China Mengniu Dairy Co Ltd
HKEX:2319
Earnings Call Analysis
Q2-2023 Analysis
China Mengniu Dairy Co Ltd
The company reported robust overall revenue growth, which remained impressive even after accounting for the addition of consolidated statements. Importantly, gross margins saw a notable improvement, with a substantial contribution to operating profit (OP). The company expressed confidence earlier in the year regarding OP margin, which has since been validated by performance. However, revenue growth in the first half of the year was slightly lower than market expectations, indicating that while the company's top-line growth is strong, there were some challenges to overcome.
Capital expenditures (CapEx) are well-managed and declining from peak levels, which is a positive sign for future cash flows and profitability. Although selling and distribution expenses have increased, primarily due to offline implementations and investment in route-to-market (RTM) strategies, these costs are projected as necessary for growth, particularly in European channels and O2O platforms. The company has demonstrated healthy operational efficiency indicators such as inventory turnover, receivables, and payable turnovers, signifying effective management of working capital.
The company boasts strong brand equity, achieving notable influence with less advertisement compared to peers, indicating high investment efficiency. In digitalization efforts, there has been improvement in supply chain efficiency, reflected in competitive gross profit (GP) margins. The company is focused on enhancing its offering through its intelligent factory concept, which integrates logistics and production scheduling for greater overall efficiency. Initiatives like MENGNIU.GPT, an AI nutritionist expert synergy with consumer data, emphasize the company's strategic bet on technology to gain a competitive advantage.
The company is dedicated to leading the industry in ESG actions, setting specific targets, and building green factories for carbon emissions reduction. ESG initiatives, including a 1 trillion tree planting commitment and carbon emission reduction projects across their farms, are designed to support long-term sustainability goals aligned with global standards. These ESG efforts reinforce the company's commitment to responsible growth and may enhance its reputation among increasingly conscientious consumers and investors.
The company reported double-digit growth in liquid milk, held ASPs steady, and experienced significant growth in its parent brand. High-end milk products like Milk Deluxe and Shiny Meadow are seeing price increases due to improved quality, and chilled products like yogurt are targeted for high-end, functional market segments. Challenges in the ice cream segment were acknowledged, with traditional channels lagging and an identified need for improvement to achieve sustainable growth. The baby formula segment presented optimism, particularly with Bellamy's potential in the Chinese market. The goal is to be an industry leader, capturing growth opportunities across diverse platforms including JD, Walmart, and Meituan, and focusing on high-quality product offerings and digital engagement.
Despite presenting fewer specific numbers and data, the tone of the call was one of confidence and assurance in the company's achievements, particularly in operating profit, which outperformed the industry and competitors. The leadership stressed the importance of product quality, premiumization, and digitalization in driving growth. The company acknowledges the increasingly challenging market conditions, requiring greater effort to achieve the same results. Nevertheless, management expressed an unwavering commitment to growth and highlighted a range of opportunities in milk formula, ice cream, and especially the nascent cheese segment.
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Dear investors, friends from the media as well as analysts, good morning. Welcome to Mengniu Dairy Co. Limited first half of 2023 result announcement. And I would like to thank you for your continued support and interest in investment in Mengniu. I would like to give a brief introduction of our management team. We have Mr. Lu Minfang, CEO and Executive Director of the company; Vice President and Executive Director, Ms. Wang Yan; Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Zhang Ping; Senior Vice President, Mr. Gao Fei, responsible for the UHT business; Vice President, Mr. Luo Yan, responsible for the Milk business; and Vice President, Mr. Chen Yiyi; Vice President, Mr. Li Pengchen; Financial Controller and the Company Secretary, Chris Kwok. There are two parts of our announcement today. The first half is conducted by Mr. Lu on the presentation. And the second part is Q&A session. And we predict that today's conference will finish by 10:15. So we welcome Mr. Lu first.
