Against the backdrop of homogeneous competition and intensified price involution in the domestic candy industry, a Chinese company deeply involved in fun functional candy has achieved a breakthrough against the trend.
Data shows that in 2025, Ames will achieve operating income of 2.782 billion yuan, net profit of 600 million yuan, and the proportion of overseas revenue stable at 77.1%.
Calculated in terms of annual retail sales, this company has reached the top of the Chinese candy market and ranks as the fifth largest gummy candy company in the world.
From a small trading company that relied on foreign trade OEMs to survive in the early days, to an industry leader that has laid out the global market and impacted Hong Kong stock IPOs, Ames’s growth trajectory is a typical example of the transformation and upgrading of Chinese consumer food companies from “OEM” to “brand overseas”, and its founder Ma Endo’s strategic layout is the core driving force for companies to transcend industry cycles and achieve rapid growth.
Amex’s growth background is rooted in its years of industry accumulation in food foreign trade.
In 1989, Ma Enduo, who was born in a county in Hunan, was admitted to the Foreign Economic and Trade Department of Yunnan University with excellent results in liberal arts. His systematic study of economic and trade knowledge laid a solid professional foundation for his subsequent in-depth exploration of cross-border food trade and layout of the global market.
After graduating in 1993, Ma Enduo took root in Shenzhen’s foreign trade industry and delved deeply into the field of grain, oil and food exports.
During his tenure, he relied on his accurate market judgment and mature sales capabilities to achieve outstanding results with annual exports of Thai rice exceeding 10,000 tons. He has a thorough understanding of the full-link operational logic of food foreign trade orders, supply chain docking, and overseas market expansion.
Many years of experience in foreign trade have allowed Ma Endo to accurately capture the core pain points of the domestic food industry: traditional grain and food trade are huge, but the products lack differentiation and there is no room for brand premiums. Corporate profits are completely dependent on small profits but quick turnover, and the ability to resist risks is extremely poor.
It was his deep understanding of the industry’s shortcomings that determined his entrepreneurial direction of building his own food brand and getting rid of the low-end OEM model.
In 2004, Ma Enduo teamed up with a number of partners with professional backgrounds in foreign trade and foreign languages to establish Jinduoduo Food Co., Ltd. in Shenzhen, the predecessor of the Ames brand.
In the early days of its establishment, the company relied on cross-border trade platforms such as the Canton Fair to enter the candy foreign trade track, focusing on overseas emerging markets such as the Middle East and Africa, and quickly started using an asset-light outsourcing model.
Relying on mature foreign trade channel resources, companies quickly completed the accumulation of original capital, but the development bottleneck of the low-end OEM model quickly became apparent.
The number of entrants in the industry continues to increase, the market is becoming more homogeneous, industry competition has completely fallen into price wars, OEM profits have been continuously compressed, and the long-term development space of enterprises has been limited.
Based on accurate predictions of industry trends, Ma Endo has finalized its core strategy: abandon the OEM model, build its own production system, build its own brand, and focus on the high-end mainstream consumer markets in Europe and the United States.
In 2006, the Ames standardization factory was completed and put into operation in Shenzhen. It strictly benchmarked European and American food production safety standards, completed the transformation from a trading company to a production-oriented enterprise, and established core production capacity support for branding and international development.
After the production capacity is implemented, how to enter the mainstream supermarket channels in Europe and the United States has become the key for enterprises to break through the development bottleneck.
In 2008, the global consumer market entered a cold winter. Most foreign trade companies reduced their overseas layout and operated conservatively, but Ames chose to buck the trend.
Ma Endo went to the United States with brand candy samples and proactively contacted Wal-Mart’s global headquarters. With its differentiated and creative candy product positioning, it successfully obtained Wal-Mart’s entry qualification and became the first Chinese candy brand to enter the mainstream supermarket system in North America.
This breakthrough has completely opened up the global growth space of Ames, allowing independent brands to officially take root in the core consumer market of North America.
Since then, the company has continued to deepen its brand matrix layout. In 2013, it strategically acquired the German high-end sugar-free mint brand Binglik to fill the shortcomings in the high-end functional candy track, further enhance the brand’s competitiveness and popularity in the global market, and form a multi-category and multi-brand collaborative development pattern.
Currently, the company’s core product matrix has formed a complete system, covering many popular products such as Pilux peeling gummy candies, 4D creative building block gummy candies, festival customized candies, Jimei music lollipops, etc., taking into account the fun, experience and scene-based consumption needs, accurately matching the preferences of young consumer groups around the world.
Different from the low-price and high-volume business model of most domestic candy companies, Ames has always built core competitiveness with differentiated positioning and created an original “double H strategy” to achieve the parallel development of fun creativity and healthy functions, completely getting rid of homogeneity.
On the one hand, relying on the “Happy” positioning of AMOS’s main brand, it focuses on the creative interactive candy track.
The company breaks away from the single edible attribute of traditional candies and launches innovative products such as splicable 4D building block gummies, peeling gummies that restore the fruit experience, and entertaining music lollipops. The company deeply integrates toy attributes, interactive experience and food consumption, accurately fits the trend of youth, appearance, and experiential consumption, and quickly seizes the leading position in the segmented track.
On the other hand, relying on the Beiopao brand, we are deeply exploring the “Healthy” track and developing nutritional and functional candies.
The brand focuses on healthy snack products such as probiotic gummies, accurately matching the current consumer demand for health and wellness. With stable product quality and clear category positioning, it will top the sales list of probiotic gummies in China in 2025.
The precise dual-track strategy has brought explosive performance growth and high-quality profitability to the company.
Financial data shows that from 2023 to 2025, Ames’ revenue climbed from 1.070 billion yuan to 2.782 billion yuan, with a three-year compound growth rate of 61.9%, ranking first among the top 30 candy companies in the world.
Net profit grew simultaneously and rapidly, from 137 million yuan to 600 million yuan, and the net profit rate increased to 21.6%, demonstrating strong profitability and product premium capabilities.
Among them, the revenue of Ames’ main brand reached 1.968 billion yuan, accounting for 70.7% of the total revenue. The independent brand has become the core growth pillar of the enterprise.
Amaz’s outstanding operating performance and clear global layout have earned it high recognition from primary market capital.
In the Pre-IPO round of financing, the company successfully introduced leading investment institutions such as Fosun Galaxy and Tongchuang Weiye. Fosun Galaxy held a total of approximately 9.05% of the shares and became the company’s largest external shareholder. The capital support provided sufficient financial support for the company’s production capacity expansion, brand research and development, and global channel layout.
On April 28, 2026, Ames officially submitted a prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and launched a capitalization sprint. Bank of America Securities, China Merchants Securities International, and JPMorgan Chase jointly served as joint sponsors.
After more than 20 years of development, the company has grown into an international candy company covering more than 80 countries and regions around the world. Founder Ma Endo has also been selected into the American Candy Retail Association Hall of Fame in 2024, becoming a benchmark figure in China’s candy industry going global.
Looking at the domestic consumer market, domestic brands going overseas have shifted from pure product export to brand export and value export.
Ames’ counterattack confirms the core logic of long-term development of consumer companies: break away from low-end price involution, build differentiated advantages through product innovation, and develop global markets with independent brands.
As the trend of healthy, personalized and scenario-based consumption continues to deepen, coupled with the empowerment of the capital market, this domestic candy leader is expected to continue to consolidate its advantages in the global segment and continue to refresh the voice of domestic food brands in the global market.
