This week’s research focuses on how to see the resilience of consumer goods after the epidemic improves
From the perspective of “lying flat” in Europe and America, the impact of the epidemic on consumption
From overseas experience, after countries gradually liberalize epidemic prevention policies, the sales of various consumer goods will improve significantly, and from the perspective of categories, the elasticity of durable consumer goods is greater than that of other categories. Taking the United States as an example, although there is no accurate unified release time, after the gradual resumption of the operation of offline catering and entertainment venues led by New York since June 20, the states have also successively liberalized the relevant epidemic prevention policies. From the data performance, the growth rate of various consumer goods expenditure (year-on-year 19 level) has continued to recover since the second half of 20 years, and continued to grow under the influence of government cash subsidies, In terms of elasticity, the recovery elasticity of durable consumer goods is significantly greater than that of non durable goods, food and other categories. From the data of the UK, the liberalization of the epidemic has the same impact on Residents’ consumption, stimulating various categories of consumer goods to varying degrees. From the perspective of elasticity, household goods are greatly affected by the stimulus brought by the liberalization.
If the epidemic situation eases, which categories are most likely to benefit?
In the early stage of the epidemic, optional consumption and home building materials were obviously affected by the epidemic. The first wave of epidemic closed down the city, resulting in the shrinkage of the offline market and the failure of normal transactions in the online market due to blocked logistics, which put pressure on the growth rate of categories with more offline sales of household appliances, home furnishings, building materials and so on; Out of fear of the epidemic, people’s spending on food, beverages and drugs increased, while the optional consumption of gold, jewelry, clothing and textile products decreased significantly.
From the outbreak of the epidemic to the next year: gold jewelry and other categories have recovered, while optional consumption and home building materials continue to be under pressure. In the long-term trend, furniture / building decoration / clothing and textile are still weak, while household appliances benefit from the hot online sales of small household appliances, especially clean appliances, and the long-term difference is narrower than that in the short term. In the long run, the consumption trend of gold jewelry / cosmetics / cars and other categories is also better than that in the short term. We believe that home appliances / furniture / building materials are greatly affected by real estate factors and continue to be under pressure, while gold jewelry has rebounded due to risk aversion factors such as the rise of gold price, while optional consumption such as textile, clothing / sports and entertainment products has been greatly affected due to the decline of consumption intention caused by the epidemic.
From the channel end, the overall offline pressure is under pressure, and the decline of traditional channels is obvious. Due to the impact of the epidemic on the development of online channels, the growth rate of offline sales of most categories declined in varying degrees during 2020, especially books, newspapers and magazines / gold, silver and jewelry / furniture / household appliances. In terms of channel types, the growth difference of department stores / professional stores / specialty stores / home building materials market is large. The offline sales of home building materials, household appliances and other categories are highly dependent on traditional channels such as department stores and home building materials market. The pressure of channel growth also has an impact on the growth of categories. On the other hand, the growth rate of emerging channels such as warehousing and membership stores decreased slightly.
What factors contribute to the subsequent rebound?
Under the dual influence of the epidemic and real estate, sales of some categories such as home building materials and household appliances were weak, while optional consumption was mainly affected by the epidemic. We believe that under the new trend, the above two negative factors are expected to gradually improve, bringing a turnaround for category consumption.
1) covid-19 specific drugs are included in medical insurance, and offline consumption is expected to recover. Since the Spring Festival, the Omicron epidemic in Shanghai and Jilin has reflected the characteristics of high transmission and low mortality of the virus strain, which has brought great difficulty to the implementation of precise prevention and control. However, at the same time, the successful introduction of Pfizer covid-19 oral drug and its inclusion in medical insurance will bring a new turn for the follow-up epidemic prevention and control. We believe that if the negative impact of the follow-up epidemic on the offline market is reduced, the above categories that were significantly affected during the epidemic are most likely to rebound.
2) the recovery of real estate is expected to stimulate the consumption demand of relevant suppressed categories. From the perspective of revenue growth of major real estate enterprises since 2015, they have experienced two upward ranges in 2015 and 2018, and then the growth rate has remained relatively low. From the perspective of EPS growth of major real estate enterprises, they are at the bottom of the upward range since 2015. In terms of policy, since the second half of the year, the real estate market has been strictly controlled, resulting in the cold of the industry. However, since the beginning of the year, the central and local governments have issued a series of favorable policies and relaxed real estate. If the follow-up real estate recovers, the sales of some categories such as home furnishings, building materials and household appliances are expected to be further stimulated.
Investment suggestion: it is recommended to give priority to high-quality targets that have experienced relatively low valuation in 18 years, such as [Haier], [Midea], [boss], [ Zhejiang Supor Co.Ltd(002032) ]. In addition, [Yitian] and [ Marssenger Kitchenware Co.Ltd(300894) ] belong to the targets with good growth attributes in the later cycle. The overall position is still suggested to be light, waiting for the impact of 1q epidemic and the recovery of real estate sales data
Risk tip: the expansion of the epidemic situation, the risk of fluctuations in the real estate market, exchange rate and raw material prices, etc.
