On the evening of January 12, 2012, thousands of people queued outside Apple's two official retail stores in Beijing, waiting for the midnight release of the iPhone 4s. [1] In response to netizens' remark, "When will foreigners queue up to buy Huawei phones in China?" Yu Chengdong, then head of Huawei's consumer business, replied that he would strive to make Chinese people queue for Huawei. Six years later, Yu's flag was realized. In October 2018, Huawei's Mate 20 series was launched, and on the same day, Apple's new iPhone XR went on sale in Hangzhou, Beijing, and other cities. Caijing.com reported that afternoon that the iPhone XR's domestic debut saw no queues, and the scene was somewhat awkward. In contrast, Huawei saw queues and frenzied buying at stores across the country, with some models even sold out. [2] Image source: Tmall, Heytea, Zhong Xue Gao official Weibo. This shift is not unique to Huawei. Nielsen's recent report on China's consumer trend index for Q2 2019 shows that with rising national sentiment, 68% of Chinese consumers prefer domestic brands, even though 62% would buy foreign brands, but domestic brands remain the first choice. [3] I still remember a few years ago when a large number of Chinese consumers flew to Japan to buy rice cookers and toilet seats, many parents tried to buy "foreign milk powder" through acquaintances or overseas shopping, and Häagen-Dazs at 30 yuan per scoop or Starbucks coffee at dozens of yuan per cup were seen as symbols of the petty bourgeoisie. Today, brands like Haier and Midea are selling well, with 87.4% of Chinese consumers preferring domestic home appliances [4]; domestic milk powder brands like Feihe, Ausnutria, and Junlebao are fighting back; and high-end ice cream brands like Zhongjie 1946 and Zhong Xue Gao, new tea brand Heytea (valued at 9 billion yuan, according to LatePost), White Rabbit candy with its frequent merchandise collaborations, and Latiao and Laoganma going global all represent the strong rise of Chinese flavors. The competitiveness of Chinese brands is increasing day by day. The era of the rise of domestic goods has finally arrived.
Ten Years of Domestic Goods: A Mixed Bag Ten years ago, there was also a "revival" of domestic goods, bringing back sailor shirts, Feiyue shoes, and face cream, but that was mostly driven by "loyalty." In 2008, topics like the torch relay, the Olympics, and national self-strengthening were hot, fueling the fire of domestic goods. A large number of items called "classic domestic goods" quietly became popular in China, including Phoenix bicycles, Yumeijing, Bee Flower shampoo, Jianlibao, Hero pens, and Beijing-brand thermos liners. [5] These products, once part of the childhood memories of many born in the 70s and 80s, were revived as carriers of fresh fashion. Jianlibao national trend can. Image source: Jianlibao. In contrast, the "new domestic goods revival" in 2018 had more confidence and toughness. Li-Ning appeared on the Paris Fashion Week runway with the theme "Chinese Li-Ning"; Huawei's global sales in Q2 surpassed Apple for the first time, ranking second globally; Heytea went overseas to Singapore, achieving sales of over 2,000 cups per day at the famous Ion Orchard shopping center... covering industries such as apparel, daily chemicals, electronics, cultural creativity, and food. The 2008 revival was more about emotional consumption, while in 2018, domestic brands showed a trend of competing with and even surpassing foreign brands. China's ice cream consumption map - brand popularity ranking. Image source: Tmall Wuyougo official Weibo. For example, the mid-to-high-end ice cream market, once dominated by international brands like Häagen-Dazs, DQ, and Magnum, has seen Chinese brands disrupt it in recent years. Tmall Wuyougo recently released China's ice cream consumption map, showing that domestic brands like Zhongjie 1946, Zhong Xue Gao, and Tianmu have achieved counterattack by leveraging internet advantages, occupying the top 3 in brand popularity. Zhongjie 1946, born in 2016, won the Tmall Double 11 ice cream category championship in 2016 and 2017, with annual sales of 100 million yuan. Zhong Xue Gao, launched on Tmall on May 20 last year, took over the baton from Zhongjie and became the No. 1 in the ice cream category on Tmall Double 11 in 2018, selling out all 66-yuan "sky-high" ice cream bars (Häagen-Dazs sells a single scoop for over 30 yuan), with daily sales reaching 4.6 million yuan. [6] This June 18, Zhong Xue Gao sold 2 million ice cream bars, a 5-fold increase year-on-year. [7] According to the "2019 New Domestic Goods Consumption Trend Report" jointly released by the China Economic Information Service Economic Think Tank and the China Media Group-JD Big Data Joint Laboratory, 90% of new user orders in 2018 were for domestic products, with the most recognized categories being apparel, underwear, food, and beverages. Consumption of domestic goods by middle-income and above groups is also continuously growing. [8] We discussed this phenomenon with Huang Hai, executive director at Frees Fund. He believes that the rise of domestic goods is related to the rise of the country's overall strength. As for why it has become a phenomenon in the past two years, it is because the rise of the post-90s and post-95s as opinion leaders on social media has a great deal to do with the cultural confidence of the younger generation.
