Top Biz News

Mengniu starts yogurt JV

By Jiang Wei (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-12-19 14:50

Danone might be co-operating with Mengniu to further penetrate the North China market with its yogurt products, said Zhu Weihua, an analyst with Merchants Securities. "It will be nice to co-operate with an industry leader," he said.

Mengniu's first-half revenue was 7.5 billion yuan (US$961.5 million), up 56 per cent from a year ago.

Yogurt-related products accounted for 6 per cent of Mengniu's revenue for the first six months of this year.

Danone, the world's leading company in yogurt, cookies and bottled water, is familiar withmergers in China.

It owns over 90 per cent of Robust and has a joint venture with Wahaha, two beverage producers. It also recently purchased a 22.18 per cent stake in leading fruit-juice maker Huiyuan.

China is Danone's second largest market behind France. It is also one of the company's fastest growing regions. Danone has had success compared with other foreign firms in the sector.

The Italian dairy producer Parmalat, which was among the first batch of foreign investors to tap the Chinese dairy market, ceased production of its Chinese subsidiaries in 2004. Some categories of its dairy products returned to the market a few months ago.