Now the unification wants to complete the goal of "revenue of 50 billion yuan within five years" as soon as possible. At the recent unified shareholders' meeting, some shareholders asked whether the target of RMB 50 billion in five years is still the same.
Luo Zhixian, chairman of Uni-President, said that China is a market for a continent-based economy, and in order to become a national enterprise, the revenue target of Uni-President Central Control will reach RMB 50 billion within five years, which is "not a slogan, but a survival line", and must reach the target in the shortest possible time, otherwise the operation will be greatly affected.
It is understood that in 2024, the revenue of the unified central control will be 28.591 billion yuan, and the performance in the past ten years has been sluggish.
The shortest time to fight for the goal of 50 billion? Difficult!
The unification of the 50 billion target was first mentioned in early 2023. At that time, Luo Zhixian, chairman of Uni-President Enterprise China, said that the company would launch a sprint to the goal of "revenue of 50 billion yuan within five years", "hoping that the annual revenue growth target of Uni-President Central Control will be 8%-12%, and the future revenue will reach 50 billion yuan, which is expected to reach the target within five years." ”。 He also said that the achievement of this goal "will be a natural thing".
As of 2024, Uni-President has also frequently mentioned on many occasions that the group will "sprint to 50 billion in five years", "this is not a slogan, it is a survival line". Although from the current point of view, the realization of unification of 50 billion is inevitable, but from the perspective of nearly ten years of development, this is not easy to achieve in a short period of time.
According to the previous financial report data, since the unified revenue exceeded 21.4 billion yuan in 2012, the revenue from 2013 to 2023 was 23.329 billion yuan, 22.488 billion yuan, 22.12 billion yuan, 20.986 billion yuan, 21.296 billion yuan, 21.772 billion yuan, 22.02 billion yuan, 22.761 billion yuan, 25.231 billion yuan, 28.257 billion yuan, and 28.591 billion yuan respectively, and the unified revenue growth in 11 years has not exceeded 30 billion yuan.
In terms of revenue in 2023, although revenue hit a record high and increased by 1.2% over the same period last year, its two main businesses are obviously "biased" - the beverage business is growing gratifyingly, while the food business is declining significantly. At the same time, in March last year, its wholly-owned subsidiary, Hefei Uni-President, a 167,100 square meter industrial land, was repurchased by the local authorities, receiving compensation of about 583 million yuan and income of about 342 million yuan. After excluding this land disposal proceeds, can Tongyi's revenue in 2023 still look so good?
Industry insiders are also not optimistic about this goal. According to Zhu Danpeng, an analyst in China's food industry, it will be difficult for unification to achieve this goal. "The overall performance of the unity in the past few years has been decent. We can see from 2023 that in the first half of 2024, many enterprises are facing the overall development dilemma, and the unification has reached the development ceiling, its two major business segments do not have the core competitiveness of sustainable development, and the speed and quality of innovation, upgrading and iteration are not high, which is not enough to support the unified 50 billion slogan."
Unification has lost innovation and traffic
In the past nearly 30 years, Uni-President and Master Kong have been firmly in control of the domestic instant noodle market, even with the vigorous development of the industry and the emergence of many challengers, the two still have an unshakable position, and have cultivated a number of star products in the market, and have been the object of imitation by many latecomers.
For example, Uni-President has cultivated a number of star products with annual sales of 1 billion+, such as Assam milk tea, Haizhiyan, Tangdaren, Laotan sauerkraut, etc., and has achieved excellent performance and high market attention. But now I have to admit that some of the star products of Uni-President have gradually shown "fatigue" in the market.
Take Tangda people as an example, as the former "No. 1 brand in the soup noodle market", although its sales scale in 2022 will still be 4 billion yuan, the growth rate has declined significantly, ending five consecutive years of double-digit growth and falling into a situation of "nearly double-digit growth". Coupled with the encirclement and interception of fierce competitors such as Master Kong and White Elephant, how easy is it for Tang Daren to sit on the top spot in the high-end noodle soup market? There are also signs of aging Assam milk tea, where the market share of bottled milk tea is being squeezed and divided by ready-made milk tea and pure tea drinks, and users are shunted to become the norm.
