Sial in China has learned that the overall convenience food category includes subcategories such as instant noodles, canned food, ready-to-eat sausages, instant porridge/soup, pre-prepared dishes, and self-heating foods, encompassing a total of 19 fourth-level categories. The four-quadrant analysis from the category opportunity insights dashboard of the brand CT of Mashangwin shows that in the overall convenience food category, instant noodles lead in both market share and growth rate, while self-heating hotpot is in a deep decline.

This week, we focused on several subcategories leaning towards rice and noodle-based instant foods, including instant noodles, luosifen (snail noodles), hot and sour noodles, self-heating rice, self-heating hotpot, instant rice, and instant rice noodles. Other subcategories such as ready-to-eat sausages, canned food, instant porridge, and pre-prepared dishes will be further observed and analyzed in the future.

According to the data, Sial in China has learned that instant noodles are the pillar of the convenience food market, capturing 39.63% of the market share in Q1 2024, an increase of over 3% compared to Q1 2023. Following closely is luosifen, which, despite its unique flavor winning over many consumers, has a fluctuating market share around 3%. Although it has seen some decline year-over-year, hot and sour noodles, with a slight year-over-year growth, still find it challenging to surpass luosifen in the short term. Other categories have around 1% market share and have also seen slight year-over-year declines.

In terms of sales revenue and volume year-over-year comparisons, Mashangwin's brand CT chose stores that have been online for over 15 months. It shows that in Q1 2024, most players in the convenience food track saw noticeable slowdowns. The seven key subcategories focused on this period all showed different degrees of decline in sales revenue and volume compared to Q1 2023. Instant noodles and hot and sour noodles, which saw slight year-over-year increases in market share, experienced relatively smaller declines, while other categories had more pronounced drops, especially self-heating hotpot, with a sales revenue drop of 40.68% and sales volume drop of 36.82%.

To further explore the performance of various convenience food subcategories in Q1 2024, based on Mashangwin's brand CT data, we reviewed CR5 group performance, average price changes, new product introductions, and specification trends within key subcategories. In examining specification trends, we introduced the concept of "large, medium, and small size ranges" to facilitate the observation of SKU quantity and market share changes across different size segments.

Sial in China reveals that the convenience food market has seen rises and falls in recent years. Among key subcategories, only the instant noodle market remains relatively stable, with less significant data declines. Amidst the significant changes in the consumer market environment, convenience food companies must also adapt. Forward-looking trends in convenience food products reveal that companies are currently trying to stimulate consumer demand and expand consumption scenarios through innovative and exotic flavors, but market feedback remains to be seen.