The discharge of nuclear wastewater in Japan is causing more and more attention and concern, and has also become an important factor affecting the image of many Japanese brands, especially cosmetics and skin care products that require direct contact with the skin.
In this context, there is a view that due to the impact of the discharge of nuclear sewage from Fukushima, Japan, consumers will choose more local products to replace cosmetics and skin care products that need to import raw materials from Japan.
Domestic makeup and skin care brands represented by Bethany and Bloomage Biotech have also ushered in a new round of positive expectations in the consumer market and capital market.
On the evening of August 28, Bethany released its financial report for the first half of 2023, which further took financial data as a window, reflecting in multiple dimensions that Bethany has stronger growth potential for many local brands represented by Winona, which are under pressure in the consumer market.
01 Double-digit growth in headwinds in the first half of the year
Founded in 2010, Bethany has been operating the "Winona" brand for 11 years since 2012.
After landing on the Growth Enterprise Market of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in 2021 as the "first stock of China's efficacy-based skin care products", Bethany currently ranks 5th among the 19 A-share cosmetics index constituent stocks with a market value of 41.4 billion yuan, but in the more segmented sensitive skin care track, Bethany belongs to the "leading" domestic representative.
Since the establishment of its own brand, Bethany has mainly focused on the research of the preparation of effective ingredients of highland characteristic plant extracts and sensitive skin care, the generation and sales of related products, and has mastered a series of unique technical industrialization preparation methods, with makeup brands such as "Winona", "WINONA baby" and "Acne Kang", as well as more than 300 cosmetic products. Among them, the most classic best-selling products such as "Winona Comfort Moisturizing Special Cream", "Winona Hydrating Moisturizing Moisturizer" and "Winona Hydrating Repair Serum" are all popular items on e-commerce platforms.
With the concept of plateau characteristic plants and a series of unique extraction and preparation technologies, Winona still maintains a clear growth trend under the background of the overall pressure of the consumer goods industry, especially the beauty category, at a time when the skin care cognition of sensitive skin care is gradually clear and the market scale is growing rapidly.
Financial report data shows that in the first half of 2023, Winona's parent company Bethany achieved revenue of 2.368 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 15.52%, and a net profit of 441 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 11.8%, both of which are the best semi-annual reports since its inception.
Bethany has grown significantly better than the industry average. According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, the total retail sales of domestic consumer goods in the first half of the year were about 22.76 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 8.16%. Among them, the total retail sales of cosmetics consumer goods above designated size amounted to 207.14 billion yuan, an increase of 8.74% year-on-year.
Bethany and Winona baby's high-growth trend also continued into the second half of the year, Jiuqian data shows that Winona and Winona baby achieved GMV of 160 million yuan on Tmall + Douyin in July this year, a year-on-year increase of 24%, of which Winona and Winona baby's dual-platform GMV was 150 million yuan and 5 million yuan, respectively, an increase of 22% and 112% year-on-year - the former is still the absolute main force, and the latter shows more considerable growth potential.
In addition to Winona, Bethany has also continued to make efforts in multi-brand - its high-end anti-aging brand AOXMED has set up an official Tmall flagship store to start online sales; Offline counters have landed in large shopping malls such as Beijing Hanguang Department Store and Xi'an SEG International Shopping Center, adopting a business model of cooperation with offline professional institutions.
02 All categories and all channels
In addition to the popularity of consumers, the market's recognition of Bethany products can also be found in its latest semi-annual report data.
Dismantling Bethany found that 87% of its revenue of 2.368 billion yuan in the first half of the year came from skin care products, 12% from medical device products represented by face masks, and another 1% from makeup, all of which increased year-on-year, and the gross profit margins of the three types of businesses were 74.73%, 82.19% and 65.82% respectively, reflecting strong brand premium and technical strength.
It is worth noting that if we look at the revenue generation of different channels, Bethany online channel generated 1.743 billion yuan in the first half of the year, a year-on-year increase of 7.15%, which is still the absolute main force of overall revenue, but offline channels generated 615 million yuan in the first half of the year, with a year-on-year increase of 48.64%, reflecting the positive results of Bethany 's current offline layout.
In addition, although the specific figures of overseas income have not been disclosed in the financial report, Bethany has recently publicly stated that it will accelerate the international strategic layout and take Southeast Asia as an important target market, behind which are market consumers with similar culture and geography and also have Asian skin, as well as the market pattern in Europe and the United States that has become saturated.