Dear investors, good morning. I am delighted to be able to meet you all off-line in person. Actually, this morning, I was thinking how should I open this. In the current consumption environment, we feel more determined than the investors. Perhaps for investors, you have a lot of questions, and you will ask those questions, I believe, later on. But I feel that at the moment, actually, we are quite stable, we're quite determined, and I believe that you're also thinking about this, as you can see our results for first half of this year. But for today, in terms of what we share with you would be our thinkings and our views on the market as well as various other factors. So for our exchange today it's not going to be simply reading the numbers. You can all see the numbers yourselves. And of course, in terms of top line, for first half of this year. In terms of growth in our industry, it's still very good. You can see that 7.4%. This is the overall revenue growth. If we take away the additional of the consolidated statement and our growth is still very good. And the gross margin, we have seen very good improvement. And of course, for the gross margin, majority of the improvement is falls under our operating profit. And in the beginning of the year, when we communicated with the investors, we are very confident about our OP margin. In terms of growth, I think I should say it this way. So what's the situation of the first half of this year? In my opinion, it is slightly lower than our expectation of the market. When we set our target, you know that our guidance for this year, first half of this year, including for the whole of this year, we were quite confident in internally. We have also established an even higher expectation internally. And with this high internal expectation target that we have set, we did not meet that target, however in terms of the target that we communicated with the market, whether it's top line or bottom line, it is in line with our expectation. This is one of the main overall conclusion that I can share with you. So this is point one. Point two. You can see in terms of our operating profit. On the operation level, first half of this year in terms of raw material price as well as milk price, and we have enjoyed gains. And some of these gains would be reflected in our investment and some of which will be reflected in our margin improvement. But of course, our overall structure, you can see that it is still getting better in terms of the various categories, and this is one of the benefits it has brought us. Next slide. In terms of the revenue breakdown by segment, I don't want to go into details. Overall a few points. First, in terms of the overall Milk market growth, and we are very confident in China. For overall Liquid Milk, there is no consolidated financial statement, and we were still able to enjoy 5% year-on-year growth. So if you look at the market, including our competitors, we have done very well in this category. In the meantime, quite a few very core aspects continuous improvement of premiumization. And this is something that we continue to talk to the capital market. And people continue to ask me, for instance, Milk Deluxe can grow by how much and Shiny Meadow, are you making money? Well, I can tell you that this group of people, their consumption is very clear, and we have not missed this opportunity. And this is what has driven our liquid milk business to grow and including for first half of this year, if you look at high-end yogurt, it is delicious. You can try it out. So all of these, they reflect that in the liquid milk in what is certain. In the meantime, we are also doing very well in terms of premiumization of liquid milk. And the two growth of these areas, they are giving us more confidence for second half of this year and next year's growth. So when you look at growth like this in terms of the percentage of 5%, and it is reflecting the certainty of our operation as well as strategy.
Second is our Ice Cream. Ice Cream last year, we enjoyed a 10% growth. And of course, the great performance comes from Ice. If you look at Ice's performance, this is also from a few years ago as well as how Mengniu can empower Ice, and this is an ice cream business that we started with, you can see that today in Southeast Asia market in terms of Ice Cream growth potential as well as the business model versus what we are very familiar with. It's very similar. This is a very rare that in terms of acquisition and after acquisition, the business was able to actually grow even faster. It is thanks to our capability empowerment as well as our business model empowerment. Therefore, we are fully confident, and we believe that this growth is sustainable. It is profitable for Ice. Not only that we disclose its profit, it is also profitable. In Indonesia, we had already overtaken another brand, [indiscernible], and we became the market leader. Third part is our milk formula business. And I remember last year and beginning of this year, we had inform the investors. So our main task is to stabilize. And for potential business, we would like to grow them and develop them. So what is performing well this year is Bellamy's. Bellamy's has grown about over 20%. In the organic milk area, it is growing very fast, then again, this is something that in the milk formula sector. And of course, for adult milk formula is also doing well for Mengniu, in terms of our baby formula, perhaps growth is a bit weaker. However, in terms of our registered formula adjustment and we hope that, that will also boost our growth in the future. In terms of operation, you can see that for our net cash, hence, the growth is very fast.
