Good morning and good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by and welcome to Chagee's fourth quarter 2025 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. We will be hosting a question-and-answer session after management's prepared remarks. Please note that today's event is being recorded. With that, I will now turn the call over to the first speaker today, Ms. Alicia Guo, Investor Relations Director of the company. Please go ahead, madam.
Thank you. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Chagee's fourth quarter 2025 earnings call. With us today are Mr. Junjie Zhang, our CEO, Mr. Dengfeng Yin, our COO, Global Executive President, and CEO of Greater China Region, and Mr. Aaron Huang, our CFO. The company's financial and operating results were released by the news wire earlier today and are currently available online. Before we continue, I refer you to our safe harbor statements in the earnings press release, which applies to this call. Any forward-looking statements that we make on this call are based on assumptions as of today, and Chagee does not undertake any obligations to update these statements. Also, this call includes discussions of certain non-GAAP financial measure. Please refer to our earnings release, which contains a reconciliation of non-GAAP measure to GAAP measure. With that, I will turn the call to our CEO, Mr. Junjie Zhang. Please go ahead, sir.
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Hello, everyone. Thank you all for joining Chagee's fourth quarter 2025 earnings conference call.
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Over the past years, the market has experienced significant volatility, and the competitive landscape has grown even more complex. As a new listed young company, we indeed encountered some ups and downs on our 2025 journey, took a few detours, and at times faced moments of uncertainty in our decision making. The management team has conducted a deep review and a reflection on these, reviewing them as vital nourishment to drive the company's evolution and build long-term competitiveness.
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Looking back at our journey, 2023 to 2024 were a period of rapid expansion in Greater China markets. Our primary strategy was quality tea house expansion, with the core objective of securing prime location across major commercial districts nationwide, leveraging a standardized business model to achieve rapid scale. This strategy delivered significant results. We now have over 7,000 core tea house locations across mainland China. Through BOYA Tea Latte, our blockbuster product, we successfully pioneered the fresh tea leaf category and accumulated a total of nearly 240 million members registered with our membership program. These achievements have formed the foundation of our durable competitive moat.
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Over the past year, the market entered a new phase, and consumers have shown a K-shaped divergence in spending habits. One side chasing extreme value, the other seeking premium experiences through superior products and service. The ongoing price war among the third-party delivery platform has further intensified this divergence. For Chagee, we have a strong foundation in premium experiences with over 7,000 prime offline locations, a core fresh tea leaf base , driving over 90% of revenue, and a loyal membership base. We under invested here before. Now we are ready to expand categories and fully unlock our offline potential.
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Last year, our foundation solidified and we entered high-quality development. We recognized that exponential faith inertia no longer met the demands of refined management and operational excellence. Starting the second half of 2025, we advanced a series of internal adjustments, including organizational restructuring and business-model transition, while strategically slowing down the pace of new product launches. This had a measurable impact on our revenue. We also underestimated delivery platform price wars' effect on offline sales. We stay true to our long-term strategy, avoiding short-term trends. Today, I would like to share the clear insights from these experiences and our definitive 2026 direction. We believe a team that faces problems head-on, learns from them, and sharpens its thinking develops long-term trust. In this way, we aim to deliver enduring value to our shareholders, our consumers and society at large.
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I can now share with confidence that our internal realignment is largely complete and we have returned to steady operations and order. Looking ahead to 2026, our core strategy will remain centered on high value brand positioning and consumer value, with full focus on refining every day, every detail that shapes the consumer experience. Specifically, we will focus on five key areas, brand upgrade, product innovation, scenario expansion, experience enhancement, and organizational improvement. These initiatives will bring us closer to our customers and support sustainable, high quality growth.
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At the brand level, we will launch new formats for regular and personalized tea houses complemented by various product lines to suit diverse occasions and emotions. We will elevate the offline experience, creating a true third space that connects emotionally with customers and showcases Chagee's unique charm.
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On product, we will stay true to the logic that product equals people. We will innovate across categories by anchoring our 18-30 demographics core demands and develop new offerings with Special Teas, Tea Lattes and more, aligning our portfolio with consumers multi scenario lifestyle.
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We will penetrate new scenarios with morning and evening specific products, such as energizing morning tea lattes and evening low caffeine drinks. To complete our all-day lineup, we will also grow into workplaces, celebrations, birthdays, schools, and weddings, leveraging scenario marketing to win lasting mindshare and weave Chagee into everyday and special occasions.
