百胜在华业务面临挑战 China spending: less pizza in our time

Consumerism in China is healthy. Chinese consumers’ tastes are becoming healthier too — and more Chinese. Foreign consumer brands are declining in popularity.

中国的消费主义相当健康。中国消费者的品味也正在变得日益健康——而且日益中国化。外国消费者品牌的受欢迎程度正在下滑。

Few know this better than Yum Brands, a former fast-food favourite whose fried chicken and pizzas once lorded it over noodles and dumplings. Last week, private equity groups were in talks to buy one-fifth of its China unit, due to be spun off this year. The price, reportedly, implies a valuation of $10bn for Yum’s China unit. That is less than a third of the whole company’s market capitalisation, even though China contributes 40 per cent of total profit. This imbalance may be warranted: Yum’s China business is struggling. Growth has become dependent upon new stores, rather than higher productivity at each store.

几乎没人比百胜餐饮集团(Yum Brands)更明白这一点。它曾是最受欢迎的快餐企业，旗下的炸鸡和披萨曾称霸于面条和饺子之上。上周，私人股本集团在讨论收购百胜今年将要剥离的在华业务的五分之一股份。据报道，收购价码意味着对百胜在华业务估值100亿美元，不到整个公司市值的三分之一，即便中国市场对总利润的贡献达到40%。这种失衡或许是有原因的：百胜的在华业务正陷入挣扎。增长开始依赖于开设新店，而不是现有餐厅的生产率提高。

Results from a 2015 survey by McKinsey show that consumption of fizzy drinks and western fast food has fallen a fifth since 2012. The move is mirrored in other industries. In 2015, half of those surveyed aimed to buy the most expensive product they could afford in apparel and consumer electronics, a marked uptick from 2012. While premium foreign brands may smack their lips at this news, the trend is not unequivocally good for them. For the same price and quality, an increasing number of Chinese prefer to buy domestic rather than overseas goods.

麦肯锡(McKinsey) 2015年的一项调查结果显示，自2012年以来，汽水和西式快餐的消费量下降了五分之一。这种趋势也反映在其他行业。2015年，受访者中有一半的人计划购买自己买得起的最昂贵的服装和消费电子产品，较2012年显著提升。尽管外国高端品牌听到这条消息可能垂涎，但是这种趋势并非绝对有利于他们。对于相同价格和品质的商品，越来越多的中国人倾向于购买本土（而非海外）产品。

Luxury brands are responding by shrinking store space in China. Burberry reduced its Chinese store count by 10 last year and plans further sales space cuts this year. This may have unanticipated benefits. Scarcity in China enhances cachet. And increased enthusiasm for overseas travel means that sales often just move to tourist destinations.

奢侈品牌正通过在中国缩减店铺空间来回应这一现实。去年，博柏利(Burberry)关闭了10家中国门店，并计划在今年进一步削减销售空间。这或许带来了意外好处。在中国的稀缺加强了高端的形象。同时，中国人对海外旅游日益高涨的热情意味着，销量往往只是转移到了旅游目的地。

Yum Brands will not be so lucky. Those Chinese turning their noses up at Yum’s ubiquitous fare back home are not likely to gobble more of it as they travel the world.

百胜餐饮不会那么幸运。那些对百胜在国内无处不在的餐厅不屑一顾的中国消费者，在环游世界时也不太可能对这些食物大快朵颐。