Turning Point for Domestic Goods: This Generation's Consumption Views Have Changed In 2008, a group of young people gathered in Changsha, and with a shared passion for coffee, they opened a café. Seven years later, Wu Jun and his team turned the café into a specialty coffee brand—Saturnbird. Saturnbird coffee. Image source: Saturnbird Tmall flagship store. In the 2018 Double 11 and Double 12, Saturnbird, which had been on Tmall for only a few months, delivered impressive results without heavy promotion or operations, ranking first in domestic coffee brand sales and second in overall category sales (second only to Nestlé). Maintaining a pace of one flagship product per year, they successively launched cold-brew filter coffee and specialty instant products, with the hanging drip coffee pot set becoming a hit. Saturnbird's annual growth remains at 2-3 times. [9] Talking about Saturnbird's future plans, Wu Jun said he is grateful for this good era. "The post-70s and post-80s are full of admiration for Starbucks, but the post-95s and post-00s were born with Starbucks. To them, Starbucks is just a form of coffee; they already have an understanding of coffee." [10] With the development of the internet and the convenience of studying abroad or traveling, the new generation of entrepreneurs and consumers can see the foreign moon, but they also know the Chinese moon well. They can appreciate Chinese local culture while also recognizing the truly meaningful aspects of foreign brands.
Saturnbird coffee. Image source: Marking Awards. In this process of removing authority and uniting externally, the national trend has actually laid the groundwork for consumer psychology. Young people's consumption concepts increasingly focus on cost-effectiveness. They recognize the quality and innovation of domestic goods, and words like "imported" and "foreign big brands" no longer hold sway over this generation of consumers. Huang Hai told us, for the post-90s and post-95s, the influence of foreign big brands on their minds has diminished significantly. Chinese brands and foreign brands have never been seen as superior or inferior from the start. In fact, many Chinese brands, because they are more familiar with Chinese social media gameplay and are better at marketing and packaging, are more able to win the favor and love of young people. For example, coffee is a category that originally came from overseas, so logically foreign brands should be stronger. But Saturnbird rose because it changed the way instant coffee is consumed while ensuring quality, aligning with China's fast-paced lifestyle and efficiency-oriented social culture. It successfully made many young people feel that drinking Saturnbird is quite cool. After drinking Saturnbird, they are willing to share and spread the word on Weibo and WeChat Moments. Facts also prove that the enthusiasm of the post-90s for domestic goods has surpassed their consumption of foreign products. Suning's "Domestic Goods Consumption Big Data Report" released this year shows that the post-90s have become the main force in domestic goods consumption, accounting for 35.64% of all domestic goods consumers, while among foreign brand consumers, the post-90s account for 30.93%. [8]
The Rise of Domestic Goods: The Food Industry Leads Huang Hai believes that the rise of domestic goods is an inevitable trend, especially in the food industry, where opportunities are greater. The reason is simple: in other industries, Chinese consumption tastes are not much different from those abroad, such as cosmetics and clothing, with no major differences in demand. But our eating habits are fundamentally different from overseas. Heytea. Image source: Heytea official Weibo. Chinese food culture is profound and unique, providing a very strong foundation for the rise of domestic goods. The most typical example is tea, including the rise of new tea drinks. It is difficult to find a Chinese company to imitate overseas. Companies like Heytea have no benchmark abroad because tea is a traditional category unique to the Chinese people. Huang Hai said this is a great opportunity for the food and beverage industry and a mature time for food brand entrepreneurship. "So I hope more excellent entrepreneurs will join the torrent of Chinese food's domestic revival, not only achieving corporate success but also promoting society's further recognition of domestic goods." For example, Zhong Xue Gao, a startup that has been very popular in the past two years, clearly follows a path of traditional Chinese culture. It did not adopt a foreign name, nor did it use cups or cones. The name "Zhong Xue Gao" uses homophones, derived from "Zhong" and "Xue Gao," meaning "Chinese ice cream," and its shape is based on Chinese roof tiles. Image source: Zhong Xue Gao official Weibo. The growing cultural confidence of Chinese consumers provides fertile ground for enterprises, but to continue to compete with international brands in the market, young "new domestic goods" must also cultivate their internal strengths. Zhong Xue Gao founder Lin Sheng said: "Foreign peers may respect you, but they respect your market size, not the quality of Chinese-made products." [11] This company, established less than a year ago, insists on configuring "the most luxurious supply chain team," has established strategic cooperation in product R&D with internationally renowned university food research institutions in the Netherlands, the UK, and the US, and has invested heavily in building its own independent R&D team. Zhong Xue Gao's core products do not contain flavors, pigments, preservatives, emulsifiers, stabilizers, gelatin, or other chemicals. The shelf life is only 60 or 90 days, with cold chain delivery at -22°C throughout. Each cold chain truck is equipped with additional temperature sensors, and the sticks are made from degradable straw. Lin Sheng said: "I am doing this with a breath of determination, hoping to prove that China can also make good ice cream."
