H1 sales reached RMB 22.78 bn and adj. net profit RMB 4.32 bn, up 61% and 84% YoY. In Q2, despite industry demand falling over 30%, the company held a 47% GPM. Management acknowledged its pricing moves collided with a black-swan pullback in gold, chose to 'do nothing' in Q2, and signaled 'aggressive' expansion in Europe and the US next year while rejecting buybacks or insider buying as market-cap management tools.

This earnings report reconfirms the legacy jeweler is not a true luxury brand, since genuine luxury volumes don't plunge just because gold prices fall. At its core, it is a gold retailer with high operating leverage, wrapped in an 'Eastern high-end luxury' narrative.

Below is Dolphin Research's Trans from Laopu Gold's 2H2525 earnings call. For the earnings analysis, please see 'Laopu Gold: High-price follow-on; the Hermes of gold's big bet paid off!'

Gold soars; legacy shops’ big bet on stockpiling pays off

The following are the minutes of the Laopu Gold Q2 2025 earnings call organized by Dolphin Research. For an interpretation of the financial report, please refer to "Laopu Gold: With Gold Prices 'Cooling Down', Can the 'Hermès of Gold' Still Be Trusted?"

On the afternoon of August 20th, Beijing time, Lao Feng Xiang (6181.HK) released its H1 2025 performance. As the company had previously disclosed a profit forecast, the actual performance, in terms of both revenue and profit, approached the upper limit of the guidance, making it a fairly good performance. The specific highlights are as follows:

In the previous analysis by Dolphin Research on Lao Pu Gold, the focus was on analyzing the pricing and business model of Lao Pu's fixed price strategy, and its distinction from luxury goods. Next, we will focus on analyzing the following aspects under the circumstance that Lao Pu adopts a fixed price approach for gold jewelry: a) How did Lao Pu emerge as a dark horse? b) As a high turnover consumer product, why does it become poorer the more profitable it is? How does this affect value judgment? c) After a tenfold increase in a year, how do we view Lao Pu's future growth potential?

本篇我們試圖通過兩個問題來展開：