"Regional Hotpot Observation Report 2026" Released: The Market Enters Stock Competition, Regional Specialty Brands Rise Strongly

In order to explore the development of hot pot in various regions, the Hongcan Industry Research Institute has released the “Regional Hot Pot Observation Report 2026.”

This article is an original release by the Hongcan Think Tank (ID: hongcanzk), author: Hongcan Industry Research Institute.

In the past two years, driven by consumer trends of seeking freshness, pursuing cost-effectiveness, and emphasizing dining experience, segmented hot pot categories with local characteristics such as sour soup hot pot, seafood market hot pot, fresh-cut beef hot pot, fresh-cut chicken pot hot pot, and wild mountain hot pot have continued to attract consumer attention. Against this backdrop, a number of hot pot brands across the country have achieved store expansion through differentiated features, beginning to move from regional to national markets, and promoting the hot pot sector towards segmentation and diversification.

So, what are the development trends in the hot pot sector? What differentiated characteristics are present in the hot pot market across different regions? What future development trends can we expect? To explore these questions, the Hongcan Industry Research Institute launched the “Regional Hot Pot Observation Report 2026.” Below is a display of some content from the report.

The national hot pot market size in 2025 is 639 billion yuan, with the number of hot pot stores nationwide reaching 448,000.

In recent years, with the continuous increase of new entrants, the hot pot sector has been expanding. According to Hongcan big data, the national hot pot market size reached 639 billion yuan in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 3.5%. The Hongcan Industry Research Institute estimates that the national hot pot market size is expected to reach 670 billion yuan in 2026.

From the perspective of the number of stores nationwide, the hot pot sector has entered a stage of stock competition. Hongcan big data shows that as of December 2025, the number of hot pot stores nationwide was approximately 448,000, which reflects a decline compared to the same period in 2024, with a year-on-year decrease of 15.4%.

Regarding the brand competition landscape, Haidilao, Weilai Small Hot Pot, and Xufu Beef lead with over 1,000 stores, maintaining a rapid growth rate in the number of stores in 2025. Among them, Weilai Small Hot Pot opened over 800 new stores, Xufu Beef opened more than 300 new stores, and Haidilao opened about 200 new stores.

Additionally, brands such as Principal Feng’s Old Hot Pot and Xiong Miao Lai Hot Pot have also shown a steady increase in the number of stores, each with over 200 stores nationwide. Moreover, some small hot pot brands and fresh-cut beef hot pot brands have demonstrated strong development momentum, rapidly expanding their stores due to high cost-performance advantages.

Product innovation dimension upgrades, high value, and high aesthetics become the main innovation focal points.

In the context of intensifying market competition, the hot pot sector has entered a new round of reshuffling. To maintain brand competitiveness, many hot pot brands have accelerated the pace of launching innovative products.

The Hongcan Industry Research Institute has monitored that in 2025, hot pot sample brands launched a total of 976 new products, with an average of 41.1% of new brands introduced each month; each brand introduced an average of 1.9 new products per month.

In terms of the categories of new products, the proportion of new hot pot ingredients is the highest at 45.2%; followed by base soup new products, which account for 11.1%. Among them, hot pot ingredients, base soups, and “hot pot +” are important focal points for brand product innovation.

1. Hot pot ingredients: Ingredients continue to upgrade towards health and freshness, with brands striving to create a “refined” visual experience.

In the past two years, regional ingredients, intangible cultural heritage ingredients, and niche ingredients have rapidly risen in the hot pot sector due to their characteristics of regional culture, intangible heritage culture, and novelty, becoming a key innovation direction for hot pot brands, and this trend has continued to deepen in 2025.

At the same time, wild mountain ingredients and fresh-cut ingredients have also attracted significant attention from hot pot brands. Among them, wild mountain ingredients focus on health and ecological purity, such as dragon claw mushrooms, Jianshouqing, Anji wild bamboo shoots, purple sweet potatoes, and highland fresh vegetables. Fresh-cut ingredients have remained popular with the emergence of fresh-cut hot pot restaurants such as Chaoshan fresh-cut beef hot pot and fresh-cut chicken pot, with brands like Haidilao and Shuda Xia also reinforcing their value through fresh-cut ingredients.

2. Base soup: Rich flavors, with spicy, clear, and sour soup bases in a “three-legged” stance.

From the perspective of the flavor of new base soups launched by sample hot pot brands, the flavors are showing an increasingly diverse trend. According to statistics from the Hongcan Industry Research Institute, in 2025, the new base soups launched by hot pot sample brands included flavors such as spicy, tomato, sour soup, mushroom soup, seafood, medicinal cuisine, and exotic flavors.

Among them, spicy base soup remains a key flavor that hot pot brands focus on, accounting for 32.4%; followed by clear soup base and sour soup base, which account for 28.7% and 23.1%, respectively. Notably, the proportion of spicy base soup, sour soup base, and mushroom base has increased compared to 2024.

