Is it continuing to fight in the fiercely competitive infant market, or is it turning to a blue-and-green middle-aged market?
Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “AgeClub” (ID: AgeClub) , author of the AgeClub Institute. The original title “Depth: Japanese dairy giant Meiji successfully transformed the elderly food market, performance / market value growth of 3 times, how do Chinese dairy giants layout the elderly consumer market? 》
文|周超沈钤 Zhou Yao Zheng Chenyu
Japanese food giant Meiji transforms the elderly market, triple the stock price and market value
Observing the history of modern business, consumer goods companies often face the transformational problem of life and death. When the target population of the main products is continuously lost and the homogenization competition is very serious, how can we break through and get a new life?
In the 21st century, the global market is facing a situation of accelerated aging and a sharp decline in the number of newborns. In Japan, for example, in 2005, the proportion of people over 65 in Japan crossed the 20% mark, and the number of babies born was presented. Stepped down, down to 1 million people.
Under the irreversible background of this demographic change, many companies that have been developing and producing dairy products for infants and young children have encountered survival problems.
It is at this point in time that the dairy giant Meiji of Japan has shifted from infant and young food to vigorously developing products for the middle-aged and elderly groups, thus ushered in the tremendous development of corporate performance.
According to public data, the share of Meiji’s high value-added milk increased from 36% to 81% in 2004-2018, and the operating profit margin of fresh milk and fermented milk business also increased from 4.7% in 2013 to 14.5% in 2018. . In addition, the market share of Meiji Geriatric Health Foods in 2016 was 31.4%, ranking first in the industry.
Meiji’s share price has risen from 2025 yen in early 2013 to 7770 yen in September 2019 in a few years. The current market value is about 1.12 trillion yen, nearly three times higher (Meiji Holdings, Tokyo Stock Exchange Listing, code 2269).
It is conceivable that if the Meiji does not enter the middle-aged market but stays in the infant market, the outcome may be exactly the opposite.
The growth dilemma of China’s infant food enterprises and the market opportunities for the elderly
Comparing the population situation in China, it is now at a stage where the aging population is accelerating and the birth population is declining.
In 2018, the proportion of people over 65 years old was 11.9%, and the proportion of people over 60 years old was 18%. Moreover, the aging status of some first- and second-tier cities is almost equal to that of Japan. With the proportion of residents over 60 years old, Shanghai has reached 33.2%, Beijing has reached 24.5%, and Wuhan and Chengdu have reached 21.27% and 21.18% respectively.
In the same period, China’s birth population has been declining. In 2018, China’s birth population was 15.23 million. In 2017, it was 17.23 million. In 2016, it was 18.46 million, which fell for two consecutive years, reaching the lowest number of births in recent years.
And affected by various factors such as rising living costs and the popularity of single concept, the trend of decreasing the number of newborns is likely to continue in the future. The most direct consequence is that the infant milk powder market has changed from the good situation of previous years. The competition has intensified and the relevant manufacturers have suffered heavy losses.
The most prominent example is Beinmei, a baby milk powder listed company. The revenue for three consecutive years has dropped from 2.764 billion yuan in 2016 to 2.491 billion yuan in 2018. The non-net profit is a big loss. The losses were 799 million yuan, 1.139 billion yuan and 217 million yuan.
The latest 2019 semi-annual report shows that Beinmei has not yet recovered from the loss of mud, with revenue of 1.296 billion yuan and a non-net profit loss of up to 140 million yuan.
Another listed company, Yashili International, which also uses infant milk powder as its main business, lost a profit of RMB 320 million and RMB 180 million in 2016 and 2017 respectively. The profit in 2018 slightly rebounded to 52.27 million yuan, and in 2019 In the first half of the year, the profit was still only 34.28 million yuan, and the net profit margin was only 1.96%.
The infant and toddler market is highly competitive, and the potential market space has been locked up by the number of births that are constantly falling, even if 2016-2018Some births are counted together, and there are only 50.92 million people, and this number will continue to be lost and reduced.
The middle-aged and elderly population, which has grown rapidly in the same period, has been ignored by most milk powder brands.
China’s population over 65 years old was 138 million in 2014 and 167 million in 2018. If you look at the size of the population over the age of 50, it will reach more than 400 million people, and this number will expand rapidly in the next few years.
One is a market with a population of 50 million people, and the number is shrinking. One is a market with 400 million people and a rapid growth in base. Which one is bigger? Which is more potential?
And the infant formula brand holds the mature formula of R&D and production of formula milk powder, which has innate advantages for research and development of milk powder that meets the nutritional needs of middle-aged and elderly people.
The following is a list of the nutritional needs of middle-aged and elderly people. These needs are very rigid for the health of middle-aged and elderly people, and the corresponding formula technology is already mature in the infant formula industry.
