Pedestrians check out the splendid urban scenery on the North Bund of Shanghai on November 13, 2025. Photos on this page: VCG

Several international instant retail companies have published their fiscal 2025 reports, indicating sustained and steady growth in their performance in the Chinese market. A Chinese expert noted that this, together with continued investment, reflects ongoing confidence in the consumer market of the world's second-largest economy.

L'Oréal said on Friday that their sales amounted to 44.05 billion euros ($52.25 billion) at December 31, 2025, up 4.0 percent year-on-year. The company said that the improvement was driven by the Chinese mainland, where growth accelerated from low to mid-single digits over the period, supported by gradually stabilizing market conditions. L'Oréal Paris once again confirmed its position as the No.1 beauty brand in the Chinese market.

On Thursday, Unilever Plc stated that its sales in China improved in the second half of last year, including mid-single-digit growth in the fourth quarter.

We took decisive actions to reset our businesses in Indonesia and China, including changes to route-to-market and portfolio optimization. Both markets showed improving trends as these actions took hold through the year, according to Fernando Fernandez, CEO of Unilever Plc.

On February 10, The Coca-Cola Company posted its fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 earnings results. The company achieved net operating revenues of $47.941 billion last year, up 2 percent year on year, with China seeing a return to growth in the second half. 

These companies operate in the instant retail sector, where their goods are more than just products - they are a direct reflection of confidence in end-user consumption and a key part of the market rebound narrative, Hu Qimu, a deputy secretary-general of the Forum 50 for Digital-Real Economies Integration, told the Global Times on Friday.

Their rising performance reflects the government's concrete efforts to boost consumption, Hu added. 

Chinese authorities have rolled out a series of measures to unlock consumption potential, as domestic demand remains a key engine for economic growth.

China will continue to boost consumption and expand high-standard opening-up to underpin the country's high-quality development, Chinese Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao told Xinhua in a recent interview.  

Wang noted that China possesses the advantage of an ultra-large market, with a population of over 1.4 billion. The people's diversified needs in the pursuit of a high-quality life continue to grow, which embodies huge consumption potential.

On the goods consumption front, China will continue to hold consumption promotion activities to ensure that people enjoy more tangible benefits, Wang said. 

Official data showed that China's total retail sales surpassed 50 trillion yuan for the first time in 2025, up 3.7 percent year-on-year, with consumption accounting for 52 percent of economic growth - up 5.0 percentage points. 

Retail sales of services grew 5.5 percent year-on-year, with segments such as culture, sports and leisure, tourism-related services, leasing and transport recording double-digit growth.

China is not only one of the most dynamic consumer markets globally but also offers a vast stage for multinational enterprises, including Mondelēz, with its strong economic resilience, continuously upgrading consumer demand and increasingly optimized business environment. We remain confident in China and will continue to grow with the Chinese economy and consumers, according to Joost Vlaanderen, president of Mondelēz Greater China.

To meet the needs of the Chinese New Year consumption peak, multiple brands under Mondelēz have introduced festive gift boxes inspired by traditional Chinese culture and creative design, the company told the Global Times. 

"We have China being one big market for us. We took a strategy there to build this for the long term, and we continue to have good inroads on the quality leadership on the core, and we continue to win in that. It's more of a long-term market, we continue to invest also ahead of the curve," said Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of The Coca-Cola Company Henrique Braun when discussing the Chinese market during the earnings call.