In addition to the aging of products, the unification in recent years seems to have lost innovation and traffic.
In terms of product promotion, Uni-President followed the footsteps of Jinmailang, not only launched a new product of Anhui plate noodles, but also imitated Jinmailang Liangbaikai, launched a similar product "Cool Boiled Water", and even, Unification also followed the trend of Yang Shopkeeper to launch a powder-faced egg meat sausage product. As one of the top companies in the food industry, it is unbelievable to plagiarize the homework of the "little brother", but now it has happened again and again. Today's reunification has long faded the halo of "pushing new talents".
It is understood that he has emphasized more than once that reunification does not need to carry out a lot of new undertakings, but only needs to readjust the existing business scope and operation methods, that is, in the so-called "old product new market, old product old market, new product new market, new product old market" in the grid and then rearrange and combine, there are endless business opportunities.
In terms of marketing, unification also seems to be relatively "numb", so much so that it missed a "splash of wealth". For example, from May 23 to 24, the Eastern Theater carried out the "Joint Sword-2024A" exercise around Taiwan Island, which became the focus of national and global attention.
And the "Chinese Military Horn" published a Weibo during this period: This is the overtime meal of the Bugle Editorial Department, and the amount is full. In the picture, there are two ace products of Uni-President, Laotan Sauerkraut Beef Noodles and Assam Milk Tea, as well as an ironic tea egg. At such a special moment, the unified "family bucket" officially debuted.
You must know that the white elephant continues to become popular precisely because it has caught its own "splashing traffic", and has broken into a new world, which is still fresh in the memory of industry insiders. But I didn't expect that in the face of such a "splashing traffic" and official blessings, the reunification was indifferent and did not make a splash.
Not only rejecting patriotic traffic, but also lacking the unity of product innovation, how to achieve the goal of "sprinting 50 billion revenue in 5 years"?
You can't make 50 billion just by "eating the old book".
It cannot be denied that the current unification, the former giant of the instant noodle market, may learn from the white elephant.
Counting the development of the instant noodle market and the brand dispute in the past few decades, Master Kong, Tongyi, Baixiang, and Hualong (now Mailang) are "divided into four parts of the world". Because of the different market routes and user positioning, the four once had their own advantages in the industry, each staking their own ground, and healthy competition. In recent years, unlike the downward trend of the unified instant noodle business, Baixiang and Jinmailang can be said to be developing against the trend in the instant noodle market. The key words of the success of the two are product innovation and youthful marketing.
For example, in addition to the insight that Chinese love to drink soup and launch the ace product of soup and delicious old hen soup noodles, White Elephant also excavates the food characteristic culture of various places according to different consumer taste preferences, and constantly develops a rich product matrix, such as White Elephant "Chinese noodles" series products, "spicy" based on big spicy Jiao, coriander as the main super fragrant cilantro noodles, etc., and at the marketing level, it is to lay out the brand marketing ecology, through the launch of co-branded products with big IP, the creation of online topic explosions, Create a variety of novelties such as offline immersive theme stores, and actively build new channels for dialogue with young people.
Not every brand that has tested the waters of the business line can meet expectations in terms of market performance, or is expected to become a new profit growth point with a good-looking sales curve, and not every marketing strategy can be converted into KPIs, and even many attempts have been seriously frustrated and declared unsuccessful in advance. But there is no doubt that White Elephant is still working hard to bring the traditional pasta products business back to the limelight.
Whether it is the enterprising innovation or the brand power that continues to embrace young people and is constantly rejuvenated, it is precisely the lack of uniformity. Reunification should also be more aware that it is impossible to earn 50 billion yuan just by "eating the old capital".