In terms of the amount, it is controlled for Capital Expenditure, CapEx. So we are controlling it very well. And we did mention to the market that beginning of this year, we will be very careful in terms of managing our CapEx, and we have already gone over the peak period. So CapEx will start to decline. In terms of SG&A and for admin expenses, it is quite stable for selling and distribution expenses, last year, I mentioned that this will go up and it is mainly because of off-line implementations that will go up after the pandemic and with RTM, route-to-market. We have also invested hugely in this area, especially in the European channels for Mengniu's gain and O2O for the O2O channels and for Mengniu's gain, have seen very good growth. And in terms of the operational efficiency indicators that you can look at our inventory turnover. It is very healthy and receivable turnover, payable turnover is all doing great. So next, I'd like to talk to you about some of the stories behind the numbers. So in terms of the management, we continue to communicate with the market, and we hope that we can enjoy high-quality growth to ensure that our operational efficiency can continue to grow whether our top line is growing at 5%, 8% or 10% today. We hope that operational efficiency is something that we must achieve because we have identified the opportunities in the meantime, the actions that we have taken are related to this. First half of this year, I had talked about consumption overall. We do see challenges However, for the matters that we are working on today. You can see that, first of all, in terms of our fundamental business, which is milk business, including white milk, et cetera, we have a few very important parts. And one is platform value, adhering to the stabilization of the price, all of this, you can see, and I believe that investors can look at our channels and the terminal and for Milk Deluxe, Bellamy's as well as Shiny Meadows. Compared with last year, you will have noticed that our price has gone up. And for Milk Deluxe, with the competitors' competition, we did not actually retaliate with a price reduction. So for this part, we are more and more confident, and we believe that the high-end consumers and their pursuit for brand, their pursuit for quality in a way, and today, this is what gives us even more confidence about the market. And the second, we talk about brand equity. So for our brand, our investment efficiency is very strong for Mengniu today. We have used fewer advertisement compared with our peers, but we have achieved better results. If you look at our parent brand as well as our other core brands. You will have noticed that they all have realized it their influence. And this is again because of our business focus. And thirdly, we talk about digitalization. We continue to talk about digitalization. And you might ask what does this include, and the first is efficiency. If you look at data analysis, in terms of our major categories, we are not quite there yet with our competitors. It's because of our ice creaming and our milk powder business that lags behind. However, in terms of the real comparable of GP margin, we are very competitive. In the meantime, sometimes we are even better than our competitors. This, again, fully reflects our efficiency improvement of the supply chain. So this is the number one that we have noticed for digitalization.
And the second, for digitization. For this whole actions that we are taking and we are adopting it to RTM. So we believe that this is a key point and key view that we hold when we talked about smart factories not long ago. And you can also see, if you look at our Ningxia factory as well as other factories in terms of their digitalization upgraded, this is something you can see very obviously from the eventual GP margin because in terms of the raw material price and everybody can see what it is. However, at the end of the day, it is about the efficiency improvement.
And finally, it is ESG. It is our corporate strategy. whether it is to lead ESG actions in our industry or establish a very specific targets and building green factories and reducing carbon emission. And I believe that from the market, they have already given us very good comments and feedback. So very quickly, let's take a look at the business. First, we talked about liquid milk, double-digit growth, 10%. In the current market, it is quite hard to achieve this. And what's key is that our ASP has not come down. So this is what we can see the biggest highlight in this market. And the second, for the parent brand growth, and it is enjoying great growth. This reflects our major main business, our actions taken in RTM business, and these we are doing very well. In addition, we continue to be asked in terms of the seeding of growth for high-end milk.
