The oral care track bets on specialized segments.
Wen 丨 Hu qi
On January 18, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) announced the progress of Vimax Industrial (Guangdong) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Vimax") on the approval of overseas initial public offering of shares (including common shares, preferred shares and other stocks and derivative forms of stocks), and the progress has reached the stage of receiving materials.
Founded in 2014, Vichy is the parent company of the well-known oral care brand SHUKE. At present, Vimax's brands have entered Walmart, Carrefour, Aeon, RT-Mart, Yonghui and other international and domestic large-scale chain stores, and realized the all-round coverage of KA stores, large department stores, cosmetics chain channels, county and township stores, mainstream e-commerce platforms such as Tmall, JD.com, pinduoduo, and emerging online channels such as Douyin and Xiaohongshu.
It is expected that after the approval is passed, Vimax may formally submit a prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on a selected date, and intends to be listed on the main board.
Local oral care dark horse Shuke market share ranked in the top five
As the main brand of Vimax, Shuke has been doing pilot promotion in the market as early as 2006, and in 2011, the brand was widely recognized by consumers by signing Beckham. As a dark horse in the local toothpaste brand, Shuke broke through the 2 billion yuan mark of terminal retail in 2015 by staggering pricing, doing the whole product line, and strengthening the terminal through a series of marketing strategies, and in 2019, Shuke's sales exceeded 5 billion yuan. And Euromonitor's data shows that at the end of 2019, Shuke ranked fifth with a market share of 7.8% in China, second only to black people, Yunnan Baiyao, Crest and Colgate.
As early as 2018, Procter & Gamble and Unilever had proposed to acquire Vimax for US$1 billion without success, and in 2014, Vimax received hundreds of millions of yuan of Series A financing from Legend Capital, and again obtained 400 million yuan of Series B financing in 2016. Subsequently, Vimax continued to focus on oral care, while adding new categories such as electric toothbrushes and toothbrushes, it also launched a child-oriented oral care brand Shuke Baby, a high-end professional oral care brand Shubei Teeth and a disinfection care brand Shubeijian.
In recent years, due to the improvement of health awareness and the change of consumption concepts, consumers have paid more and more attention to oral care, which has led to the rapid development of the toothpaste market. According to the industry data of China Oral Cleaning and Care Products Industry Association, the sales revenue of enterprises above designated size in the toothpaste industry in mainland China will be about 26.5 billion yuan in 2020, and it will continue to maintain a high growth rate on this basis in the future. However, at the same time, in recent years, the toothpaste industry has seen a decline in overall output and profit growth, which reflects that the price adjustment of the industry's products is still continuing, and the toothpaste at high-end and ultra-high-end prices is in line with the trend of domestic consumption upgrading.
To this end, in 2020, SHUKE also took the lead in opening a new business model in the whole industry to achieve an integrated experience from "product" to "service". On the one hand, through high-end smart toothbrushes and other core products to reach customer needs; on the other hand, the use of the Internet and big data technology to link oral intelligent care centers, dental clinics, the whole line layout of the "Internet + oral care + oral medical" industrial ecology.
Aesthetic economy wind oral care brand increased the segmentation field
The "2020 Dental Economy White Paper" pointed out that with the improvement of people's living standards and the improvement of oral care awareness, the dental economy based on oral health has begun to show strong consumer vitality, from focusing on cleanliness to maintain oral health, to focusing on dental beauty to emphasize the improvement of appearance, oral care demand continues to advance, and the market potential of the dental economy is highlighted.
Oral care products as one of the consumer goods with the highest market penetration, after the basic functions are gradually saturated, tapping into the deeper needs of consumers is the only way, and the dental economy is the inevitable result of consumption upgrading, and it is also an opportunity for the transformation and upgrading of the oral care industry.
At present, functional toothpaste such as fresh breath, clean stain removal, and teeth whitening have become popular choices for consumers; mouthwash is also favored by consumers for cleaning the mouth and inhibiting the growth of bacteria, and the amount and growth rate of small package mouthwash consumption have risen. In addition, the growth rate of electric toothbrush consumption exceeded that of manual toothbrushes, and the consumption amount and growth rate of water floss, tooth powder and tooth stickers continued to rise.
In recent years, Vimax has also increased its investment in oral care sub-categories, launching new categories such as enzyme toothpaste, liquid toothpaste, electric toothbrush, toothpaste, toothpaste, cleanser, mouthwash, and oral spray. Among them, Shuke's beauty enzyme series toothpaste increased by 101% online and 615% offline in 2020.
This also reflects that in addition to focusing on functionality, the demand for oral consumption is becoming more refined and diversified, and emerging consumer groups are more likely to accept new products with better efficacy, milder formulations, and more in line with the aesthetics of young people.
Self-congratulation has driven more personalized and diversified new consumer demands, and converged into a consumer force that cannot be ignored, in the new segment of oral care, whether it is a traditional brand or a new consumer brand, there is more room for development, as well as more opportunities to be noticed by capital.