Domestic Goods: Turnaround or Flip? Innovation is Key The era of new domestic goods also means the industry needs to move from Made in China to Designed in China. At the recent China Joy exhibition, the incident of a Sony player smashing his PS4 in anger was widely discussed, because Sony promoted a domestic game called "Genshin Impact" that plagiarized a foreign game. Although the PS4 was smashed, it was actually a slap in the face of "domestic innovation." Let's look at Xiaomi. In 2016, when its performance nearly collapsed, Xiaomi released the first full-screen phone in the industry, the MIX. Subsequently, Samsung's Galaxy S8 and Apple's iPhone 8 followed this technology. Xiaomi, which had been ridiculed by Apple for copying and being a knockoff, finally began to lead the technology trend, and its trough began to break. In 2017, Xiaomi's decline reversed, and sales returned to the world's top five. In 2018, Lei Jun took Xiaomi to list on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and Xiaomi's phone sales entered the global top four. In July 2019, Xiaomi was selected for the Fortune Global 500, becoming the youngest company on the list. [12] From this, we can conclude: Turnaround or flip? The lifeline of domestic goods lies in the word "innovation." Projecting this into the food and beverage industry, we can see that whether it's well-known time-honored brands or new brands springing up like mushrooms, the Chinese food industry has been bursting with strong innovation in recent years.
1. Innovation is not about working behind closed doors; brands need a global perspective Whether it's technology, category, or packaging innovation, domestic brands are increasingly reflecting the cultural confidence and global vision of the new generation of Chinese people. For example, Nongfu Spring has successively launched plant-based yogurt, "Tan Bing" carbonated coffee, and "lithium water" targeting middle-aged brain health, keeping up with international food and beverage trends. Plant-based yogurt, for instance, is still a relatively unfamiliar category for Chinese consumers, but globally, it is already an emerging food trend. Take the yogurt category as an example. In recent years, with consumption upgrades, improved cold chains, and processing technology upgrades, China's yogurt market has also grown rapidly. Not only have leading brands like Yili, Junlebao, and Mengniu continued to make efforts, but new brands like Lechun, Classy Kiss, Jane, and Change have also emerged. Junlebao's "Add Cheese" cheese yogurt. Image source: Junlebao. Junlebao's "Add Cheese" low-temperature cheese yogurt, launched in 2017, innovatively adds cheese to yogurt, not only enriching its nutritional value but also greatly improving its taste. Within just two months of launch, monthly sales of "Add Cheese" exceeded 10 million yuan. Currently, it holds an 82% market share in the cheese yogurt category, firmly ranking first nationwide. Peter L Nilsson, CEO of international supplier Ecolean, revealed that within a year of launch, orders for Junlebao's "Add Cheese" packaging exceeded 200 million packs, making it the largest single-product packaging procurement volume among all Chinese customers. Junlebao invests 5% of its total sales in scientific research each year. From being the first in the industry to launch red date yogurt, to new products like Daily Active probiotic drinks and Pure Enjoy high-end yogurt, innovation has long been Junlebao's core gene in the low-temperature fermented milk market. [13] In the room-temperature yogurt field, China's market sales exceeded 30 billion yuan in 2018, a year-on-year increase of 11.9%. As of the end of 2018, the market shares of Ambrosial, Pure Zhen, and Mosilian were 45%, 31%, and 19%, respectively. Among them, Yili Ambrosial, as the industry leader, achieved sales of 14.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 8.5%. [14] Yili Ambrosial yogurt. Image source: Ambrosial Tmall flagship store. Rabobank recently released the 2019 "Global Dairy Top 20" ranking, with Yili and Mengniu ranking eighth and tenth, respectively. Yili, which has been launching new products frequently in recent years, has introduced products like Zhixuan soy milk, Yiran milk mineral drink, and Shengruisi ready-to-drink coffee, expanding into the broader health field beyond its main dairy business, benchmarking against international food giants like Nestlé. Yili Yiran milk mineral drink. Image source: Yili official Weibo. Among them, Yiran milk mineral drink innovatively extracts milk minerals from milk and won the "2019 Asia Food Innovation Award" organized by Foodbev. Not long ago, Zhenxi sea salt avocado ice cream won the Innovation Gold Award at the 20th SIAL China. Behind this is its investment in innovation: in 2018, Yili's R&D expenses were 426.9 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 104%. [15] As a Chinese dairy company, Yili is also continuously expanding its global presence: last year, it acquired Thailand's largest local ice cream company; this year, it announced the completion of the acquisition of Westland, New Zealand's second-largest dairy cooperative, building a "global health ecosystem." There are also Ausnutria, Heytea, Weilong, Laoganma... We see more and more Chinese food brands emerging on the international stage and delivering impressive results. With the strong support of national strength, domestic brands are confidently embracing globalization with innovation and quality.
