Three years have passed, and Dong'e E Jiao still hasn't managed to win over men.

Source: Yuanmei Media

Author | Hu Qingmu

Dong’e Ejiao, a century-old tonifying brand, recently disclosed its 2025 operating performance.

The financial report shows that last year Dong’e Ejiao generated operating revenue of RMB 6.7 billion, up nearly 9% year over year; net profit attributable to shareholders was about RMB 1.7 billion, up more than 11% year over year, with profitability steadily improving.

Screenshot source: company announcement

“Profit and growth both increase.” This set of results achieved in a complex economic environment is mixed in sentiment: the Central China market has surged with a year-over-year growth rate of over 65%, becoming the core engine of regional growth. However, the male tonifying track that the company has laid out for years has still not produced large-scale incremental gains capable of supporting performance.

Despite Dong’e Ejiao’s release of targeted products such as “Royal Fenced Field 1619” and the “Zhuangben” series, its related revenue has never managed to stand out on its own. It has only been categorized under the broad heading of “other pharmaceuticals and health products,” and the market’s volume and contribution to performance do not yet match.

After several attempts, this century-old time-honored brand has still not cultivated a stable and reliable second growth curve.

The Central China region saw the largest increase

Over the past year, against the backdrop of steady upward movement in Dong’e Ejiao’s overall revenue, the performance of each region has diverged clearly: the East China market, as the company’s core base, remains stable; the Central China market has delivered a breakout; the South China and North China markets both saw declines; while the Southwest market maintained moderate growth.

More specifically, the East China market remains Dong’e Ejiao’s absolute core base. Its revenue share has stayed stable at more than 50%, making it the main pillar supporting growth.

The Central China region, centered on provinces such as Hunan and Hubei, has become a new growth pole for performance. In 2025, the Central China market experienced explosive growth; revenue jumped from RMB 614 million in 2024 to RMB 1.02B, representing a year-over-year increase of about 66%. It surpassed regions such as North China and Southwest China, becoming the second-largest market after East China. The Central China market’s revenue share also rose to about 15%, further highlighting its strategic position.

Meanwhile, after revenue in the South China market reached RMB 764 million in 2024, it fell to RMB 618 million in 2025, down 19.1% year over year. The North China market also dropped from RMB 665 million in 2024 to RMB 556 million. The Southwest market, in contrast, maintained moderate growth; over three years it grew from RMB 420 million to RMB 522 million, but its overall growth rate remained relatively steady.

The standout performance of the Central China market is closely related to Dong’e Ejiao’s strategic layout. In 2025, Dong’e Ejiao placed a brand-image store in the Central China benchmark commercial complex known as Wushang Dream Times, with its intended strategic aim being to use Wuhan as the core and radiate across the entire mid-Yangtze urban agglomeration, thereby further expanding regional market coverage.

However, channel expansion is only an external move for Dong’e Ejiao’s regional strategy. The key driving force behind the Central China market’s rapid growth lies in the deep local consumption culture foundation.

For example, in Hubei, there has long been a tradition of winter tonification and consuming jellied preparations. As Ejiao is a core ingredient in such jellied preparations, it enjoys a relatively high level of market recognition locally. In Hunan, the climate is humid and cold, and residents have the consumption habit of “stoking during winter” to supplement qi and blood. Ejiao’s mild tonifying properties match well with local health-preservation needs, which is one of the key factors enabling high-speed growth in the region.

The Central China market’s growth indirectly validates the effectiveness of Dong’e Ejiao’s strategies in regional deep cultivation and cultural fit. But when looking horizontally and comparatively, as mentioned earlier, regional development remains uneven to a fairly significant degree. This means Dong’e Ejiao’s current growth momentum still heavily depends on East China. The single-point breakout in Central China has not yet created effective traction for other regions, and growth momentum still needs to be balanced across a wider range.

Recently, Yuanmei Media sent a letter to Dong’e Ejiao’s office of the board secretary and the securities department regarding the core drivers behind the Central China market breakout and whether this single-point breakout model can be successfully replicated nationwide. As of the time of publication, no response had been received.

Compared with breakthroughs in regional markets, Dong’e Ejiao’s layout in the promising male tonifying segment still appears weak, and this has become a key shortcoming that needs to be addressed in its current growth structure.

Weak performance in the male market

As early as 2023, Dong’e Ejiao began to lay out the male market.

At that time, Dong’e Ejiao launched the “Royal Fenced Field 1619” brand to officially move into the male tonifying arena, focusing on warming and tonifying kidney yang and strengthening the body and replenishing essence, targeting needs such as men’s resistance to fatigue and energy management.

In 2024, at the China International Import Expo (CIIE), Dong’e Ejiao globally debuted the “Zhuangben” brand and further rolled out series products such as Cistanche deserticola extract raw concentrate, continuing to ramp up investment in the male health market. In addition, to strengthen upstream raw material supply and production capacity, Dong’e Ejiao also completed equity acquisitions of Ma Ji Pharmaceutical and the Cistanche Group in sequence, improving its supply chain layout.

In terms of market size, the domestic male health market in 2024 was already close to RMB 85 billion, and it is expected to exceed RMB 100 billion in 2026, indicating considerable potential for the segment. However, judging from financial report data, Dong’e Ejiao has not truly opened up this blue ocean during these three years.