The so-called high-end milk, first of all, it means whether it's Milk Deluxe or Milk Deluxe Organic, do you agree with me that it is the best one out there in the market and we are also going to announce very soon that the highest end among Milk Deluxe. We're going to put up with its price. As long as you give them better price -- better product with a better quality there is room for further improvement. So I don't believe that Milk Deluxe is a type of a product that people cannot afford. So this is something that I'm very confident about for the high end. For Shiny Meadow, it is the same. And for Shiny Meadow, the effective ASP this year, it is also going up this year. If you go out and buy our product, you can see that Shiny Meadow ASP is also going up. And this means we are still building better product. We have 4.0 protein as well as various other products because that the scenarios that we enter and the capabilities of our product has improved, has greatly pushed forward and driven the growth of our high-end product. In the meantime, if we look at our chilled business and the challenges that we face. Well when I talk about chilled business, it's mainly talking about the yogurt business. We need to go back to the original intention of yogurt and chilled milk business. So when we look at UHT yogurt, and this is a choice made by the consumers. The consumers, they continue want to select very good product.
And today, you would be able to tell the difference between a good product versus a bad product. So for chilled business, and we still need to go back to the high end, the functional and delicious product. So I highly encourage all of you during the breakout to go out there and try our Shiny Meadow and dairy yogurt and try it out, see what you think. So this is our [indiscernible] fine dairy. I believe that this is a great product and you should try it out.
And again, for the chilled business and for the yogurt business, we are focusing on growth of the function as well as focusing on the product quality. And of course, in the second round for our fresh milk business and for Shiny Meadow recently, perhaps you will have also noticed that for some of the other milk products, they have seen very good growth. But a few points to share with you for Shiny Meadow. In terms of our survey conducted, the brand efficiency and the brand equity, it ranks among #1 among all the other brands. And in the meantime, with a very high base last year, you perhaps remember that last year, year-on-year in -- for instance, in the eastern part of China, and there is a major growth of fresh milk. And in the meantime, for our brand, we have also launched Xiaoxianyu. This is a sub-brand that's very popular among young people. We can see that this is a great product, and it's 60% less than -- 60% less fat. And in the meantime, with 4.0 protein. My wife also drinks this. She feels that this is suitable for her specific taste.
And secondly, if you go to all the different platforms such as JD, Sam's, Walmart, et cetera, and with Meituan, on all of these platforms, Shiny Meadow is definitely #1, without a doubt. This is a very important trend, perhaps in the past. And people would get milk delivered to their homes. But now you can see that in terms of the high-quality Fresh Milk and people are turning to the platforms. And this change of habit has actually given us a great growth opportunity. Another one would be ice cream. Ice cream is something that's quite interesting. To be honest, for ice cream growth, we are not very satisfied. Even if it has grown, we're not satisfied. Why so? I believe that there is still a lot of room at the moment in the traditional channels. And in the past, we have done well in innovative product and as well as the new channels. However, in traditional channels, we are lagging behind. So this is something that we need to bridge the gap. And if we want to realize sustainable growth and we really need to make sure that on one hand, our basic products are doing well. In the meantime, our high-end products are also doing well. So this can help us with an overall great growth. And if we look at this, so what is missing here is the traditional channels of growth that has not met our expectation. In the meantime, it is the cross category products, and they have grown quite well as well as our high-end product. And so I talked about Aice in Southeast Asia. I'm not going to repeat. Another part is milk formula. First half of this year, the highlight would be Bellamy's. I truly believe that Bellamy's is a great product, whether it is it's origin as well as its product quality, et cetera. And of course, this was affected by the cross-border trade. And now with the cross-border opened up and Bellamy's will continue to enjoy stellar performance. In this sector, I still believe that in the Chinese baby formula, and we truly lag a great product, a great brand, and I believe that Bellamy's is the answer to that question. We will do well in this area. However, this is not going to be realized overnight. We often say in our team, if I'm going to give some milk formula and what sort of milk formula would I give to my friend if they have just given birth to a baby. In the past, I would think that there were some overseas brand, but today, they're not doing that well either. And then the domestic brand formula, and I wouldn't really think of them as meeting my standard. Today, we have Bellamy's, and I believe that Bellamy's is the answer to all the questions. In the meantime, it has also baby food, et cetera. And for the domestic Chinese milk formula and we have already completed registration for formula, et cetera. And we are going to continue to build our product. There are some changes today. If we look at the traditional pathway, it may not work. And however, now it is more about under the new format. For instance, from TikTok and from Little Red Book, from online and offline handed, this is an overall channel and omnichannel. And this is something that we are working on. I cannot say that we are successful yet, but we can see the signal of hope. In addition, for health nutritious product, we can see that, whether it is for new products or for some functional products. In the meantime, you can also see that if you enjoy sports and you really must try out our product, which is [indiscernible].
