The listed chain announced its store opening plan: the people plan to open 15,000 new stores in three years, and Yifeng plans to acquire 700 stores in 2024......
Organize | Ada
01
listed chains,
Store expansion is speeding up again
In 2023, the head chain will still maintain rapid growth in store scale.
According to the annual reports just released by the six major private listed chains, the pace of store opening of the common people, Yifeng, and Dashenlin will continue to accelerate in 2023, and the growth rate will reach a historical high.
Data source: corporate financial report, the number of Jianzhijia stores includes convenience stores, and Yixintang is the number of directly operated stores
Among them, the net increase in the number of stores in Dashenlin in 2023 is more than double that of 2022, with more than 4,000, and by the end of the first quarter of 2024, the number of its stores has approached 15,000, while the number of stores of the people and Yifeng has also reached about 14,000.
In addition to Yixintang and Jianzhijia, the franchise business occupies a high proportion of the new chain stores, which is also a major factor driving the rapid growth of stores. The proportion of new franchised stores of ordinary people, Dashenlin and Shuyu civilians in the total number of new stores reached 46.8%, 50.3% and 58.3% respectively.
The new stores of the six major private listed chains in 2023
Source: Corporate financial reports
In terms of mergers and acquisitions, during the reporting period, there were 19 mergers and acquisitions in Dashenlin, with a total of 750 consolidated stores, including 60 in East China and 690 in Northeast, North, Northwest and Southwest China.
In 2023, Yifeng will have a total of 22 investment and M&A businesses in the same industry, and 19 M&A handover projects will be completed. In terms of sub-regions, 14 mergers and acquisitions occurred in Hebei, and in addition, mergers and acquisitions occurred in Hubei, Jiangsu, Jiangxi and Hunan, continuing to consolidate the existing advantageous regions.
A total of 9 equity/asset acquisitions occurred in Shaanxi, Jiangsu, Anhui and Shandong provinces, involving 351 stores (the number of stores that signed acquisition agreements during the reporting period), of which two chains were acquired in Anhui, involving a total of 231 stores. According to the monitoring data of Zhongkang Pharmacy, the total number of stores in the Anhui market has entered the local TOP3, temporarily ranking behind Gaoji and Chinese Health.
In 2023, Jianzhijia will carry out a total of 4 interbank asset acquisitions and 1 equity acquisition, with a total consideration of 177 million yuan, and acquire 260 stores, of which two acquisitions in Chongqing involve a total of 207 stores, and by the end of 2023, the number of Jianzhijia stores in Chongqing has reached 594.
In this regard, Jianzhijia said that with the increasingly strict supervision and intensified market competition, the operation of pharmacies has been differentiated, the pressure on small and medium-sized chain operations has increased, and there are more companies with the intention of selling, but the expectation of the sale valuation is still high, which is higher than the valuation level given by the market to listed companies. The company prudently negotiated with companies with the intention of selling, and made progress but the progress was slow, and the company adhered to the bottom line of valuation and made steady progress.
Data source: corporate financial reports, of which Yixintang only counts acquisitions that have been separately disclosed
02
The common people and Yifeng shouted out the goal of "4,000 families",
Yixintang and Jianzhijia accelerate the layout outside the province
With the disclosure of the 2023 annual report and the first quarter of 2024, major listed chains have successively held investor research and performance explanation meetings to interpret performance development and future planning.
The people introduced at the performance interpretation meeting that the newly opened stores in 2024 will mainly focus on expanding 11 advantageous provinces such as Hunan and Tianjin. At the same time, the company continues to encrypt in prefecture-level cities with a certain scale to increase market share, brand influence and consumer share. In 2024, the company plans to open more than 4,000 stores. From 2025 to 2026, the company will maintain rapid expansion, with 5,000 stores planned to be opened in 2025 and 6,000 stores planned to be opened in 2026.
The people also said that joining this year still maintains a high expansion goal, focusing on the 9 + 7 core key provinces, which on the basis of last year, this year has just established the Inner Mongolia Theater, which will radiate more than 70 cities and 644 key districts and counties to localize, refine and sustain the development of the market, especially the three, four and five line sinking market, and surround the city with rural areas. As of March 31, 2024, the number of county + township stores accounted for 45%, focusing on the development of 95 cities above the prefecture level and 785 counties.
For the store expansion plan in 2024, Yifeng also put forward the goal of adding 4,000 stores: in 2024, it will adhere to the model of new opening + mergers and acquisitions + franchises, mergers and acquisitions will drive direct sales, and direct sales will drive franchises, including 1,800 self-built, 700 mergers and acquisitions, and 1,500 franchises.
At present, among the six provinces and cities that Jianzhijia has laid out, Yunnan and Hebei are the two major profit centers, Chongqing and Liaoning are positioned as the second echelon, and Sichuan and Guangxi are the third echelon. Jianzhijia introduced that in Yunnan, it continued to sink to the prefecture-level and county-level markets through self-construction, intensively distributed and continuously improved the store coverage in Yunnan; Sichuan and Guangxi have been deeply cultivated from central cities to prefecture-level and county-level markets in the mode of "self-construction + acquisition", and the weak areas have been encrypted and distributed; Chongqing focuses on integrating the Chongqing Hongrui Lebang Renjia project and integrating it into the company's existing system as soon as possible. Through the combination of core business vertical pipe and regional management, the quality and efficiency of management and control were further improved, and the successful model of Yunnan was quickly replicated.
Jianzhijia also said that there is a risk that Yunnan will be close to the upper limit of expansion after 3 years, and the company plans in advance, on the basis of consolidating Yunnan's profit center, and gradually tilting resources to markets outside Yunnan, and in other provinces and regions, especially weak and blank areas, it intends to continue to help the company rely on mature stores and teams to expand rapidly.
Yixintang has also accelerated the pace of moving from Yunnan to outside the province, and will increase the proportion of stores outside Yunnan, focusing on the Sichuan-Chongqing region. In response to the "Trend of Store Layout Outside the Province", Yixintang introduced that after 23 years of development, Yixintang has become a well-known pharmacy brand in Yunnan, covering the provincial, municipal, county, and township markets; The second is the Hainan market, with nearly 500 stores, and the current key development areas are the Sichuan-Chongqing market, Shanxi market and Guangxi market. "This year, we will normally promote the expansion of the number of stores, and continue to expand to the county and township levels."
Overall, the rapid growth in the number of top chain stores will continue. According to a research report published by Pacific analysts Zhou Yu and Zhao Yuelun, in the medium and long term, the outflow of outpatient prescriptions and store expansion are still the two major engines of pharmacy growth, and the team continues to be optimistic that industry leaders will benefit from the increase in industry concentration.
With the increasingly fierce competition in the market, there will be more and more companies that "hold together" or sell, which will further accelerate the scale expansion of the head chain. Driven by scale advantages and policies, it is expected that the head chain will realize the "store scale" to drive the "customer scale", create more value, and enter the era of "50 billion yuan".
Compiled from corporate financial reports, minutes of investor research meetings, performance interpretation meetings, and daily economic news