice President; Mr. Chris Kwok, Company Secretary. In today's meeting, Mr. Gao Fei will do a review of the 2025 interim results and business performance, and also outlook, followed by a Q&A session. We expect to conclude this event at 10:50. Mr. Gao Fei, please.
Investors, analysts, and media friends, good morning. First of all, on behalf of Mengniu's management and all employees, I would like to express our sincere gratitude for taking time out of your busy schedules to attend China Mengniu's 2025 Interim Results Presentation. We would also like to extend a warm welcome to Mr. Shen Xinwen, as he is a new member of Mengniu's management team. Last night, we already released the company's financial report for the first half of the year. Currently, the industry continues to face significant supply-demand imbalances, compounded by evolving consumer demands and shifting retail channels. These factors collectively create substantial pressure on the sector. In today's presentation, I don't want to focus too much on pressure and problems.
Instead, I'd like to engage in a deeper discussion with you all: how we view the industry under these pressures, how we embrace change, and how we see Mengniu's future developments and change. First of all, I would like to give you a report on the financial data for the first half of the year. The company achieved a total revenue of RMB 41.57 billion in the first half, a year-on-year decrease of 6.9%. Both sales volume and average selling price saw low single-digit declines, as raw milk price remained lower year-on-year during the period. Gross profit margin increased by 1.5 percentage points to 41.7%. We confronted market shifts head-on, focused on lean management and further enhanced operational efficiency and core profitability. Operating profit margin increased by 1.5 percentage points year-on-year to 8.5%.
Operating profit grew 13.4% year-on-year to RMB 3.54 billion, with profit margin improving across all business segments, including liquid milk, ice cream, milk formula, and cheese. Net profit attributable to shareholders reached RMB 2.05 billion, a 16.4% year-on-year decrease. This was primarily due to Modern Dairy recording a loss of RMB 910 million after significant biological asset impairment charges in the first half, with Mengniu accordingly recognizing a loss of RMB 540 million from its associate company investment. This investment loss increased by RMB 400 million compared to the same period last year. Excluding the impact of this change, net profits attributable to shareholders remained largely unchanged from the same period last year. Facing changes in consumers, products, and retail environments, every category is innovating and adapting to actively embrace new trends. However, our core liquid milk business, particularly room-temperature milk, still faces significant growth pressure, and a full recovery will take time.
Meanwhile, efforts to diversify our product portfolio and optimize category structure are beginning to show results. Subsegments, including fresh milk, ice cream, cheese, and infant milk formula, all achieved double-digit growth. Regarding expenses, through refined management of sales expenses and continuous efforts to enhance expenditure efficiency, the ratio of sales and distribution expenses decreased 0.5 percentage points year-on-year to 27.9%. Administrative expenses remained stable compared to the previous year. While focusing on quality improvement and efficiency gains, we increased investments in scientific research, innovation, and digitalization. These represent not only critical strategic investments but also built momentum for long-term development. In terms of operational efficiency, all key metrics remained at healthy levels. Inventory turnover days decreased by 4.3 days, primarily due to year-on-year reduction in both finished goods and bulk powder inventories. Operating cash flow for the first half of the year reached RMB 2.8 billion, a 46% year-on-year increase.
This growth primarily resulted from core net profit expansion compared to the same period last year, excluding the impact of non-cash items such as increased losses from our livestock, joint venture, and asset disposal gains recorded in the first half of last year. CapEx totaled RMB 1 billion. With current production capacity adequately aligned, we have strengthened CapEx control to continuously enhance free cash flow generation capabilities. The sustained improvement in free cash flow has also laid the foundation for enhancing shareholder returns. In June, we completed the cash dividend distribution for fiscal year 2024. In late August last year, we announced a one-year share repurchase program, during which we repurchased approximately HKD 500 million worth of shares, representing 0.7% of the average market cap during the repurchase period. Through the combination of cash dividend and share repurchase, the overall dividend yield exceeded 4%.