And we ourselves have tried this actually, if you can adhere to no less than 30 minutes of exercise per week. And if you can adhere to this and then try our product after you exercise immediately and whether it is for women or men and for us for men, it would be about 20 grams and -- for men would be about 30 grams and for women, 20 grams. And you will see that you will get slimmer and all our management team, you can see that we are getting skinnier. And so with all this protein and we have a technology that can ensure the protein can stay for 12 months. And this is a technology that's very rare. And when we first launched this product, and 90% of our orders came from our competitors in Danone and Nestle because they need to issue us invoices, so we can see who these buyers are, where these orders came from. So we can see that it came from our competitors. And for cheese. This is something that's very interesting. We feel excited, but then we also feel doubtful at the same time. And of course, you will be asking about Milkground. You can listen to their result announcement. So some of the key points, first of all, for this brand, it is still in its infancy and it is still in the early stage of nurturing this product, this brand. It has not yet completely emerged in our daily lives. And I do not think that with exponential growth. And very quickly, you'll see the result. On the other hand, what I feel is that what we see today, it is better than the old days, and it is better reflecting the future trend and the future pathways of cheese business. So the healthy development of this category, it is better. I believe that after this round, everything that you see in the channels the so-called cheese sticks brand and half of them will be gone at least. And our market share in this sector, it is growing for Mengniu Plus and Milkground, our market share has grown first half of this year. So first of all, this is on the certainty of a brand and the category as well as the growth model may not be what we have witnessed in the past to repeat the exponential growth. So what we need to do is to identify what is the truly good cheese product. And it is really that you need to have multi types of cheese to meet the different scenarios and need. And the second for cheese business in China, we still have a huge potential. And if you look at today's market and in terms of the ones that have good products and the establishment of the supply chain, there is still a huge gap. And this is very important for the cheese sector. Thirdly, I believe that in the certain channels of all the cheese we need to be the absolute #1, whether it is a slice or to be catering business, et cetera, and all our target is very certain, whether it's going to grow by 5% or 10%, I'm going to become the absolute #1. That's our target. So these are some sharings on cheese. And of course, building a brand and working with the channels. And of course, this is very important in the consumer sector. And when we work on brands, we have a long-term vision. So looking at the other ones of which are already at the top, whether it is with the Olympics or NBA. And we would adhere to those for 10 years, at least. So this is why in terms of our brand equity, we do well. We do better than our competitors. It's because that we are sustainable and we continue to work in those areas. And I really welcome all of them to join in force with us. And this will help us to build the channels and build the IPs and connect them well. So eventually, what you will notice that it is our brand that has solidified that has left a great impression with the consumers. And of course, I don't need to talk to you about our partners and as well as our ambassadors, et cetera. And a very important point is that with this context and our management is very determined to continue to drive the RTM reinforcement and transformation. This is a topic that consumers and the market cannot avoid. And of course, the reform of our overall channel, it is a tough job. But in the meantime, for all the new channel opportunities, we need to grasp them. If we look at the past 5 years, we can see that whether it is O2O, we are definitely #1. And in terms of the traditional channels, to be honest, you need time internally, and we would say that whilst you are driving or whilst you are flying, you need to continue to repair your planes at the same time. And in terms of our work with the large key accounts, et cetera, and we are definitely #1. And traditionally speaking, we still lag behind in the traditional channels. So on this point, we are very clear. We have a clear mind whether it is in a faster-growth channels or whether it is in a low growth channel, we are very clearheaded about how to continue to carry out our channel reforms and further improve our digitalization. This is a solid work that needs to be done. Lastly, about ESG and our digitalization. For digitization or digital intelligence, the last part is, actually, we