C-beauty H1 results: Next growth curve is harder

China’s largest beauty companies are still growing, but their 2026 first-half earnings suggest that the easy part of C-beauty’s rise may be over. Proya remains the largest domestic beauty group, but its revenue has almost stopped growing. Chicmax and Giant Biogene, two of the fastest-growing companies of recent years, have moved backwards. Meanwhile, Mao Geping and Lin Qingxuan (Forest Cabin) are climbing quickly, while Shanghai Jahwa has returned to growth after years of restructuring. What is changing is less the attractiveness of Chinese beauty than the mechanism required to grow within it. Over the past decade, a strong hero product, a favorable ingredient story and mastery of Tmall or Douyin could propel a domestic brand from obscurity to billions of renminbi in sales. Once companies reach 2 billion RMB ($298 million), 3 billion RMB ($45 million RMB) or 5 billion RMB ($750 million RMB) on an annualized scale, however, repeating the same formula becomes considerably harder. The first-half reports therefore point to a new dividing line for C-beauty. The winners will increasingly be judged not by whether they can build one successful brand, but by whether they can keep producing new sources of revenue after that first engine begins to slow. Proya faces the problem every winner eventually encounters Proya Group remained China’s largest listed beauty company with first-half revenue of 5.38 billion RMB ($754 million), but sales increased just 0.24% year-on-year. More importantly, its namesake brand, still responsible for almost 69% of revenue, declined 7.19%, while makeup label Timage fell 21.93%. Reported net profit jumped 46.26%, but much of that increase came from a 445 million RMB ($66 million) investment gain related to Proya taking control of Flower Knows rather than from underlying operations. The label hasn’t suddenly lost relevance — it remains the leading domestic beauty brand across several major platforms during 618, and its scale makes double-digit growth increasingly difficult. The more interesting question is what happens when the strategy that took a company to the top can no longer produce the same incremental revenue. Its haircare brand Off&Relax grew 70.81% to 477 million RMB ($71 million), while emerging color cosmetics brand Insbaha generated 313 million RMB ($46.6 million) after sales jumped 222.23%. Another haircare brand, Awaken Seeds, more than doubled revenue to 82 million RMB ($12.2 million). Overall, Proya’s haircare business expanded 74.95% in the first half, even as skincare revenue declined 6.87%, suggesting that the group’s next phase of growth is increasingly being carried by categories and brands beyond its core skincare franchise. The group is moving from a business built largely around making one dominant skincare brand ever larger toward a model where several smaller businesses must collectively carry the next phase. In July this year, its acquisition of Flower Knows reinforces the same direction, adding external M&A to internal incubation. The second growth curve is becoming harder to fake Chicmax is experiencing the same challenge from a different starting point. Its rise was powered heavily by Kans, one of Douyin’s defining beauty success stories, but first-half group revenue fell to 3.76 billion RMB ($560 million) from 4.11 billion RMB ($611 million) a year earlier as the flagship brand slowed. Yet underneath that decline, baby and children’s skincare brand Newpage grew 59.9% YoY to 635 million RMB ($94.6 million), while sensitive-skin brand Armiyo increased 89.3%. Newpage already represents nearly 17% of group sales, giving Chicmax something many domestic groups have spent years trying to create: a second brand with enough scale to matter. Proya and Chicmax show why the definition of a “second growth curve” is becoming more demanding. A brand growing from 50 million RMB ($7.4 million) to 100 million RMB ($14.9 million) can generate impressive percentages without materially changing a group’s financial profile. Once the flagship contributes 2 billion RMB ($298 million) or 3 billion RMB ($447 million), the next business needs to become substantial enough to offset even a modest slowdown. Not every company is solving that problem by launching another brand. Mao Geping, the fastest-growing company among the large 3 billion-plus RMB ($447 million) players, is instead widening the commercial territory of Maogeping itself. The brand’s historical strength remains complexion makeup, particularly foundation, powder and products built around facial contouring and light-and-shadow techniques. In 2026, it continued expanding within that territory into primer, sunscreen and liquid highlighter, including the newly launched primer, which surpassed 100 million RMB ($14.9 million) in retail sales within six months. Rather than chasing every fast-moving makeup category, Mao Geping is building outward from the facial makeup expertise for which consumers already know the brand. At the same time, it is extending that authority beyond color cosmetics. First-half makeup revenue rose 38.3% YoY to 1.97 billion RMB ($293 million), while skincare reached 1.21 billion RMB ($180 million), up 11.5%, and accounted for nearly 38% of product sales. Products such as its caviar mask and black cream increasingly connect skincare with the same preparation and complexion narrative as its makeup portfolio, allowing the company to stretch from creating the finished look into preparing the skin underneath it. Skincare also carried an 88.7% gross margin, above the 83.3% generated by makeup. Fragrance represents a more experimental extension: Revenue increased 46% in the first half but remained just 16.7 million RMB ($2.49 