Product name | Import volume (million liter) | Import value (million US dollars) | Volume YOY | Value YOY |
yellow rice wine | 0.0 | 0.1 | -32.75% | -33% |
spirit | 35.8 | 357.7 | -6.02% | -33.36% |
beer | 211.9 | 247.5 | -28.16% | -22.30% |
grape wine | 176.1 | 686.6 | -32.44% | -33.31% |
other wine | 6.1 | 21.7 | -12.85% | -21.68% |
alcohol | 48.2 | 31.0 | -34.28% | -34.68% |
total | 478.1 | 1344.6 | -29.07% | -31.40% |
The import data of wine products from Jan. to May 2020
It is noteworthy that the import volume of grape wine is subject to the sharpest decrease among other alcoholic products. Starting from 2018, the import volume of grape wine keeps falling for the consecutive 2 years, and it jumped to 612.46 million liter in 2019, representing 10.9% decrease compared with that of the last year. Additionally, the number of bottled grape wine importers peaked at 6411 in 2018, while it plummeted to approximately 4000 in 2019 [2].
Data source: CFNA
Reasons for the grape wine sector depression
Oversupply is one of the leading factors for the import decline these years. Attracted by the huge profit of grape wine, a large quantity of enterprises embarked upon the wine importation business in the past few years. However, they do not have a comprehensive understanding of the imported wine market and the consumption awareness of domestic consumers is not as high as expected. Grape wine expert Li Demei stated that enterprises take it for granted that domestic consumers prefer to grape wine because it is healthier, but the fact is consumers have not completely accepted the consumption culture and habits [3].
Undoubtedly the outbreak of COVID-19 at the beginning of 2020 greatly affected the consumption of wine products as the social gathering were restricted. Since the pandemic is getting well controlled in China, many enterprises believe that the depression is just temporary and are optimistic about grape wine’s selling in the second half year, especially the upcoming Mid-autumn Festival and National Day holiday.
Suggestions
Pay attention to the change of consumption behavior
The online sales of grape wine achieved a remarkable performance during the epidemic period. Zui E Niang, one of the most popular wine stores on Tmall, said their sales value doubled after the outbreak of COVID-19. According to a survey conducted by Wine Intelligence (from Mar. 27 to Apr. 14), consumers are less willing to purchase grape wine in physical store during the epidemic controlling period, but 47% of the respondents said they would increase the consumption of wine products when they can move freely, and 52% said they would continue to purchase grape wine online [4].
Cultivate the consumer group
Yu Tianyun, General Manager and Executive Vice President (Greater China) of Kingston Estate Wines stated that consumer is still the key for market expansion. At present, the enterprises should bear the social responsibility and improve the self-competitiveness; for medium and long term, it is the destiny to cultivate the consumers through the cooperation between overseas and domestic grape wine manufacturers.