Last night, we also announced a new share repurchase program aiming to continuously create better long-term value and returns for shareholders through the dividend plus repurchase approach. Next, business review. Facing the new landscape and challenges in industry development, we maintain, or actually, in August last year, we proposed our strategy of one core, two wings, and we have to maintain strategic resolve in this approach or strategy, and we should strengthen the core to solidify our foundation and expand the wings to foster innovative growth momentum. Regarding strengthening the core, we stabilized the foundation of our core business while accelerating development of niche categories, further optimizing our product portfolio, looking at each business segment specifically. For room temperature business, we faced challenges in the first half of the year due to supply-demand imbalances and channel fragmentation.
We proactively embraced market shifts by focusing on product innovation and upgrading our RTM distribution channels. Amid the K-shaped consumption trends, we continue to lead consumers to drink good milk. Milk Deluxe remains committed to crafting premium milk through an end-to-end supply chain approach. Marking Milk Deluxe's 20th anniversary this year, we further deepened our value moat by leveraging the scarcity of our desert organic milk supply chain. We launched the premium flagship product, that is the Shajin Tohoi. That's it called organic milk, continuously meeting consumers' pursuit of better, higher-quality options. Of course, consumers also see ultimate value for money. We have streamlined our product value chain, launching more pure milk products this year that offer both quality and affordability, better aligning with the needs at the base of the mass consumption pyramid.
At the same time, by focusing on category innovation and matching nutritional needs across different demographics, we're accelerating the launch of precision nutrition and functional new products, enabling more consumers to drink more and drink right. Facing diverse channel developments, we must not only maintain our established RTM channel strengths but also actively embrace high-potential channels to expand omnichannel capabilities. Since the beginning of the year, we have strengthened our online distributors and offline dealers, accelerated expansion into lower-tier markets, and achieved breakthroughs in weaker regional markets. At the same time, we deepened partnerships with emerging growth channels like membership warehouse stores, bulk snack retailers, and on-demand retail. We're accelerating the development of customized products tailored to each channel's attributes. Several channel-specific new products have already been launched on platforms, including JD.com, Tmall, Pinduoduo, Pangdonglai, Hema, Aldi, Costco, and Yonghui.
For chilled business, we have achieved notable results across three key focus areas: nutrition, taste, and functionality. At the beginning of the year, our collaboration with the movie "Nurture 2" successfully attracted new customers and broke into new markets, driving sales of our large fruit granule yogurt to record highs. The premium brand, YO!FINE DIARY actively expanded into family consumption scenarios, continuously broadening growth potential. Focusing on the functional segment, the immunity bottle of Champion achieved strong sales performance through the Sam's Club channel. The new product Zhaoba Tongfeng, co-created with Sam's Club, became an instant hit upon launch and generated significant organic traffic on RedNote. In August this year, our Wuhan low-temperature factory, or chilled business factory, earned a certification from Forbes for its smarter, greener, and more flexible production, becoming the world's largest and most efficient single-site chilled yogurt facility.
Today's Mengniu has established one world-class lighthouse factory and 37 national-level green factories. Next, fresh milk business. In the first half of the year, we achieved over 20% growth, significantly outperforming the industry. Shiny Metal maintains robust sales growth and brand influence. Building on core products, it expanded coverage among zero lactose and precision nutrition consumers through lactose-free dual-protein milk and HMO children's care nutrition milk. For channels, fresh milk continues to lead in both online and offline premium channels, holding top market shares in membership stores, on-demand retail, and e-commerce platforms. Partnerships with leading coffee and tea brands like Starbucks and Chatime have driven breakthrough sales. This year, for Shiny Meadow, more new products are launched in the Hong Kong and Macau markets. Outside just now, you should have seen the new products for Hong Kong and overseas markets.
We expand into over 1,000 supermarkets and convenience stores to achieve strong market performance. For the ice cream business, revenue and profits grew in tandem. We launched more innovative value-added products to meet consumers' diverse needs, with several new offerings becoming bestsellers this year, driving continuous brand and customer expansion. This summer, our Deluxe brand officially entered the Hong Kong and Macau markets, becoming the first premium ice cream brand from mainland China to obtain a Hong Kong license. Currently, Deluxe has entered mainstream supermarket chains in Hong Kong and Macau, covering over 200 key retail outlets. For the milk formula business, we have seen very good growth for both the revenue and profits. Reborn continued to strengthen its patented affinity formula R&D capabilities, launching the industry's first infant formula featuring DHA.