Among the various types of base soups, sour soup hot pot represented by Guizhou sour soup and Hainan fermented vinegar, as well as Yunnan mushroom soup, has seen a sustained rise in popularity, becoming one of the new base soups that hot pot brands are keen to introduce.

It is worth noting that the fermentation of sour soup and the preparation of mushroom soup have many pain points, which severely restrict the rapid launch of new base soups. For example, Hainan fermented vinegar sour soup, made using traditional methods, faces challenges such as short shelf life, difficulty in standardizing flavor, unstable raw material supply, and lack of universality, making it challenging for brands to introduce related new products.

Recognizing the pain points of hot pot brands in launching Hainan fermented vinegar sour soup, Qianwei High Soup has actively responded to brand needs by deeply engaging in the field of Chinese broth. In response to the pain points of Hainan fermented vinegar, Qianwei High Soup has launched a probiotic fermented vinegar sour soup, leveraging its professional R&D team.

Reportedly, this new product is made using high-quality rice as the fermentation base, paired with chili peppers, fresh sour ingredients, and exclusively crafted fermented brew materials. At the same time, Qianwei High Soup has adopted a proprietary probiotic fermentation process and a higher ratio of ingredients to water, while retaining the traditional Hainan fermented vinegar production process, ensuring a healthier, safer, and more stable fermentation process, resulting in a more authentic, rich, and fragrant product, and making it more universal to help brands expand their consumer base.

Similarly, the Yunnan mushroom soup base also faces many challenges in the preparation process. On one hand, Yunnan wild mushrooms are limited by seasons and are not easy to preserve, facing issues such as spoilage and high loss rates during long-distance transportation. On the other hand, the development barrier for Yunnan mushroom soup base is quite high and heavily relies on the chef’s culinary skills, with significant differences in cooking habits and ratio control among different chefs, making flavor stability and large-scale production difficult to guarantee. Additionally, excessive cooking can lead to dark soup color and loss of nutritional value.

To address the pain points associated with mushroom soup, Qianwei High Soup leverages the R&D capabilities of over 30 professional chefs and more than 50 R&D personnel, thoroughly investigating local wild mushroom hot pot restaurants in Yunnan and systematically sorting out key processes such as ingredient selection, preparation techniques, and ingredient pairing for mushroom soup bases. After extensive R&D and testing, Qianwei High Soup has launched the Fresh Treasure Matsutake Special Mushroom Soup Seasoning.

Reportedly, this product selects high-quality ingredients like Yunnan Matsutake and shiitake mushrooms, combining it with a unique mushroom freshness-locking technique to preserve the flavor of fresh mushrooms and successfully addresses the issue of dark soup color. Additionally, this product can be widely applied in snack fast food scenarios, effectively enhancing the stability of output and efficiency of restaurant service.

3. Hot pot +: New products like drinks, desserts, and specialty snacks complement hot pot, meeting diverse consumer needs.

Furthermore, to cater to consumers’ diverse dining needs and increase store average spending, hot pot sample brands have enriched their product lines through the “Hot Pot +” model.

The Hongcan Industry Research Institute has discovered that in 2025, over 40% of new products launched by hot pot sample brands were non-hot pot products. Among them, the proportions of drinks, desserts, specialty snacks, and specialty dishes were 10.8%, 8.9%, 6.8%, and 6.3%, respectively.

East China region has a high market share, while the Southwest region ranks first in the number of hot pot stores.

In recent years, in addition to hot pot brands like Haidilao, Weilai Small Hot Pot, Xufu Beef, and Xiaolongkan Hot Pot rapidly expanding their national presence, a number of hot pot brands with unique local characteristics have begun to emerge across various regions.

These regional hot pot brands typically prioritize opening stores densely in their local and surrounding areas to form brand influence and market coverage within a certain range. Some stronger regional brands are also beginning to attempt cross-regional expansion, but the speed of expansion is relatively cautious.

This article will select and delve into the analysis of the hot pot market in East China, Southwest, and South China regions from the report.

1. East China Region: The number of hot pot stores reaches 88,000, with a market share of 26.7% nationwide.

Specifically, in the East China region’s hot pot consumption market, the overall consumer demographic exhibits core characteristics of “youthful and prominently professional, with high per capita consumption.”

In terms of per capita consumption, the proportion of in-store dining with a per capita consumption of 70 yuan or more is 64.1%, higher than the national average (59.6%); the per capita consumption for takeout is mainly concentrated below 50 yuan, while the proportion of takeout consumption at 90 yuan or more is above the national average.

Regarding the market capacity in the East China region, according to Hongcan big data, as of January 2026, the market share of hot pot in East China accounts for approximately 26.7% of the national total, with the number of hot pot stores reaching 88,000. In terms of store density, compared to the national average, each provincial administrative region in East China exhibits relatively low store density, indicating that competition among hot pot stores in this region is relatively small.

