The milk tea brand Xiang Piaopiao has been hotly discussed recently, and after the topic of packaging irony continues to ferment, the live broadcast room of the brand, which was once forgotten by the public, ushered in a surge in sales. And if you want to catch the traffic and seize market share in the fierce competition for drinks, it will not happen overnight. After a noisy feast of public opinion, where will the development of the Xiangpiaopiao brand go?
In 2005, Xiangpiaopiao Food Co., Ltd. was established in Huzhou, Zhejiang. In 2017, it landed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange and became the first stock of milk tea in China. However, in recent years, the rapid development of many ready-made tea brands that belong to the same milk tea industry as Xiangpiaopiao has had a certain impact on the representative of brewed milk tea.
"On the one hand, the market space of brewing milk tea companies has been squeezed, and the market share has declined; On the other hand, these freshly made tea brands have attracted the attention and consumption of young people, which may lead to the loss of consumers of brewing milk tea enterprises. Industry veterans said that for traditional brewed milk tea brands such as Xiangpiaopiao, the key to "breaking the game" lies in innovation and transformation, and attracting young consumers by developing new products, expanding new markets, and enhancing brand influence.
Before this public opinion incident, Xiang Piaopiao had just recovered from the decline in revenue for three consecutive years. From 2020 to 2022, Xiangpiaopiao's revenue will be 3.761 billion yuan, 3.466 billion yuan, and 3.128 billion yuan respectively, and the net profit will also fall from 358 million yuan in 2020 to 214 million yuan in 2022.
In 2023, Xiangpiaopiao's performance finally took a turn, with its revenue increasing by 15.9% year-on-year to 3.625 billion yuan, and net profit increasing by 31.04% year-on-year to 280 million yuan. In the first quarter of 2024, the company's performance continued to grow, with revenue of 725 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6.76%, and a net profit of 25.2126 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 331.26%.
Strictly speaking, what Xiang Piaopiao is "out of the circle" this time is not the traditional product milk tea, but its Meco juice tea. According to public information, Meco Honey Valley is a cup brand launched by Xiangpiaopiao Company in 2018, and its positioning is biased towards indoor static consumption scenes.
After getting out of the circle, some investors asked Xiang Piaopiao about MECO juice tea on the interactive platform, and Xiang Piaopiao replied: MECO fruit tea products combine traditional fruit tea with modern advanced production technology, and create a new category of "cup fruit tea", including "peach and red pomelo", "Thai lime", "cherry berry berry", "red pomegranate white grape", "lychee passion flower", "mango bale" and other flavors, with good taste and health attributes, it has quickly won the wide favor of consumers and exported to many countries and regions around the world.
MECO juice tea is an important focus of Xiangpiaopiao's two-wheel drive strategy. In an interview with the media, Xiangpiaopiao executives said that the company's strategy is now two-wheel drive, that is, brewing and ready-to-drink.
At present, Xiangpiaopiao is divided into two categories: brewed products and ready-to-drink products, the former accounts for more than 70% of Xiangpiaopiao's total revenue, but the growth rate has slowed down, and the growth rate in 2023 will only be 9.37%; Although the latter accounted for less than three percent and had a revenue of less than 1 billion, the growth rate reached 41.16% last year.
Experts said that this packaging incident will undoubtedly increase the popularity of Meco's cup juice tea. For Xiang Piaopiao, which is undergoing category transformation, it is not an exaggeration to compare it to a timely rain. Now that the heat of the incident has receded, most people are optimistic about whether Xiang Piaopiao can use this wave of traffic to make a beautiful turnaround and let the packaging circle the earth a few more times.