Original, Gao Yuzhe, Leopard Transformation
"Core Tips"
Nongfu Spring, which has encountered a huge public opinion storm, has achieved a "two-legged" balance of water and beverages in 2023. However, under the multiple pressures of negative public opinion, upgraded health needs, and intense competition, can the "Porter of Nature" hold the top spot?
Author | Gao Yuzhe
Editing | Xing, Yun
Under the storm, Nongfu Spring still handed over a dazzling financial report.
On the evening of March 26, Nongfu Spring announced on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that the total revenue in 2023 was 42.667 billion yuan, an increase of 28.4% year-on-year; the net profit attributable to the parent was 12.079 billion yuan, an increase of 42.2% year-on-year. During the reporting period, Nongfu Spring’s gross profit margin increased by 2.1 percentage points from 57.4% in the same period of the previous year to 59.5%.
As of the close of March 27, Nongfu Spring closed at HK $41.25/share, down 1.08%, and the total market value 463.90 billion. In the recently released "2024 Hurun Global Rich List", Nongfu Spring founder and chairperson Zhong Shanyi became China’s richest man for four consecutive years with a wealth of 450 billion yuan.
The annual growth performance is really gratifying, but recently Nongfu Spring has also encountered the biggest public opinion storm since its listing. Since the death of Wahaha founder Zong Qinghou, Nongfu Spring’s market value has evaporated by more than 30 billion Hong Kong dollars, and product sales have also been affected to a certain extent.
It is worth noting that the most eye-catching packaged drinking water in Nongfu Spring in fiscal 2022 contributed 54.9% of total revenue; this proportion dropped to 47.5% in 2023. At the same time, the beverage business grew rapidly, accounting for 51.7% of total revenue, surpassing packaged drinking water for the first time.
Under the upheaval of public opinion and the escalation of health needs, can the "porter of nature" hold the top spot? Drinking water bosses want to be the "beverage brother"?
How much money can "porters" make?
At the beginning of 2024, the bottled water industry staged a leading "melee".
The death of private entrepreneur Zong Qinghou and his past have caused the public’s favorable impression of the Wahaha brand to rise sharply. In addition to the hot search on Wahaha frequency and the soaring sales volume, Nongfu Spring has also been mired in the storm of public opinion. The past between Zong Qinghou and Zhong Shansui has been extended as a story of "Farmer and Snake".
With the fermentation of the incident, the sales of Nongfu Spring were affected. Some media reported that the single-day sales of Nongfu Spring e-commerce platform even dropped from over one million yuan to 50,000 yuan. At present, this storm has not completely subsided. Whether the operating performance of Nongfu Spring will have an impact will be reflected in the first quarter financial report.
The financial report for 2023 once again demonstrates the stable foundation of Nongfu Spring. As a company with a gross profit margin of up to 60%, its revenue and net profit still maintain a good growth rate.
Looking back at the financial reports from 2020 to 2022, the revenue of Nongfu Spring was 22.877 billion yuan, 29.696 billion yuan and 33.239 billion yuan respectively, and the revenue increased by 10.362 billion in three years; to 2023, it increased by nearly 10 billion in only one year.
In terms of net profit, from 2020 to 2022, the net profit attributable to the mother in the same period was 5.277 billion yuan, 7.162 billion yuan and 8.495 billion yuan respectively; in 2023, the net profit of Nongfu Spring was 12.079 billion yuan, an increase of 42.2% year-on-year, and the growth rate increased by 23.6 percentage points compared with the previous year.
Not only did the growth rate of net profit accelerate, but by contrast, the growth rate of net profit exceeded that of revenue.
In China’s packaged drinking water market, Nongfu Spring has always occupied the highest market share. China Resources Yibao, ranked second, did not disclose revenue data for the year in its 2022 sustainability report, only showing a total profit of 1.375 billion yuan.
The earnings report of Nongfu Spring shows that the increase in net profit in 2023 is mainly due to the decrease in the procurement cost of cartons, labels and some raw materials compared with the same period of the previous year. Among the four business segments of Nongfu Spring, the well-known packaged drinking water is the basic plate of its business performance. To a large extent, Nongfu Spring’s strong profitability comes from the high gross profit margin of drinking water.