Continuous growth brings abundant cash flow - at the end of June 2023, Bethany had a total of 4.175 billion yuan in monetary funds and wealth management products, accounting for 62.9% of total assets, equivalent to more than 60% of the book is money, and the overall liquidity is extremely high.
With sufficient financial support, Bethany invested 109 million yuan in research and development in the first half of the year, a year-on-year increase of 33.58%, accounting for 4.6% of the current revenue, 0.62 percentage points higher than the same period of the previous year, and the research projects such as the development of children's and freckle removal series based on Yunnan characteristic plants, the development of soothing series based on Yunnan characteristic plants, etc.
Among the 19 cosmetics index constituent stocks currently listed on the A-share market, Bethany ranked eighth in absolute value of R&D expenses of 54.11 million yuan in 2019, and ranked third in 2022 annual data, and among the 13 companies that have disclosed semi-annual report data, it is second only to Pian Zixi with a market value of 166 billion yuan.
On the whole, the vast incremental space in overseas markets and unexplored areas in the offline market are important foundations for Winona's steady growth in subsequent revenue, and continuous R&D investment and more brand building are the keys to maintaining its core competitiveness.
Supported by a series of data, Founder Securities gave Bethany a "strongly recommended" rating for the first time on August 27, and Huatong Securities also gave Bethany a "recommended" rating for the first time on August 28, with a maximum target price of 116.55 yuan.
03 Wanguang Winona
In addition to sending confidence to investors with performance highlights, Bethany also tries to think about more dimensions of value beyond numbers at a time when the consumer market is adjusting.
Up to now, Bethany has obtained a total of 133 patents, completed clinical research and effect observation in 63 hospitals, and included 184 basic product research and process technology core papers, and its R&D team has expanded from 9 people in the early stage to 390 people, and is still conducting research on more than 400 kinds of Yunnan characteristic plants.
How to use a series of unique technical advantages to give back to the market and society in the areas represented by "sensitive skin" and "sun protection" has become an important starting point for Bethany to give back to the market.
Along this line of thought, one of the strongest ultraviolet regions in China, the Northwest Plateau, entered Bethany 's field of vision, and a sunscreen public welfare activity in the name of "Weixiao Sunshine Project" began.
In the snowy plateau of Tibet, with an average altitude of more than 4,000 meters and 3,300 hours of sunshine a year, there are both pleasant scenery and simple folk customs, but because of insufficient attention to sun protection problems, many local residents have many skin problems due to strong ultraviolet rays, dry climate environment and autoimmune system defects, such as chronic actinic dermatitis, generalized pustule psoriasis and so on.
These skin diseases are often associated with strong ultraviolet rays, dry climates and autoimmune system deficiencies, and patients often need to endure the sensitivity, burning of sunburn, or the itching, healing and recurrence of the cycle of psoriasis.
Based on the experience and technology accumulation in the field of skin, in the "Weixiao Sunshine Project" public welfare activities, in addition to providing residents with targeted sunscreen and repair products, Bethany also invited skin experts in different fields to conduct diagnosis and treatment, give lectures, and bring relevant training to local hospital dermatology departments and share scientific research results.
This is just one of the recent campaigns that Bethany has promoted. In fact, Winona brand's public welfare activities have been continuously promoted for 8 years, from Dali, Haikou, Lhasa, Zhaotong to Shigatse, under the issue of skin photodamage of residents in plateau areas, there has always been its walking steps.
In addition to delivering products to high-altitude residents and cultivating awareness of essential skin protection at public welfare events, Winona continues to stand out on the international stage of representing cutting-edge skin care technologies.
In July 2023, the 25th World Congress of Dermatology opened again after four years, gathering dermatology authorities from all over the world, and Winona appeared at the conference as a Chinese brand invited to participate three times.
At the summit forum, Professor Philippe Humbert, director of the Skin Research Center of the University of Besançon in France, delivered the "Winona Product International Viewing Results Release", saying that the results of the double-blind self-controlled test showed that the effect of Winona Comfort Moisturizing Special Cream can be comparable to or even surpass the international skin care brands of the same type of effect, and the three major effects of "soothing, repairing and moisturizing" of Yunnan's unique green thorn fruit and mushroom dextran have also been specifically verified.
Professor Xiang Leihong, Director of the Department of Dermatology of Huashan Hospital affiliated to Fudan University, also said at the meeting, "Winona shoulders a heavy responsibility, we must base ourselves in China and radiate the world. ”
Author|Lin Xiaxian
Editor|Chen Fang