The 2022 of new tea drinks: the competition is becoming more and more fierce, and the leading enterprises "huddle together to keep warm"

　　Author: Jie Shuyi

　　The "volume" of the new tea industry has a long history.

In 2022, under the test of the epidemic, big and small brands will face more complex and diverse challenges. Some stores will be closed on a large scale, and some franchisees will switch to other brands. Even leading brands will start to seek the second growth of franchises. Curves, and even "huddle together for warmth".

　　Small brands survive, big brands seek change

　　The growth rate of the new tea industry has been very fast.

　　The "2022 New Tea Drinks Research Report" released by the China Chain Store and Franchise Association shows that the market size of my country's new tea drinks has grown from 42.2 billion in 2017 to 100.3 billion in 2021, with a compound annual growth rate of more than 20%.

After the outbreak of the epidemic in some areas in 2020, the overall new tea market will have a significant growth; in 2021, it will steadily reach a scale of 100 billion; and in 2022, the market size can reach 104 billion in the most ideal state, which is basically the same as that in 2021.

　　However, in the rapidly developing industry, fierce competition makes the survival rate of tea drinking enterprises not high.

　　According to the data from Tianyancha, nearly 60% of the tea drinking companies can’t survive for three years, 24.4% of the tea drinking companies survive within one year, and 35.0% of the tea drinking companies survive for 1-3 years.

　　The footsteps of some top brands are also a little staggering.

In October 2021, Lele Tea will bid farewell to the Xi'an market, and will withdraw from the Guangzhou market in February 2022; Chayan Yuese will close its stores three times in 2021, but will start again in 2022 and slowly begin to expand; in early 2022, Xicha was exposed to layoffs. At that time, the company stated that it had carried out a small amount of personnel adjustment and optimization.

　　In this case, leading brands have also begun to adjust their original strategies.

　　HEYTEA’s strategic adjustment in 2022 is very representative.

The first is the price adjustment.

At the beginning of 2022, Heytea has completed a comprehensive price adjustment. The unit price of drinks is basically below 29 yuan, and products priced at 15-25 yuan have accounted for more than 60% of all Heytea products.

　　In addition, HEYTEA, which has persisted in direct sales for ten years, will finally open the franchise model at the end of 2022.

The first financial reporter learned that the business partners of HEYTEA need to invest less than 500,000 yuan.

At present, most of the other brands in the industry are distributed between 350,000 and 400,000.

For example, a little bit is 380,000, and a tea hundred is about 350,000.

As for the reason for the opening of business partners, Heytea said that although Heytea continues to open new stores at a steady pace, it still cannot fully meet the needs of more consumers to drink Heytea faster.

　　Moreover, Heytea has already set its sights on the "cake" in the middle and low-tier urban markets.

In the past year, HEYTEA has successively entered new cities such as Harbin, Changchun, Huai'an, Longyan, Xiangyang and Linyi.

According to Wen Zhihong, a restaurant chain expert and general manager of Hehong Consulting: "The market space of non-first-tier markets is indeed huge for new tea drinks. Of course, the first-tier cities are the main battlefields of HEYTEA, but at the same time, the first-tier cities Operating costs are also very high, and non-first-tier cities may include second-, third-, fourth-, and fifth-tier cities, so there is a lot of room for imagination. This means that HEYTEA may also "figure it out" and must pass the franchise Ways to rapidly expand and expand market share.”

　　In 2022, another major event in the new tea drinking industry is that Naixue’s tea invested 525 million yuan in Lele Tea, holding 43.64% of the shares and becoming the largest shareholder of Lele Tea.

Leading brands have also begun to complement each other's advantages and "huddle together for warmth".

　　Regarding the reason and purpose of this investment, Naixue’s Tea stated in the announcement that Lele Tea, as one of the leading enterprises 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.

　　People in the industry believe that the new tea industry is gradually moving towards a "reshuffle period" in which the strong are always strong, and the complementary advantages of the two major brands may change the pattern of the tea industry.

　　How to break the homogenization?

High-frequency new releases, betting on explosive models

　　The update speed of tea brand products is getting faster and faster.

The "2022 China Beverage Industry Product Report" shows that 20 new tea brands will launch 575 new products in 2020 and 930 new products in 2021, a year-on-year increase of 61.7%.

In the first three quarters of 2022, the 50 monitored brands launched a total of 1,677 new products, with an average of 11 new products per brand per quarter.

　　Every brand is trying to make breakthroughs in some special items.

Duck feces fragrant treasure tea, bitter gourd sea coconut, bitter gourd lemon tea, coriander lemon tea, water chestnut ginseng and other strange new tea drinks are constantly emerging.

When tea brands, large and small, are constantly updating their menus, they try to catch consumers' attention first and then their taste buds.

　　It is worth mentioning that in 2022, coffee-flavored products will also be a major feature.

Coffee-flavored mandarin duck milk tea and various classic coffees are launched in many new tea drink brand stores.

A number of first-line tea brands have even established their own brands of coffee product lines: Michelle Ice City has established a coffee brand Lucky Coffee, and Chayan Yuese has launched "Yuanyang Coffee".

Heytea and Nayuki’s teas have also successively launched coffee categories.

　　However, there is a limit to how long a product can stay on the menu.

An insider of a leading tea drink brand told the first financial reporter: "After launching a new product, the popularity of the product, the richness of the product line, the season of the raw material, the gradient of the price range, and the complexity of the production all determine its launch. The length of time. Some will be iterated, because the regular SKU (minimum stock keeping unit) on the menu must be kept at a certain number, not too many.” According to her, the company’s R&D colleagues will try hundreds of raw material combinations, I will try seasonal ingredients according to the season. For example, bayberry is only available in summer; gardenia green tea also needs to consider the growth time of gardenia; in winter, it is mostly hot drinks.

　　Entering 2022, for the brands that have survived the accelerated "reshuffle" of the epidemic, continuous innovation seems to be no longer enough to break the problem of product homogeneity.

Only by launching more explosive products can a qualitative change be produced.

Previously, leading brands have usually released "explosive star products".

For example, Heytea’s Zhizhi Berry, Naixue’s duck feces milk tea, 70% sweet poplar nectar, a little bit of Four Seasons Milk Green, and Michelle Ice City’s lemonade.

In the second half of the competition, more explosive products may be the key to allowing brands to continue to occupy consumers' minds.

　　In December 2022, with the optimization of the epidemic prevention policy, the epidemic prevention and control work has entered a new stage.

According to the "2022 New Tea Drinks Research Report", industry insiders said that the short-term market performance of new tea drinks can be relatively clearly predicted: it is expected that in the first quarter of 2023, especially after the Spring Festival, with the in-depth implementation of epidemic prevention and control work in various places, new tea drinks The beverage market will gradually enter a stable operating state.

The entire new tea drink market is expected to fully recover in the second quarter of 2023, and is expected to usher in a "celebration-style" sales market, with an overall improvement in performance.

The franchise business is expected to fully recover.

Finally, in 2023, a year-on-year growth in annual performance will be achieved.