On April 23, 2024, the new tea drink brand "Tea Baidao" officially landed in the Hong Kong capital market, outperforming Mixue Bingcheng, Gu Ming and Shanghai Auntie, becoming the second listed company of new tea drinks after Nai Xue's tea. As of press time, the market capitalization was HK$17.141 billion.
China's freshly made tea market is highly competitive, with about 3,000 brands and 420,000 stores. What is the current industry pattern? What is the position of Tea Baidao? Frost & Sullivan's "Ranking and Market Share of the Top Five Players in China's Ready-made Tea Shop Market in 2023" can tell us the answer.
In terms of retail sales, the top five brands together accounted for 40.2% of the market share. In fifth place, Shuyi Yao Xiancao had retail sales of 8.3 billion yuan last year, accounting for 3.4% of the market share and having 7,000 stores. According to public information, this new tea drink brand was founded in 07 years, headquartered in Chengdu, Sichuan, focusing on the subdivision of "burning fairy grass", and successively launching products such as small taro round roasted fairy grass, poplar branch manna roasted fairy grass, raw coconut roasted fairy grass, yogurt roasted fairy grass, mung bean milk roasted fairy grass, etc. According to the "2024 Hurun Global Unicorn List", its valuation has reached 9.2 billion yuan.
Shanghai Auntie ranked fourth with retail sales of 10.4 billion yuan and a market share of 4.2%, with 7,800 stores. During the Spring Festival this year, the new tea beverage company also launched a plan to go public in Hong Kong, and the data shows that in the first three quarters of last year, the company achieved revenue of 2.535 billion yuan and a net profit of 324 million yuan. It is worth mentioning that although Shanghai Auntie originated in Shanghai, the "home base" is Shandong, which has more than 1,000 stores, and it ranks first among the medium-priced freshly made tea brands in northern China.
Cha Baidao is the third largest freshly made tea company in China, with retail sales of 16.9 billion yuan last year, accounting for 6.8% of the market share, an increase of 0.2 percentage points year-on-year, and a total of 1.016 billion cups of beverages sold, with soybean milk jade unicorn, Yangzhi manna signboard, taro round milk tea, watermelon bobo and jasmine milk green ranking among the top five.
The annual revenue was 5.704 billion yuan and the net profit was 1.151 billion yuan, an increase of 34.8% and 19.3% year-on-year respectively. As a comparison, Nai Xue's tea will just achieve its first full-year profit (20.9 million yuan) after listing in 2023, and its revenue will be 5.164 billion yuan, and its earning power is not as good as that of Tea Baidao.
However, it is worth noting that Naixue has always insisted on direct sales until July last year, and it was not officially opened to join until July last year. 99% of Chabaidao is a franchise store, and the revenue from the sale of goods and equipment to the franchise stores accounts for about 95%, and about 4% of the revenue comes from royalties and franchise fees.
After 16 years of development, as of April 5, 2024, the total number of stores has reached 8,016, covering 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities across the country, achieving full coverage of county-level cities.
Gu Ming came in second place, with retail sales reaching 19.2 billion yuan last year, accounting for 7.8% of the market share, and a total of 1.2 billion ready-made drinks sold. In 2010, Wang An opened his first store in Daxi Town, Wenling City, Taizhou City, Zhejiang Province, and as of December 31, 2023, Gu Ming has a total of 9,001 stores in China.
Among them, the number of stores in second-tier cities and below accounts for 79%, and in addition, 38% of the stores are located in towns and villages far from the city center, making it the largest brand of mass freshly made tea shops in China (the average price of products is less than 20 yuan and more than 10 yuan).
Source: Tea Hundred Ways Post-Hearing Information Pack
"Snow King" ranked first without suspense, with retail sales reaching 44 billion yuan last year and a market share of 17.8%. According to the prospectus of Mixue Bingcheng, in the first three quarters of 2023, the revenue will be 15.393 billion yuan and the net profit will be 2.45 billion yuan, both exceeding the data of the whole year of 2022, and the store network will achieve a total of about 5.8 billion cups, exceeding the sum of the drinks from the second to the fifth place in the ready-made beverage industry. [Note: Freshly made beverages refer to non-alcoholic beverage products made on site, including freshly made fruit drinks, tea, ice cream and coffee, etc., and Luckin Coffee is also among them]
As of September 30, 2023, there were more than 36,000 stores worldwide, covering 11 countries in China and overseas. In terms of the number of stores and the number of cups produced, Mixue Bingcheng is the largest ready-made beverage company in China and the second in the world, second only to Starbucks.