618 stimulated sales in online and offline retailers

Kantar Worldpanel’s latest figures for 12 weeks ending 12^th July, 2019 reports consumer spending on FMCG in China grew by 7.1% compared with the same period last year. Ecommerce continued its onward march with rapid growth of 40%, while Modern trade (including hypermarkets, supermarkets, and convenience stores) continued its slow recovery of 1.9% whilst still facing the challenge of shopper retention. However, hypermarkets did witness an increase in basket value which helped to compensate for some of the loss of shoppers. In terms of city tiers, lower tier outpaced upper tier cities with growth of 7.3% compared with the same period last year.

Among the top retailers in modern trade, Yonghui kept up their strong performance by reporting double digit growth and improved penetration in the last 12 weeks. Active instore activation featuring summer refresh occasions and Father’s Day celebration in Super Species helped drive footfall and spending; and strong alliance with JD O2O services, along with various promotion offers, stimulated sales during the mid-year 618 shopping festival. Despite losing shoppers, Walmart did see a slowdown in the decline of frequency and basket value. Its newly built regional distribution center in the south region started to pay off and helped to better meet demand from Chinese consumers on fresh goods and convenience services.

The eCommerce channel grew by 40%, with 57.4% of households in urban China purchasing FMCG online over the last 12 weeks. Alibaba and JD remained on the front foot, taking 45.5% and 15.4% online market share respectively. Noteworthy, Alibaba made noticeable improvements in penetration in old single & couple families reaching 25.8% in the last 12 weeks, thanks to the “Love Your Age” campaign during the mid-year 618 festival and increased investment in livestream video in health care products and farm products targeted towards older age groups. JD also increased in penetration but not as fast as Alibaba.

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http://www.kantarworldpanel.com/cn-en/grocery-market-share