Transcripts
Yatsen Holding Limited's management answers for the business every quarter. These are the exchanges that explain it best — verbatim, from the call transcripts preserved in Sources. Each link opens the full transcript at that page in a new tab.
Q1 2026 Earnings Call — Q1 2026
The most recent call: skincare +58.5% and a record ~80% gross margin collide with a swing to an operating loss as Douyin traffic costs spike — and a convertible-note raise lands. · Open the full transcript →
Management concedes S&M rose on higher Douyin traffic-acquisition costs, and names channel mix and fixed-cost leverage as the fix.
Jinfeng Huang (Founder, Chairman & CEO): Our third pillar is improving overall profitability. So during the first quarter, our selling and marketing expenses as a percentage of total net revenues, we experienced an increase. As a result of both the continued investment in building our core brands and the elevated industry-wide trafic acquisition costs on the Doing platform. However, our commitment to long-term profitability optimization remains unwavering. More forward, we will dynamically adjust our channel mix. streamline our operational expenses and unlock greater operational leverage for our fixed costs.
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Capital allocation: the first tranche of a convertible-note and warrant private placement closed, funding the multi-brand build-out.
Jinfeng Huang (Founder, Chairman & CEO): Following our announcement on March 11, we are pleased to note that we successfully completed the first change of the private placement of convertible notes and warrants
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The revenue engine, decomposed: skincare +58.5% offsetting a color-cosmetics decline, with gross margin hitting 80.2%.
Donghao Yang (CFO & Director): to clarify that all financial numbers presented today are renminbi amounts and all percentage changes refer to year-over-year changes unless otherwise noted. Total net revenues for the first quarter of 2026 increased by 22.5% to $1.02 billion from $833.5 million for the prior year period. The increase was primarily due to a 58.5% year-overyear increase in net revenues from skin care brands, partially offset by a 5% year-overyear decrease in net revenues from Cove cosmetics brands. […] Gross margin for the first quarter of 2026 increased to 80.2% from 79.1% for the prior year period.
p. 8 · Read in context →
The hardest question — foreign competition in high-end skincare — met with a hero-product-family playbook, and only half-answered.
Manqi Huang (CICC); Jinfeng Huang (Founder, Chairman & CEO): This is Manqi Huang from CICC. I have 2 questions. But my first question, we've seen a rapid growth of our skin care brands in this quarter. could management share with us how to expand our product portfolio of Skin Care brand going forward. And my second question is that how do we view the competition from foreign brands, especially in high-end skin care market? That's my 2 questions. Thank you […] We will continue to expand around proven hero product families. In quarter 1, galenic new anti-aging cream was a great success and sold out shortly after launch.
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Channel mix as the profit lever: a higher professional/offline mix balances growth and margin — the model they want to replicate.
Lin Zhang (Citic Securities); Jinfeng Huang (Founder, Chairman & CEO): My question is that we have noticed Dou is growing really fast. So could you please share with us the key drivers of the growth? […] the brand has delivered strong growth while maintaining a healthier profitability profile. The 1 reason is higher B2T channel mix. including professional and off-line channels, which give us the brand a better balance between growth, shape costs and profitability. So this is a model we want to learn from and the selectively apply to other tinkers
p. 11 · Read in context →
Q4 & Full Year 2025 Earnings Call — Q4 FY2025
The turnaround made arithmetic: +26.7% full-year revenue, skincare now 53% of sales, and the first non-GAAP net profit after years of losses — with the margin playbook spelled out. · Open the full transcript →
The full-year scorecard: return to growth plus a profitability turnaround, with skincare crossing half of revenue.
Jinfeng Huang (Founder, Chairman & CEO): For the full year 2025, we also achieved a solid recovery in both revenue and profitability. Total net revenue returned to a growth trajectory increasing by 26.7% year-over-year to RMB 4.3 billion. […] For the full year, Skincare brands contributed 53% of our total net revenues. On the bottom line, we narrowed our full year net loss margin to 2.2% from 20.9% in the prior year while delivering a non-GAAP net income margin of 0.2%.