million), less than 1% of product sales, making it a relatively small test of how far the Maogeping aesthetic can travel beyond the face. The model is unusual in a Chinese market where many beauty groups pursue growth by incubating multiple brands. Mao Geping is instead trying to extract more value from one highly recognizable brand, expanding from its foundation and complexion expertise into a broader ecosystem spanning makeup preparation, skincare and, at the edges, fragrance. Brands are reconsidering the price of traffic The earnings also expose another transition: Chinese beauty companies are becoming less willing to treat influencer livestreaming as an unquestioned source of growth. Giant Biogene, Marubi and several others deliberately reduced reliance on top livestreamers during the first half, accepting lower short-term revenue while increasing brand-operated livestreaming and direct consumer operations. Giant Biogene’s revenue fell as it pulled back from influencer livestreaming, while Marubi’s second brand Passional Lover suffered a 24.78% decline after the company reduced third-party livestream sales. The commission, traffic acquisition and promotional costs attached to China’s largest livestreaming ecosystems can generate impressive GMV without necessarily creating attractive margins or durable consumer relationships. Yet withdrawing from them immediately tests how much demand belongs to the brand rather than the channel. That makes channel control one of the most revealing metrics to watch over the next several reporting periods. If companies can migrate consumers toward brand-operated livestreams, memberships and direct storefronts while restoring growth, the short-term contraction may prove worthwhile. If sales fail to recover, it will expose how dependent some of C-beauty’s fastest-growing brands were on rented traffic. The dilemma is particularly acute because marketing remains expensive, even for the strongest companies. Proya’s sales expense ratio climbed above 53%, Lin Qingxuan (Forest Cabin) spent roughly 54% of revenue on sales and distribution, while Mao Geping’s marketing and promotional spending increased sharply as it pursued brand building and expansion. C-beauty may be moving beyond the era of the superstar livestreamer, but it has not yet moved beyond the cost of acquiring attention. Growth is spreading beyond the original hero product One of the strongest performances of the half came from Lin Qingxuan (Forest Cabin), whose revenue rose 42.6% to almost 1.5 billion RMB ($224 million) and profit increased 40.7%. The more interesting number is not the growth rate itself, but what happened to its product mix. Camellia facial oil remains the brand’s signature category, but its share of revenue fell from 45.5% to 34.3%. Toners and lotions surged roughly 264% to 355 million RMB ($53 million), while serums, creams and masks also recorded strong increases. Rather than abandoning the “oil-based skincare” positioning that made it famous, Lin Qingxuan is using that equity to sell a broader routine. Botanee is expanding beyond flagship brand Winona through Winona Baby, Za and professional anti-aging skincare brand Aoxmed, all of which grew considerably faster than Winona during the period. Freda’s recombinant collagen brand KeyC grew more than sixfold, while Yatsen has effectively changed the center of gravity of its business from color cosmetics to skincare. At Yatsen, Galénic, Dr. Wu and Eve Lom generated second-quarter skincare revenue of 816 million RMB ($121 million), up 40.4% YoY, and now account for more than 70% of total revenue. Makeup, including Perfect Diary, fell 35.8%. The company that once symbolized digitally native Chinese color cosmetics has increasingly become a skincare portfolio in which acquired premium and clinical brands compensate for the contraction of its original business. The distinction between “second brand” and “second growth curve” is therefore becoming increasingly important. New revenue may come from another brand, another category, medical aesthetics, international expansion or an entirely different portfolio architecture. R&D matters, but conversion matters more The sector is also spending more heavily on scientific credibility, though financial results show why research budgets alone are a poor proxy for competitiveness. Bloomage Biotech remains one of the industry’s biggest R&D spenders, investing 212 million RMB ($31.6 million) during the first half, equivalent to more than 12% of revenue. Yet its beauty business fell almost 51% YoY to 448 million RMB ($66.8 million) and has now dropped out of the leading beauty-company rankings, even as raw materials recovered and newer ingredients such as PDRN and recombinant collagen gained traction. By contrast, Mao Geping spent just 18 million RMB ($2.7 million) on R&D while delivering some of the sector’s strongest growth. The comparison does not mean research is unimportant. It shows that the most useful measure for the next phase of C-beauty will be how effectively technology becomes a product consumers understand, desire and repeatedly purchase. C-beauty has already proved that domestic companies can produce billion-renminbi brands and take meaningful share from international competitors. The next test is harder: building companies capable of repeating that success without depending on one hero product, one platform, one influencer or one moment of consumer enthusiasm, but to prove that local winners can become enduring beauty groups.

C-beauty H1 results: Next growth curve is harder

How Bottega Veneta weaved China’s forever it bag

Upgrade to Pro

Sectors

Insights

Company

C-beauty H1 results: Next growth curve is harder

How Bottega Veneta weaved China’s forever it bag