In 2023, Marubeni played a high-quality victory.
Yesterday (January 23), Marubeni Co., Ltd. released the 2023 annual performance forecast, showing that it is expected to achieve a net profit attributable to the parent company of 300 million to 330 million in 2023, an increase of 72% to 89% year-on-year, and it is expected to achieve a non-net profit attributable to the parent company of 220 million to 250 million in 2023, an increase of 62% to 84% year-on-year.
Combining this earnings forecast and business data over the past five years, Marubeni not only survived the difficult pandemic period, but also achieved a significant turnaround in net profit through a series of internal innovation strategies. According to the 30% revenue growth forecast in the performance forecast, Marubeni will cross the 2 billion mark for the first time in 2023, with a total operating income of 2.251 billion.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, in 2023, the retail sales of cosmetics in the country will reach 414.2 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of only 5.1%. Compared with 2022, the first decline in a decade has bottomed out, but the momentum of "stock competition" and "structural reform" in the industry has accelerated, and the overall trend of "K" growth is differentiated.
Therefore, in this market context, Marubeni's preliminary report card for 2023 is already very "perfect".
In the past year, what exactly has Marubeni relied on to achieve high growth, and what is the plan and plan for this Chinese cosmetics company that has emerged from the eye cream category in the coming year?
Marubeni 2023: A high-quality victory
FBeauty Future Traces found two key figures from Marubeni's latest earnings forecast, which can be attributed to the main drivers of its growth over the past year:
1. It is expected that the operating income will increase by more than 30%, of which the e-commerce revenue of Marubeni and PL Love Fire will increase by more than 100%.
The action behind this data is actually the transformation of Marubeni's content e-commerce channel represented by "Doukuai" in 2023. Marubeni also said in the preview: "The company actively promoted the transformation of online channels and better grasped the marketing rhythm of the whole year. ”
"FBeauty Future Traces" comprehensive third-party data found that the online revenue growth of Marubeni's main brand Marubeni and the second brand PL Lianhuo last year showed a "dual-channel explosion" trend in the two super e-commerce platforms Tao and Douyin, especially in Douyin, which showed a three-digit high outbreak, and also achieved double-digit growth in Tao.
If we trace back to the systematic reform of e-commerce operations within Marubeni in the past three years, we can perceive the root cause of this explosive growth.
It is understood that Marubeni's overall adjustment around e-commerce began in 2020, and by 2022, the company gradually completed the transformation from "relying on TP companies" to "self-built e-commerce teams", and made major adjustments and changes to the organizational structure of the e-commerce sector at the beginning of 2023.
"FBeauty Future Traces" previously learned that the core of this round of adjustment is to split the original large e-commerce business into multiple parallel sections such as "platform e-commerce department, Dabo e-commerce department and live broadcast e-commerce department". Each department is responsible for different types of e-commerce platforms with different attributes. At the same time, Marubeni also adjusted the linkage mechanism between multiple related departments such as finance, personnel, and supply chain and the e-commerce department around this new organizational structure. A new e-commerce team with an average age of less than 28 years old has been incubated internally.
In addition, public information shows that Marubeni has invested 26.4 million yuan in recent years to complete the phased construction of the company's full-link digital management system from "production to distribution to service" to improve overall operational efficiency.
In the end, catering to the changes in the competitive landscape of e-commerce platforms in the past year and the potential energy of the "rise of domestic products", the momentum brought by this round of adjustment will finally be fully released in 2023.
2. Marubeni also mentioned that the company firmly divided the channels and products, and achieved cost reduction and efficiency improvement by implementing the strategy of large single products and optimizing the product structure.
If Marubeni's internal e-commerce reform is the root factor that made it explode this year, then the simultaneous adjustment of product strategy is the most important part.
"FBeauty Future Traces" found that the main brand of the same name, which has been focusing on eye care, has actually undergone a round of major adjustments in the product system in the past three years.
According to Mojing Insight data, the top five products in sales of Marubeni's Tmall flagship store in 2021 are mainly "Little Red Pen Eye Cream", "Butterfly Eye Mask" and a series of elastin boxes. Starting from 2022, we will concentrate resources to create a new generation of large-scale single product system composed of products such as "Little Red Pen Eye Cream", "Double Collagen Eye Cream", "Butterfly Eye Mask", and "Little Golden Needle Essence".
By 2023, Marubeni has completed the switch of the entire large single product system. These large single products that have been cultivated have begun to enter the "harvest period" in an all-round way, forming a new large single product system of 6 major products, including "first/second generation small red pen eye cream", "small purple bullet eye cream", "small golden needle second polishing essence", "double collagen eye cream" and "butterfly eye mask".
