"Use your brain often, drink six more walnuts", with an advertising slogan to brainwash the six walnuts, has created a phenomenal sales of plant protein dairy products, so that the operating income of the parent company Yangyuan Beverage in 2015 was close to 10 billion. Now, nearly 20 years have passed since the launch of "Six Walnuts", and Yangyuan Beverage urgently needs to find a second growth curve.
Recently, Yangyuan Beverage, the parent company of "Six Walnuts", released its 2023 financial report. Last year, its revenue was 6.162 billion yuan, an increase of 4.03% year-on-year, and the net profit attributable to the parent company was 1.467 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 0.46%, falling into the dilemma of "increasing revenue but not increasing profits". During the same period, the net cash flow generated by Yangyuan Beverage's operating activities was 2.394 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 107%, the sales expenses were 737 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 12.3%, and the R&D expenses were 53 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 83.5%.
Combined with business, walnut milk, including "six walnuts", is the core segment of Yangyuan Beverage, with revenue of 5.708 billion yuan last year, accounting for 92.6% of total revenue. At present, the six walnut brands are divided into boutique series, health series, five-star series, high-end brand six walnut 2430, as well as high-calcium products and children's products. Although the product segmentation has been made for the crowd, it is still difficult to resist the decline in its sales.
For a long time, "six walnuts" walnut milk has provided more than 90% of the revenue of Yangyuan Beverage, but in recent years, the product is gradually fading out of the consumer's field of vision, and the decline in sales of large single products has caused the revenue of Yangyuan Beverage to plummet to 4.427 billion yuan in 2020. From 2021 to 2023, the company's revenue will be 6.906 billion yuan, 5.923 billion yuan, and 6.162 billion yuan respectively, hovering in the range of 6 billion yuan for three consecutive years, far less than the nearly 10 billion yuan at its peak in 2015.
The situation has also not improved significantly in 2024. In the first quarter of this year, Yangyuan Beverage's revenue was about 2.316 billion yuan, a slight increase of 3.91% year-on-year. You must know that holiday gift-giving is the key sales scenario of six walnuts, so product sales are seasonal, and the first quarter, including the Spring Festival holiday, is the most important node of the company's year, accounting for about one-third of the annual revenue.
Water Hibiscus/photo
The core major products have fallen into a bottleneck period, and Yangyuan Beverage urgently needs to find a second growth curve.
Previously, the concept of "plant-based" drove the explosion of products such as OATLY oat milk, and Yangyuan Beverage also launched "Yangyuan Plant Milk", and placed it in the position of the company's second strategic product around 2022, but its market performance has been unsatisfactory.
In 2022, the "other plant beverages" business segment where Yangyuan plant milk is located will achieve revenue of 7.543 million yuan, while in 2023, the revenue of this segment will plummet to 1.315 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 82.6%. Soochow Securities research pointed out that according to market sales feedback, the company's resource focus has been adjusted.
In addition, last year, Yangyuan Beverage's revenue from the sale of functional beverages through agents was 448 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 68.24%, accounting for 7.27% of the total revenue. The company said that Yangyuansun Company has obtained the exclusive distribution rights of all channels in the north of the Yangtze River for Red Bull Anagei series products (renamed Red Bull Vitamin Taurine Drink in 2022) since 2020.
From the perspective of sales volume, in 2023, the sales volume of walnut milk of Yangyuan beverage will be 593,300 tons, the sales volume of functional drinks will be 35,600 tons, and the sales volume of other plant-based beverages will be 0.1 thousand tons, with year-on-year changes of 1.77%, 75.99% and -79.66% respectively. At the same time, the inventory of walnut milk increased by 4.5% over the previous year, and the inventory of functional beverages increased by 65%. The inventory growth of the two core segments increased the inventory turnover days of Yangyuan Beverage. From 2021 to 2023, its inventory turnover days will be 81.37 days, 81.93 days, and 82.54 days respectively.
From the perspective of capacity utilization, the total output of each sector of Yangyuan Beverage last year was 631,400 tons. By the end of 2023, the company has 5 factories and processing bases with a total production capacity of 218 tons. Based on this calculation, the capacity utilization rate of Yangyuan Beverage last year was less than 30%. The capacity utilization rate is not high, but Yangyuan Beverage is still expanding. According to the financial report, the company currently has 4 capacity projects under construction, with a total investment of 677 million yuan.