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Customer experience and organizational strength underpin our strategy. We'll enhance tea house environments through improved ambiance and differentiated designs for flagship, landmark, and boutique tea houses. On service, we will overhaul after-sales systems, rolling out company-wide training, launch a SVIP hotline, and create feedback channels that directly shape improvements based on real consumer input.
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Strong organizational capability is essential to delivering our core strength: strategic growth. In 2026, we will advance digital tools, optimize processes, and standardize best practices in operation, R&D, supply chain, and beyond. This will create a leaner, more agile structure perfectly synced with our brand's expansion and consumer needs.
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We understand that high-quality growth is a long-term process requiring patience and resolve, and we must consistently do what is right for the long term. In 2026, all of our strategic execution and resource allocation will center on consumer value. We believe that only by truly understanding consumers, meeting their needs, and creating value that exceeds their expectations can a brand achieve long-term, steady development. We also look forward to working with all partners to advance these strategies and build an even more vibrant Chagee.
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Over eight years, Chagee extended from one tea house to 7,453 tea houses. This growth reflects the strength of our sustainable business model, adaptive organization, and commanding brand equity.
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In 2025, due to the comprehensive organizational adjustments in the second half of the year and a deliberate pausing new product launches, we experienced a slower growth in top line. Our same-store sales in the fourth quarter declined 25.5% year-over-year. This was indeed our biggest challenge in 2025. What I want to emphasize is not just this number, but also the fact that despite short-term pressure, we did not resort to short-term tactics. Instead, we held firmly to our long-term principles. In 2026, recent domestic same-store sales show sequential improvement reinforce our confidence in a full year trajectory of stabilizing in the first half and improving in the second.
From a long-term perspective, we will continue to make overseas operations a powerhouse growth driver, and we're unwavering in our goal to evolve Chagee into a global key leader originating from China but resonating universally.
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With that, I will now turn the call over to our CFO, Aaron, who will provide detailed insights into the financials. Thank you.
Thank you, Junjie. Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining our earnings call today. As Junjie outlined, we have gained valuable clarity from 2025 that position us well for 2026 execution. I will focus on remarks on the metrics that support this outlook. Before we begin, please note that all amount are in RMB and all comparisons are on year-over-year basis unless otherwise stated. For the full year 2025, total GMV reached RMB 31.6 billion, representing a 7.2% increase from RMB 29.5 billion in 2024. In the fourth quarter, total GMV was RMB 7,322.9 million, reflecting the challenging environment in our home market, but also strong growth momentum overseas.
As of December first, 2025, our teahouse network totaled 7,453 locations across Greater China and overseas. A 15.7% increase from 6,440 a year ago. Specifically, our franchisee teahouses account for 6,838 compared to 6,971 in the third quarter, while company-owned teahouses reached 615, representing a net increase of 248 sequentially. This change was primarily because we converted some of our franchisee teahouses into company-owned ones in China. In Greater China, average monthly GMV per teahouse was RMB 337 thousand in fourth quarter of 2025, and RMB 387 thousand for the full year, consistent with same store and the mixed dynamic that Junjie discussed.
At the same time, overseas GMV for the fourth quarter grew 84.6% year-over-year to CNY 371.9 million. For the full year, our international market made an increasingly meaningful contribution to overall growth. On the revenue line, fourth quarter 2025 net revenue were CNY 2,974.5 million compared to CNY 3,334.4 million in the same quarter of 2024. For the full year 2025, net revenue increased by 4% to CNY 12.9 billion. In the fourth quarter, net revenues from franchisee teahouses were CNY 2,434.9 million, representing 81.9% of total net revenues, compared to CNY 3,095.9 million a year ago.
This reflects the cadence of the new product launch and the impact of specific competition on the delivery platform. Net revenue from the company owned teahouse was RMB 539.6 million, up 126.2% from RMB 238.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2024, mainly as a result of our deliberate development of the company owned teahouse network in both Greater China and overseas markets. Turning to margin. Our gross profit, calculated by excluding costs of materials, storage, and logistics from net revenue, reached RMB 1,581.9 million this quarter, resulting in a gross margin of 53.2%. This marks an improvement from 51.6% last year.
The margin improvement results are primarily from low packaging material costs, equipment and supply chain costs. On operating expenses, share-based compensation expenses this quarter were CNY 66.1 million. This reflects our commitment to long-term employee engagement and aligning their goal with stakeholders. To provide greater clarity on underlying operational performance, we will reference non-GAAP operating results with the full reconciliation available in our earnings release in the Form 6-K. We recorded an operating loss of CNY 35.5 million compared to operating income of CNY 642.5 million last year. Based on management accounts, the operating loss was mainly attributable to the operational change in the fourth quarter, with an impact of approximately CNY 320 million, which includes organizational structural optimization and business model transition costs.