On Douyin, Marubeni will form three popular products in 2023 with the idea of box sets: "Four Antibodies 2.0 Water Cream Essence Set", "Recombinant Collagen Gift Box", and "Second Generation Little Red Pen Eye Cream", these three SKUs sold a total of more than 230 million sales throughout the year, accounting for more than 30% of Marubeni's Douyin GMV.
It is worth mentioning that Marubeni's large-scale single product strategy was further focused last year, among which the sales of the second-generation Xiaohongbi eye cream exceeded 100 million yuan in the Tmall flagship store, and the sales of the four-anti 2.0 water cream set that ranked first in sales on the Douyin platform exceeded 150 million yuan.
Almost simultaneously with the adjustment of Marubeni's large single product system, starting from 2022, PL Love Fire has gradually formed a large base makeup single product system composed of "invisible series" and "can't be rubbed off series". In 2023, the top five major items in sales of PL Love Fire Douyin will account for more than 37%, and the brand as a whole is in a high-growth channel of "relying on large items to break the circle and grow".
2024 New Strategy: Matrix Sprint,
Four major brands launch "screaming products"
It can be seen that in 2023, Marubeni will not only achieve the substantial growth of the main brand Marubeni through the "double adjustment" of channel strategy and large single product strategy, but also create the second growth curve of PL Love. From the perspective of multi-brand and group development, Marubeni has obtained the first high-score report card.
Yesterday, Marubeni Co., Ltd. released the annual main new products of its four major brands at the e-commerce conference, which showed its ambition of matrix and large-scale growth.
It is understood that Marubeni and PL Love Fire continue to upgrade large single products and expand the product matrix.
Marubeni launches Butterfly Eye Mask 2.0, a new product that uses 25% high-concentration custom peptides and the specialized ingredient "Supramolecular Kapok Extract" extracted from Marubeni's exclusive technology "Supramolecular Cell Flash Extract", which has been tested on human efficacy and can achieve first-aid wrinkles within 15 minutes.
On the basis of the initial formation of the two major base makeup series of "invisible" and "can't be rubbed" in 2023, PL Love Fire will continue to upgrade the single product and enrich the product matrix - upgrade the main product air cushion and foundation liquid products of the can't wipe off series to version 2.0, and create an upgraded and returned version of the invisible foundation liquid 1.0, and also add three new products: can't rub off the powder, poke the face plate and invisible colored cream, and horizontally broaden the subdivision of the base makeup category.
The Chunji brand is a "makeover", from brand positioning, brand vision to brand technology. In 2017, the positioning of "super interesting ingredients for skin care" was updated to "a plant-based technology skin care brand specially developed for young skin", which refers to the concept of plant extraction and is aimed at young people around 18 years old.
It is worth mentioning that, on the one hand, this adjustment continues the customer group structure of Chunji for young consumer groups, and on the other hand, it is based on Marubeni's scientific research foundation in biotechnology.
It is understood that the new product "Glitter Bomb Throwing Mask" released by Chunji this time contains an exclusive patented ingredient "SPG cracked fold polysaccharide" of Marubeni shares. It is a biopolysaccharide with strong immune activity and repair effect, which was first used in anti-aging tumor drugs and wound healing drugs, and Marubeni has conducted in-depth basic research on this ingredient, and has obtained 19 patents, and 2 papers have been published in SCI journals.
In addition, after the baby brand Duoduo Love You became a hit in the infant lip protection/lip moisturizing category in 2023, it tried to find a breakthrough from the baby sunscreen category and launched the "Little Crown Sunscreen Lotion", which has a physical and chemical dual sunscreen system and macromolecular structure components to make the product formula more stable and safe.
"FBeauty Future Traces" found that so far, Marubeni has formed a brand layout across the four major markets of science and technology anti-aging, makeup, plant skin care, and maternal and child care, forming a brand pyramid of "2 light luxury and 2 mass".
In the eyes of Sun Huaiqing, chairman of Marubeni Biologics, "making screaming products" is an important part of the high-quality development of enterprises in the next 10 years of competition in the cosmetics market and becoming China's leading and even world-class beauty groups.
He once said: "I think that in the next ten years, Marubeni will focus on its own breakthroughs in science and technology, focus on making products that scream, and attach importance to emotional resonance with our target consumers, and we believe that through this high-quality development, Marubeni can become an excellent beauty group in China and even in the world." ”。
However, it is clear that just as Marubeni's growth in 2023 comes from its internal e-commerce reform and large-scale product strategy, behind this series of product upgrades, new product launches and brand refreshes is actually the final result of Marubeni's internal changes.