The first-line brands Nestlé, Yili, Mengniu are all in the game, and the middle-aged and old-age milk powder market is about to open?
The current middle-aged and old-age market has not received enough attention from domestic milk powder companies. In the recent statistics of more than 5,000 middle-aged and old-age milk powder e-commerce data collected by AgeClub, a total of 321 brands were covered, with a total sales of about 99.77 million yuan. However, the milk powder brands specially launched for middle-aged and elderly people are only Nestlé Yili and Yilixin live. A few of Mengniu Yurui.
Specifically analyze the TOP100 middle-aged milk powder brand on the e-commerce platform. In the milk powder brand for middle-aged and old-aged, Nestlé Yiyang and Yilixin have been launched for a long time, while Mengniu Yurui and Junlebao Xinyi It was only launched in the last two or three years.
However, Mengniu has recently clearly added to the middle-aged and elderly milk powder market. Mengniu’s Yashili launched the middle-aged milk powder special brand “Yurui” in 2018, and upgraded the Urui brand image at the end of August this year, positioning it as a high-end brand in adult milk powder and launching ultra-high-end products.”Selenium-rich high calcium goat milk powder”.
Meng Niu Yurui also invited the old actor Li Jianyi (in the TV drama “The Name of the People” as the prosecutor of the season) as a spokesperson, advocating an attitude of life without age,
Other brands have launched special middle-aged and old-age milk powders for the health needs of middle-aged and elderly people, such as Feihe, Wandashan, Guangming, etc., but most of the other brands are basically adult milk powder brands without special age limit.
From the perspective of hot-selling products, the mainstream middle-aged and old-age milk powders are mainly high-calcium. For example, the NRV values of calcium in Nestlé Yiyang, Yilixinhuo and Mengniuyourui are 100%. 160%. On the contrary, since the pure imported milk powder such as Meike Zhuo has not been specially developed for the Chinese elderly, the NRV value of the calcium component is generally within 40%.
In addition to high calcium, Nestlé and Erie also develop formulas that help the cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, gastrointestinal digestion, and Alzheimer’s disease according to the health needs and disease characteristics of middle-aged and elderly people.
From the data of this statistic, Nestlé’s beneficial factor and Yilixin’s two-benefit products sold the best, with sales reaching 6.24 million yuan and 8.65 million yuan respectively.
Although the milk powder industry does not pay much attention to the middle-aged and old-age market, the e-commerce data can clearly understand the trend of milk powder consumption upgrade for middle-aged and elderly people, in addition to the above-mentioned formula for specific health needs, it also reflects In the type of milk powder itself.
For example, in the TOP100 brand, there are 43 milk milk powder brands, and there are 44 goat milk powder brands.There are 4 brands that offer both cow and sheep milk powder. In addition, there are 4 camel milk powder brands, 4 vegetable milk powder brands and 1 牦 milk powder brand.
According to the interview and research of AgeClub, in addition to e-commerce channels, offline and telemarketing may be more important sales channels, and goat milk powder is generally at least two or three times more expensive than milk powder.
The camel milk powder is a category that has only suddenly emerged this year. The main reason is the micro-commercial channel. Basically, there is no formal big brand, and the price is very expensive. The price of 300 grams of cans on the e-commerce platform can reach 300- 500 yuan.
High-priced camel milk powder harvesting in the middle-aged market, where are the regular milk powder manufacturers?
The health needs of China’s 400 million middle-aged and elderly people are extremely large, and their purchasing power for various health products such as nutritional supplements, dietary supplements, and Chinese medicine nourishment is very strong.
This is evident in the recent in-depth survey of Beijing 50+ new seniors by AgeClub. Eighty-three percent of the respondents had the habit of eating health supplements. The proportion of health care products purchased at least once a year was 90%, and 19% of them purchased 3-5 times a year. In terms of annual expenses, the proportion of more than 1,000 yuan is 53%, and that of 4,000 yuan or more is also 25%.
But the other side of the health needs and purchasing power of middle-aged and elderly people is that their information channels are generally narrow, especially vulnerable to the extremely opaque “cutting amaranth” model.
The latest case is a camel milk powder that suddenly fires on WeChat in the last two months. As can be seen from the WeChat index, the heat of the keyword “Camel Milk” suddenly rose after entering July, while the “milk” and “goat milk” both fluctuated up and down in a generally stable range.
In the past two months, various unidentified camel milk powder brands have pushed soft texts or advertisements on the WeChat public number gathered by many middle-aged and elderly people, highlighting the magical health effects of camel milk powder, and leaving personal micro-signals for sales customer service. For middle-aged and elderly people to consult and purchase.
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