2. Time-honored brands in new clothes: cross-border marketing is not simple To truly make consumers recognize domestic goods, Chinese brands also need to showcase their charm in diverse ways. Since 2017, the State Council has designated May 10 as "China Brand Day," emphasizing the importance of brand building. In 2018, the Ali Research Institute's "China Time-honored Brand Development Index" report pointed out that one of the main difficulties faced by time-honored brands is outdated products, insufficient innovation, and inability to attract young consumers. [16] In response to these difficulties, old brands have become younger in the past two years, thinking of ways to collaborate with brands familiar to young people. For example, Hero Ink and RIO jointly launched "Ink in the Belly" wine, White Rabbit candy and Scent Library launched White Rabbit perfume, Want Want and original design independent trend brand TYAKASHA released a co-branded clothing line, and Pechoin and Heytea launched co-branded cup sleeves and other merchandise... White Rabbit candy × Scent Library perfume. Image source: Scent Library. On May 10, 2019, Tmall launched the "National Goods Appreciation" event with 100 domestic brands, attracting huge attention. The #国潮来了# (National Trend is Here) topic on Weibo saw a 224.27% increase in index. [17] Want Want's first release of 1,000 sets of 56 ethnic group cans sold out the same day, RIO×Hero Ink wine sold out 99 sets in 2 seconds, Cold Sour Hotpot toothpaste sold out 200 pieces in 11 seconds, and Zhong Xue Gao's limited 10,000 cups of "Unrestrained" ice cream sold out in 10 hours... [18] Tmall "National Trend is Here" Want Want 56 ethnic group cans. Image source: Tmall official Weibo. "Cross-border co-branding" is indeed an efficient marketing method for old brands to refresh young people's perception, but the knowledge behind it is not simple—either you may work hard and end up with attention on the co-branded brand, making wedding clothes for others; or you may accidentally "cross badly," slapping the brand image and causing public ridicule. How to play cross-border marketing? Old brands can learn from new sharp brands. Heytea × Chinese-style hard ice cream. Image source: Heytea official Weibo. Heytea, a "phenomenal internet celebrity" in the past two years, can be described as a soul player in cross-border marketing. Every collaboration makes consumers feel "interesting" and "very playful," and basically every cross-border activity's WeChat article readership exceeds 400,000. An important reason is that Heytea is very "picky" about partner brands, only choosing partners that align with its brand core, such as Nike and Pechoin, and it values whether the other brand can cooperate with Heytea on an equal footing. Heytea × B.Duck. Image source: SocialBeta. Heytea presents different content based on the brand's tone and the fit with Heytea, bringing freshness and surprise to consumers. For example, with Nike, targeting fashionable young groups, the image is cool and avant-garde; with B.Duck, the main group is cute girls, creating a cute and dreamy feel. Additionally, Heytea uses large amounts of data to study consumer psychology and behavior, then matches these research results to relevant activities. For example, in a region, analyzing the different behaviors of users with different incomes can help them judge the direction of upcoming products and cross-border marketing. As Yan Jie, head of strategic cooperation at Heytea, said: The traffic winter has spawned an upgrade in the underlying thinking structure of cross-border marketing. Based on refined data analysis, discovering consumption demand gaps and filling them with innovation, and strongly linking consumers through product functions, is one of the important ways to turn traffic into retention. [19] "First cultivate internal strength, then leverage external forces, and attribute it to creative expression. Cross-border marketing can be interesting, useful, and have highlights."