Excluding share-based compensation expenses, non-GAAP operating income was RMB 30.5 million, representing a 1% margin. The above mentioned margin differences reflects our step up investment in talent recruitment for global expansion, including brand building to support new product launches, R&D to enhance our offering, and the digital infrastructure to elevate customer experience. Operating costs for company-owned tea houses were RMB 376.8 million, up 130.8% from RMB 163.2 million a year ago. As of December 31, 2025, we operated 615 company-owned tea houses, up from 169 at year-end 2024. Other operating costs increased by 26.9% to RMB 231.4 million, largely due to high payroll supporting the expansion of our global tea house network.
On a non-GAAP basis, other operating costs accounts for 7.6% of revenue, compared to 5.5% a year ago. Sales and marketing expenses for the quarter were CNY 373.6 million, down 5.6% from CNY 395.7 million a year ago. On a non-GAAP basis, sales and marketing expenses representing 12.2% of revenue compared to 11.9% a year ago. General and administrative expenses reached CNY 635.6 million, up 89% year-over-year from CNY 336.3 million. This includes costs associated with a targeted organizational restructuring to position the company for more efficient leaner operation going forward.
The higher G&A reflects our continued investment in global corporate infrastructure and this to support international expansion, alongside costs associated with ongoing initiatives to optimize internal process and the resources allocation. On a non-GAAP basis, G&A expenses represented 19.7% of revenue compared to 10.1% a year ago. Beyond operating income, we generated a positive financial income reflecting interest earned on our current cash and investment balance, as well as a positive other income, which was mainly comprised of government grants largely in line with prior year periods. On non-GAAP basis, excluding share-based compensation, our full year 2025 tax rate was 18.4%. Importantly, we deliver another profitable quarter on both GAAP and a non-GAAP basis, marking our 12th consecutive quarter of profitability at the net income level, even though this transitional period.
GAAP net income was RMB 33.9 million. Non-GAAP net income, excluding RMB 66.1 million of share-based compensation expenses, was RMB 100 million, with a non-GAAP net margin of 3.4% compared to 9.3% last year. For the full year 2025, GAAP net income was RMB 1,186.3 million, and the non-GAAP net income was RMB 1,909.9 million. For the fourth quarter, basic and diluted net income per ordinary share were both RMB 0.15 yuan. On a non-GAAP basis, basic net income per ordinary share was RMB 0.50, and diluted net income per ordinary share was RMB 0.49. For the full year 2025, basic net income per ordinary share was RMB 6.27 yuan, and diluted was RMB 6.18 yuan.
On a non-GAAP basis, basic was CNY 0.21. Diluted was CNY 0.17. Turning to liquidity, we ended the quarter with CNY 7,892.4 million in cash and cash equivalents, restricted cash and time deposits, up from CNY 4,868.7 million at year-end 2024. This robust balance sheet provides ample flexibility to execute our growth investment while delivering shareholder return. In closing, our fourth quarter and full year 2025 results demonstrate our durable profitability and our commitment to returning value to shareholders through disciplined capital allocation. This positions us strongly as we execute our 2026 priorities. With that, I will turn the call back to operator to begin the Q&A. Operator, please go ahead.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. To remove yourself from the queue, you may press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Lillian Lou of Morgan Stanley. Your question, please, Lillian.
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Thank you for your question. We conducted a deep review of our same-store sales performance, and we think it reflects both external challenges and our internal strategy adjustment pace. As you mentioned, we underestimate the complexity of a company who has over 3,000 employees, which has delayed our strategy rolling out for the year of 2025. For that, I apologize, or I feel sorry for the market.
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of market competition in 2025 exceeded our expectations. The intense third-party platform competition impacted offline operations and our short-term market tactics were not as strong as they needed to be. In this environment, we chose not to chase low-price traffic blindly. Instead, we stuck to our premium brand positioning. At the same time, we were very focused on internal adjustments and slowed our new product cadence, which did create short-term pressure on cup volume. Even so, we believe growth based on healthy business models is sustainable. Meanwhile, we are reflecting on how to actively adapt to market changes with flexible short-term tactics while maintaining our high-value brand positioning.
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We took some detours in new product launch rhythm and marketing execution, and we did not fully keep pace with how fast the market was moving. The positive side is that these lessons have made us more alert and agile. You can already see this in our Qwen campaign in February, where we reached quickly and captured the opportunity, which shows the team's agility has gotten back to the normal level.