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The multi-brand logic: a mass-to-premium portfolio optimizes channel mix and lifts customer lifetime value via broader regimen adoption.
Jinfeng Huang (Founder, Chairman & CEO): We believe that our expanded product portfolio could not only optimize our channel mix by providing more offerings across different platforms, but also increase customer lifetime value by encouraging broader regime adoption.
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The margin-expansion playbook, itemized: higher-GM product mix, ROI-disciplined marketing, workflow cuts, and fixed-cost operating leverage.
Jinfeng Huang (Founder, Chairman & CEO): To begin with, we are optimizing our product mix by prioritizing products with higher gross margins. Channelwise, we plan to maximize marketing efficiencies through data-driven customer relationship management and a more stringent return on investment discipline while we are allocating spend toward higher return platforms. Beyond our front-end operations, we are also optimizing operational workflows to drive cost optimization. Lastly, as our top line continues to grow, we expect to gain operational leverage across our fixed expenses.
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The turnaround quantified: full-year non-GAAP net income of RMB 8.4M versus a RMB 128.2M loss a year earlier.
Donghao Yang (CFO & Director): Non-GAAP net income for the full year of 2025 was RMB 8.4 million as compared with non-GAAP net loss of RMB 128.2 million for the prior year period. Non-GAAP net income margin was 0.2% as compared with non-GAAP net loss margin of 3.8% for the prior year period.
p. 7 · Read in context →
The one analyst exchange presses on how net margin improves: mix shift to higher-margin skincare, operating leverage, and R&D.
Manqi Huang (CICC); Donghao Yang (CFO & Director): My first question is that how do we plan to improve our net profit margin in this year? And my second question is about our plan to expand our profit portfolio for Skincare brands in this year. […] Regarding your first question, I think this year, we’re going to continue to grow our Skincare business much faster than our Color Cosmetics business. And with Skincare business, the gross margin, net margin are typically much higher than Color Cosmetics brands. So by doing that, we’re going to be able to improve our margin profile. And secondly, our top line will continue to grow this year. And as a leveraging effect, we do believe that our net margin will improve accordingly.
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Q4 & Full Year 2022 Earnings Call — Q4 FY2022
The trough call: with revenue down 34%, management splits the company in two — a growing, high-margin skincare business versus a Perfect Diary still being fixed — and sets hard long-term margin targets. · Open the full transcript →
The full picture behind a 34% revenue drop: skincare up 42% while margins expand — the mix shift that defines the reset.
Jinfeng Huang (Founder, Chairman & CEO): Total net revenues declined by 34.2% year over year in the fourth quarter to RMB 1.01 billion. So, we need to look at our revenue mix in details to see the full picture. Net revenues from our skincare brands increased by 42.4% year over year to RMB 471.6 million
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Concrete cost discipline: Perfect Diary's offline store base nearly halved (286→158) while Douyin was pushed to diversify online.
Jinfeng Huang (Founder, Chairman & CEO): In terms of channel optimization, we selectively closed ofline stores and aggressively promoted our Douyin presence to diversify our online channels. As of December. 31, 2022, we operated 158 ofline experienced stores for the Perfect Diary rebrand as compared with 286 stores at the end of 2021. This strategy shift has enabled us to cut costs while still enjoying brand exposure across the country.
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Hard long-term targets: skincare to exceed 50% of revenue, with clinical/premium operating margins framed in the mid-teens.
Analyst (CICC); Donghao Yang (CFO & Director): we do expect our revenue contribution from our skincare brands to exceed at least 50% or maybe even higher in the longer term. And the profitability. And for our clinical and premium skincare brand, I believe, over the long term, operating margins can be, you know, in the in the mid-teens or not higher.
p. 15 · Read in context →
Q2 2021 Earnings Call — Q2 2021
The foundational call: the founder lays out the digital-native DTC model, the acquire-in-Q3 / monetize-on-Singles'-Day loop, and the pivot toward a higher-margin skincare portfolio. · Open the full transcript →
The founding thesis stated plainly: a digital-native DTC model used to disrupt beauty, now building a portfolio of durable brands.