3. New channels open a green track for domestic brands What makes emerging domestic brands popular is not just interesting marketing; with the help of new channels, these brands have gained opportunities for rapid growth. For example, when platform e-commerce was still called a new channel, Three Squirrels, Beicaowei, and Liangpinpuzi rose strongly with e-commerce and internet communication. Three Squirrels even went all the way to listing. Luckin. Image source: Luckin official Weibo. The residual heat of e-commerce is still there, and new retail has taken the stage. The most eye-catching is Luckin, which created the myth of an 18-month IPO. In just over a year, Luckin has built more than 2,000 stores nationwide, covering business districts and office buildings, becoming a representative chain brand in coffee new retail, activating the entire Chinese coffee market with the posture of a catfish in the industry. Under the internet capital play, Starbucks, which has firmly held the Chinese coffee market, also felt the crisis and began to expand delivery services. Another brand that has played with channels creatively is AKOKO cookies. In 2016, China's cookie sales reached 6 billion yuan, with Danish Royal Cookies holding a 33% market share, while China's high-end cookie market was almost blank. AKOKO, wanting to enter this market, took a different path, seizing the new channel of social e-commerce, mainly using a distribution model for promotion—selling goods on WeChat Moments, reaching a larger consumer group at a low cost. AKOKO cookies. Image source: AKOKO official Weibo. In 2017, when WeChat public accounts reached the traffic monetization stage, AKOKO seized this business opportunity, covering most of the top WeChat accounts, such as emotional and lifestyle categories. At that time, a single public account could bring in 5 million yuan in annual sales, effectively amplifying AKOKO's brand power. [20] In the same year, e-commerce began to transform, releasing content dividends. AKOKO then entered Tmall and appeared on external platforms like Toutiao, Douban, and Zhihu, directing traffic to Tmall. Within just two months of launch, it reached the top position in the cookie category, and during the 2018 Tmall "Double 11," it jumped to No. 1 in cookie sales. The heat of new retail in 2018 naturally could not be missed—AKOKO also entered platforms like Super Species and Hema Fresh. Of course, AKOKO was not born knowing how to "calculate" channels; it also took many detours. For example, in 2018, AKOKO failed on Xiaohongshu because at that time, Xiaohongshu did not have links directly to Tmall. AKOKO stumbled on Xiaohongshu, but Zhong Xue Gao stood up there. Using Xiaohongshu as an important battlefield, there are now nearly 5,000 notes about "Zhong Xue Gao," and behind these notes is the astonishing achievement of selling 7 million ice cream bars in one year. Beyond the WeChat ecosystem, content-based social e-commerce platforms like Douyin and Xiaohongshu are supporting more and more new brands. New channels can be said to have opened a green VIP track for new domestic brands. When foreign brands miss new channels due to lack of understanding, timeliness, or convenience, domestic brands use new channels to quickly open up larger markets and achieve curve overtaking.
