Author: Think AI, Aaron

“Think more, drink more walnut milk,” this is a well-known advertising slogan.

As a popular beverage of Yangyuan Beverage Company, walnut milk has once become a hit across the country, no one would have expected that this beverage company would venture into AI chips.

In fact, the parent company of walnut milk has truly begun to go all in on AI, investing almost all of its annual net profit into the AI-related industry for three consecutive years.

Though it has yet to make cash from the AI industry, its stock price surged from a low of around 17.7 yuan at the beginning of last year to a high of 52 yuan in May, an increase of 293%, nearly tripling.

The market has regarded Yangyuan Beverage as an AI concept stock.

In contrast, similar consumer stocks have seen significant declines this year; the entire A-share market has had 1,653 stocks reach near-yearly lows, with a high proportion from the consumer sector, making “walnut milk” a bright spot in the market.

Why has the parent company of walnut milk continuously increased its investments in AI and other hard technology since 2021? If the investments fail, what will be the future path?

Industry Shrinkage, Founding Team Needs Imagination

There was a time when Yangyuan Beverage was a powerhouse; in 2015, its revenue hit a historical peak of 9.1 billion yuan, and that year founder Yao Kuizhang became the richest person in Hebei.

From 2015 to 2018, Yangyuan experienced sustained high-speed growth, and its net profit reached 2.8 billion yuan in 2018, the highest in history.

At that time, Yangyuan held a 90% market share in the walnut milk industry, nearly monopolizing the entire sector.

With over 2 billion yuan in net profit each year, the company became a cash cow.

However, as of now, Yangyuan's revenue has shrunk to about 5.3 billion yuan in 2025, a 41% decrease over ten years, with profits halved to 1.2 billion yuan compared to peak levels.

Even more troubling is that the decline is not a localized phenomenon. Yangyuan is facing pressure across major sales regions, including East China, Central China, and North China, with declines even exceeding 30% in Northeast and Northwest regions. The traditional peak season has also failed to reverse the downturn.

Yangyuan is heavily reliant on core products like walnut milk, which accounts for over 80% of its market.

New products have been lukewarm, and walnut milk itself is being diverted by nut milk, oat milk, and others, while the gift attribute of walnut milk is gradually weakening, leading the main business into a long-term shrinking trajectory.

Faced with product weakness, the company did not choose to increase R&D efforts or innovate new products to compete.

Instead, it opted for a more imaginative AI investment route, following a relatively straightforward investment philosophy: invest in whatever is hot.

Here we will not discuss right or wrong; we will first examine what sectors Yangyuan has aggressively entered and what results have been achieved, and then predict the potential future of Yangyuan.

Cross-Industry Gamble

Starting in 2021, Yangyuan Beverage focused on laying out upstream and downstream AI hardware, launching a 3 billion yuan fund, which was later expanded by 1 billion in October last year, continually investing in AI, semiconductors, and new energy.

Currently, it has spent 2.95 billion yuan, with 1.05 billion still idle, awaiting new projects.

Among its 4 billion yuan fund, one major investment has drawn attention: last April, it completed an investment of 1.6 billion yuan in Yangtze Memory Technologies, acquiring a 0.99% stake.

The 1.6 billion yuan constitutes an entire year's profit for Yangyuan, indicating the company's boldness in investing in long-cycle industries such as storage.

Yangtze Memory has gained popularity this year, with rumors of a domestic IPO and a valuation between 500 billion and 1 trillion yuan. Compared to last year's investment valuation, it has tripled.

If Yangtze Memory successfully goes public, this investment could mark a successful transition for Yangyuan's industrial investments.

Because most of the other investments remain in a state of unrealized losses, Yangyuan has not exited but continues to choose to hold for the long term.

One of these, Ruipu Lanjun, invested 800 million yuan in new energy power batteries, and all were exited for cash after the Hong Kong IPO in 2023, yielding about 241 million Hong Kong dollars in book gains;

The acquisition of New Wave Media by Focus Media is valued at only 8.3 billion, far below the 16.1 billion valuation from previous investments, and is currently not exited, with the fund still holding shares in an unrealized loss position.

Additionally, several AI-related companies are focused on areas such as AI vision, edge AI chips, and large model training GPUs, forming a relatively complete AI industrial chain.

What Lies Ahead for Yangyuan?

In the coming years, Yangyuan Beverage is unlikely to completely transform into a VC company but will maintain a dual-wheel model of “consumer main business at the core, equity investment for flexibility.”

Walnut milk will still be the foundation of the company, but the walnut milk category has already passed its rapid growth period, making it difficult to return to the peak of over 10 billion yuan in annual revenue.

The 4 billion yuan Qianhong Fund will become an industry fund worth keeping an eye on.

Future funding from Yangyuan will likely continue to flow towards AI computing power upstream, including storage, edge AI chips, and industrial vision, while non-core fields like new energy and media will gradually become marginalized.

Once Yangtze Memory successfully goes public, investment returns could significantly improve the profit statement at once, transitioning the company from a traditional beverage stock to a dual pricing model of “consumption + hard technology shadow stock.”

However, conversely, if the IPO of Yangtze Memory is delayed, or if the semiconductor cycle cools, stock prices may sharply retreat due to the failure of technological expectations.

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