Jinfeng Huang (Founder, Chairman & CEO): So with our proven ability to disrupt the traditional beauty industry using a digitalized native DTC model, we are now building a portfolio of durable iconic brands supported by consumers' insights and innovation. So we believe these strategic initiatives are essential tools to position us on the path of high-quality, sustainable growth, particularly as we prepare for a busy season in the lead up to Singles' Day in the fourth quarter.
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The multi-brand house taking shape: home-grown Pink Bear plus acquired skincare brands, with skincare already >20% of gross sales.
Jinfeng Huang (Founder, Chairman & CEO): The newly launched color cosmetics brand, Pink Bear, has seen fast growth since it was developed in March 2021. This sensational new brand sold over more than 500,000 lip glosses during the first June 18th campaign, garnering the award as the fastest growing new cosmetic brand on Tmall in 2021. […] We are also excited about our progress in skincare, which has grown to represent more than 20% of our gross sales in the second quarter. Our new innovative skincare products strongly resonated with our consumers. Galénic pure brightening vitamin C powder quickly sold out following its initiative – initial launch on Mainland China this April.
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The unit-economics turn: sales & marketing cut to 51% of revenue from 71% a quarter earlier, while R&D nearly doubled to 2.3%.
Jinfeng Huang (Founder, Chairman & CEO): The end result was a decline in our sales and marketing expenses to 51% of total net revenues based on non-GAAP measures, compared to 71% last quarter and 62.7% in the fourth quarter of 2020. We have also set up our investment in R&D, which increased to 2.3% of total net revenues this quarter from 1.4% a year ago.
p. 6 · Read in context →
Growth vs. margin, candidly: growth stays first, tilted to skincare, with an admission they 'moved too fast' off Perfect Diary.
Louise Li (Bank of America Merrill Lynch); Jinfeng Huang (Founder, Chairman & CEO): I think so right now, we are taking a more sustainable growth strategy. So the key focus is still on growth. But if we look at the – what does it mean for Yatsen is that we think that the value of the growth coming from the skincare brands and coming from our premium skincare brands is more valuable for the whole group. So that's why we will continue to devote more resources to grow the skincare brands. And then also for our flagship brand, Perfect Diary, as I mentioned before, previously, we did move too fast to reallocate our talent into the skincare BU. And now we think because of the intensifying competition, we need to refocus and also to devote more resources to continue the growth trend of our main brands. So growth will be the key prioritized – key priority of the company. But the reason we see the optimized bottom line is because we have a very high discipline in the ROI – in the resource allocation to maintain a higher ROI level.
p. 16 · Read in context →
More calls
Q4 & Full Year 2024 Earnings Call — Q4 FY2024 · 16 pages · Where the recovery first showed arithmetic: skincare a record 41.1% of revenue, Q4 non-GAAP net margin swinging to +9.3%, alongside a RMB 403M Eve Lom goodwill impairment. · Open →
Q4 & Full Year 2023 Earnings Call — Q4 FY2023 · 16 pages · The margin-turnaround year quantified: full-year gross margin up to 73.6%, non-GAAP net loss margin nearly halved, and Perfect Diary's Biolip relaunch ramping new-product mix past 50%. · Open →
Q1 2025 Earnings Call — Q1 2025 · 14 pages · The first quarter of 2025 — read for the early-year read on skincare momentum and how management framed the balance of growth and profitability heading into the year. · Open →
Q3 2021 Earnings Call — Q3 2021 · 28 pages · The Singles'-Day-quarter call closest to IPO — go here for how the early DTC acquire-and-monetize model performed under peak-season pressure. · Open →
Q4 & Full Year 2021 Earnings Call — Q4 FY2021 · 26 pages · The first full-year call as the color-cosmetics downturn set in — the baseline against which the entire skincare pivot and cost reset is measured. · Open →