Is it better to buy it than to compete with peers? New tea drinks start to staking

　　Chinanews.com, December 8th (Zuo Yuqing, Zhongxin Finance and Economics) price cuts, joint names... In the crowded track of new tea drinks, the major milk tea brands can be said to have played tricks.

At the moment when the industry dividends are fading and homogeneous competition is serious, some brands give up introversion and choose to spend money to buy competitors.

　　On the seventh anniversary of its establishment, Naixue spent 525 million yuan to buy herself a "birthday gift" - Lele Tea.

525 million bottom-buying "Lele Tea"

　　On December 5, Naixue’s Tea announced that it had signed an investment agreement with Shanghai Chatian Catering Management Co., Ltd., the main company of Lele Tea, with an investment amount of 525 million.

After the completion of the investment, Naixue’s tea will hold 43.64% equity interest in the target company, which means that Naixue will become the largest shareholder of Lele Tea.

　　From the perspective of the industry, compared with the valuation of Lele Tea, which has shrunk to about 1.2 billion yuan, Naixue’s tea investment can be said to be a kind of “buying the bottom”.

On December 5, Naixue’s Tea announced the acquisition of Lele Tea.

　　Lele Tea, which opened its first store in Shanghai in 2016, is one of the "Big Three of New Tea Drinks". Apart from Hey Tea and Nayuki's tea, Lele Tea often sits on mobile seats. Not as good as the first two.

Up to now, Lele Tea has more than 140 stores, nearly half of which are located in Shanghai, its home base.

However, after July 2020, Lele Tea has not received financing for more than two years.

　　According to the acquisition announcement, Lele Tea’s net asset value in 2020 and 2021 will be 190 million and 180 million respectively, its main operating income will be 730 million and 870 million, and its after-tax losses will be 20.643 million yuan and 18.167 million yuan respectively.

　　According to the announcement, after the investment is completed, Lele Tea will become an associate company of Naixue's Tea and will continue to maintain independent operations, that is, Lele Tea will still maintain "the same brand", "the same team" and "unchanged operations". Change".

Set off a wave of mergers and acquisitions, the new tea market pattern has changed

　　In recent years, as the head effect of new tea drinks has become more and more obvious, mergers and acquisitions are becoming a new trend of competition.

　　In 2021, Lu Liang, the founder of Chayanyuese, announced through his circle of friends that he invested in the Internet celebrity tea drink "Guoyaya", which is also a local brand in Changsha; Michelle Ice City invested in the Guangdong tea drink brand "Huicha"; Tea successively invested in Seesaw, Heji Taotao, Yecuishan, WAT, and YePlant.

　　In contrast, Naixue seems to be a step slower in investing.

But throughout 2022, Nayuki’s tea has made frequent investment moves, and has continuously entered projects such as Australian Cafe, Crane, Cha Yiji, and Monster Sleepy. This time, it directly bought Lele Tea, which is also a high-end tea drink .

A Lele tea shop, screenshot from Lele Tea official website.

　　In fact, as early as July last year, there was a "scandal" between Lele Tea and Hey Tea, but it was quickly denied by Nie Yunchen, the founder of Hey Tea, in the circle of friends.

He said: "I did have contact for a period of time after being introduced by an intermediary, but I have completely, completely and resolutely given up after deeply understanding the internal situation, business data and status."

　　After being "abandoned" by Xicha, why did Naixue's tea take a fancy to Lele Tea?

　　In this regard, Naixue’s Tea said that Lele Tea, as one of the leading companies in the current tea industry, has a good brand strength and consumer awareness especially in East China.

This investment will also help to further optimize the industry's competitive environment and reduce the cost of Naixue's tea future store expansion and operation.

Competition in the same industry is inevitable, how will Naixue go in the future?

　　Behind the crazy mergers and acquisitions, new tea drinks still have to face the problem of severe homogenization competition and fading traffic dividends.

As far as brands are concerned, today's tea drinks are full of tricks, and it is difficult for milk tea lovers to maintain their brand loyalty.

At the beginning of this year, HEYTEA and Naixue’s tea successively announced to bid farewell to the “30 yuan era”, which is also a high-end brand bowing to the market trend.

　　In 2021, Nayuki's tea will go to Hong Kong to ring the bell as the "first share of new tea drinks".

At that time, Naixue’s tea was also known as “the most expensive milk tea on the Internet” because of the average price of 43 yuan per order.

But to this day, Naixue’s tea is still struggling on the verge of loss.

Nayuki's tea at a store in Beijing.

Photo by Gong Hongyu

　　The 2022 semi-annual report shows that Naixue’s tea revenue during the reporting period was 2.045 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 3.8%; the net profit was a loss of 249 million yuan.

This also forced Nayuki's Tea, which aspires to become a "Starbucks in the tea industry", to abandon the original "tea + soft European bag" store model and gradually transform into a small PRO store.

　　Under the wave of mergers and acquisitions, can Naixue's tea be favored by capital again, and can it break the loss-making situation with the help of Lele Tea?

　　Although Nayuki's tea promises to Lele Tea that "the brand will remain unchanged", it is also a high-end brand in the industry. If it wants to maintain its brand positioning, Nayuki's tea and Lele Tea, which cannot form a complementary relationship, "fight" "It seemed inevitable.

Some people in the industry believe that Naixue will eventually choose to use Lele Tea to enter the mid-end tea market with a larger space.

In the end, whether Nayuki’s tea can achieve profitability remains to be seen.

(Finish)