---
title: "Master Kong vs. Uni-President: A Battle for Market Share and Profits!"
description: "Since the last century, two Taiwanese brands entered the mainland market, leading to product rivalry and prolonged price wars, inadvertently linking Master Kong and Uni-President. In 2016, Uni-President reported revenue of 20.985 billion yuan, down 5.1%, while Master Kong's revenue was 57.532 billion yuan, down 8.03%. Uni-President focused on high-margin innovative products, while Master Kong maintained higher market share."
author: "New Distribution"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2017-03-31"
language: "en"
canonical: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/master-kong-vs-uni-president-a-battle-for-market-share-and-profits-e337f290/"
markdown: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/master-kong-vs-uni-president-a-battle-for-market-share-and-profits-e337f290.md"
original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/eVl-JsYyFxN8GmLPp_MSGg"
translation: "https://xinjignxiao.com/zh/articles/%E5%BA%B7%E5%B8%88%E5%82%85vs%E7%BB%9F%E4%B8%80-%E5%B8%82%E5%9C%BA%E4%BB%BD%E9%A2%9D%E4%B8%8E%E5%88%A9%E6%B6%A6%E4%B9%8B%E4%BA%89-e337f290.md"
attribution: "New Distribution — https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/master-kong-vs-uni-president-a-battle-for-market-share-and-profits-e337f290/"
usage_policy: "https://xinjignxiao.com/ai-policy.txt"
---

# Master Kong vs. Uni-President: A Battle for Market Share and Profits!

> Since the last century, two Taiwanese brands entered the mainland market, leading to product rivalry and prolonged price wars, inadvertently linking Master Kong and Uni-President. In 2016, Uni-President reported revenue of 20.985 billion yuan, down 5.1%, while Master Kong's revenue was 57.532 billion yuan, down 8.03%. Uni-President focused on high-margin innovative products, while Master Kong maintained higher market share.

