Red Star Capital Bureau reported on September 26 that recently, it was reported that dealers are strictly prohibited from operating when the fruit is ripe, or if the fruit is ripe, they cannot operate the unified products at the same time, and they must "choose one of the two".
Some dealers told the Red Star Capital Bureau that they had recently heard rumors that dealers were required to "choose one of the two", but they had not yet received the relevant notices of unification. According to the Beijing Business Daily, when reunification replied to the matter, it neither affirmed nor denied it.
Some dealers said they had heard the rumors
However, we have not yet received the notice
A Uni-President dealer from Guizhou told Red Star Capital that he had recently heard rumors that Uni-President required dealers to "choose one of two", but he had not received such a notice. The dealer said that he had never purchased ripe fruits, "the acceptance of ripe fruits in Guizhou is not very high, and it has not affected the inventory volume of major manufacturers." I generally do brands with high liquidity, and the proportion of uniformity is larger. ”
Another Uni-President dealer from Shandong told the Red Star Capital Bureau that she had not received a notice of the unified request to "choose one of the two". As for the ripe fruit, she said that she had no supply on hand. In addition, the unified dealers in Jiangsu, Sichuan and other places have told the Red Star Capital Bureau that they have not received the relevant notice.
On September 26, the Red Star Capital Bureau called Uni-President for this matter, but did not receive an effective reply as of press time. On the same day, the fruit ripened in response to the Red Star Capital Bureau, saying that it had not received the news before, and only learned about it after seeing relevant reports recently.
According to a report by Beijing Business Daily, when re-inforcing the matter, Uni-President neither affirmed nor denied it. The relevant person in charge of the company's public relations department said, "I don't know very well, and it's still being verified."
Unified march into sugar-free tea
It is understood that as early as 2004, Uni-President launched sugar-free tea "Tea King" for the Chinese mainland market, but withdrew after 7 years. It wasn't until 2019 that the "King of Tea" announced its return. In April this year, a new sugar-free tea product "Chunfu Green Tea" with a retail price of 4 yuan was launched, with selling points including the use of 100% real tea extraction, innovative fermentation technology, etc., including 500ml and 900ml specifications.
According to the official flagship store of Taobao
According to Uni-President Enterprise China (00220. In the first half of this year, the company's tea beverage revenue was about 4.647 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 11.8%.
On the other hand, the fruit is ripe in May this year, and the official announcement star Yang Zi became the spokesperson of its sugar-free tea series, and launched bamboo fragrance oolong in June, orchid oolong in July, and rose oolong in August.
According to the picture, the fruit is ripe Taobao's official flagship store
According to the statistics of FMCG offline retail monitoring agencies, from June to July 2024, the market share of ripe fruit and unified sugar-free tea ranked 4th and 5th respectively. At present, the competition of sugar-free tea is still fierce, and various companies have launched new products to seize the market, and the industry has also fallen into a "price war".
Regarding the "either-or" incident, He Jiyong, president of Zhangru Research Institute, told the Red Star Capital Bureau that if the contract clearly stipulates that the dealer needs to choose to operate one of its brands, and at the same time prohibits the operation of other competitors' products, then this may involve unfair competition and is illegal.
Red Star Capital Bureau noted that Article 22, Paragraph 1, Item (4) of the Anti-Monopoly Law prohibits abuse of market dominance that "restricts trading counterparties to transactions only with them or with designated business operators without justifiable reasons".
Red Star News reporter Yu Yao Intern reporter Zeng Han
Edited by Deng Lingyao
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