Why is the gross profit so high? It is because the cost is extremely low. With a gross profit margin of 60%, the unit price of mineral water of 2 yuan is only about 8 cents, and the gross profit is 1.2 yuan. Some media have calculated that, taking each bottle of 400ml packaging water as an example, the polymer PET (polyethylene terephthalate) used to make the bottle costs about 6 cents for materials, about 3 cents for packaging materials (heat shrinkable film, etc.), and about 8 cents for water extraction, labor, and processing. This means that the cost mainly comes from packaging.
The financial report shows that the revenue of Nongfu Spring Packaged Water in 2023 was 20.26 billion yuan, an increase of 10.9% year-on-year. Although the growth rate rebounded from the previous year, it was the lowest among the four major businesses. Obviously, the slowdown in the growth rate of the basic market also brought reminders to the running giants.
Looking for the next eastern leaf
From the perspective of the growth of various businesses, the proportion of beverages in the total revenue of Farmer Mountain has reached more than half, and the first super-packaged drinking water, especially tea beverages, has seen strong growth, further raising the company’s competitive barriers.
Nongfu Spring is divided into four business segments: packaged drinking water represented by bottled water; that is, the tea-drinking segment includes brands such as tea π and Oriental leaves, which have become the second growth curve; functional drinks and juice drinks in a diverse layout, with a large number of products, are regarded as the third growth curve.
Tea products recorded annual revenue of 12.659 billion yuan in 2023, an increase of 83.3% over 2022, accounting for 29.7% of total revenue in 2023. It is worth noting that the revenue scale of this sector in 2022 is nearly 7 billion, with revenue accounting for only 20.8% of the total, indicating that the second growth curve is rising rapidly.
The two largest single products in tea beverage products are Oriental Leaf and Tea Pi, and the sugar-free tea track where Oriental Leaf is located has become a star track in the consumption trend in recent years, and Oriental Leaf is even more powerful.
According to Nielsen data, as of August 2023, Oriental leaves have increased by 114% year-on-year in the past 12 months, outpacing the overall growth rate of the ready-to-drink tea industry by 9 times. Oriental leaves, together with tea π, contributed more than 60% of the increase in the entire ready-to-drink tea market. Oriental leaves have maintained a growth rate of more than 50% for three consecutive years.
Although Nongfu Spring launched the Oriental Leaf product as early as 13 years ago, from a historical perspective, Suntory entered the Chinese market in 1997. Three years later, Coca-Cola and Nestle have successively launched sugar-free and calorie-free products.
At that time, people were enthusiastic about "small sweet water" with high sugar content, including Master Kong’s star single iced black tea, and the Arctic Ocean visible on the streets of Beijing. Not only was the faint oriental leaf mocked, it was also named one of the five worst drinks in China, and even called "dishwashing water".
Oriental leaves can enter the consumer’s line of sight, on the one hand is the increase of people’s health awareness, on the other hand is the rise of the cutting-edge brand Yuan Qi Sen Lin, under the trend of the new consumer era, 0 sugar 0 fat overnight became the standard for young people.
Sugar-free tea is becoming a new trend. Euromonitor data shows that the growth rate of sugar-free tea in China far exceeds that of other tea tracks. From 2017 to 2022, sugary tea has entered a low growth rate, while sugar-free tea will maintain a growth rate of 7.9% in 2022, much higher than that of sugary tea. It is expected that the CAGR of sugar-free tea market will reach 10.2% in 2022-2027.
The rise of the track has inspired new and old players to enter the game. Among them, there are traditional brands represented by Nongfu Spring, Wahaha, Dongpeng Beverage, etc.; there are also new brands represented by Yuan Qi Sen Lin, Chali, tea’stone, etc.
Although Dongfang Leaf has obvious advantages, the entry of various brands has also put huge pressure on the market competition. Yuan Qi Sen Lin’s sugar-free tea product Burning Tea has specifications covering 500ml, 550ml, 600ml and 900ml; Dongpeng Beverage’s Oolong tea launched in 2023 is only 69.9 yuan after 24 bottles are discounted.