Because Dong’e Ejiao has not disclosed the revenue and growth rate of male-related products separately, those products are all accounted for under the broad category of “other pharmaceuticals and health products.” Therefore, we can only indirectly observe the development of the male business by tracking the revenue changes of this broad category.

In 2023, the first year when Dong’e Ejiao’s male products were officially launched, the revenue of the “other pharmaceuticals and health products” category showed no significant fluctuations, remaining level with the same period in 2022, at RMB 187 million. During this period, male products had only just entered the market and had not yet formed effective revenue contribution. The business focus was mainly on market cultivation and terminal store placements.

In 2024, as the “Zhuangben” series products were released one after another, together with the ongoing market promotion of the “Royal Fenced Field 1619” brand, revenue for this category increased to RMB 236 million, achieving modest growth.

Entering 2025, the “other pharmaceuticals and health products” category experienced a major jump. The year-over-year growth rate was over 60%, and full-year revenue reached RMB 386 million. However, overall, the revenue scale of this category still remains relatively small, accounting for only about 5.8% of total revenue.

This lack of strength in scale may stem from Dong’e Ejiao’s long-standing brand recognition barrier— the stereotype in “Ejiao = women’s blood replenishing.” In the minds of male consumers, this belief is somewhat deeply rooted. Compared with brands such as Tongrentang and Jiu Zhitang that have a “neutral recognition” in the male tonifying field, Dong’e Ejiao needs to complete the brand recognition shift from “women-only” to “a necessity for men,” which requires a relatively high cost of educating consumers.

The male market’s setbacks are only a snapshot of Dong’e Ejiao’s strategic missteps. Under the surface of both revenue and profit growth, this century-old brand still has certain operational issues that cannot be ignored. These problems not only affect the company’s short-term quality of earnings, but also constrain long-term, sustainable development.

Hard to shake “Ejiao dependence”

The lifeline of Dong’e Ejiao’s growth is still firmly tied to a single product category.

In 2025, Dong’e Ejiao’s “Ejiao and related products” generated revenue of about RMB 6.2 billion, accounting for as much as 92.5% of total income. This proportion has remained basically consistent with the range of 91.52%–93.64% over the past four years, meaning the absolute dominance of its core product category has not changed. At the same time, the gross margin of this category has continued to rise, climbing from 73.16% in 2022 to 74.84% in 2025. This not only consolidates the company’s core profitability base, but also highlights the strong profitability and brand moat of the Ejiao business.

However, such extremely high business concentration also makes Dong’e Ejiao’s ability to withstand risks fragile. If major shocks occur in market demand for the Ejiao category, consumer recognition, or competitive dynamics, the company’s overall performance will face severe impacts.

Even more worth attention is the special policy environment faced by Dong’e Ejiao’s core flagship product—Compound Ejiao Oral Liquid.

As a Category B medical insurance drug, the recent scale-up growth of Compound Ejiao Oral Liquid is indeed directly related to the broadening of medical insurance reimbursement coverage in recent years. In the 2023 version of the National Reimbursement Drug List, the payment restriction requiring “evidence of severe anemia” was removed, opening space for market expansion.

However, the loosening of coverage has also come with increased regulatory attention. In 2024, Compound Ejiao Oral Liquid became involved in multiple verification-related incidents connected to medical insurance fund settlement. The National Healthcare Security Administration previously issued an announcement indicating that some designated medical institutions had engaged in duplicate settlement by using the drug traceability code for Compound Ejiao Oral Liquid. Although subsequent investigations generally ruled out the possibility of duplicate coding or falsification by the manufacturers themselves—pointing mainly to illegal operations in the distribution channel—these events undoubtedly placed Compound Ejiao Oral Liquid under a spotlight of medical insurance fund supervision.

Against the backdrop of tightening controls on medical insurance spending and the normalization of cracking down on fraud, any associated policy tightening or regulatory strengthening could have far-reaching effects on the market environment and sales expectations for this core flagship product of Dong’e Ejiao.

It is worth noting that although in 2025 Dong’e Ejiao’s R&D expenses surged 57% year over year to RMB 272 million, demonstrating its determination to seek transformation, the high investment has not quickly generated a super-flagship product. Whether it is ready-to-eat products aimed at younger consumers or a tonifying series targeting men’s health, these are still in the market cultivation stage. The effectiveness and sustainability of the second and third growth curves still require further time and market validation.

In 2025, Dong’e Ejiao introduced a high-dividend scheme, with the cumulative dividend payout ratio for the year nearing 100%. While this reflects sincerity in returning value to shareholders, during a transformation period that urgently requires capital investment in R&D innovation, channel deepening, and opening up new tracks, will such a high proportion of dividends crowd out long-term strategic resources, constraining the pace of its transformation and its potential for sustainable development?

The ceiling for the Ejiao business will eventually arrive, but Dong’e Ejiao has not yet found a way to break through. How to guard the core base, mitigate policy risks, cultivate new engines, and balance resources between returning to shareholders and driving transformation will be the key for this century-old brand to survive through cycles and achieve a second takeoff.

Some images sourced from the internet. If there is any infringement, please notify us to have it removed.

Special Statement: The above content only represents the author’s own opinions or positions and does not represent the opinions or positions of Sina Finance Headlines. If you need to contact Sina Finance Headlines regarding the content, copyright, or any other issues, please do so within 30 days after the publication of the above content.

Massive information, precise analysis—available in the Sina Finance APP