Introduction: This is the third consecutive year of high growth for Oriental Leaf. On the evening of August 29, Nongfu Spring announced its first-half 2023 results: revenue of 20.462 billion yuan and profit of 5.775 billion yuan, up 23.3% and 25.3% year-on-year respectively; among them, the tea beverage segment (Oriental Leaf and Tea π) achieved revenue of 5.286 billion yuan, up 59.8% year-on-year. From the financial data in the announcement, it is roughly estimated that in the first half, Nongfu Spring's tea beverages may have contributed nearly 30% of profits. Tea beverages have become Nongfu Spring's second growth curve and new profit source. Although Nongfu Spring did not disclose specific data for Oriental Leaf, according to Nielsen data, over the past 12 months, Oriental Leaf grew 114% year-on-year, with a growth rate more than 9 times the overall growth rate of the ready-to-drink tea industry. Oriental Leaf and Tea π together contributed over 60% of the increment in the entire ready-to-drink tea market. This is already the third consecutive year of high growth for Oriental Leaf. Based on Nielsen data, Oriental Leaf's annual retail scale may reach 10 billion yuan. An industry insider said that usually a scale of over 1 billion yuan is already a big single product in the beverage industry, and on this basis, a 20% growth is rare. Oriental Leaf has maintained a growth rate of over 50% in the past three years, creating industry history. "This shows that the unsweetened tea track still has huge imagination space. It also indirectly shows that China's beverage market has recovered well and is accelerating development," the person said.
Oriental Leaf Reputation Evaluation Comprehensively surpassing Japanese similar products Looking at social media platform topics in the first half of the year, Oriental Leaf seems to be ushering in a new peak of consumer quality evaluation, with its reputation even comprehensively surpassing a Japanese unsweetened tea brand with a history of more than 40 years. In late August, a topic comparing Oriental Leaf with that Japanese unsweetened tea brand occupied the top of Weibo's hot search list for a long time. Under this topic, most netizens said Oriental Leaf is their first choice for unsweetened tea. At the same time, on other platforms, the discussion heat about Oriental Leaf has also shown a geometric increase trend. (On social media platforms, when consumers were asked which unsweetened tea product they prefer, Oriental Leaf won an overwhelming majority) Some netizens also compared Oriental Leaf with the Japanese unsweetened tea brand in terms of color, taste, aroma, packaging, etc., and Oriental Leaf won with high scores in most evaluations. Moreover, Oriental Leaf launches a limited edition Longjing new tea flavor every spring. Since it is only produced with pre-Qingming Longjing new tea, the output is small, and it is sold out as soon as it is listed. On second-hand platforms like Xianyu, the 335ml limited edition Oriental Leaf is resold by netizens for more than 40 or even 50 yuan. This shows consumers' love for Oriental Leaf.
The Success of Oriental Leaf: The Victory of "Long-termism" and "Healthism" Oriental Leaf's long-term persistence in the market and eventual explosion once again proved to the industry the value of "long-termism" and "healthism." In 2011, when almost no one was optimistic about the unsweetened tea market, Nongfu Spring went against the trend and launched Oriental Leaf, and even took the lead in introducing expensive log6 aseptic production lines, upgrading the log5 commonly used in domestic beverages at that time to a new stage. Twelve years ago, Oriental Leaf achieved five health "zeros": 0 sugar, 0 calories, 0 fat, 0 flavoring, and 0 preservatives, and created its own unsweetened tea antioxidant technology, which is still the industry's technological ceiling today. (Thanks to its unique antioxidant technology, Oriental Leaf adopts a transparent double-sided bottle design. Usually tea beverages use full-wrap labels because they fear oxidation and discoloration) Now looking back, it is not accidental that Oriental Leaf comes from Nongfu Spring. Its "natural" and "healthy" product philosophy is in line with Nongfu Spring. No matter how technology and concepts change, naturalness and health are always eternal needs. Nongfu Spring has grasped the unchanging things in a changing market. According to the Frost & Sullivan report, since 2019, Oriental Leaf has become the brand with the largest market share in the unsweetened tea category, which is the result of more than ten years of strategic determination. Moreover, comprehensive market analysis shows that compared with sweetened tea, the unsweetened tea beverage market is still a blue ocean, and there is a trend of gradually sinking from first- and second-tier cities to third- and fourth-tier cities. The unsweetened tea led by Oriental Leaf will inevitably bring new incremental space to China's beverage market.