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For 2026, we're not going to pursue growth for its own sake. We want to get back to a cycle of higher quality operations with same-store recovery as our top KPI. We'll focus on 4 things, store operation, consumer experiences, product innovation, and organizational efficiency.
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First on operations, we will focus on existing tea houses. Slow new opening. We will moderate this year's expansion pace and prioritize healthy operations at current tea houses. For underperforming ones, we will keep optimizing and upgrading. In parallel, we are building a food chain quality management system from sourcing all the way to after sales to lay a solid foundation for long-term operations.
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Second, on consumer experience, we are focused on enhancing brand value. We won't trade price cuts for traffic. Instead, we attract consumers through high-quality product innovation and superior in-store services experiences.
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Third, on innovation, on the one hand, we will keep, you know, innovating across multiple categories while reinforce our core fresh leaf milk tea franchise. Our new product, Returning to Yunnan, launched in December, provides a strong example with a dormant membership reactivating rate as high as 51%, meaning one in every two members buying this product has been old members who hadn't consumed the previous month. It drove a 50.2 week-over-week GMV uplift in the launch week, significantly exceeding the historical average for all new products. This example proves that our product innovation capability is our core driver for navigating cycles and reinforcing store sales. On the other hand, we are exploring more consumer scenarios such as gatherings, weddings, birthdays, and other moments, and extending to all day occasions to deepen the brand warmth and texture in customers life.
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Last on efficiency. We have now completed the major organizational adjustments, and we will continue to refine the structure so that we can maximize efficiency.
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Overall, we expect 2026 to be a year where we are very focused on high quality growth rather than rapid expansion for scale. Our goal is to keep revenue and profits broadly flat year-over-year, while seeing same store growth trend stabilize at the operating level. We believe in the second half the overall things for ourselves and our operation will be healthier. Also we want to focus as our priority for this year is to secure the market share rather than for the net profit. If we have a conflict, if we see a conflict between market share versus profitability, we will choose the former one.
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To sum up the priority for this year 2026 is to both elevate the user experiences and keep the things for ourselves getting back to the healthy level.
Operator. Next question please.
Thank you. Management asks that all who ask their questions in Chinese please translate your questions to English for the convenience of everyone on the call. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Xiaopo Wei of Citi. Your line is open. Xiaopo.
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Uh, in your prepared remarks you briefly touch base on the business model transition. Could you share with us what have been motivating you to execute such a business model transition? Could you give us more update on the status of transition? Thank you.
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Thank you. Our model transition has one core motivation. That is to build true shared risk, shared reward strategic partnership with franchisees.
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Last year, industry price wars intensified. Franchisees faced the dual pressure of sales decline and rising costs. The old model offered insufficient buffer in downturn, so we restructured incentives shifting from traditional supply relations to a GMV based revenue sharing model.
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In a new model brand fees do go up slightly, but those fees come with two strong offsets. First, we offer enhanced discount management through marketing intelligence and targeted campaigns. Second, we cut raw material cost ratio at franchisees and sharply. Now our revenue moves up and down with their GMV sales. When they succeed, we succeed.
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From 2026, we fully roll out the new model. This unites our interests and goals. We look forward to even tighter collaboration to drive sustained GMV growth. Thank you.
Operator. Next question please.
Our next question comes from the line of Sijie Lin of CICC. Your line is open, CJ.
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So thank you management. My question is that, can you provide an update on the performance of our overseas markets? What are your expansion plans in 2026 domestic and overseas markets? Thank you.
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Thank you for your question. Let me start with our overseas performance in 2025. In the fourth quarter, our international markets showed strong and healthy growth. We added a net 83 tea houses, bringing the total to 345 in the overseas market. GMV grew 23.9% quarter-over-quarter and 84.6% year-over-year. More importantly, the average monthly GMV per tea house for overseas tea houses outperformed the domestic one. Preliminarily proving the replicability and strong vitality of our business model overseas.
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In 2025, we entered 4 new markets Indonesia, the United States, Vietnam, and Philippines. Currently, our overseas footprints cover 7 countries Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, and the United States. In Vietnam, our first tea house opening generated over 20,000 cups across three tea houses in the first three days, with brand voice rapidly climbing to second in the local tea category. At year-end 2025, our Hello Kitty IP co-branded Cocoa Oolong launched across 5 Southeast Asian countries, achieving a 75% new product sales share on launch day in Thailand and 38.3% in the Asia Pacific region over the first three days, topping regional tea brand voice. These achievements have demonstrated that Chagee's brand power can transcend borders.