Faced with the growth rate of the subdivision track, once it enters the stage of large-scale competition and price war, it will be a big challenge for each company. Moreover, the emerging track market barriers are not large, and young consumers are willing to try early adopters, etc., all of which determine that in addition to the dark horse of Oriental Leaves, it is more secure to create the next star single product.
Chasing 50 billion camp, competing to be the drink brother
In comparison to the packaged drinking water and tea beverage segments, fruit juice beverages and functional beverages performed slightly conservatively in the 2023 full-year financial report.
Nongfu Spring financial report shows that in 2023 functional beverage products recorded annual revenue of 4.90 billion yuan, an increase of 27.7%, accounting for 11.5% of total revenue in 2023; fruit juice beverage product revenue 3.53 billion yuan, an increase of 22.7%, accounting for 8.3% of total revenue in 2023, a decrease.
As the third growth sector in the early layout of Nongfu Spring, there are many competitors in the functional and juice beverage track.
It has a wide range of products, including Screaming, Water Soluble C100, NFC 17.5 °, Power Emperor, etc. In 2023, Nongfu Spring will also continue to introduce new flavors in this field.
However, from the perspective of the industry as a whole, Nongfu Spring’s market share is relatively low. In functional drinks, a larger market share is occupied by Red Bull, Dongpeng Special Drink, and Pulse. In 2021, Red Bull’s market share will exceed 50%, ranking first in the industry; followed by Dongpeng Special Drink and Pulse, accounting for 12% and 7% respectively; the cutting-edge brand Yuan Qi Sen Lin entered the market in 2021 and launched Alien Electrolyte Water in April. A year later, Alien Electrolyte Water became Yuan Qi Sen Lin’s knock-out product to create the second curve.
In the field of juice beverages, Coca-Cola, Huiyuan Juice, and Weiquan Food are the industry leaders, with a market share of the top three, all exceeding 10%. To lead the industry, Nongfu Spring has to face multiple rivals.
As the proportion of beverages continues to increase, Nongfu Spring has realized that water and beverages "walk on two legs".
In most consumers’ minds, "Farmer Mountain is a little sweet" "We don’t produce water, we are just nature’s porters" has long been a popular advertising slogan. In fact, the total revenue of unlisted Wahaha has always been higher than that of Farmer Spring.
In China’s beverage industry, Wahaha is the real leader. From 2021 to 2023, the total revenue of Nongfu Spring is 29.696 billion, 33.239 billion and 42.667 billion; and in 2021, Wahaha’s revenue has exceeded 50 billion. According to the data of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce and the summary and commendation conference of Wahaha Group in 2023, Wahaha has maintained a total revenue of more than 50 billion yuan for three consecutive years.
To achieve 50 billion record, there is also the low-key Master Kong. In public cognition, the first thing that comes to mind when mentioning Master Kong is "instant noodles", which is also a leading player in the beverage industry. 2023 annual financial report shows that Master Kong’s beverage growth is slow, but the overall revenue of drinks in 2023 still reached 50.939 billion yuan. Because the gross profit margin of drinks is higher than that of instant noodles, Master Kong has already shifted its business focus to drinks, accounting for more than 60% of the business.
It can be seen that Zhong Shanshan, who has the "richest man" aura, and Nongfu Spring under his leadership, still have many competitors to defeat if they want to become the hegemon of the beverage industry.
Nongfu Spring has indeed laid a solid foundation in the field of bottled water, and the product line in the beverage matrix is also relatively rich, but in the competition for the hegemony of new and old brands, it has the voice over the hands of consumers. Coupled with the fungibility of the drink itself and the diversification of the purchase scene, the era of once relying on a slogan to go the world is gone. To face new brands and strive to be "the first brother of drinks", Nongfu Spring still has to solve problems.
Which drinks do you buy most often?
Original title: "Nongfu Spring, scolded by the whole network, earned 12 billion last year"
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