Wei Chuan Foods Corp (
"Our target is to raise market share to 25 percent at the end of this year," chairman Wei Ying-chun (
PHOTO: CHIANG YING-YING, TAIPEI TIMES
The new noodles sell for NT$25 a pack, demonstrating a different marketing strategy from the low-priced tactics employed when Master Kong entered the local market at the end of 2002.
But Wei Chuan may find it hard to achieve its goal, said Rachel Lee (
Several famous products, like the ground-pork noodles (
"As consumption will not dramatically expand in this mature sector, the company must develop unique flavors of noodles," she said.
Lee noted that Wei Chuan's low-price marketing strategy did not really work -- despite causing shock waves at the beginning -- as it had slashed margins by 4 percent when sales of Master Kong fell short of targets.
"Therefore, it turned around to seize the medium- and high-priced noodle market," she said.
According to ACNielsen Taiwan's statistics, Uni-President accounted for 46 percent of the nation's NT$8.42 billion instant-noodle market from May last year to last month, down 3 percent from a year earlier.
It was ranked the No.1 noodle brand last month in major retail channels, including supermarkets, convenience stores and mom-and-pop shops, the report said.
It was followed by Wei Lih, which held 20 percent, and Vedan Enterprise (味丹企業) and Master Kong with around 12 percent each.
Master Kong has been refused access to the more than 3,500 7-Eleven outlets owned by Uni-President's subsidiary President Chain Store Corp (
"But we'll work harder so that 7-Eleven will find it difficult to reject our products," Su said.
Admitting that Master Kong's market share has declined by between 5 percent and 10 percent since December because no innovative products were launched, Su expressed optimism about another shake-up in the market.
"We hope to jump to second place to compete head-to-head with Uni-President," Su said.
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