The Rise of Domestic Brands Forces Upgrading of the Entire Industry The significance of the rise of domestic goods is not just the success of a certain brand, but the promotion of progress in the entire industry. Let's first look back at 2008. That year, the "Sanlu toxic milk powder incident" dealt a heavy blow to domestic milk powder. To win back the market, brands continuously upgraded formulas, expanded products, built brands, and updated channels, which also drove the entire industry's supply chain to develop toward higher quality. Take Feihe milk powder as an example. The "toxic milk powder incident" made many domestic milk powder brands difficult, but Feihe, which was not involved, left a deep impression on consumers with its quality. Although sales were also affected, Feihe was not abandoned by the market at that time, and the following year it became the first domestic company to list on the NASDAQ main board in the United States. Feihe milk powder. Image source: Feihe official website. Starting in 2011, Feihe began to lay out milk source bases in the world's golden milk source belt at 47°N latitude to ensure the safety of milk sources. At a time when most Chinese people only had eyes for foreign milk powder, Feihe proposed a contrasting strategic proposition: "Feihe milk powder, more suitable for Chinese babies' constitution." [21] In the past three years, Feihe Dairy has grown steadily, with revenues of 3.724 billion yuan, 5.887 billion yuan, and 10.392 billion yuan from 2016 to 2018. According to Frost & Sullivan's report, in the Chinese market, Feihe ranked first in retail sales value among domestic and international peers in 2018, with a market share of 7.3%; especially in the ultra-high-end market, Feihe ranked first in retail sales value among domestic and international infant formula brands with a 24.7% market share. [22] Ten years after the Sanlu incident, not only Feihe but the entire domestic milk powder industry has undergone qualitative changes. 2015-2018 domestic infant formula sampling pass rate. Image source: Beijing Business Today. National supervision sampling data shows that in 2018, the sampling pass rate for infant formula reached 99.9%, and the pass rate for key monitored banned additives like melamine has remained 100% for 10 consecutive years. Dairy analyst Song Liang said that domestic milk powder production standards are actually stricter than foreign ones, and processes and technologies have reached internationally advanced levels. [22] From "qualified" to "high-quality," China's dairy industry is transforming from quantity expansion to quality and efficiency. In recent years, China has made significant progress in dairy cow breeds, alfalfa feed, and refined feeding techniques. The proportion of large-scale farming has reached 62.1%, and it has established dairy technology cooperation agreements and dialogue mechanisms with multiple countries to exchange and share advanced world experience and technology. [23] Domestic milk powder is clearing the fog, while on the other side, domestic coffee is still struggling. In 2017, China's coffee exports were 104,900 tons, with an export value of 646.36 million USD; imports were 99,000 tons, with a value of 684.55 million USD. [24] According to Yunnan Provincial Department of Agriculture data, Yunnan's coffee production in 2017 reached 136,000 tons, accounting for more than 95% of China's coffee production [25], mainly supplying international brands like Starbucks, Nestlé, Maxwell, and Kraft. Starbucks launched Yunnan coffee beans in 2017. Image source: marketing interactive. Hu Faguang, associate researcher at the Tropical and Subtropical Economic Crops Research Institute of the Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, said that aside from roasting and specialty coffee, even instant coffee with no threshold has obvious supply-demand mismatch—Yunnan's coffee raw materials are exported in large quantities, while domestic instant coffee is imported in large quantities. If the industry chain does not change, the growth of the Chinese market will ultimately benefit international brands. Huang Hai also believes that it is very important for China's food industry to make achievements at the industry chain end. Improving the supply chain level of China's food industry is a necessary path for this batch of domestic brands. Take Saturnbird as an example. To this day, it is still the only company in the market that can make instant coffee in cold water while ensuring the taste is not affected, thanks to innovation in coffee production technology. Although competitors are expected to appear soon, imitation and copying by competitors actually mean that Saturnbird has led the industry forward, forcing innovation and breakthroughs in factories, processes, and production flows. Saturnbird coffee. Image source: Saturnbird. "Brand companies grasp user needs, then push back to the supply chain, forcing the entire industry to innovate together." So for domestic brands, they also shoulder the heavy responsibility of upgrading the industry chain.
Conclusion In "Asia's Future: The Rise of China and Emerging Economies," Joe Studwell compares South Korea in Northeast Asia and Malaysia in Southeast Asia to analyze the secrets of different fates of Asian countries. These two countries had similar starting points, both rebuilding after World War II and both experiencing economic takeoff in the 1970s and 1980s. However, today Malaysia has slipped to a second- or third-tier country, while South Korea has joined the ranks of developed countries. An important reason behind this is that South Korea's various sectors placed high hopes on national enterprises, providing them with the fullest resources, but also setting strict management discipline to make them internationally competitive. In contrast, Malaysia failed to strengthen its domestic goods and develop its manufacturing industry. [26] The rise of domestic goods depends on the improvement of national strength, and conversely, the growth of domestic brands is an important support for the country to stand tall. But strengthening domestic goods does not mean simply hyping them; emotional hype will only make them fall harder. The revival of domestic goods certainly needs public support, but this feeling should be more like "hoping for the child to become a dragon," not holding them up to "build tall buildings" and then attacking them when "the building collapses." Anger and loyalty are not enough to support the rise of domestic goods; confidence and toughness are the solid foundation for building tall buildings. Image source: Frees Fund. Finally, borrowing a passage from Li Feng, founder of Frees Fund, as the conclusion of this article, hoping to bring some confidence and toughness to Chinese enterprises: "For consumption and brands, everyone has the first huge opportunity. History will not disappoint you. It has been proven countless times that a populous country that has experienced four cycles will produce world-class brands. In China, it will definitely be amplified at least 5 or 10 times, because never in history has a country with so many people gone through this cycle. So once it passes, it will be spring." [27]
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