Domestic brands make steady march overseas

In addition, Shanghai Chicmax Cosmetic Co Ltd, a Shanghai-based makeup retailer that owns brands such as Kans and Baby Elephant, debuted on the Hong Kong bourse in December, becoming the first listed Chinese mainland cosmetics company to sell shares in Hong Kong.

Last year, Chicmax achieved sales revenue of 4.19 billion yuan, up 56.6 percent year-on-year, with its gross profit margin at 70 percent, according to its earnings report.

The rosy business performance is mainly due to its comprehensive efforts in building a multi-brand matrix and continuous investment in scientific research, and the company's profitability prospects are stable and improving, industry analysts said.

In the past few years, significant achievements have been made in China's economic transformation and upgrading, and China's manufacturing and supply chains boast strengths, fueling growth in the number and quality of Chinese companies venturing overseas, said Denis Cheng, consumer sector leader at Ernst & Young China.

"The going-global trend of China's consumer goods sector is consistent with the overall trend of Chinese enterprises. More Chinese brands and technologies are going global, which is of great significance for stabilizing the competitiveness of Chinese enterprises in emerging fields and promoting the development of the nation's dual circulation development pattern," Cheng said.

At the same time, China's popular milk tea chain Heytea, a brand originating in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, has been accelerating its pace of opening more stores overseas and use of intelligent machines to make beverages.

During the just-concluded consumer expo in Haikou, Heytea, as a representative enterprise of Shenzhen, showcased the latest version of its intelligent beverage-making device, which can make a single-serving beverage in as fast as three seconds.

Heytea said it has applied the self-developed highly efficient device in China and overseas to make multiple kinds of popular milk tea products. Currently, the company operates more than 3,000 stores globally, including in South Korea, Australia, Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom.

Standardization and uniformity of product quality are crucial, and the application of intelligent devices for tea drinks will help promote the sector to accelerate its development of overseas business with higher standardization and better quality, the company said.

In December, Heytea launched its first store in the US in New York, and became the first Chinese mainland milk tea chain to operate in that country. The company said it plans to continuously expand its operations in North America.

Earlier last year, Heytea opened its first stores in core business areas of the UK, Australia and Canada. Back in 2018, it launched its first overseas store in Singapore, with daily sales exceeding 3,000 serving.

The economic and trade relations between China and emerging economies such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the Middle East and Latin America are becoming increasingly close, Cheng of Ernst & Young said.

"These countries boast significant economic growth potential and a young population structure, and they are expected to show a strong demand for consumer goods and become popular destinations for Chinese consumer goods enterprises to go abroad in the future," Cheng said.