Millimetre wave (mmWave) communications are the most promising candidate for the future fifth-generation mobile broadband networks, which offer greater available spectrum than current cellular. However, the huge path loss and rain attenuation due to the characteristic of the mmWave channel make it difficult to realise. Thanks to the small wavelength of mmWave signals, massive multi-input-multi-output (MIMO) systems can be leveraged to overcome the path loss. Unfortunately, in contrast to conventional MIMO systems, high-power consumption and hardware cost make fully digital precoding impractical. In this study, the authors study the hybrid precoding structure for multiuser mmWave systems, which compromises the cost and performance. First, an extension algorithm from single user systems, which directly decomposes the optimal fully digital precoder into a baseband precoder and an analogue radio-frequency (RF) precoder, is introduced according to the recent work. Then, the drawback of this kind of algorithm is analysed at high signal-to-noise ratios. Subsequently, a two-stage hybrid precoding algorithm, which is based on the minimum mean-squared error criterion is proposed, where the modified Broyden–Fletcher–Goldfarb–Shanno (BFGS) algorithm is presented to reduce the reconstruction error of computing the analogue RF precoder. Simulation results show that the proposed precoding algorithm can significantly improve the performance of the system sum-rate.