Renrenle pioneered China's private supermarket — then lost ¥30B and delisted

Renrenle was founded in 1996 in Shenzhen by He Jinming and grew into China's pioneering private supermarket chain. It went public on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in 2010 as the 'first private supermarket stock' — a milestone for China's retail sector. At its peak in 2012, Renrenle operated 108 stores with annual revenue of ¥12.9 billion.

But the model that made Renrenle famous was also its undoing. From 2012 onward, revenue declined every year as e-commerce giants took market share, community group-buying platforms captured price-sensitive customers, and instant-delivery services offered 30-minute grocery delivery. Renrenle had no effective digital response. Internally, the company was run as a family business — founder He Jinming's wife and son held senior positions, and the company cycled through CEOs without a consistent strategy at the moment it needed one most.

By 2021, the losses became severe. Revenue fell from ¥50.96 billion to just ¥14.3 billion in 2024 — a 72% decline in three years. Cumulative net losses exceeded ¥30 billion from 2019 to 2024. Total liabilities reached ¥40 billion. The company attempted to sell a controlling stake to Xi'an-based Qujiang Cultural in 2019, but the state-owned investor could not turn around a business whose format was structurally obsolete.

In July 2025, after the stock traded below 1 yuan for 20 consecutive days, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange terminated Renrenle's listing. The stock, which once traded above ¥30 per share with a market cap of over ¥10 billion, was delisted at a valuation under ¥1 billion. Of its peak 150 stores, only 32 remained open. Renrenle became a cautionary tale of how China's first generation of private supermarket chains failed to survive the transition to digital retail.