Through the Ne Zha 2 IP collaboration and the Million Babies Worry-Free Nursery initiative, the brand further enhanced brand equity and achieved robust growth. For the brand Bellamy , for the first half of the year, the growth of revenue reached more than 20%. We're highly focused on the high-end product line, including the Bellamy Platinum Organic A2. We also expanded in Southeast Asia, and market performance was especially strong in the Vietnam market. For the cheese product, it also shows very good growth momentum for both revenue and profits. We continue to strengthen synergy with Milkground and also fully empower both the supply chain and also R&D. We also focus a lot on both 2B and 2C, and for Milkground, continue to create cheese brands for all. We also further enrich the scenarios of use for the casual, leisure, and household tables, and catering industry, etc.
In terms of expanding the two wings, we continue to inject new development momentum for Mengniu for H1 this year. We continue to do research and development, and we have made breakthroughs, including various key segments, including the professional dairy and raw materials, and the senior markets, and the sports nutrition, etc. We also see very strong growth of our sports nutrition brand, including M-ACTION, and our influence in the marathon runners and other sports audiences continues to strengthen. Our in-house developed HMO product is very well-received by the market. Now, we have launched into the market HMO milk powder and also children's milk and the fresh milk. This year, we also accelerated our progress in the deep processing business. Right now, products including lactoferrin D90, demineralized whey powder are already in the pre-launch stage. We also expand our expansion overseas for the brand ICE.
We further grow our market in the Southeast Asia region and also for the expanding to other new emerging markets. Right now, we have built the business structure for ICE in Africa and Latin America, a key step in our globalization strategy. We also continue to adhere to our green strategy. Green is the background color for the high-quality development of Mengniu. We have the Dual Carbon Initiative and also other strategic pillars, including the green packaging and the green operation, green supply chain, etc. We would like to leverage these pillars to build an absolutely leading position when it comes to ESG in this industry and also convert these advantages into tangible commercial value so that we can become highly competitive for our channel customers and to be customers. The last part is the outlook. I would like to go back to the fundamentals for the industry.
This round of cycles for the dairy industry is lasting longer and more challenging than we'd expected. On multiple occasions, I have mentioned that for the dairy industry in China, there are three pain points, which are the imbalance between supply and demand, the lack of diversity of the categories, and also the lack of tolerance and resilience for the whole industry. These pain points are further exacerbated given weak consumption, and this is shared challenges for the whole industry. It is a challenge. It is also a very important transformation opportunity for us. For the mature markets like Europe and America, the cheese and the butter and yogurt, these solid products consumption is around 50%. We see a very highly diversified product structure for those markets.
Some high value-added raw materials such as lactoferrin are very common in overseas markets, and the foreign companies are at an absolute advantage when it comes to the technologies and the industry accumulation for these high value-added raw materials. If you look at the Chinese dairy industry, in the year 2024, the total import of dairy products was 2.7 million tons and seven million tons, and that was around 17 million t ons of raw dairy materials, out of which the import volume of butter, condensed milk, and lactose protein continues to increase. This shows that when it comes to these high value-added raw materials, we are still highly dependent on import. This is something we need to make further breakthroughs when we transform the whole industry.
If we look at the whole pattern of development for the global food and dairy industries, we need to further focus on R&D, accelerating product innovation and category upgrade, and to further expand user application scenarios. We think there's huge potential overall for China's dairy industry. Milk is the natural food that is closest to perfect. We need to start from the essence of milk and also the fundamental consumer demands. We need to treat the nutrition value and the functional value of milk as the core value of this whole category. At the end of March, I proposed the idea of helping consumers to drink milk, drink the good milk, and drink right milk. We would like to have all these diversified dairy products to become an indispensable food for high-quality life.
I would like to introduce to you what kind of work we have done at Mengniu and how we embrace diversified demands and also the diversified channel needs. For H1 this year, we focused more on building the value chain and launching more basic dairy products that are great value for the consumers so that more consumers can afford to have milk. For the lactose-intolerant audiences, we also launched the soft milk and zero lactose products so that more consumers can drink milk. Going forward, we'll continue to improve our supply chain efficiency and cover more lower-tier markets to service more consumers. In addition to the product end, we also collaborate with industry associations, institutions, and the media to further popularize the healthy drink of milk. We would like to change dairy products into indispensable food for consumers.
