Yanjing beer's dilemma: the market shrinking performance, sales have been lower

A few days ago, Yanjing Beer and Qingdao Beer(34.860, 1.46, 4.37 %) jointly became the official beer sponsors of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Winter Paralympic Games.
But even if it can walk alongside Qingdao Beer in the 2022 Winter Olympics, Yanjing Beer's performance today is far from being developed. Not only that, Yanjing Beer was also left behind by competitors such as China Resources Snowflake and Budweiser Inbev.
As an old local beer brand, Yanjing Beer has experienced brilliant, while in the beer industry completed the capitalization and gradually toward high-end, quality, diversified development, Yanjing Beer has experienced the performance of the decline year by year, sales market shrinking embarrassment.

Sales are down.

The third quarter of the year is the peak season for beer sales. The three quarterly reports issued by Yanjing Beer in 2018 showed that Yanjing Beer's revenue in the third quarter of 2018 was 3.858 billion yuan, a slight increase of 0.1 % year-on-year; Net profit was 104 million yuan, a year-on-year drop of 12.21 %.
In fact, Yanjing Beer has been sluggish for many years in terms of performance. From 2014 to 2017, Yanjing Beer's total operating revenue was 13.504 billion yuan, 12.538 billion yuan, 11.173 billion yuan, and 11.196 billion yuan, respectively, with continuous negative growth, and non-net profit deduction was also negative growth between 2015 and 2017.

In 1997, Yanjing Beer landed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. It was considered an early entry into the capital market in the Chinese wine industry, and even as early as 2001, Guizhou Maotai(605.490, 3.49, 0.58 %) was listed on A-shares. In 1997, Yanjing Beer's net profit reached 187 million yuan, but by 2017, Yanjing Beer's net profit was only 161 million yuan. In 20 years of development, Yanjing Beer has actually returned to its original point.

Corresponding to the unsatisfactory performance, Yanjing's market share was severely squeezed in the case of domestic giants running around and importing beer.
In recent years, Yanjing Beer's financial reports have found that from 2015 to 2017, Yanjing Beer's revenue in North China, the main position, has been declining year by year, with 5.265 billion yuan, 5.179 billion yuan, and 5149 billion yuan respectively. In addition, revenue in other regions has also declined to varying degrees.
In fact, as a sponsor of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, Yanjing Beer ushered in a golden period of development from 2008 to 2014, but since then, as the entire industry has entered a period of deep adjustment, Yanjing Beer has also gone down.
In the past, the beer industry used to have some local "policy dividends" and protectionist colors, and Yanjing had a good chance to develop, but after the arrival of industry capital, this advantage disappeared, Caixuefei, a liquor industry analyst, told Caiguo Weekly.
In recent years, as the industry relied on capital to run wild, Yanjing Beer did not seize the opportunity to complete the layout of the national market, more than one beat slower than its competitors.
Brand stay middle and low end
In the continuous upgrading of consumption, the industry presents high-end, quality development, Yanjing beer's main market still remains in the middle and low position.
A restaurant practitioner in Beijing told reporters that yenjing has some advantages at the lower end of the beer scale because of local protection, but there is no competitive advantage in mid-to-high-end products, and the current high-end consumer trend in the catering market is already quite obvious.
According to data compiled by China Industrial Information Network, the proportion of high-end beer sales increased from 15.9 % to 25.3 % from 2011 to 2016, and the market share increased from 38.4 % to 57.4 %; In 2017, high-end light beer revenue accounted for 32 %, the first over the middle end. It is expected that high-end light beer revenue in 2018 will account for 36 %, the first ultra-low end; It is estimated that by 2020, the proportion of low-end income in high schools will be 44.2 %, 28.3 %, and 27.5 %, respectively. Overall, the upgrading of product structure is the future development trend of the beer industry.
Of course, Yanjing Beer has also realized the development of high-end, has launched 11 ° P still selected red beer, Huiquan 10 ° P small fresh beer and other new products, as well as Yanjing original pulp white beer, Yanjing Di Road represented by the high-end products.
However, the industry is not optimistic about Yanjing's high-end development.
A dealer who has been in the beer business for years told Caijing national that the brand has been positioned by consumers 'inherent brand feelings, making it difficult for mid-to-low-end brands to be given high-end meanings and used as imported beer. Domestic brands are inherently weak in high-end aspects.
Moreover, in addition to the squeeze of the giants, the beer industry has also emerged a trend of capital concentration and brand fragmentation. Many high-quality small and medium-sized brand products have also begun to take a place in the market with their unique business model and quality taste.
Mr Caixuefei said the industry's giants were under pressure as imported beer poured in and diversified its consumption, with competitors even expanding into alcoholic beverages, light drinks and even red wine. Other enterprises such as green beer and snowflake have completed category possession, while paying attention to specific consumption scenarios and the creation of high value-added product concepts, while Yanjing Beer is still dominated by traditional light beer, or focused on the low-end market.
In addition to brand positioning, Yanjing Beer's change in marketing is slow.
` Many foreign brands have a lot of marketing tools in China, 'says a former Budweiser employee who doesn't want to be named.' In addition to changing the packaging according to festivals, events, etc., marketing is going to be more detailed, especially at a time when online media is popular. The marketing methods are more diverse, follow the trend, and there are also detailed layouts in various scenes such as nightclubs and restaurants. By contrast, there is too much room for domestic enterprise.
This time, it became the beer sponsor of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and Winter Paralympic Games. It can be said that Yanjing Beer has rarely had a high light moment in marketing in recent years. However, Caixuefei believes that green beer, snowflake, Budweiser and other sports marketing has been deeply cultivated for many years, the brand image is also deeply rooted, Yanjing is still a slow step.
Too "gentle and elegant"
Industry insiders believe that the core reason for the slow development of Yanjing Beer may be the institutional mechanism. The company is currently, like many old state-owned enterprises, not enough market-oriented transformation and innovation awareness. The beer industry is a highly market-oriented industry.
The continued decline of a brand has a great relationship with the enterprise's enterprising spirit. Yanjing Beer is too "gentle and elegant" in terms of market breakthroughs.
"Other brands of salespeople come once or twice a month, or even four times a month, and Yanjing Beer does not come once in two months, and sometimes it does not come once every six months. One restaurant practitioner said that the sales of beer in catering is inseparable from the enthusiasm of salespeople, and Yanjing Beer is almost the most inactive of all beer brands.
After the beer industry entered the period of in-depth adjustment in 2014, major beer companies are facing the problems of branding, high-end and quality development. In this process, with the background of state-owned enterprises, such as green beer, snowflake timely adjustment strategy, carried out a positive transformation.
In contrast, Yanjing Beer has been continuously eroded into the main market due to inaction in the context of the expansion and positive transformation of competitive enterprises.
"Yanjing Beer must rely on reform if it is to regain its strength. Wangxianzhi, a researcher in the food industry at the Hope Think Tank, said that for example, new strategic capital could be considered and equity structures could be changed, similar to the introduction of Sanyuan Foods into Fosun Group for hybrid reforms.
The beer dealers also believe that Yanjing's brand tone is not suitable for directly operating high-end brands. In the future, if you want to make breakthroughs, you can consider filling high-end short boards through the form of acquisitions.