are now clear, more clear than before. And there are 2 main points for digitalization. The first output is enhanced efficiency. So overall efficiency enhancement for the whole chain. There is no doubt about it. No matter whether we talk about logistics, production, scheduling or order opportunities. All these will be converted into internal efficiency enhancement and GP margin improvement. So today, when it comes to our top-level design, well, we have our objectives and also all the digital platforms built for the top layer design. Well, at this point, it's very important. So we said that we have an intelligent left brain. So for the intelligent or smart right brain, it is about data building on the consumer level, including marketing dimension. So your investment into data and accumulation of data. So we are working on all these at the same time. So for the left brain, well, when it comes to the main template, it is like a digital factory. It is not really a factory. It is a philosophy or concept. So logistics, production scheduling, everything is integrated into a smart supply chain. The factory is only the manifestation. But at the back, it is our digital or intelligent digital work. So we are talking about this very highly intelligent factory with only 100 people. But then we are able to deliver output of RMB 10 billion. And in other cases, there is the need for 2,000, 3,000 people. So this is just a numerical indication. Now in the future, when it comes to consumers, what will be the intelligent digitalization? Well, the way of manifestation is AI nutritionist experts. So this is MENGNIU.GPT. Actually on your phone, you can already get insight right away. So what is behind it? For the whole group, we are talking about consumers' data integration, and we are providing additional nutrition service. And then the data that is collected will be used in big data computation and then to our business. So on our business segments, you can see our formula milk distribution and marketing. And then you also can get into the nutritional products and also Milk Deluxe area and so on. So it is actually a way of display. But then the logic behind is our consumer data platform building. So that is the main point. Finally, ESG. So we have been talking about ESG repeatedly. And what is very important is that we need to build a system. So what will be the implementation of the subsequent road map. Now in 2030, carbon peak 2050 car neutrality, carbon neutrality and then Scope 1, 2, 3, each of these pathways and then computation, how much is to be realized in each part. So I think this is our biggest achievement in the past. That is we are able to finalize them. So we have launched many initiatives. So we took part in the global 1 trillion planting tree initiative. And also for our farms. There are also carbon emission reduction projects. We have all these initiatives. So in our overall very clear pathway, in each area, we are implementing many initiatives. So there are many examples. I won't go through them one by one. Each of them can help us achieve our ESG objectives and pathway. So finally, when we look at the rest of the 2023, three points. First of all, more nutritious. That means we firmly believe that as long as we can produce good products and premiumization and delivering value to consumers, then that is very good. And then smarter, I talked about the 2 brains. So by means of digitalization, for brand RTM, supply chain efficiency can be improved. And finally, ESG. So today, I think. My presentation is actually different from before. In the past results announcement, we will go through some numbers, data and guidance Well, today, we are presenting this way, not because we have no confidence in our data and guidance. But we would like to tell you the achievements in terms of operating profit in the first half 2023, and also our growth is better than the industry and our competitors. I want to tell you more about the work that we have done behind. And finally, we would like to restore or enable your confidence to be stronger. We have even more confidence than before. But I think investors also need stronger confidence for our industry, for our category, there is certainty in growth. And you will then know how big a certainty is in China Mengniu. We think that there are a lot of opportunities for us. There are many opportunities in milk formula, ice cream. We have just started with cheese. Liquid milk is a very high and stable growth products. So in terms of high-end development, digitalization and better products, we have put in a lot of efforts. So the more difficult the situation is, the more we have to work hard, the more efforts we have to put in. In the past, perhaps we only needed to put in half of the effort to deliver the results. But now we have to work to the full of our ability to deliver the same results. So thank you, investors, for your continuous support. Thank you. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]