Mengniu is one of the first practitioners to help consumers drink good milk. 20 years ago, we launched the industry's very first high-end product, Deluxe, which was redefining the whole category. Since its birth in 2005, Deluxe continues to make progress. We had the classic one, now the slim version. In 2021, we created the desert organic milk, leveraging the full industry chain approach. This is a great breakthrough when it comes to protein nutrition. We continue to expand into regions and areas that are purer and with more rare resources. In 2009, we started the project in Ulan Buh. It took us 16 years to cultivate a land of oasis in the desert. We created lakes and grass, and we grow the grass, and we pasture cows on this oasis in the desert. We further improved the industry chain source for Deluxe.
The organic matters for the soil increased from 0.1%- 2% in this area. This year marks the 20th anniversary for Deluxe. Leveraging our 16 years of experience in this industry, we launched the top premium product, which was called Shajin Tohoi . This product, the source originated from the core area where there are five lakes in this Ulan Buh D esert area. It delivers a record level of protein, which is 4.3 g. This shows that we have made huge breakthroughs when it comes to nutrition. We also successfully managed to combine both natural resources together with industry wisdom. This product is unique and irreplicable. We would like to provide superior experiences, both functionally and emotionally, to the consumers through this product.
In the past two years, Deluxe invited a few thousand consumers for a visit to Ulan Buh and for a visit to the grassland and pasture and the factories of Deluxe. This piece of land we have been cultivating for more than a decade is finally seen by the industry. Here, I would like to do a bit of marketing. I would like to invite all the investors and media friends to pay a visit to Ulan Buh, which is our organic milk source in the desert. It is indeed a very rare and precious piece of land. There are mountains and lakes, a very great landscape. It can very well demonstrate the huge efforts we put behind this good product. Based on the current categories, we also would like to further accelerate our R&D of new products and to create new application scenarios and meet consumers' diversified needs.
We would like the consumers to be able to drink milk and also eat milk. For drink the right milk, this is the future for this whole industry. The Healthy China strategy is now promoting a new era, which looks at a more precise and tailor-made product. Mengniu is committed to R&D and also to further take advantage through precise operation. Based on the insights we got from consumers, for the first half of the year, we launched the products, including prebiotic and vitamin milks. These are the functional milks with precise nutrition, and they can very well satisfy the specific nutrition needs of different consumer segments. As people are becoming more health conscious, we also see a strong need for functional nutrition.
Therefore, we incubated and launched the brand M-ACTION, which is a sports nutrition brand and is very well-received by the sports audiences because we have a very diversified product mix, including the liquid protein, energy gel, and the protein bar. We also have the elderly nutrition brand Yourui, which is aiming at the elderly markets. The product can help to build muscles and improve bone health for the elderlies. Mengniu also in-house developed HMO-enriched offerings, which help to address the industry pain points. We're now already at the commercialization stage. For both the children's milk and the liquid milk and the fresh milk, we are now providing precise nutrition for the whole industry. In addition, we are also committed to our investment in the deep processing business.
We have accelerated our research and launch of high value-added raw materials, including demineralized whey powder, castor flour, and lactoferrin, etc., so that we will become less dependent on imports. Through R&D, through product innovation, we would like to further upgrade the whole industry because we would like Mengniu products to really satisfy consumers' needs from the baby to the elderly segments. Mengniu will face the cycle challenges of the whole industry, embracing the market challenges, the changes, and also addressing the three pain points of the whole industry. We will continue to make sure consumers can drink milk, drink good milk, and drink the right milk. Through continuous brand-building efforts, R&D, and digital transformation channel upgrading efforts, we would like to further strengthen our core and expand the two wings. The management team is very confident and is fully committed.
We believe that we are able to create history, and the current challenges will help us to build our resilience and to write the new chapter for the whole industry. Nourishing the world of excellence is our vision. We would like to reshape the whole value of the industry, and we would like to be a leader to a healthy future. We would like to create better products to serve our consumers' needs. We also would like to empower the whole industry chain with our system of development, and we would like to bring high returns for our investors through robust growth. That's all I have. Thank you.