FMCG market climbed by 2.1% in the latest 12 weeks

In the 12 weeks to Dec. 3rd 2021, Kantar Worldpanel reveals that the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) in China experienced an uplift of 2.1% in sales value compared to the same period last year. The South and East regions contributed most to the overall growth, both of which increased more than 3.4% in sales year on year. 

Modern trade (including hypermarkets, supermarkets, and convenience stores) showed a slow recovery yet still slipped by 0.6% compared to the last year. There was a 3% decline in hypermarkets and large supermarkets while small/mini supermarkets still saw a positive year-on-year growth of 8.1%. 

Sun Art Group holds a 8.5% value share of modern trade in the last 12 weeks, leading the market and is followed by the Vanguard Group who owns 5.8% of the market share. Yonghui Group increased its share by 0.3pts to 5.6%, with it continuing development of its own brand through omni-channel innovative marketing.  

Wu-Mart Group lost 0.3pts of its share compared to the last year whereas SPAR Group uplifted it’s share by 0.2pts, reaching 1.7%. Jiajiayue has recently opened its first membership store in Shandong which is also the first warehouse membership store in Jinan. 

The E-commerce channel retained a solid growth of 12.7% compared to the last year. Upper-tier cities drove the growth, up 15.9% year over year. The consumer base of ecommerce is continuously expanding with 76.3% of Chinese urban households having bought FMCG on e-commerce platforms during the last 12 weeks. 

For the major players, Alibaba Group leads the e-commerce market with 45.1% of the share, yet it lost 4.7pts of the value share compared to the same period last year. It is noticed that Taobao recently tried to improve its social attributes by launching new features such as sharing shopping baskets with friends. At the same time, Pinduoduo grew its market by 2.9pts year on year to 9.5% of the total share. It is still effectively recruiting new users yet at a slower pace of growth, up 35.1% over the last year.  

Affected by '11.11', the sales of e-commerce channel in the past 12 weeks has increased by 20.7% compared to the 12 weeks ending on September 10. It is worth mentioning that Alibaba and JD respectively announced their 540 billion and 349 billion GMV during the '11.11 Shopping Festival'. Although the growth rates have slowed down compared with previous years, the trend of high-quality consumption have been witnessed and can be further expected in the future.