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I'll break 2026 strategy into domestic and international markets. For domestic markets, we focus on existing stores, prioritizing quality. This year we will moderate domestic expansion pace and shift our focus to same store sales growth and ensuring store level health and profitability. We plan about 300 net new tea house opening in strategic locations in mainland China. The number is not the goal. We prioritize healthy profitability for each new tea house while supporting existing same store growth through optimizing and reinforcing key location resources. Additionally, we may make strategic adjustments to our expansion pace based on our performance this year.
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Overseas expansion will continue at a steady pace. In the fourth quarter, we added 21 tea houses in Malaysia, 19 in Indonesia, 13 in Thailand, 12 in Vietnam, and 11 in Singapore. This momentum carries into 2026. Thailand is now expanding from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, and our Korea debut is planned for the second quarter, making it our eighth overseas market. 2026 is our foundation building year. We target about 200 net new tea houses overseas. More importantly, in every market we enter, we will continue to refine business models and build replicable templates for future scale.
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Lastly, in terms of globalization, I have to add on a little bit touch. We are doing something that is a must and this is something we have to do, but it's difficult.
We're not only investing in the overseas market in the next several years, we are actually investing in the next decades, especially the U.S. markets. We're not talking about a short-term sprint, but a long-lasting marathon for our global expansion. We believe the priority for our overseas market is to refine the business model as we go. The priority is to keep a healthy and unique economics, especially for the U.S. markets, which is the second largest market except for China. We believe there are a lot of business models that we can adopt, like license or franchise, but we choose the hard way to bring it out, because we not only want to open dozens or hundreds of stores in the U.S., but we want to bring the drinking habits of tea into the U.S. market, like Starbucks has been doing for the past several years when they entered into the Chinese market. We chose a road and a route that is more difficult and requires higher CapEx, and we might make mistakes. I'm here to ask the capital markets to give us more confidence and understanding about our overseas market expansion. Thank you.
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Lastly to add on a little bit, Chagee is not adopting the normal way to grow, especially as a listing company, but we believe we want to bring the higher value, and make Chagee only that high value branding oriented company in the future. In the short term, we believe most of the capital markets or investors is focused on PNL, but in the long term, Chagee wants to grow the company as a new category pioneer, which not only provides freshly brewed drinks to our customers, but also to bring a new lifestyle to our customers, such as RTD and also different scenarios of consumption. In the short term, we might see volatility from our financial performance, but in the long term, we believe Chagee has the possibility to evolve from a freshly brewed maker to a lifestyle changer worldwide to the global consumers. Hopefully we have you all the investors long term support, and we welcome your comments and your advices as well. Thank you.
The operator, next question, please.
Our next question comes from the line of Jessie Xu of JPMorgan. Your line is open, Jessie.
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Thanks for taking my question. Jessie Xu from J.P. Morgan. 2025 was a tough year, but I think it's fair to say that the most difficult time seems already behind us. Investors had been looking forward to a marginal improvement in same-store sales trend. I think 4Q print already provides some reasons for investors to turn more positive from here. Management mentioned cost reduction initiatives on the earnings call last quarter. Could management introduce the concrete measures? You know, what did we do? How's it progressing, and any initial feedback or efficiency gains from these initiatives? Lastly, how should we think about the OpEx ratio for this year? Thank you.
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Thank you for your question. Our cost reduction and efficiency efforts are not short-term fixes for a single quarter performance. They're part of a bigger long-term push to make the organization healthy overall. Things are moving forward well, and we are already seeing some early results.
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On the organization side, we've wrapped up phase one. That means combining mid and back office functions and cutting out duplicate work. As Jinjie just mentioned, we opened a lot of new stores during the year of 2023 and 2024. In 2025 alone, we opened more than 800 stores as well. Now we're, you know, focusing on the same-store sales and shifting more resources to the front lines for better execution and faster response. This is not about a smarter structure, not just trimming headcounts.
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For expenses, we've put in stricter controls and better budgeting. It covers everything from targeted marketing spending down to daily operation.
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Looking at 2026, we expect our overall fee rates to stay stable, especially for sales and marketing. We'll keep investing in this area. Also we'll keep investing in efficiency and controls without hurting core growth areas. The game is better quality inputs leading to stronger outputs no matter the environment.
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For the G&A expenses, our goal is to keep optimizing the overall efficiency with the precondition that without impact our overseas market expansion.
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Thank you.
Operator. Next question, please.
Thank you. As there are no further questions, I'd like to hand the conference back to management for closing remarks.
Thank you again for joining our call today. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us or request through our IR website. We look forward to our next call with everyone. Have a great day ahead. Thank you.
Thank you.
This concludes today's event. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.