From the perspective of brand development, there are many chain brands in the East China region. Among them, Guo Shufen’s fresh-cut beef self-service old hot pot has the highest number of stores, quickly rising in the East China region due to its high cost-performance self-service model, with the number of stores in East China accounting for 71.7% of the national total. Meanwhile, brands like Coucou Hot Pot, San Chushan Hot Pot, Shan Huan Huan Hot Pot, and Ben Jie Residential Building Hot Pot are gradually expanding into the national market, with an increasing number of stores in other regions.

2. Southwest Region: The number of hot pot stores reaches 117,000, with a market share of approximately 21.4% nationwide.

From the perspective of consumer behavior in the Southwest region, the in-store dining per capita consumption shows a “K-shaped distribution,” with significant proportions below 50 yuan and above 120 yuan; in-store consumption is mainly concentrated during dinner hours. The takeout consumption for hot pot primarily falls within the mainstream price range of below 50 yuan; the distribution of takeout consumption times is generally similar to the national average, but the proportion for dinner is relatively higher.

In terms of market capacity, according to Hongcan big data, as of January 2026, the hot pot market share in the Southwest region is approximately 21.4% of the national total, with the number of hot pot stores reaching 117,000. In terms of store density, the density of stores in each provincial administrative region of the Southwest region is far higher than the national average. Among them, Chongqing has the highest density of hot pot stores, indicating a relatively saturated hot pot market.

Compared to the East China region, the Southwest hot pot market is highly fragmented, with most brands having smaller store scales, primarily focusing on “small and beautiful.” Representative brands deeply rooted in the Southwest region include Weizhi Jue, Cheng Die Yi Hot Pot Restaurant, Nian Bai Old Hot Pot, and Guichu Sour Soup Beef. Weizhi Jue, as a leader in the niche field of fish head hot pot, has currently opened over 300 stores; brands like Guichu Sour Soup Beef and Yunshan Que Xian Chong Wild Fruit Sour Soup Hot Pot are also rising strongly, gradually expanding their stores to other regions.

In contrast to hot pot brands in East China, brands in the Southwest region tend to emphasize regional characteristics in their products. For instance, in terms of ingredients, brands dig deep into local ingredients such as Guizhou small yellow cattle, camellia chickens, Guizhou black soybean flowers, and Yunnan wild mushrooms to enhance regional attributes; regarding base soups, brands like Cheng Die Yi Hot Pot Restaurant and Nian Bai Old Hot Pot adhere to the inheritance of intangible heritage base soups, while brands like Guichu Sour Soup Beef and Lao Kaili Sour Soup Fish focus on Guizhou sour soup and Yunnan sour soup as特色锅底.

In terms of store layout, most Sichuan-Chongqing hot pot brands primarily choose community and district stores; some emerging sour soup hot pot brands mainly open stores in shopping centers, integrating the customs and culture of the Yunnan-Guizhou region into the store environment. In terms of dining experience, brands mainly create an immersive experience through a combination of “open display, immersive scenes, and experiential services,” upgrading the “hot pot dining” into an all-encompassing cultural experience.

3. South China Region: The number of hot pot stores reaches 47,000, with a market share of approximately 14.8% nationwide.

From the consumer profile of hot pot in the South China region, it is largely consistent with that of East and Southwest China regions, primarily consisting of young groups and white-collar workers.

In terms of market capacity, according to Hongcan big data, as of January 2026, the market share of hot pot in the South China region accounts for approximately 14.8% of the national total, with the number of hot pot stores reaching 47,000. In terms of store density, each provincial administrative region in South China has a store density lower than the national average, indicating that competition in the South China hot pot market is not intense and there remains considerable room for entry.

In terms of brand development, Bahe Li Chaoshan Fresh Beef Hot Pot, Chao Fa, and Miao Fu Pig Stomach Chicken are all Cantonese hot pot brands that have deeply rooted in the South China region, maintaining a stable market through supply chain depth and localized operations. Among them, Bahe Li Chaoshan Fresh Beef Hot Pot has opened over 200 directly-operated stores, with the number of stores in the South China region accounting for about 70% of the national total; Chao Fa’s number of stores is mainly concentrated within Guangdong Province, and it is continuing to accelerate its expansion pace in the South China region.

Conclusion

As competition in the hot pot sector deepens, understanding market trends and creating differentiated products have become the core competitiveness for brands to stand out among numerous competitors. Looking ahead, the hot pot sector is expected to present the following three major development trends: first, emotional value will become the core of brand differentiation competition; second, the demand for healthy eating will continue to rise, and the hot pot sector will gradually upgrade towards health; third, regional cultural dividends will continue to be released, and local特色 hot pot categories and brands will encounter new opportunities, likely expanding nationwide.