Guotai Haitong: The IP food toy industry is developing rapidly, and supply chain management and IP operation are the core.

Guotai Haitong released a research report stating that compared to IP toys, IP fun toys have the advantages of lower unit price and higher consumption frequency. The scale of the Chinese IP food industry is expected to increase from 181 billion yuan in 2020 to 354 billion yuan in 2024, with a CAGR of 18.2%. The core competitive strength of the industry lies in supply chain management and IP operations. The industry believes that under the trend of emotional consumption, the IP food and toy industry is rapidly developing, with supply chain management and IP operations being crucial. The main points of Guotai Haitong are as follows: IP fun food is a combination of "IP + food + IP gifts" IP fun food includes collectible cards, stickers, badges, figurines, and edible toys in various forms. As an efficient medium for IP monetization, IP fun food can provide entertainment through IP stories and collection mechanisms, satisfying consumers' emotional needs for "self-indulgent consumption." Compared to ordinary IP food, IP fun food can effectively increase premiums by providing limited edition gifts to stimulate users' desire for collection, thereby encouraging consumers to pay higher premiums; compared to IP toys, IP fun toys have the dual advantages of low unit price and high consumption frequency. The rapid growth of the Chinese IP food industry Since 2021, with the continuous expansion of Chinese IP influence, IP food has experienced rapid growth as an effective medium for IP monetization. The scale of the Chinese IP food industry is expected to increase from 181 billion yuan in 2020 to 354 billion yuan in 2024, with a CAGR of 18.2%. Among them, IP fun food, with its unique product attributes, satisfies consumers' emotional values of "eating" and "playing," with the market size growing from 56 billion yuan in 2020 to 115 billion yuan in 2024, with a CAGR of 19.6%. The industry's rapid growth is attributed to: 1) on the demand side, the younger generation has grown up in an era of abundant material and open information, leading to an increasing demand for emotional consumption. IP satisfies consumers' multilayered needs for identity recognition, emotional companionship, and aesthetic resonance through stories, images, and emotional connections; 2) on the supply side, China is the largest snack market with a mature snack production and supply chain. In recent years, benefiting from the rise of bulk sales channels, the IP fun food segment combined with snack products has rapidly grown. Core competitive strength lies in supply chain management and IP operations IP fun food combines IP toy gifts with IP packaged snacks, with low differentiation among snacks, making IP crucial for premium pricing. 1) The low differentiation among snacks makes cost control crucial. Due to the dispersed consumer preferences and low supply differentiation, a dispersed pattern has formed between supply and demand. The offline channel remains dominant on the channel side, with a relatively dispersed distribution and low value-added proportional to volume. The low differentiation of the product itself makes supply chain management the core barrier. 2) IP toy gifts are key differentiators in the IP fun food segment and are crucial for achieving premium pricing. In situations where snacks lack differentiation, the attached IP toy becomes the key differentiator. The cost of IP toy gifts is relatively low, while the pricing of IP fun food is much higher than that of similar non-IP snack products, allowing for leveraging lower-cost IP toys to achieve higher pricing. For example, common gift cards and badges have a cost of less than 1 yuan per item, but their impact on the pricing of equivalent snack products can be as high as 2-3 times. The distribution is dispersed, with the leading market share at 7.6% Currently, the IP fun food market is still in a rapid growth phase. The product premium brought by IP licensing has led to the entry of many small toy and snack companies into the competition, resulting in a dispersed pattern, with the market share of the leading company, Jin Tian Dong Animation, at 7.6% in 2024. The barriers of top-tier IP licensing and supply chain management capabilities have led the industry to continue developing towards high quality. Due to the inherent highly dispersed nature of the snack market, the industry's structure is expected to remain dispersed in the long term. However, leading companies are continuously strengthening their position in the industry through advantages in IP and products. Risk warning: Weak consumer demand; intensified industry competition; underperformance of IP, etc.