> **Introduction:** Since the last century, when two Taiwanese brands entered the mainland market, followed by "product rivalry" and long-term "price wars," Master Kong and Uni-President have been inadvertently "bundled" together. Today, their biggest competition lies in instant noodles and beverages. Recently, both companies released their 2016 performance reports. Who fared better in the past year?
1
Uni-President's High Profits, Master Kong's High Market Share
**Master Kong vs. Uni-President Battle**
**(Unit: 100 million yuan)**
**In 2016, Uni-President's revenue was 20.985 billion yuan, down 5.1% year-on-year; Master Kong's revenue was 57.532 billion yuan, down 8.03% year-on-year.**
**In terms of profit attributable to shareholders, Uni-President's profit was approximately 607.3 million yuan, down about 27.2% year-on-year; Master Kong's profit was approximately 1.218 billion yuan, down about 31% year-on-year.**
Since Master Kong entered the mainland market in 1991, it quickly built production lines, expanded sales outlets, and extended channel penetration to third- and fourth-tier towns, gradually enhancing production and distribution capabilities. This allowed Master Kong to seize the decade of rapid growth in the instant noodle and beverage markets in the mainland. Compared to Master Kong, Uni-President has been more conservative in building factories. To date, Uni-President has over 30 production bases in the mainland, only one-third of Master Kong's number.
**The rapid factory layout gave Master Kong an early advantage in market share. Conservative investment in factories has limited Uni-President's business scope; for the same products, Uni-President's market share is significantly smaller than Master Kong's due to production and distribution issues.**
Undoubtedly, Master Kong, with its years of accumulated channel penetration and market advantages, remains the leader in instant noodles and packaged tea drinks. However, facing another round of consumption upgrades, consumers care not only about price but also about product quality. The era of "channels are king" is over, and the market is shifting from "quantity to quality." **Uni-President's focus is not solely on "boring" market share; compared to Master Kong, Uni-President has maintained a positive attitude toward product innovation and adheres to value marketing, pursuing high profits.** In recent years, it has launched hit products such as Xiao Ming Tong Xue, Hai Zhi Yan, and Tang Da Ren, all high-margin products. These initiatives are gradually narrowing the gap with Master Kong.
Regarding Master Kong's predicament, a comment by Liang Jian, deputy editor-in-chief of "Sugar, Tobacco, and Wine Weekly" and editor of the food section, may reveal an important reason. **Liang Jian commented that Master Kong has experienced "brand sinking." For example, a decade ago, Master Kong's iced black tea was considered a premium drink retailing at 3 yuan. Now it has become a low-end product that young consumers are less willing to choose.**
"Although Master Kong has tried to capture young consumers through marketing, in terms of the product itself, the industry has long criticized Master Kong for lack of innovation," Liang Jian said. **If major brands do not extend accordingly with consumption upgrades and the trend of younger consumers, the company is actually sinking passively.** Master Kong's instant noodles, once more expensive and hailed as "luxury food," are no longer considered high-end compared to more expensive imported noodles from Japan, South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam.
2
Instant Noodle Market Recovers, Master Kong Still the Leader
**Instant Noodle Market**
In the instant noodle sector, from 2011 to 2015, Master Kong and Uni-President's market shares remained relatively stable, but the competition in recent years has been intense. **However, in 2016, Uni-President's instant noodles bucked the trend, increasing market share to 21.1%, creating a new landscape.**
Both companies' instant noodle businesses reached new highs. According to Nielsen data, in 2016, the overall instant noodle market volume declined 5.7%, but sales value grew 1.3%. The industry's efforts to upgrade and diversify product categories may be the main reason for the sales value growth, indicating a recovery trend.
In 2016, Master Kong's instant noodle revenue was approximately 22.302 billion yuan, down 10.34% year-on-year, and the profit attributable to shareholders for the overall instant noodle business fell 35.97% to 1.208 billion yuan. **However, it is noteworthy that Master Kong's instant noodle business rebounded significantly in the fourth quarter of 2016, with the year-on-year decline slowing to about 3.9%, showing further improvement.**
In terms of high-end noodle innovation, facing rising consumer income and the emergence of the middle class, with consumers pursuing high-end and refined trends, **in 2016, Master Kong continued to launch innovative products such as Black and White Pepper, Jin Tang, Jiang Tang, and the upgraded Ai Xian Da Can.** Among them, the Black and White Pepper series launched in February; Kantar Consumer Research data shows its penetration rate continued to rise, brand awareness grew, and monthly sales exceeded all new products in the same period. The Jin Tang series launched in December, targeting mainstream consumers, with the product benefit of innovative fusion of compound broth nutrition and compound sour health, achieving impressive sales.
**Uni-President's instant noodle sales reversed the decline in 2016, with overall industry growth of 1.3%, ending several years of downturn. Instant noodle revenue hit a record high of 8.221 billion yuan, up 8.6% year-on-year.** In 2016, market share rose to 21.1%, creating a new landscape.
**"Tang Da Ren" continued to achieve double-digit growth in 2016,** gradually becoming the preferred brand for more consumers, and also accumulating confidence and experience for the layout and cultivation of Uni-President's other mid-to-high-end brands. Adhering to the appeal of good broth, "Tang Da Ren" upholds the perfect experience of "energizing broth, one bowl to the bottom." In 2016, it launched two new flavors, "Korean Spicy Beef Soup" and "Original Chicken Soup," providing consumers with more choices for good broth and continuously building a high-quality brand image.
3
Tea Drinks and Juice Become the Biggest Highlights
**Beverage Market**
In 2016, both Master Kong and Uni-President's beverage markets declined. Master Kong's beverage revenue was 33.715 billion yuan, down 6.49% year-on-year; Uni-President's beverage revenue was 12.181 billion yuan, down 13.3% year-on-year.
**| Tea Drink Competition**
**In the beverage market, Master Kong holds a 47% share in the tea drink market, ranking first.** Uni-President's tea drink revenue in 2016 was 5.9145 billion yuan, up 1.5% year-on-year, **with market share significantly increasing to 27.8% in 2016, up 3.0 percentage points.**
**| Milk Tea Competition**
According to Nielsen data, the overall milk tea market declined 9.0% in 2016, with the decline narrowing by 11.2 percentage points compared to 2015, indicating the market is stabilizing. **Uni-President, with its competitive smooth taste and excellent quality, increased its market share to 72.3% in 2016, up 4.5 percentage points year-on-year, firmly holding the leading position.** Master Kong did not separately disclose its milk tea market share.
**| Juice Competition**
In the juice sector, Uni-President's juice revenue in 2016 was 2.5 billion yuan, a significant decline year-on-year. According to Nielsen data, the overall juice market slightly declined, **with Uni-President's juice market share at 13.6%, maintaining second place. Master Kong reported an 18.7% share in the diluted juice market (with juice content below 39%), ranking second.**
Uni-President and Master Kong have finally ceased fire in the "price war." Under the backdrop of consumption upgrades, relying solely on the "old capital" accumulated years ago is not enough. Whether it was "channels are king" in the past or "quality wins" today, food companies should face and summarize market development laws. Both companies are making efforts in this regard!
**Source: Daba Marketing**
-END-


---

## Copyright and AI use

This article is sourced from New Distribution. Search, quotation, summarization, and model training are permitted, but every use must credit New Distribution and retain the canonical source URL.

Contact: zhaobo258@gmail.com · +86 158 5481 7671