Qianbaidu: Constantly Self-Help, Trapped In The Road Of Diversification

On the evening of March 29, Qianbaidu announced that in the 12 months ending December 31, 2020, the company's income was 1.539 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 20.47%; the annual profit attributable to the owners of the company was 6.179 million yuan, with a loss of 311 million yuan over the same period.
According to the announcement, in 2020, the revenue of Qianbaidu's retail and wholesale business, contract production business and toy retail business will be 1.379 billion yuan, 112 million yuan and 47 million yuan respectively, compared with 1.625 billion yuan, 211 million yuan and 321 million yuan in the same period last year.
In addition, due to the impact of the epidemic, the revenue of Qianbaidu's footwear contract production business decreased by 46.9% year-on-year in 2020, and the income from shoe retail and wholesale business decreased by 15.1% year-on-year.
It is understood that in recent years, thousand Baidu tried to increase brand diversification through acquisition. Hamleys, the oldest toy store in the UK, was acquired in 2015 and sold in July 2019. At present, only three Hamleys stores in China operate toy retail business in the form of franchise. The revenue of these three Hamleys stores has decreased by 51.6% year-on-year.
In addition, it acquired the kindergarten brand Eaton International Education Group in 2017, acquired 51% equity of inflazer department store in 2018, and acquired 28% shares of Meihong International Co., Ltd. in 2020
However, the diversification strategy did not bring stable growth to Qianbaidu's revenue. In 2020, it also sold all shares of its wholly-owned subsidiary, Huiying International Group Co., Ltd. Moreover, the performance has gradually declined in recent years, from 3.207 billion yuan in 2016 to 1.539 billion yuan in 2020, with evaporation of nearly 1.7 billion yuan in four years.
Although diversification is a problem faced by enterprises, the shoe market is extremely competitive in recent years, and the relationship between supply and demand has changed greatly. According to the data, from 2011 to 2018, both the output and demand of the global footwear industry showed an upward trend of fluctuation. In 2018, the global footwear market output reached 27.176 billion pairs, and the demand reached 26.518 billion pairs. However, in 2019, the output and demand will decline compared with the previous year, reaching 24.279 billion pairs and 22.155 billion pairs respectively.
In the face of changes in consumer demand, Qianbaidu is also constantly saving itself. For example, it actively expands online channels, and president * * participates in live selling; it adjusts offline stores to reduce 169 self operated shoe retail stores and 48 third-party shoe retail stores; optimizes production mode within the enterprise to create intelligent production; expands sports and leisure market and seeks new growth
But at present, Qianbaidu seems to have not found its own brand positioning, in the overall situation of domestic shoe industry brand is not optimistic, whether Qianbaidu can reshape the leather shoes is unknown.