The new golden age of domestic products
Marubeni entered the high-growth channel
Looking back, the three years of the epidemic have become three years in which the competitive landscape of the entire Chinese beauty industry has been greatly changed. The vision of the entire domestic beauty brand has gone from the narrow space of the third- and fourth-tier cities to the sea of stars with online and offline omni-channel layout and multi-category and multi-brand development.
Nowadays, when the entire cosmetics industry has undergone subversive changes in the three aspects of "consumption", "channels" and "competition pattern", China's cosmetics industry has ushered in a real "highlight moment", and the industry competition has entered a new point.
According to Frost & Sullivan, it is expected that by 2026, the retail sales of domestic brands in China's cosmetics industry will overtake international brands as a whole, and domestic products as a whole will still maintain a compound growth rate of 10.7% in the next five years. In other words, powerful domestic beauty brands will usher in a "golden period" of rapid development.
Judging from the results in 2023, Marubeni has embarked on the fast track in the context of the new era and has become a quasi-2 billion scale company with both revenue and profit growth. But if we take a longer view, does Marubeni have the ability to continue to grow at a high rate at this stage?
FBeauty Future Traces believes that the answer is yes.
From the perspective of brand layout, on the basis of the completion of the transformation of the main brand in 2023 and the second growth curve of the sub-brand PL, Marubeni will launch the key layout of the third and fourth brands Chunji and Duoduo Love You in 2024, forming a relatively complete brand matrix and brand pyramid, and the release of this scale effect is worth looking forward to.
From the perspective of talent echelon and organizational structure, Marubeni has internally incubated a new e-commerce team from 2020 to mid-2023, and has upgraded the organizational structure in all dimensions. In terms of R&D, it has also formed a high-tech team with more than 50% of master's degrees.
These two factors will be the "wings" that will lead Marubeni to the next larger-scale sprint.
Sun Huaiqing, chairman of Marubeni
At the 2024 general manager meeting of Marubeni, Sun Huaiqing further refined the company's achievements in 2023 into more "cores" at 9 levels: "speed, technology, brand, product, crowd, channel, supply, organization, and digital intelligence".
In terms of the understanding of "FBeauty Future Traces", technological innovation is the cornerstone of the company's long-term development, and the efficiency of resource allocation is solved in the four aspects of channels, supply, organization and digital intelligence, and the scale effect is to be realized by the brand, products and people.
Therefore, Marubeni's future growth momentum can also be seen in three specific points:
The first is of course product innovation based on in-depth scientific research layout, which has been clearly demonstrated by the product launches of Marubeni's four major brands at this conference. To be able to keenly grasp the pain points of consumers and the products with blank needs is the only rule of continuous competition in this "consumer-centric" market.
The second is the market expansion under Marubeni's scientific research layout. In September last year, at the 3rd Recombinant Collagen Scientist Forum of Marubeni, Marubeni Biotech launched two new Class II medical device products - medical recombinant collagen patch dressing and medical recombinant collagen dressing, taking the first step into the field of medical beauty and medical health. After this step, Marubeni also began to move towards the group ecology of "effective skin care + medical beauty + big health", spanning the three high-growth tracks.
It is understood that as of 2023, Marubeni has applied for a total of more than 500 national patents in the field of basic research, of which 394 are invention patents, specifically in the direction of recombinant collagen in synthetic biology, and in terms of applied research, it has 20 self-developed core raw materials, of which 4 will be added in 2023, in addition, in terms of industry standards, it has participated in the formulation of a total of 53 international standards and industry standards, and participated in the formulation of 13 standards last year alone.
The third is the continuous release of channel potential energy. After the comprehensive victory of the two major online super e-commerce platforms in 2023, Marubeni may replicate the successful experience of the main brand and the second brand to the comprehensive rejuvenation of the spring era and the potential growth brand Duoduo Love You, forming a considerable online increment, and second, it will also emphasize the increase of offline physical channels.
Not long ago, Sun Huaiqing just launched the "strictest price control order in history" for offline channels, which directly hit the two stubborn diseases of offline price chaos and goods channeling.
Sun Huaiqing once said, "If we call the past 10 years the golden decade of China's beauty market, then the next 10 years will be the diamond decade of the beauty market." "Whether it's the new golden age or the 10 years of diamonds, the period of rapid growth of domestic beauty has arrived, and Marubeni is ready to sprint with all its might.
Author/Wu Sixin
Proofreading / Li Lin